A red-hot anti-aging strategy quietly passed its first test earlier this year after 14 volunteers took drugs meant to kill off old, toxic cells in their bodies.
The small study in people with lung disease, reported in January, is being billed as the first attempt at “senolytics,” or employing drugs to clear people’s bodies of aged, toxic cells. Some researchers think this strategy could eventually be employed in healthy people to delay aging.
“This gives us to some extent a green light to go on to larger trials,” says James Kirkland, a Mayo Clinic professor who helped lead the trial, carried out in clinics in Texas and at Wake Forest University starting in 2016.
Patients took two pills that Kirkland and his colleagues believed could selectively get rid of aged cells: the leukemia drug dasatinib and a supplement called quercetin.
It is early days for drugs meant to slow aging, and some breathed a sigh of relief that patients in this first-of-a-kind study didn’t suffer serious side-effects from the drugs. “My worry is we should not leap into this too fast, because if there’s a mistake or something we don’t understand, it could set the field back,” says Judith Campisi, a professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, California.
This was a pilot trial—not even in the first phase of a three-part sequence of trials needed to win approval by the US Food and Drug Administration. So, officially, it showed nothing about aging at all.
All 14 patients suffered from a fatal, hard-to-treat lung condition called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which explains why they were willing to participate in the experiment. The doctors found that nine doses of the two pills over three weeks did seem to improve patients’ ability to walk a bit farther in the same amount of time, and several other measures of well-being.
A bubble of commercial enthusiasm has been building around the idea that aging could be postponed, or its effects tempered, using drug treatments. A company called Unity Biotechnology of Brisbane, California, is developing two senolytic drugs, the first of which is in a phase 1 clinical trial for osteoarthritis—it’s being injected into people’s knees. Campisi is a cofounder of Unity, and Kirkland also holds shares in the public company, which is currently worth about half a billion dollars.
Image Credit: James Kirkland, Mayo Clinic professor. Mayo Clinic
News This Week
New nanomedicine wipes out leukemia in animal study
In a promising advance for cancer treatment, Northwestern University scientists have re-engineered the molecular structure of a common chemotherapy drug, making it dramatically more soluble and effective and less toxic. In the new study, [...]
Mystery Solved: Scientists Find Cause for Unexplained, Deadly Diseases
A study reveals that a protein called RPA is essential for maintaining chromosome stability by stimulating telomerase. New findings from the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggest that problems with a key protein that helps preserve chromosome stability [...]
Nanotech Blocks Infection and Speed Up Chronic Wound Recovery
A new nanotech-based formulation using quercetin and omega-3 fatty acids shows promise in halting bacterial biofilms and boosting skin cell repair. Scientists have developed a nanotechnology-based treatment to fight bacterial biofilms in wound infections. The [...]
Researchers propose five key questions for effective adoption of AI in clinical practice
While Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be a powerful tool that physicians can use to help diagnose their patients and has great potential to improve accuracy, efficiency and patient safety, it has its drawbacks. It [...]
Advancements and clinical translation of intelligent nanodrugs for breast cancer treatment
A comprehensive review in "Biofunct. Mater." meticulously details the most recent advancements and clinical translation of intelligent nanodrugs for breast cancer treatment. This paper presents an exhaustive overview of subtype-specific nanostrategies, the clinical benefits [...]
It’s Not “All in Your Head”: Scientists Develop Revolutionary Blood Test for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
A 96% accurate blood test for ME/CFS could transform diagnosis and pave the way for future long COVID detection. Researchers from the University of East Anglia and Oxford Biodynamics have created a highly accurate [...]
How Far Can the Body Go? Scientists Find the Ultimate Limit of Human Endurance
Even the most elite endurance athletes can’t outrun biology. A new study finds that humans hit a metabolic ceiling at about 2.5 times their resting energy burn. When ultra-runners take on races that last [...]
World’s Rivers “Overdosing” on Human Antibiotics, Study Finds
Researchers estimate that approximately 8,500 tons of antibiotics enter river systems each year after passing through the human body and wastewater treatment processes. Rivers spanning millions of kilometers across the globe are contaminated with [...]
Yale Scientists Solve a Century-Old Brain Wave Mystery
Yale scientists traced gamma brain waves to thalamus-cortex interactions. The discovery could reveal how brain rhythms shape perception and disease. For more than a century, scientists have observed rhythmic waves of synchronized neuronal activity [...]
Can introducing peanuts early prevent allergies? Real-world data confirms it helps
New evidence from a large U.S. primary care network shows that early peanut introduction, endorsed in 2015 and 2017 guidelines, was followed by a marked decline in clinician-diagnosed peanut and overall food allergies among [...]
Nanoparticle blueprints reveal path to smarter medicines
Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are the delivery vehicles of modern medicine, carrying cancer drugs, gene therapies and vaccines into cells. Until recently, many scientists assumed that all LNPs followed more or less the same blueprint, [...]
How nanomedicine and AI are teaming up to tackle neurodegenerative diseases
When I first realized the scale of the challenge posed by neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), I felt simultaneously humbled and motivated. These disorders are not caused [...]
Self-Organizing Light Could Transform Computing and Communications
USC engineers have demonstrated a new kind of optical device that lets light organize its own route using the principles of thermodynamics. Instead of relying on switches or digital control, the light finds its own [...]
Groundbreaking New Way of Measuring Blood Pressure Could Save Thousands of Lives
A new method that improves the accuracy of interpreting blood pressure measurements taken at the ankle could be vital for individuals who are unable to have their blood pressure measured on the arm. A newly developed [...]
Scientist tackles key roadblock for AI in drug discovery
The drug development pipeline is a costly and lengthy process. Identifying high-quality "hit" compounds—those with high potency, selectivity, and favorable metabolic properties—at the earliest stages is important for reducing cost and accelerating the path [...]
Nanoplastics with environmental coatings can sneak past the skin’s defenses
Plastic is ubiquitous in the modern world, and it's notorious for taking a long time to completely break down in the environment - if it ever does. But even without breaking down completely, plastic [...]
Leave A Comment