The holidays are over, and a new year has begun! However, festive celebrations weren’t the only things happening last month. Here’s the rejuvenation research and biotech developments that took place in December.
LEAF News
Best Christmas Wishes from Lifespan.io: In this holiday missive, we took a look at what the Lifespan.io team has been up to recently, including projects, collaborations, and conferences.
Longevity Investor Network 2023 End of Year Update: The Longevity Investor Network has experienced significant growth and success over the past year. Our mission to connect innovative companies in the longevity sector with forward-thinking investors has seen remarkable achievements, particularly in 2023.
Team and activities
We Partner with Ora for the Million-Molecule Challenge: Ora Biomedical, a pharmaceutical company that is pioneering novel small molecules to maximize healthy lifespan for humans and companion pets, is excited to announce its strategic collaboration with Lifespan.io as the official charity partner for the Million-Molecule Challenge.
Journal Club
B12 Is a Limiting Factor for Induced Cellular Plasticity: On December 1st, the Journal Club took a look at a new paper relating to partial cellular reprogramming that includes Manuel Serrano among the various authors.
Boosting Mitochondrial Function: We returned on December 15 to review the recent paper “A drug-like molecule engages nuclear hormone receptor DAF-12/FXR to regulate mitophagy and extend lifespan”.
Research Roundup
Mechanically Reprogrammed Fibroblasts for Skin Rejuvenation: Scientists have found a way to reprogram fibroblasts without chemicals by culturing them on a surface with specific mechanical properties. Transplanted into aged skin, those cells boosted rejuvenation in a human tissue model.
Pre-Senescent Cells May Be Damaging and Treatable: Researchers have described an intermediary state between senescent and young cells, the inflammatory problems caused by these cells, and how young cells secrete a protein that may alleviate these problems.
Was Mammals’ Longevity Shaped by Living Among Dinosaurs?: A prominent geroscientist suggests that more than 100 million years of saurian domination might have deprived mammals of longevity-promoting traits that are found in today’s reptiles.
Caloric Restriction Associated With Reduced Senescence: New research in Aging Cell has identified senescence-associated biomarkers whose levels are altered by caloric restriction in humans. Multiple animal studies have found that reducing caloric intake without causing malnutrition (caloric restriction) has great lifespan-extending potential and can delay the onset of several age-related diseases.
A Microvesicle Hydrogel to Treat Arthritis: In the Journal of Nanobiotechnology, researchers have found that embedding microvesicles in a slow-release hydrogel may be an effective treatment for osteoarthritis. Researchers have repeatedly found that the extracellular vesicles released by stem cells, particularly mesenchymal stem cells, are the main drivers behind the effectiveness of stem cell therapies.
Astaxanthin and Meclizine Extend Lifespan in Mice: Scientists in the Intervention Testing Program have found that the antioxidant astaxanthin and the seasickness medication meclizine, both sold over the counter, significantly extend median lifespan in mice. Fisetin, however, was not found to extend lifespan.
Twin Study: Healthy Vegan Diet Beats Healthy Omnivorous Diet: In a randomized controlled trial, eight weeks of healthy vegan eating, but not of healthy omnivorous eating, led to weight loss and significant improvements in LDL cholesterol and insulin levels in a middle-aged twin study.
Repairing DNA with Sirtuins for Arthritis: In a paper published in Aging, researchers have described a method of activating the sirtuin SIRT6 to reduce DNA damage, reducing senescence and possibly treating arthritis. Extensive previous research has found that SIRT6, a deacetylase that is dependent on NAD+, is instrumental in DNA repair.
David Sinclair’s Group Reverses Glaucoma in Mice: These scientists have achieved significant improvement of glaucoma in a mouse model via partial cellular reprogramming of retinal cells. However, it might take more than that to reverse other aspects of age-related vision loss.
A Seaweed Supplement May Help Prevent Muscle Loss: A recent publication in Aging and Disease describes human and animal research demonstrating improvement in the function and biomarkers of muscle tissue after Ishige okamurae extract supplementation. Clinical trials of seaweed consumption have reported beneficial health effects and protection against senescence-associated and metabolic diseases.
Human Trials Find Positive Effects of Exercise on Cognition: Researchers publishing in Ageing Research Reviews have conducted a large meta-analysis of papers that document the effects of exercise on cognitive function in healthy people. Even for healthy people, exercise is associated with improved biomarkers of health.
Predicting the Aging of Individual Organs: In Nature, a team has published its research on using protein analysis to estimate the aging of specific organs. While the processes of aging affect every organ of every person, the rates at which these processes affect these organs can vary greatly in people and mice.
Earlier Meals Associated with Less Vascular Disease: According to a new populational study, timing meals to natural circadian rhythms and maintaining a long nightly fast is positively associated with cardiovascular health, especially in women.
A Clinical Trial of Neural Stem Cells for MS: In Cell Stem Cell, researchers have published the results of a Phase 1 clinical trial of a treatment that uses neural stem cells to treat multiple sclerosis, a progressive disease that afflicts approximately two million people worldwide.
David Sinclair Presents His Information Theory of Aging: Well-known gerontologist Dr. David Sinclair and his co-authors have outlined a theory arguing that epigenetic changes are the underlying cause of aging. It is not every day that one of the most prominent geroscientists presents a new theory of aging.
Morning Exercise May Be Better Against Metabolic Syndrome: In a recent paper published in The Journal of Physiology, researchers compared the impacts of morning and afternoon aerobic exercise for people with metabolic syndrome.
A New Anti-Inflammatory Approach for Arthritis: In Aging, researchers have published their tests of a compound that counteracts the effects of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a), an inflammatory factor that promotes arthritis.
U-Shaped Association Between Vigorous Exercise, Alzheimer’s: According to a new study, the amount of leisure time vigorous physical activity is inversely correlated with Alzheimer’s, but after a certain point, the association is reversed.
The Southern European Atlantic diet and all-cause and cause-specific mortality: a European multicohort study: This diet was associated with lower all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality in southern, central, eastern, and western European populations.
The association between chrononutrition behaviors and muscle health among older adults: The study of muscle, mobility and aging: Longer eating window, later last intake time, and earlier first intake time were associated with better muscle mass and function in older adults.
Geroprotector drugs and exercise: friends or foes on healthy longevity?: Here, the researchers review leading candidate geroprotector drugs and their interactions with exercise, and they highlight salient gaps in knowledge.
Delivering Rapamycin for Osteoarthritis Treatment: These findings suggest that intra-articular delivery of reactive oxygen species-responsive nanocarrier systems holds significant promise as a potential and effective therapeutic strategy.
DNA methylation rates scale with maximum lifespan across mammals: The emergence of explicit scaling suggests that methylation rates are, or are linked to, an evolutionary constraint on maximum lifespan acting across diverse mammalian lineages.
Genetic insights into the association of statin and newer nonstatin drug target genes with human longevity: a Mendelian randomization analysis: This study suggests that LDLR is a promising genetic target for human longevity. Lipid-related gene targets, such as PCSK9, CETP, and APOC3, might potentially regulate human lifespan, thus offering promising prospects for developing newer nonstatin therapies.
Evidence for the role of selection for reproductively advantageous alleles in human aging: These and other findings support the antagonistic pleiotropy hypothesis of aging in humans and point to potential molecular mechanisms of the reproduction–life-span antagonistic pleiotropy.
A naturally occurring polyacetylene isolated from carrots promotes health and delays signatures of aging: Isofalcarintriol might become a promising mitohormesis-inducing compound to delay, ameliorate, or prevent aging-associated diseases in humans.
DNA methylation extends lifespan in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris: Overall, this study indicates that epigenetic mechanisms are conserved regulators of lifespan in both vertebrates and invertebrates and provides new insights into how DNAme is involved in the ageing process in insects.
Systematic assessment of transcriptomic and metabolic reprogramming by blue light exposure coupled with aging: Overall, this study provides a systematic assessment of m6A RNA methylome reprogramming by BLE and aging in Drosophila.
News Nuggets
JellyfishDAO to Create Longevity Films and Television: A group of award-winning filmmakers, longevity experts, and blockchain developers have come together to launch JellyfishDAO, a new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) focused on funding and distributing movies and TV shows related to extending health and lifespan.
The Longevity Biotech Fellowship Bottleneck Survey: The LBF aimed to establish an empirical, systematic, rigorous, and minimally biased methodology to map bottlenecks across the field. To do so, they surveyed 400 participants across various sectors of longevity, asking them for their biggest bottlenecks and most wanted solutions in structured and free-form questions.
Coming Up
Vitalia: A “Los Alamos” for Longevity Starting in Roatán: Vitalia is a new venture that aims to redefine the longevity biotech landscape, fostering drug development at warp speed: 4 months to get to market, instead of 10+ years. From January 6 to March 1, Vitalia will be hosting a two-month pop-up city experience similar to Vitalik Buterin’s Zuzalu.
Healthy Longevity Course and Supplements Conference: The NUHS Centre for Healthy Longevity is honored to extend an invitation for two landmark events poised to redefine the realms of healthy longevity.