Anti-ageing research
Increasing healthspan by targeting biological ageing as an underlying cause of disease
This profile is tailored towards students studying biological sciences, however we expect there to be valuable open research questions that could be pursued by students in other disciplines.
Why is this a pressing problem?
The biological ageing process is the most important causal risk factor for frailty and disease. Nearly 50% of deaths worldwide occur at the age of 70 or older. As life expectancy increases over the coming decades, this number will significantly increase and most people will spend a longer time in poor health.
Research targeting major age-related diseases is flourishing, however relatively few scientists study ageing itself. To increase human healthspan effectively, it is useful to shift the focus from the individual diseases that are symptoms of ageing – such as cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s – and focus on the underlying cause. This could not only prevent the onset of fatal age-related diseases but also drastically improve the overall quality of life for the elderly.
Ageing is characterised by the functional decline of an organism over time, leading to an exponential increase in mortality. However, although various biological changes have been shown to be correlated with ageing, such as increasing DNA damage and cellular senescence, methylation changes, stem cell dysfunction and increased inflammation, it is still unknown exactly how these processes interact or how much they contribute to ageing overall.
Despite how much is still left to discover, studies have shown it is possible to increase an organism’s healthy lifespan by tackling the ageing process itself. For example, treatment with the drug rapamycin can increase the lifespan of mice by up to 60% and a drug that targets senescent cells can increase fitness, kidney function and hair density in old mice. Preliminary trials seem to support the translatability of both these and other discoveries to humans.
Watch the video below for a short introduction to the value of targeting ageing directly.
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Contributors: This profile was last updated 11/11/2022. Thanks to Veerle de Goederen and William Bradshaw for originally creating this profile. Thanks to Jose Luis Ricon, Michael Rae, Cyril Lagger, Anais Equey, Patrick Wilson and Josue Ballesteros for helpful feedback. All mistakes remain our own. Learn more about how we create our profiles.
