Recently, Dr. David Sinclair did an AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) on Reddit. Events like these, which allow people to ask researchers questions about their work on an open forum, can often turn up interesting responses that are not always uncovered during interviews. We have picked these few questions and answers, but we suggest that you visit the Reddit AMA thread to read more. Do you see the field of aging research converging toward a unified theory of aging? I notice a lot of similarity between your information theory of aging and the somatic restriction theory proposed by Dr. Michael West, for ..read more

A team of researchers, including Drs. Vadim Gladyshev and Steve Horvath, recently published a review of DNA methylation aging clocks, which use biomarkers to determine the biological age of a person. Aging causes epigenetic alterations to occur, including changes to DNA methylation, histone modification, transcriptional alterations (variance in gene expression), and remodeling of chromatin (a DNA support structure that assists or impedes gene transcription). The paper in question focuses on the changes to DNA methylation and the various aging clocks that use them to predict biological age. Eac ..read more

A recent open-access study published in Cell Stem Cell has shown that excluding Oct4 from the OSKM cocktail reduces epigenetic aberrations and off-target gene activation. Induced pluripotency and Yamanaka factors Pluripotent stem cells are cells that can become other cell types in the body; during natural development, they create differentiated stem cells and ultimately somatic cells, which are the mature cells that actually carry out bodily functions. In 2006, Drs. Takahashi and Yamanaka discovered that it was possible to induce pluripotency in somatic cells with four factors: Oct4, Sox2, Klf ..read more

We’re continuing to release talks from Ending Age-Related Diseases 2019, our highly successful two-day conference that featured talks from leading researchers and investors, bringing them together to discuss the future of aging and rejuvenation biotechnology. Vadim Gladyshev of Harvard Medical School discussed methods of discovering longevity interventions, including analyzing the genomes of long-lived mammals and identifying organ-specific changes. He also discussed using epigenetic clocks along with data-driven methods and animal studies that determine the value of potential new compounds an ..read more

We’re continuing to release talks from Ending Age-Related Diseases 2019, our highly successful two-day conference that featured talks from leading researchers and investors, bringing them together to discuss the future of aging and rejuvenation biotechnology. Dr. Qingsong Zhu, the COO of Insilico Medicine, discussed the use of deep learning in creating biomarkers for aging. Initially discussing existing clocks and the problems with animal translation, he went on to discuss what sorts of markers are ideal for age-related research and the details of training and testing a model that works with t ..read more

At the Ending Age-Related Diseases 2019 Conference in New York City, we had the opportunity to interview Dr. Justin Rebo from the drug discovery biotech company BioAge. BioAge is developing a drug discovery platform that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to discover targets that have the potential to promote healthy lifespan (healthspan) by slowing down aging and the ill health that it brings. As the vice president of in-vivo biology at BioAge, Dr. Rebo leads the company’s internal in-vivo platform to find and assess the viability of new druggable targets for aging diseases and ..read more

The Journal Club on August 27 was hosted by Dr. Oliver Medvedik and special guest Dr. Alexander Tyshkovskiy, who works at the Gladyshev at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston. The topic was the recent paper “Identification and Application of Gene Expression Signatures Associated with Lifespan Extension” published in Cell Metabolism. This study was Dr. Alexander Tyshkovskiy’s project and formed part of his Ph.D. and we are very grateful to him for taking the time to join us for this special episode of the Journal Club and share his personal insights into the study and t ..read more

Today, we want to draw attention to a new study that shows how partial cellular reprogramming was able to reverse cellular aging and address age- and injury-induced blindness in mice. Epigenetic alterations One of the proposed reasons we age is the changes to gene expression that our cells experience as we get older; these are known as epigenetic alterations. These alterations cause harmful changes to cellular function and gradually shift our cells from a youthful to aged state. Gene expression is modified by the addition of epigenetic markers to the DNA that change the pattern of gene express ..read more

One of the biggest breakthroughs in biology in the last few decades has been the discovery of epigenetics. Rather than changing the genes themselves, epigenetics change how genes are expressed, allowing our cells to differentiate between their various types. However, the epigenetics of our cells change over time. There is some debate over how much epigenetic alterations are a cause or a consequence of other age-related damage, but they are one of the primary hallmarks of aging. Multiple “epigenetic clocks” have been developed over the last decade. These clocks are now displaying an uncanny abi ..read more

At the Undoing Aging 2019 conference, we had the opportunity to interview Yuri Deigin, the CEO of Youthereum Genetics. His company is developing therapies that focus on OSKM, the Yamanaka factors known for turning cells back into a pluripotent state. By partially reprogramming cells using a single component of OSKM, Oct4, the company hopes to remove epigenetic aging from cells while still allowing them to retain their normal functions. Do you think epigenetic alterations are a cause or a consequence of aging, and why? Well, this question has so many different parts that need to be addressed. O ..read more