On December 13, 2017, Nature.com spotlighted the advancement of drugs that target the processes of aging and related research led by several AFAR experts:
- Deputy Scientific Director and multiple grantee Nir Barzilai, MD
-2006 AFAR Research Grant for Junior Faculty awardee and 2007 Glenn/AFAR Breakthroughs in Gerontology (BIG) Award winner Matt Kaeberlein, PhD
- AFAR board member and 2000 AFAR Research Grant awardee David Sinclair, PhD
Framing how the drive to find treatments that offer a long and healthy life is maturing, the article, “New tricks from old dogs join the fight against ageing”, first looks at Dr. Kaeberlein’s research with dog longevity. The Dog Aging Project seeks to study the effect of the drug Rapamycin on extending the health of dogs as they age, as the article explains:
Kaeberlein sees his dog study as one of a series of steps that will ultimately lead towards translating laboratory findings into human medicine. On one level, his aim is conceptual. “A big challenge we have in this field is convincing non-scientists that ageing is just a biological process, and because it’s a biological process it can be modified, genetically or pharmacologically,” he says.
Later, Dr. Sinclair address the traditional separation of research on aging from research on age-related diseases, as well as the recent goal of seeking aging aging to be classified as a treatable condition, noting: “The medical and scientific community have thought of ageing as something different from disease.”
The article discusses Dr. Barzilai’s leadership of the TAME Study, which AFAR manages, and its potential impact to harness multiple-age related diseases and reframe aging as a treatable condition: “When you fix ageing on the cellular level, you fix a lot of other things,” Barzilai says.
The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, AFAR long-time collaborator, is also mentioned.
Read the full article here.
Nir Barzilai, MD is the Director of the Institute for Aging Research and the Director of the Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Biology of Aging at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Matt Kaeberlein, PhD is the Co-Director, University of Washington Medicine Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging; Director, Healthy Aging and Longevity Research Institute; and President, American Aging Association.
David Sinclair, PhD is a Professor of Genetics and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Laboratories for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging at Harvard Medical School.
