Podcast: The Economist (Babbage)
Rich world life expectancy is 70+, increasing by average of 5 hours per day
Victorian times – terrible doctors, but great engineers – clean water, better nutrition – lifespan really improved
20th c – defeated many infectious diseases, antibiotics after WW2, another step change
Countries with highest lifespan – Southern Italy, Japan
“can get to 85 just by living like the Japanese”
Why do we age?
Genetic material gets damaged
Machinery of gene expression
Major cellular molecules – protein synthesis, mitochondria go wrong, proliferation of senescent cells
Aging is root cause of many diseases – cancer, cardiovascular, neuro degenerative
If we can combat these fundamental aging pathways, we can fight a lot of these diseases
Most promising is altering blood plasma
Parabiosis – mice blood systems being shared, old mice improves from sharing with young mice
(Gavin Belson from the show Silicon Valley)
Cellular rejuvenation – transcription factors (Yamanaka factors)
If you apply them to body cells, they will “take them back to factory settings”
Yamanaka – Japanese biologist, won Nobel Prize – creating pluripotent stem cells
Can create cells identical to your body’s cells for experimentation and treatment
Risk of uncontrolled proliferation (cancerous cells) if mis-used
New research shows you can reverse (some) epigenetic marks of aging
Treatment on old mice becoming metabolically younger, can repair skin wounds better, seem to be healthier, expect to live longer
Proof of concept stage
Silicon Valley
Altos Labs – $3B in funding, “world’s best financed startup company” – led by prominent researchers
Focus on Yamanaka factors and “integrated stress response”, cells that have gone AWOL – metabolic problems, diabetes, Parkinson’s
Trying to develop novel approach to diseases caused by cellular malfunction – indirectly improving aging
“Natural selection cares less and less about multi cellular organisms as they get older”
Heart attack – lost tissue isn’t replaced, a scar forms, causing loss of function, so the heart remodels, get larger, walls get thinner, can lead to heart failure
Today transplantation is only cure, life expectancy afterwards is only 10 years
Identify cell types in heart that can be stimulated to create more healthy tissue
Trying to restore embryonic cell development in adult hearts (eg, like epicardial cells)
“regrowing parts of the heart”
Identify high risk patients, give them pre-treatment (like a pill), to prime cells to heal / repair when heart attacks happen
Organoids – small organs in dish – multiple cell types – eventually “derive heart in a dish”
Unity Biotechnology
Senescent cells – “cells in your body that have turned against you”
Senescent cells cause damage to neighboring cells
It’s a slow insidious assault inside your body
Vision is take a pill, get rid of your body’s senescent cells
In mice, experiments to tag these cells and remove them – cognition better, improve health
Now research focus is on the eye – to improve vision, suffering macular degeneration / color loss
Much of this research may not extend lifespan but can extend healthspan – number of healthy quality years
Lot of these treatments work for everything except for your brain – more complex and unpredictable
“What do you do about the brain?”
