Invest in Longevity
We invite you not to grow old
Galina Kostina, Stimul magazine
Now the approximate limit of the maximum life expectancy is 120 years. The most famous centenarian, Jeanne Kalman, died at the age of 122, while, as she stated on her 120th birthday, at 110 she quit smoking, and a little earlier - cycling, but did not give up porto and chocolate. Some researchers, however, doubt that it was actually Jeanne, and not her daughter. But it doesn't matter in the end. There are not so few centenarians in the world who have already celebrated their centenary. In 2012, according to some data, there were 343 thousand "centenaries", by 2050, according to forecasts, there will be more than three million of them.
Last week, a conference "Investing in Immortality" was held in Moscow, organized by Forbes Russia with the support of the Centaura non-profit project. The conference was devoted to the issues of scientific progress in the fight against aging and investments in biotechnology. It was attended by leading researchers of aging from the USA, Singapore and the UK, representatives of pharmaceutical companies, venture funds and medical organizations. Scientists said that, although much in this field of science is still unknown, both interest in this field and the amount of data on the biological basis of aging is rapidly accumulating. Model organisms – worms and mice – already live much longer. The main conclusion: yes, the average duration of human life can be extended, make it healthier and push the maximum limit.
Old age is bad with diseases
Demographers claim that humanity is rapidly aging. In the first fifteen years of the new century, the population growth over the age of 60 was 2.3%, in the next fifteen years it will be 4%. UN experts predict that in 2030 the elderly population will reach 1.4 billion people, and by 2050 - 2.1 billion.
Brian Kennedy, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Physiology at the Yong Lu Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore and Director of the Center for Healthy Aging at the National University of Health System. Here and further photos Forbes.ru .
Unfortunately, he says Brian Kennedy of the National University of Singapore, the increase in life expectancy does not keep pace with the improvement in health at this age. Most elderly people begin to overcome diseases that are called age-dependent, because they are more often manifested in the last third of life: mainly cardiovascular diseases, type II diabetes, atherosclerosis, dementia, osteoporosis, cancer, arthritis, eye diseases. This scares people most of all who have passed their earthly life up to half. This worries society, if only because the pressure on the budget is significantly increasing. OECD analysts believe that by 2050, pensions, which now account for an average of 7.4% of GDP, can grow to 10.6%, health care costs – from the current 5.5% to 8.3%. An alternative to increasing budget expenditures can be investments in science and research aimed at studying aging and finding ways to prolong the activity and functionality of people.
Actively such a fundamental antiaging began to develop only ten years ago. Previously, this term meant mainly cosmetics – creams for "rejuvenation", injections of hyaluronic acid and other instrumental procedures, paints from gray hair, as well as simple supplements such as echinacea or vitamins. In recent years, conferences have been increasingly held in the world, where scientists specializing in the fundamental mechanisms of aging and companies groping for molecules associated with open mechanisms gather.
The Moscow conference was opened by Brian Kennedy, who for many years headed the American Institute of the Buck, which is specifically dealing with the problems of longevity. Now he has moved to the National University of Singapore, because in his opinion, this country is the most comfortable and promising environment for research in the field of biotechnology, in particular in the field of longevity. The Singapore government provides substantial support for these studies, since the prospects are threatening: by 2030, there will be only two young people per old person. In 2000, the ratio was 1:8. According to Kennedy, Singapore is now one of the leading sites for the study of aging.
Factors of aging
There are many theories of aging, but most scientists agree that aging is the result of the accumulation of damage in the cells of the body. But there is no one specific factor that triggers these damages. Aging is a systemic process. Many scientists tend to call aging a disease. Injuries constantly accumulate in different organs and tissues and cause various age-related diseases. We begin to treat their consequences when molecular pathologies are already irreversible, so treatment is very difficult and expensive. Many experts in the field of aging believe that it is necessary to treat not many different diseases, but one – aging itself, and start doing it proactively.
Another thing is that so far no unambiguous approaches to such treatment have been proposed. Recently, according to Vera Gorbunova from the University of Rochester, there has been a real explosion in the definition of biomarkers of aging. Biomarkers of aging are called various indicators of the vital activity of the body, which vary both quantitatively and qualitatively depending on age. According to Professor of Syktyvkar State University and professor of MIPT Alexey Moskalev, more than 600 biomarkers are now known, as a rule, they are associated with the risks of developing various diseases. They can be present at various levels of the organization of a living system and be systemic – for example, changes in the immune system, in the blood system, brain functions, kidneys; they can be at the cellular level – for example, the so-called cellular aging, when normally dividing cells refuse to divide, go into a state of rest; they can be at the molecular level – for example, chromosome breakage.
One of the important biomarkers of aging, the speakers at the conference noted, are the so-called methyl tags. These tags, "sitting down" on certain parts of DNA, can affect the activity of the genes to which they are attached, reducing certain functions of the body. According to many scientists, the methylation pattern makes it possible to clearly determine the biological age of an organism, which may differ significantly from the chronological one. However, the methyl labels do not show either the causes or the targets for the effects.
Vadim Gladyshev, Professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, director of the Redox Medicine Center and a member of the Brod Institute.
According to a professor at Harvard University Medical School Vadim Gladyshev, the ability to measure aging through biomarkers is a very big breakthrough in fundamental science. However, it has not yet been determined which combination of these biomarkers can help identify the main mechanisms that can be effectively affected.
Movement towards understanding
According to Brian Kennedy, the study of the mechanisms of aging is conducted on a broad front, there is an accumulation of material. Many scientists deal with long-lived or ageless organisms. For example, Andrei Seluanov and Vera Gorbunova from the University of Rochester are looking for features that allow them to live for a long time in naked navvies or bowhead whales. The former, unlike their relatives – ordinary mice, live ten times longer, as a rule, they are practically not susceptible to age-related diseases, in particular cancer. Bowhead whales live for about 200 years. Vadim Gladyshev's laboratory is studying the genome of Brandt's moth. This little bat lives for more than 40 years – almost twice as long as other bats.
Joao Pedro de Magalhaes, Professor at the University of Liverpool.
Joao Pedro de Magalhaes from the University of Liverpool says that in recent years, more than two thousand genes that are associated with aging have been discovered. There are a lot of studies that show how manipulations with the genome of living organisms prolong their life. In particular, with the change of only one gene, the life of the nematode worm increased tenfold. And changing one gene in a mouse allows an individual to live 40% longer and better. "If we extrapolated such an increase in life expectancy per person, we could argue that he could have crossed the threshold of 150 years. However, it is not the figure itself that is more important, but the good state of the body," says Magalhaes. According to the Liverpool professor, genetic interventions are one of the most promising ways to influence an increase in life expectancy and, most importantly, to maintain the functions inherent in a healthy active age. "If anti–aging drugs that are being studied on animals can extend life by several percent, then genetic intervention is at least 50 percent," he says.
However, researchers are exploring different approaches to the effects on aging. According to Brian Kennedy, it is well known that physical and mental activity, abstinence from alcohol, periodic fasting lead to a good effect. Various candidates for the title of anti–aging drugs are tested on animals - rapamycin, metformin, acarbose, which reduces the concentration of glucose levels in the blood, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and others. "We are still moving forward in small steps, using some of the available mechanisms in animals, human studies have not yet been conducted," says Brian. "This is partly due to the fact that we still do not fully understand aging in general, partly due to the fact that the regulation of research in this area has not yet been formalized." As a result, the sphere of antiaging is clearly underinvested. Of the several hundred billion dollars that are spent on medical research, only a few percent go to practical research in the field of aging and longevity.
More risk
"We will need a lot more time to study the fundamental foundations of aging," says a professor at the University of Texas Western Medical Center Jerry Shay, – and this requires much larger investments than those that laboratories and scientists are currently receiving. It is impossible to invest in one or two laboratories, because no scientist can predict where the breakthrough will be. And a breakthrough is possible only with longitudinal studies by many scientists."
According to the participants of the conference, many investors are not ready to invest in this area yet, at least because they do not understand very well how it is connected with the industry. "Investors are conservative," says Joao Pedro de Magalhaes, "they are set up for short–term projects with a horizon of three to four years. We need investors with more risk than the current ones. I honestly don't understand why investing in football clubs or cancer drugs is much more than investing in the study of old age, where breakthroughs concern everyone living on the planet."
Vladimir Pozner, Russian and American journalist and TV presenter, radio host, first president of the Academy of Russian Television, writer.
A well-known TV presenter invited to the discussion asked the same question Vladimir Pozner. Emphasizing his youth with bright yellow socks, Posner, at the age of 85, admitted that he does not consider himself to be an old man. "When I'm awake, I feel like a twenty-year-old, if not very forty-year-old. I am surprised that this area does not receive a decent investment, I suspect that you have not yet learned how to pack your goods. Ask any person if he will give money to not be senile in old age. I am convinced that he will."
The trend for large investments in the fight against aging dates back to 2014, when Google created a subsidiary company Calico. In 2018, the volume of investments in life extension technologies, according to CB Insights analysts, amounted to a record $ 850 million. At the same time, most anti-aging companies are still focusing on some particular aspect, rather than demonstrating an integrated approach: more than half of all investments are in projects that develop pharmaceutical solutions, about a third are in projects for processing large biological data and developing medical rejuvenation techniques such as blood transfusion from a young donor or regenerative medicine; a small amount of money has been invested in the development of specialized diets and supplements. Until now, almost no one has invested in companies that are engaged in a comprehensive solution to the problem of aging using various approaches.
Vitaly Ponomarev, international entrepreneur in the field of technology, investor, popularizer of the development of transport mobility.
Understanding this, Vitaly Ponomarev, the founder of the successful WayRay company, which creates holographic screen displays and is estimated at $ 500 million, decided to dive into the problems of longevity. Last year, he founded Centaura, a non-profit anti-aging project, where he invested $ 16 million of his own funds. According to him, the victory over aging is a large–scale task that can be solved if we abandon the traditional business short planning horizon. He is confident that proper financial support will help to defeat aging in the same way as infectious diseases were defeated at the time. The company conducts its research (in rented laboratories), and also supports the world's leading laboratories in this field. It is also invested in individual promising scientists. According to the scientific director of Centaura Natalia Vorobyeva, the main areas of research are the study of molecular and cellular mechanisms of aging, the development of genetic engineering techniques and epigenetic regulation, as well as the study of the participation of individual biological structures in the aging process, for example exosomes.
"Our position is non–standard," says Natalia. – We invest in fundamental science, in the study of molecular foundations and in the development of methods aimed at optimizing the work of the body's cells. This area requires long-term R&D, and that is why classic venture options do not work in these areas."
The only way to create effective methods of combating aging is to conduct more research, both on cells and model animals, and clinical ones, to see: we can extend the active period of human life and the maximum life expectancy, Jerry Shay is convinced.
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