Aging is a disease not an inevitability, say biotech pioneers

For decades, researchers around the world have been looking for ways to extend the human lifespan with more healthy years, but the relatively new field of longevity has caught the interest of biotech entrepreneurs. “One hundred will be the new 60,” said Peter Diamandis, a pioneer in space, technology, aeronautics, and medicine, speaking at the Abundance360 conference recently. “The average human healthspan will increase by 10+ years this decade.” Like many others in Silicon Valley, Diamandis believes aging is a disease and not an inevitability. As we grow older, there is wear and tear or damage to certain critical components of the body. Longevity research is all about overcoming this planned obsolescence by identifying the key changes that can reverse or mitigate it. Biotech pioneers are harnessing rapidly growing technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computational heft. There have been some breakthroughs in clinical trials and deployment of these new technologies in humans is expected in the near future. The core areas of research are regenerative medicine and restoration of stem cell supply to regrow damaged body parts, such as bone, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, spinal cord, and nerves. Another area of interest is vaccines against debilitating chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s. One biotechnology company, United Therapeutics, is working on making organ shortage a thing of the past by growing genetically engineered organs in pigs. New technologies and tools are making it possible to rapidly develop customized medicines at a fraction of current costs. Alex Zhavoronkov, who founded Insilico Medicine in 2014, said his company can test new drugs on human tissue in less than 50 days and then use advanced computing to model, design, and produce a new drug within weeks. This is in comparison to traditional drug development that can take up to a decade and cost $3 billion and still end up in failure 90 percent of the time. Advances in regenerative medicine are on the horizon. At the conference, Diamandis recommended that anyone in the audience considering a knee replacement surgery might be better off postponing it to 2021 when San Diego-based Samumed LLC will complete phase three clinical trials of a drug that can regenerate cartilage. Osman Kibar, Samumed founder, reported his company has been able to successfully produce new cartilage in the knee and a new spinal disc with a drug that stimulates stem cells. The company, valued at $12 billion, also reports preliminary success with regenerating skin, hair, retinal cells, muscle, and nerve cells. Epigenetic reprogramming is another technology that is hot with biotech firms. This technology focuses on identifying how to reverse deficiencies in critical components involved in DNA repair, including stem cells, proteins, and chromosomes. “Aging is a disease, and that disease is treatable,” says David Sinclair, professor of genetics at the Harvard Medical School and author of the book “Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To. Research is progressing rapidly towards cures for aging, but there are lifestyle habits that can delay the process. For instance, Sinclair says we should replicate behaviors our bodies were made to perform. Exercising and sleep are obviously important, but so is eating less often. “You should feel hungry regularly,” he says. Neitzsche has famously said “that which does not kill us makes us stronger.” The scientific term for this is hormesis (an adaptive response in biological systems to environmental challenges). Sinclair recommends putting the body through stress, for example by going from sauna to snow, to invigorate the cells and processes in the body. An adaptation of hormesis is xenohormesis which consists of eating environmentally stressed plants which contain more beneficial nutrients. For example, wild strawberries that are drought-stressed have better phenol content and antioxidant capacity and also better flavor. “The age of 100 is easily in sight now,” says Diamandis. “And kids born today can expect to live to 105.”