Pharmacologic Recapitulation of Parabiosis to Improve the Aging Central Nervous System
Aging is a universal process that affects all organisms at the cellular and molecular levels, with few strategies to stop or reverse it. Despite this, studies demonstrate that aspects of brain aging may be reversible in mice. For example, work has shown that giving old mice blood transfusions from young mice improves the aged brain, increasing blood vessels, improving memory, and decreasing inflammation to youthful levels. Although this work demonstrates that the function of aged tissue can be improved by young blood, largescale transfusions of young blood for aged populations is very challenging (e.g., due to variability, scalability, etc.). As a solution to this problem, Dr. Richard Giadone utilizes computational approaches to identify drugs that mimic changes observed via young blood transfusions in old mice. He then tests the ability of these drugs to improve the aged brain in mice and a novel human stem cell-based “minibrain” organoid system he developed.
