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Scientists Are Working To Eliminate Senescent Cells (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In a lab just south of San Francisco I am looking at two blown-up images of microscope slides on a computer screen, side by side. The slides are the same cross-sections of mouse knees from a six-month-old and an 18-month-old animal. The older mouse's image has a splattering of little yellow dots, the younger barely any. That staining indicates the presence of so-called senescent cells -- "zombie cells" that are damaged and that, as a defense against cancer, have ceased to divide but are also resistant to dying. They are known to accumulate with age, as the immune system can no longer clear them, and as a result of exposure to cell-damaging agents such as radiation and chemotherapy. And they have been identified as a cause of aging in mice, at least partially responsible for most age-related diseases. Seeing the slides, it makes me worried about my own knees. "Tell us about it," says Pedro Beltran who heads the biology department at Unity Biotechnology, a 90 person-strong company trying to halt, slow or reverse age-associated diseases in humans by killing senescent cells.
Developing therapies to kill senescent cells is a burgeoning part of the wider quest to defeat aging and keep people healthier longer. Unity, which was founded in 2011, has received more than $385m in funding to date including investment from big tech names such as Amazon's Jeff Bezos and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. It went public this May and is valued at more than $700m. Its first drug entered early clinical trials in June, aimed at treating osteoarthritis. Other startups with zombie cells in their sights include Seattle-based Oisin Biotechnologies which was founded in 2016 and has raised around $4m; Senolytic Therapeutics whose scientific development is based in Spain and which was established last September (it won't disclose its financing other than to say it has a first round, which will allow it to reach clinical trials); and Cleara Biotech, formed this June backed by $3m in funding and based in the Netherlands. In addition, Scottish company CellAge, also founded in 2016, has raised about $100,000 to date, partly through a crowdfunding campaign. The report goes on to detail Unity's plan to kill senescent cells. Their method is to target the biological pathways senescent cells use to resist the normal death of aging cells. "The company's approach is to find small molecules (so called 'senolytics') that can do this," reports The Guardian. "But because small molecules, by their nature, can get everywhere in the body, the approach is prone to unwanted side-effects." As a result, the company has turned to localized treatment.
Meanwhile, Oisin is trying to kill all a person's zombie cells in one go. "The idea is to load the body with nanoparticles that insert a 'suicide gene' into every cell," reports The Guardian. "It only triggers if a cell has a lot of particular protein (p16) that acts as a marker of zombie cells, albeit imperfectly." It plans to test this method on late-stage cancer patients next year.
Developing therapies to kill senescent cells is a burgeoning part of the wider quest to defeat aging and keep people healthier longer. Unity, which was founded in 2011, has received more than $385m in funding to date including investment from big tech names such as Amazon's Jeff Bezos and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. It went public this May and is valued at more than $700m. Its first drug entered early clinical trials in June, aimed at treating osteoarthritis. Other startups with zombie cells in their sights include Seattle-based Oisin Biotechnologies which was founded in 2016 and has raised around $4m; Senolytic Therapeutics whose scientific development is based in Spain and which was established last September (it won't disclose its financing other than to say it has a first round, which will allow it to reach clinical trials); and Cleara Biotech, formed this June backed by $3m in funding and based in the Netherlands. In addition, Scottish company CellAge, also founded in 2016, has raised about $100,000 to date, partly through a crowdfunding campaign. The report goes on to detail Unity's plan to kill senescent cells. Their method is to target the biological pathways senescent cells use to resist the normal death of aging cells. "The company's approach is to find small molecules (so called 'senolytics') that can do this," reports The Guardian. "But because small molecules, by their nature, can get everywhere in the body, the approach is prone to unwanted side-effects." As a result, the company has turned to localized treatment.
Meanwhile, Oisin is trying to kill all a person's zombie cells in one go. "The idea is to load the body with nanoparticles that insert a 'suicide gene' into every cell," reports The Guardian. "It only triggers if a cell has a lot of particular protein (p16) that acts as a marker of zombie cells, albeit imperfectly." It plans to test this method on late-stage cancer patients next year.
It's the only way for change to happen. Imagine in people from 200 years ago were still alive and voting. We'd never progress as a society.
"And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new."
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
"zombie cells" ... have ceased to divide but are also resistant to dying.
Init will take care of them eventually.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Spoiler alert: You die anyway.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
And the first person to undergo this life extension will be...Hitler.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
How do we know senescent cells don't play some other important role?
So many times we think something is 'bad', when it's actually quite helpful (and a reason it evolved to that point). Let's sterilize everything - oh wait, now our immune function is compromised and pathogens get stronger. Lactic acid is why muscles hurt and stop - oh wait, it's actually fuel for muscles and transports out the actual 'bad stuff'.
Maybe they're genuinely bad, useless cells...but it seems more often than not this is the wrong way to think about it.
If you would do us the kindness to RTFA, you would realize that your lifespan will not be increased if you were suddenly able to eliminate all of your senescent cells. Life extension is not on the table with this approach, as it is with techniques that mimic caloric restriction.
However, should your senescent cells all undergo sudden removal, you would find yourself free from a number of age-related diseases. The article asserts that even a small number of senescent cells are able to act as powerful pathogens in otherwise healthy tissues.
I also wholeheartedly agree that your type of people need to die. I, however would prefer any and all options for life extension, and I would gladly undertake environmental responsibilities and obligations to ameliorate my "footprint."
It's interesting that the comments have skewed toward a fear, an existential fear, of this research. MIT Tech Review (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612124/clearing-out-old-cells-might-help-the-brain/) on 9/19/2018 first caught my eye. The goal seems less about extending one's lifespan as retaining 'vigor' as we age. The diseases, age-related impairments, that are within the scope of this research are considerable. I haven't seen any documentation about the possible benefit of longer life. Doesn't sound unreasonable, however. We have a serious problem with ageism in the States. In the Bay Area, the 40's can be more than just a bump in the road for your career. More like a concrete barricade. We take for granted that there'll be a decline in our quality of life rather early on.
For those with the appropriate science background, here's a relevant article from Nature: https://go.nature.com/2PkZqLR (hope this shortened url works, the original was tremendously long). Also, under patent 9,980,962 May 2018, the abstract states, "Methods are provided herein for selectively killing senescent cells and for treating senescence-associated diseases and disorders by administering a senolytic agent. Senescence-associated diseases and disorders treatable by the methods using the senolytic agents described herein include cardiovascular diseases and disorders associated with or caused by arteriosclerosis, such as atherosclerosis; idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; osteoarthritis; senescence-associated ophthalmic diseases and disorders; and senescence-associated dermatological diseases and disorders."
In sum, not scary at all. At least to those with related conditions or the possibility of same. And that's just about all of us.
Nature already figured this out. Autophagy kicks in in a fasted state.
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
It may be dangerous, but I don't much like the alternative.
I think the only thing that isn't dying is this story; I've read an article talking about how Death itself will be cured "any day now" for the past 20 years, and we are still nowhere near closer to a cure than when Indiana Jones set out looking for the Holy Grail.
We can't even cure Male Pattern Baldness, where the cure has been 5 years away for 50 years.
One other thing, if a cure does come out I'll be glad to take it; if only to find out what discoveries they make out in the Universe. It is strange to see that the average Slashdot poster has such a bad life that they would welcome Death; is the stereotype about the average Slashdot user true? or is it simply because the average Slashdot user comes from the USA and so would only be working for that 300 years anyway?
120 characters should be enough for anybody
I wish you a long and happy life. I don't know how slashdot could continue if AC passed away.
Nullius in verba
Birth rate is already at or below replacement rate in the developed world where this treatment would be available.
Technically correct while missing the greater point. It's not the "who" so much as the "what kind of person"? Life extend every dictator and see what happens.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
How ironic if we were to eliminate ageing just as the planet decides to rid itself of us irritating little ticks.