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Everyday drugs could give extra years of life - New Scientist

Great article on New Scientist by the talented science journalist Clare Wilson covering the Aging Forum.



Everyday drugs could give extra years of life - health - 01 October 2014 - New Scientist

Calico, Human Longevity Inc, etc. What are the possible strategies for aging drug development?

Aging is one of the major challenges of the modern society. The advances in biomedicine and healthcare systems have led to the unprecedented long lives of the population after the retirement leading to the increased burden on the economies. There is an urgent need to develop and validate interventions with geroprotective properties to increase the productive health spans of the working population and maintaining performance and avoiding loss of function.

Experiments with animal models already resulted in significant breakthroughs resulting in up to 1,000 percent increases in lifespans. But extrapolating these advances to humans or other mammals proved to be extremely challenging. Human live orders of magnitude longer than the short-lived model organisms and there is no comprehensive set of aging biomarkers, allowing to track the effects of the many drugs that may extend lifespan. We are also  different from other animals and the many drugs that work on mice do not work on humans.

To address these challenges the international team comprised of biogerontologists, geneticists, computer scientists and biomathematicians proposed using a computer simulation and laboratory validation approach using human cells and model organisms to predict what drugs may help fight aging in humans.

The Human Genome Project and the following revolution in sequencing and laboratory diagnostics resulted in the vast data on genetic and epigenetic profiles of cells and tissues from people of various ages. The proposed method uses this data to construct the cloud of molecular signalling pathways involved in aging and longevity and evaluates the effects of the very large number of drugs and drug combinations to simulate the young state of the cells and tissues. Scientists hope that this method may be used to find new drugs with aging-suppressive properties and predict the activity of the drugs that are already on the market. Also, people respond to the drugs differently and this method may be able to personalize the geroprotective therapy to the individual patients and help the drug companies conduct better clinical trials.

"There are thousands of compounds with known molecular targets and some  are already used in the clinic. Due to high cost and the time it takes to complete the experimental work, it may not be possible to test all of the effects of these drugs even in mice. And the fact that the drug works in mice does not guarantee the same effect in humans. There needs to be a better way to predict the efficacy of the drug in humans.  We proposed a method for doing that in silico using the multiple sources of data and we hope to validate this method in the very near future.", said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, the director of the Biogerontology Research Foundation in the UK. "Also, people are different, age at different rates and respond to drugs differently. The proposed method may be used to predict the personalized geroprotector regiments.", he added.

Many pharmaceutical companies already expressed their interest in bringing aging research into clinical practice, but the absence of the business models, accurate validation methods, and the inability to classify aging as the curable disease are major impediments to mainstream development of geroprotective drugs. In silico drug discovery may help accelerate this process. The group plans to present the results of their experimental work using this method at the Practical Applications of Aging Research Symposium at MipTek 2014 in Basel, Switzerland attended by over 3,000 delegates from the pharmaceutical industry.  

“The decreases in cost and increased availability of genetic and epigenetic research as well as the breakthroughs in computer technologies are already helping make better decisions in biomedicine. The proposed method may take the in silico approach to drug discovery to the next level. If the can validate it in the laboratory, and we are working on that as we speak, this may revolutionize aging research”, said Anton Buzdin, the director of the First Oncology Research and Advisory Center.

The paper describing the new approach to screening and ranking of geroprotective drugs was published in the reputable scientific journal Frontiers in Genetics.

Citation: Zhavoronkov A, Buzdin AA, Garazha AV, Borissoff N and Moskalev AA (2014). Signaling pathway cloud regulation for in silico screening and ranking of the potential geroprotective drugs. Front. Genet. 5:49. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2014.00049 - See more at: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fgene.2014.00049/abstract#sthash.2qpLbytY.dpuf

Signaling pathway cloud regulation for in silico screening and ranking of the potential geroprote...

www.LabFairy.com - One young scientist's quest to defeating aging

It is always a pleasure to see the young scientists working on their projects with passion and dedication. It is even a greater pleasure to see some of the outstanding ones trying to popularize research in their field. Maria Litovchenko, a young scientist, who recently graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and is doing her graduate work at LMU Muenschen is running an excellent blog – Laboratory Fairy (www.LabFairy.com) . It is a pleasure to see someone truly dedicated to defeating aging through excellence in scientific research.

We would like to wish her all the best in her endeavors.

Aging Expert Urges Government Leaders to Accelerate Research in Aging and Proactively Increase the Retirement Age to Prevent Economic Crisis (via SBWire)

Forest Hills, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/01/2013 -- A leading expert on aging sees extending healthy lifespan as the most plausible solution and a source of growth for the debt-laden faltering economies of the developed countries. In his newly released book…

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New ways to combat age-related mineralization

When you open a 70-year old patient on the operating table and touch the aorta, the feeling may resemble touching an eggshell or sand paper. It is stiffer than the heart of a young person and the key reasons for this are the abundant calcium deposits in the connective tissue that accumulate with age.

The many factors leading to mineralization of the connective tissue include genetic and acquired diseases, inflammation, reactive oxygen species, but the major problem is that it occurs spontaneously during aging as calcium-containing molecules are trapped in the extracellular matrix and develop into apatite over time.

Despite its relative significance, compared to the many other areas of aging research, mineralization of the connective tissue is rarely mentioned in scientific publications and few teams are working on preventing or clearing out the extracellular aggregates.  To address the problem, a multidisciplinary team of physicians, bioinformatitians, biochemists and physicists performed a comprehensive bioinformatics analysis of the many factors involved in mineralization, identified key molecular targets and proposed a list of possible drugs to address the issue.

The results of the study were accepted for publication by a high-impact journal in biogerontology “Rejuvenation Research” and will be published shortly and can be cited as “Mineralization of the connective tissue: a complex molecular process leading to age-related loss of function”, Anastasia Shindyapina, Garik V Mkrtchyan, Tatiana Gneteeva, Sveatoslav Buiucli, M Kulka, B Tancowny, Alexander Aliper, Alexander Zhavoronkov, Rejuvenation Research, ahead of print. doi:10.1089/rej.2013.1475, http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/rej.2013.1475 , PMID 23902273

Anastasia Shindyapina together with her collaborators presented the results of the study on the 5^th of September at the SENS6 conference in Cambridge, UK.

“Aging inevitably leads to the loss of function on many levels. Mineralization of the connective tissue is one of the causes and consequences of aging and is a complex multifactorial process. Metabolic activity, diseases and external stress factors may cause calcification, but most importantly, it occurs spontaneously. Our goal is to identify least toxic ways to both prevent calcification and to repair the accumulated  aggregates.”, said Anastasia Shindyapina, ASUS Fellow for Bioinformatics and Medical Information Technology, PhD-candidate at the Moscow State University and researcher at FOIRMYS.

"Mineralization of connective tissue with age is one of the many aspects of aging that are examples of "accumulation of eventually pathogenic extracellular material", an issue that attracts too little attention within the academic community. The accumulation of advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) and of mineral deposits both result in increased stiffness of connective tissue, impair homeostasis and contribute to a broad range of age-related diseases. Through comprehensive bioinformatic analysis of the many molecular processes involved in mineralization, Zhavoronkov's team has identified possible molecular interventions. Additionally they proposed that mineralization and AGEs work in concert and should be addressed concurrently. Anastasia Shyndyapina, the lead author on the paper, recently presented this work at the SENS6 conference in Cambridge.", commented Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Chief Science Officer of SENS Research Foundation and International Adjunct Professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT).

About FOIRMYS

The First Open Institute for Regenerative Medicine for Young Scientists (FOIRMYS) is a non-profit volunteer initiative bringing together over a thousand enthusiast young scientists and physicians interested in regenerative medicine. It was first organized by Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD in collaboration with Sergey Yakovenko, PhD, Sergey Roumiantsev, PhD and Oleg Korzinov in Moscow with support from Anna Chapman.

FOIRMYS provides regular weekly lectures by the top academic and industry thought leaders, investors and regulators. The list of presenters includes Paolo Macchiarini (Karolinska Institute), Alexey Aravin (Caltech), Charles Cantor (Boston U, ex-director of the Human Genome Project), Augustinus Bader (Leipzig University), top managers from Beijing Genomics Institute, Malaysian Genome Resource Center, Indigo Capital Partners and many others. As part of the curriculum students participate in practicums at “Altravita IVF, FRCCPH, FORCC, Quantum Pharmaceuticals, Biopharmcluster “Northern” and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

Members work in small teams comprised of scientists and physicians on ambitious outlier projects in aging and regenerative medicine with topics ranging from mineralization of connective tissue, HGPS and regulation of endometriosis to industry overviews and healthcare economics. The projects are coordinated in a crowdsourced environment and rely heavily on popular tools like Facebook, Dropbox and Google Apps. FOIRMYS developed a concept called “Personalized Medicine”, where projects are centered around the problems of a single patient, who provides samples and helps coordinate the project. Members also learn how to promote their work, create personal science blogs (including Women in Science initiative) and engage in industry outreach.

Participation in practical group projects resulted in success stories including young scientists’ publications in peer-reviewed journals, fellowships, participation in international conferences, gainful employment of young scientists and international collaborations.

AgingProjects.com is now live

A partner information resource "Aging Research Projects for Extreme Longevity" is now live. A team of volunteers will help contribute useful content to cover the trends and projects in aging research.