Predicting the Order of Arrival of the First Rejuvenation Therapies
It has been going on eight years since I last speculated on the order of arrival of the first rejuvenation therapies. Tempus fugit, and time for an updated version! Eight years is a long enough span of time for the first of those rejuvenation therapies to now exist, albeit in a prototypical form, arguably proven in principle but not concretely. The world progresses but my biases remain much the same: the first rejuvenation therapies to work well enough to merit the name will be based on the SENS vision, that aging is at root caused by a few classes of accumulated cell and tissue damage, and biotechnologies that either repa...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 25, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 25th 2024
This study also reports the expansion of satellite cells in human muscle with CR. This finding is critical to suggest translational relevance to the rodent data observed for more than a decade. Moreover, the increased expression of the plasminogen receptor Plg-RKT observed on human satellite cells during CR provided additional support for the theory that our rodent model is relevant to human biology. « Back to Top Interesting Insight into the Relationship Between TP53, Telomerase, and Telomere Length https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2024/03/interesting-insight-into-the-relationship-between-t...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 24, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Human Exosomes Harvested from Stem Cells in Urine Produce Rejuvenation in Mice
In this study, we further analyzed these data and found that a class of USC-EVs-enriched proteins have been previously shown to possess anti-aging function, such as tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases 1 (TIMP1), plasminogen activator urokinase (PLAU), insulin-like growth factor binding protein 5, senescence marker protein-30, and connective tissue growth factor. Thus, we hypothesized that USC-EVs might be capable of rejuvenating old organs from aging via transferring of anti-aging proteins. Here, we tested the effects of USC-EVs on cellular senescence in vitro and on the aging-related phenotypes in different orga...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 22, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

TDP-43 Pathology May Extend to the Vasculature and Blood-Brain Barrier
TDP-43 is one of a small number of proteins that can become altered in ways that lead to the formation of solid aggregates that, directly and indirectly, cause cell dysfunction and death in the brain. In the case of TDP-43, this proteopathy contributes to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), and what is now called limbic predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy (LATE). This was a more recent discovery than other aggregates involved in neurodegenerative conditions, such as amyloid-β, tau, and α-synuclein, and so the pace of discovery for TDP-43 is a little faster; more remain...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 21, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

The Puzzling Lack of Autoimmunity in Centenarians
Today's open access paper presents an interesting discussion of the apparent lack of age-related autoimmunity in centenarians. The immune system becomes ever more dysfunctional with age, and some of that dysfunction can take the form of maladaptive changes that either (a) allow the immune system to direct attack tissues or (b) disrupt important relationships between immune cells and the rest of a tissue. Far from all of these issues are well understood or even well identified as discrete problems distinct from the rest of degenerative aging. A potential type 4 diabetes was only comparatively recently discovered, for exampl...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 20, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Mitochondrial Dysfunction in the Aging of the Brain
Mitochondria are the power plants of the cell, primarily responsible for packaging adenosine triphosphate (ATP) molecules as chemical energy stores for use throughout the cell. Hundreds of mitochondria swarm inside every cell, the descendants of ancient symbiotic bacteria. These organelles retain many features characteristic of bacteria. For example, mitochondria contain a small circular genome, depleted of genes that have moved into the cell nucleus over evolutionary time. Mitochondria also constantly divide, fuse together, and swap component parts. Mitochondrial quality is controlled by the processes of mitophagy that re...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 19, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Towards a Better Understanding of the Role of the Gut Microbiome in Alzheimer's Disease
This article summarizes research presented at the virtual symposium and workshop, "New Approaches for Understanding the Potential Role of Microbes in Alzheimer's Disease." The objective of these events was to review the evidence base and catalyze research to address knowledge gaps in the hypothesis that infections or microbes play some causative role in the development or progression of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is a complex disease; this symposium was rooted in an understanding that its pathogenesis could be triggered by both microbe-dependent and microbe-independent pathways and the two are not mutually ex...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 15, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Efforts to Produce Drugs to Slow or Reverse Sarcopenia Benefit from the Semaglutide Hype
This popular science article is a reminder that all too little in this world happens for entirely rational reasons. Drugs aimed at slowing or reversing the age-related loss of muscle mass leading to sarcopenia are presently under development by a number of companies, though none of the candidates discussed are producing effect sizes that look very favorable in comparison to the effects of resistance exercise. These efforts will likely benefit from the present manufactured hype that attends the use of antidiabetic GLP1 receptor agonists for weight loss, as one of the side-effects of this drug is modest loss of muscle mass. ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 15, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Reviewing the Path Towards Reprogramming as a Basis for Rejuvenation Therapies
In conclusion, while partial reprogramming holds great therapeutic potential, the real focus should be on rejuvenation research, defining its nature and ways to quantify it. Another critical issue is the ability to quantify biological age as reprogrammed older cells acquire younger states. Understanding rejuvenation is also key to translational success, as benefits of age reversal must be considered against risks. More research into safety and tissue-specific responses of this technique are required. (Source: Fight Aging!)
Source: Fight Aging! - March 14, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Is the Aging Hippocampus Particularly Vulnerable to Blood-Brain Barrier Dysfunction?
The hippocampus in the brain is vital to cognitive functions involving learning and memory. In today's open access paper, researchers review the evidence for the hippocampus to be particularly vulnerable to damaging mechanisms, including those involved in aging. It is tentatively suggested that physiological and biochemical differences in the hippocampus point to a greater fragility of the hippocampal blood-brain barrier as a common thread underlying pathological changes observed in aging and Alzheimer's disease. The blood-brain barrier is a specialized layer of cells that wrap blood vessels passing through the central ner...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 13, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

A Lengthy View of Everything that is Wrong with the Drug Development Industry
The primary problems with drug development are self-evident from the data. Firstly the process of drug development has become enormously more expensive over the past seventy years, a period in in which rapid technological progress has diminished the cost and effort required for any task in pharmacology and biotechnology by orders of magnitude. Secondly, the pace at which useful new medicines emerge in the clinic has diminished considerably, over the same period of technological progress in which the bounds of the possible have opened up enormously. The article I'll point out today is well worth reading, a lengthy treatment...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 12, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Politics and Legislation Source Type: blogs

Optimism on the Timeline for Extending Human Lifespans by 20 Years or More
In the interview noted here, Aubrey de Grey of the Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) Foundation makes a bold prediction of 12-15 years as to when we might see the advent of the first therapies capable of extending the healthy human life span by a few decades, allowing older people to live long enough to benefit from following improvements to further extend their healthy life spans. It is worth bearing in mind that the creation of novel therapies doesn't mean widespread use or even easy availability of those therapies. Further, it is unlikely that we'll know the effects on human life span of any given combination of novel rej...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 11, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 11th 2024
In conclusion, this Mendelian randomization study found that Streptococcus was causally associated with Bioage acceleration. Further randomized controlled trials are needed to investigate its role in the aging process. « Back to Top Considering the Mechanisms of Vascular Calcification https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2024/03/considering-the-mechanisms-of-vascular-calcification/ Harmful calcification of structures in the cardiovascular system proceeds alongside the development of the fatty lesions of atherosclerosis. Both disease processes are accelerated by chronic inflammation, but d...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 10, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Request for Startups in the Rejuvenation Biotechnology Space, 2024 Edition
Investors focused on funding biotechnology startups tend to exhibit herd behavior, much like investors everywhere these days. Funding is primarily deployed towards fads and popular trends, not necessarily towards what makes the most sense, even if sometimes the sensible manages to align with the popular. These days that means drug discovery platforms with a strong computational component and partial epigenetic reprogramming. But even in this environment, the path to true success is to work on important projects that few other people are touching. Be the champion for a potential solution to a tough, high-value, comparativel...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 8, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Investment Source Type: blogs

An Example of the Decomposition of Signatures of Aging into Multiple Distinct Trends
Gero is one of a number of longevity industry biotech companies that put a strong focus on computational analysis of data to steer small molecule drug development and repurposing efforts. One of the interesting themes in their papers and presentations is the decomposition of signatures of aging into different distinct components, both in mice and in humans. When one can identify different overlapping trends in age-related changes in omics data, there is something to be said in that about the way in which aging progresses. The usual challenges apply, however, in that it is difficult to take this sort of analysis and link it...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 8, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs