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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."
If we could completely stop aging, the average life expectance would only jump to about 300. You can calculate this by extrapolating out the death rate of a 25 year old. People would eventually die from other things besides old age. This would likely be a net benefit to society. We would greatly reduce our heathcare costs and people wouldn't have to retire because they are no longer capable of working. It would likely have other effects too. People might decide to be more careful with their driving and eating habits if they knew that it was up to them how long they could live.
They'll probably be maintaining COBOL and FORTRAN systems.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
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."
It also causes valuable lessons to be lost.The people who experienced Hiroshima and it's after-effects are better placed to fight against it happening again than people who just read about it as bored schoolchildren. It becomes easier to deny the holocaust when the survivors are dead of old age. And regulations put in place after the Great Depression were swept away by later generations who considered them obsolete relics, until the consequences became apparent in 2008.
Who know what the side effects of eliminating these cells are going to be.
Long life.
They may not appear for generations. We thought that aggressive use of antibiotics and routine use of antibacterials would be a good idea
They are. We live longer, healthier lives than ever in human history. All thanks to those good ideas.
until we bred the superbugs that one day could eliminate us.
We didn't breed "superbugs". Life evolved, as it always does. The phrase "superbug" is fearmongering nonsense meant to attract attiontion. Every disease which we couldn't fight in the past was a "superbug". Measles. Polio. Smallpox. The plague. They killed and maimed incredible numbers of people and we had no defense against them. Today Ebola is one of the most potentially harmful diseases on the planet, and it has absolutely nothing to do with antibiotics or antibacterials.
I've never understood the mindset of the horribly confused people who seem to believe that we shouldn't bother fighting diseases or pests because new ones will evolve. That's like suggesting that we shouldn't eat today because we'll just be hungry again tomorrow.