Last month has brought forward a lot of exciting news in the longevity industry, including our own upcoming merger with SENS. Here’s what’s happened in April.
LEAF News
SENS Research Foundation and Lifespan.io Announce Intent to Merge, Forming a Novel Longevity Entity: SENS Research Foundation and Lifespan.io (Lifespan Extension Advocacy Foundation) have unveiled plans to merge, upon completion of regulatory approvals. This merger signifies a new chapter in the quest for extended human healthspan—a journey fueled by innovation, passion, and a shared commitment to bringing the diseases of aging under medical control. With their complementary strengths and shared vision, the newly formed nonprofit promises to lead the charge towards a future where aging is no longer a barrier to a life well lived.
Team and activities
Vitalia: Living the Longevity Dream: On the tropical island of Roatán, a bunch of people gathered in an unprecedented, longevity-themed pop-up city – and then some of them stayed, making the venture permanent. Lifespan.io’s Arkadi Mazin was there to report.
Interviews
New Gene Therapy Reverses Atherosclerosis In Mice: Repair Biotechnologies, a company based in Syracuse, New York, has announced findings from early research suggesting that its technology can quickly stop the advancement of atherosclerosis. While these preclinical results are in mice, this approach has the potential for treating atherosclerosis in humans.
Advocacy and Analysis
Nicklas Brendborg on How Jellyfish Age Backwards: Brendborg’s exploration is broad and deep, venturing into the biology of aging with a critical eye on popular theories and interventions. He discusses the efficacy of antioxidants, the concept of hormesis, and the body’s nuanced response to stress.
Longevity Gets Political at an Unprecedented DC Event: The longevity community has always been a niche one, but many of its members realize this is not how we defeat aging. This goal requires immense resources as well as political and regulatory changes that can only be obtained at a national level.
Research Roundup
The Epigenetic Similarities Between E-Cigarettes and Smoking: The authors of a new paper in Cancer Research have published the surprising finding that cigarettes and e-cigarettes have some similar effects on DNA methylation that have been reported to lead to cancer. Harm reduction might not truly reduce harm.
More Social Connections Associated with Slower Aging: Recent research has contributed to the growing body of evidence regarding social isolation, loneliness, and biological aging. During doctor visits, patients are often screened for many conditions, but social isolation is not one of them.
Senolytic CAR T Cells Rescue Intestinal Aging in Mice: Scientists have demonstrated that CAR T cells can be employed against senescent intestinal stem cells, improving regeneration and ameliorating age-related symptoms such as leaky gut.
Small Molecules Reverse Many Age-Related Changes in Cells: A team of Harvard researchers has published a paper in eLife detailing the downstream effects of partial cellular reprogramming that is started by small molecules.
Scientists Discover a New Mechanism of Age-Related Obesity: A new study suggests that the reason why aging is associated with obesity lies in specific neurons found in the brain, which become resistant to a hormone that signals satiety.
Finding Senolytics to Stop Lung Disease: Researchers publishing in the Journal of Clinical Investigation have developed a new method of screening for compounds, and they found one that appears to directly attack senescent cells involved in lung fibrosis.
Reprogramming Helps Old Mice Produce More Neurons: Scientists have found that partial cellular reprogramming, both full-body and restricted to specific brain regions, rescues neurogenesis, the ability to create new neurons, in the brains of old mice.
Some Medications Associated with Improved Aging Biomarkers: The authors of a recent study published in Aging Cell tested 21 groups of medication used by the elderly and reported that some of them impact aging biomarkers. The search for drugs that slow aging includes finding new compounds and repurposing already-known drugs.
Very Long-Lived People Have Protected Epigenetics: A team of researchers has reported in Aging Cell that longer-lived Chinese women have less epigenetic noise in crucial areas of the genome, corroborating previous research on this noise’s effects on age-related epigenetic alterations.
Mitochondria Injection Alleviates Parkinson’s in Mice: Scientists have tested a novel method of providing cells with healthy mitochondria to fight Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s disease is the second-most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder, and it affects 10 million people worldwide.
An Inflammatory Molecule May Also Encourage Obesity: A team of researchers has waded into a controversial and contradictory area of study, publishing information on the link between obesity and the interleukin IL-6, a key immune signaling molecule that causes inflammation and increases with aging. However, its role in biology is complicated.
Quercetin Delays Ovarian Aging in Middle-Aged Mice: A recent paper published in Nature Aging dives into the gene expression differences between young, middle-aged, and older human ovaries and tests possible interventions to slow down their aging processes. Female reproductive aging remains a relatively unexplored area of study.
Autophagy Is Essential for Healthy Muscles: A study published in Aging Cell has reported that older people with better regulated autophagy in their skeletal muscles have less age-related frailty. These results suggest that inhibiting the effects of mTOR, which naturally inhibits autophagy and is itself inhibited by rapamycin and rapalogs, is a potential path to increased muscle performance in older people.
Young Extracellular Vesicles Extend Life in Old Mice: Tiny bubbles that cells use to communicate with each other prolonged lifespan and reversed numerous aging phenotypes when taken from young mice and injected into old ones, even though the treatment started late in life.
Aging Measurements Can Vary by Time of Day: Epigenetic aging measurements can vary by the time of day at which they are taken, according to a study published in Aging Cell. Living on Earth, organisms have evolved to adapt to our planet’s day/night cycle. This adaptation is known as the circadian rhythm, and it influences many aspects of biology, including cell counts and gene expression.
Taking a Look at Proteins in Exercise and Aging: With an in-depth examination tool in hand, researchers publishing in Aging have done a preliminary examination of the muscle protein differences between younger and older people and how older people’s proteins change with exercise.
Cannabis Use Linked to Cardiovascular Problems: According to a new study, cannabis consumption is associated with increased risks of coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart attack. It is based on the 2016-2020 data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, which encompassed more than 400,000 participants in 27 American states and 2 territories.
A Re-Analysis Finds Potential Life-Prolonging Compounds: The authors of a recent paper published in GeroScience used an alternative statistical test to reanalyze data from the Interventions Testing Program and identified additional life‑extending compounds that had been originally missed.
Looking for Causality in Diabetes and Aging: Researchers have published the results of a study in Aging Cell, using a twin study to find some evidence that type 2 diabetes causes accelerated aging rather than the other way around.
Interrupting Sitting with Activity Lowers Glucose Levels: Scientists have discovered that frequently interrupting prolonged sitting with physical activity, such as short walks or squats, can help control glucose levels in overweight and obese males. This is unsurprising, as prolonged sitting has long been associated with health problems.
Older and Younger Cells Handle Genes Differently: In Aging Cell, researchers have published evidence that downregulating a key aspect of lipid metabolism harms mitochondrial function, but only in cells taken from younger people.
A Protein Potently Suppresses Lung Cancer in Mice: Scientists have identified the proteins FOXF1 and its downstream target FZD4 as potential targets for treating lung cancer. Upregulating them helps to normalize vasculature in the tumor area and suppresses this lethal type of cancer.
Wild Blueberry Extract Intervention in Healthy Older Adults: A Multi-Study, Randomised, Controlled Investigation of Acute Cognitive and Cardiovascular Effects: It may have cardiovascular benefits and attenuate the natural cognitive decline observed over the course of the day, particularly when a decline is associated with a circadian rhythm-driven postprandial dip. The effects, however, were subtle.
Protein-enriched soup and weekly exercise improve muscle health in people with inadequate protein intake: Protein-enriched soup with weekly exercise over 12 weeks significantly improved physical performance, lipid profile, and DHEA-S levels among middle-aged and older adults with inadequate protein intake.
Timing of Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity, Mortality, Cardiovascular Disease, and Microvascular Disease in Adults With Obesity: Aerobic MVPA bouts undertaken in the evening were associated with the lowest risk of mortality, CVD, and MVD. Timing of physical activity may play a role in the future of obesity and T2D management.
Combined Metabolic Activators with Different NAD+ Precursors Improve Metabolic Functions in the Animal Models of Neurodegenerative Diseases: These findings underscore the promise of CMA2 administration as an effective therapeutic strategy for enhancing metabolic parameters and cognitive function in AD and PD patients.
Nonlinear DNA methylation trajectories in aging male mice: The researchers demonstrate the universality of their clock in an independent mouse cohort and with publicly available datasets.
Young osteocyte-derived extracellular vesicles facilitate osteogenesis by transferring tropomyosin-1: These findings suggested that these vesicles played a crucial role in maintaining the balance between bone resorption and formation, and their pro-osteogenic activity declining with aging.
Low-Molecular Weight Compounds that Extend the Chronological Lifespan of Yeasts, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Schizosaccharomyces pombe: The researchers hold that compounds that have so far only been studied in yeast may soon extend lifespan in other organisms.
Identification of prospective aging drug targets via Mendelian randomization analysis: Circulating proteins play a pivotal role in influencing aging, making them promising candidates for therapeutic intervention. The implications warrant further investigation in future clinical research.
The coupling between healthspan and lifespan in Caenorhabditis depends on complex interactions between compound intervention and genetic background: These results demonstrate the importance of assessing health and lifespan across genetic backgrounds in the effort to identify reproducible anti-aging interventions.
Nicotinamide Mononucleotide and Nicotinamide Riboside Reverse Ovarian Aging in Rats Via Rebalancing Mitochondrial Fission and Fusion Mechanisms: This study reveals that NMN alone or NR alone can rebalance mitochondrial dynamics by decreasing excessive fission in middle-aged rat ovaries, thus alleviating mitochondrial stress and correcting aging-induced folliculogenesis abnormalities.
Efficacy and safety of mesenchymal stem cell therapy for ovarian ageing in a mouse model: Orthotopic transplantation of MSCs displays significant efficacy and high safety for the treatment of ovarian ageing in mice.
Safety and efficacy of umbilical cord tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells in the treatment of patients with aging frailty: a phase I/II randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study: The positive outcomes observed in improving quality of life, physical performance, and reducing chronic inflammation suggest that HUC-MSC therapy may be a promising potential treatment option for aging frailty.
Exploring juventology: unlocking the secrets of youthspan and longevity programs: A “juventology”-based strategy can complement the traditional gerontology approach by focusing not on aging but on the longevity program affecting the life history period in which mortality is very low and organisms remain youthful, healthy, and fully functional.
News Nuggets
Gero Announces Activity-Based Longevity Studies Initiative: The longevity company Gero has presented its new nonprofit initiative: a series of studies using the company’s aging clock, which is based on stepping patterns obtained from phones and wearables.
Coming Up
Longevity Investors Announces 2024 Conference: Following the resounding success of the Longevity Investors Lunch held during the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, Longevity Investors is thrilled to unveil the upcoming Longevity Investors Conference 2024.
VC Investors’ Agenda for Amsterdam Event: As the conference season kicks off, VC investors are gearing up for a cautiously optimistic 2024, where the normalization of valuations stands out as a positive trend. This will be discussed at the LP/GP ‘0100 Conference Europe,’ scheduled to unfold from April 16th to 18th in Amsterdam.
SynBioBeta Brings Together Leaders for Annual Conference: SynBioBeta, the leading community of entrepreneurs, investors, innovators, and biological engineers, today announced details for its flagship SynBioBeta 2024 conference. The premier annual event for the synthetic biology industry will be held May 6-9, 2024, in San Jose, gathering an estimated 2,000 attendees from around the world.
Longevity Week: Consortium Held in Berlin: Berlin’s event landscape is growing: Longevity Week will take place in the German capital for the first time from May 6-12, 2024. The opening event will take place on May 6th at the Langenbeck-Virchow-Haus in Berlin Mitte near the Charité hospital.