Aging can be turned off
Biologist Maxim Skulachev gave a lecture in Tver
Lyubov Kukushkina, newspaper "Caravan"
On July 13, within the framework of the project "Intellectual parties "Caravan+I"" Maxim Skulachev, a leading researcher at the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University, the son of academician Vladimir Skulachev, co–author of the book "Life without Old Age", came to Tver. The team led by the Skulachevs has been studying the mechanisms of aging and ways to prevent it for many years. Maxim's lecture, held at the Tvertsa Yacht Club, was called "Aging as a malicious program that can be turned off."
Cell Suicide
Maxim Skulachev admitted that he travels more often to scientific conferences and rarely speaks in the format of popular science lectures. He thanked the "Caravan" for drawing attention to a topic that is strangely not raised in the media.
– What I'm going to tell you is a hypothesis, – Maxim immediately warned. – It is difficult to prove anything in biology at all. But the hypothesis is very pretty and has confirmed its validity in many aspects.
Maxim's father, Academician Vladimir Petrovich Skulachev (by the way, Maxim himself calls him nothing but "Academician"), is the most quoted Russian biologist. In the late 1970s, he stopped a step away from the Nobel Prize. The discovery of special molecules (ions penetrating the mitochondria), with the help of which it was possible to prove that there is electricity in this part of the cell, was made at Moscow State University, in the laboratories of Skulachev. However, the Nobel Prize was given to Peter Mitchell, the scientist who put forward this bold hypothesis. He and Skulachev were friends and colleagues. The molecules, by the way, were called "Skulachev ions" and at the beginning of the XXI century became an important part of the mechanism of combating aging.
But more on that later.
Maxim accompanied his lecture with a creative presentation, a cartoon and even a cut from a James Bond movie.
The main message of the team of scientists led by Academician Vladimir Skulachev is that aging is a regulated process, a certain program of biochemical suicide, laid down at the genetic level, which at a certain moment is launched in the human body.
– It has long been proven that all cells have a program of apoptosis (programmed death). Biological systems can destroy themselves. We believe that aging is just such a program. And if it is a program, it can be "disabled".
At the request of Skulachev, the famous linguist Mikhail Gasparov coined a term for the programmed death of an organism – "phenoptosis". From this point of view, aging is considered as "slow phenoptosis".
The secret of the naked digger
The first postulate of the Skulachevs is "Old age is not a mandatory program at all." Death is an important mechanism of evolution, with the help of which there is a generational change. But you can come to death and not through the mechanism of aging. Today, scientists are struggling not with the problem of immortality (this is impossible), but above all with the problem of active longevity.
Today, the main totem of gerontologists from all over the world is a naked digger, an animal that lives in African deserts. The phenomenon of the digger is that he does not age and does not actually suffer from cancer (oncological diseases are also age-dependent). Maxim showed the audience a funny cartoon about a digger and said that a personal website of a naked digger will be launched soon – he will talk about the latest scientific developments on the topic of aging.
Hence the second postulate of the lecture – if the digger somehow turned off the aging mechanism in the process of evolution, a person can do it.
Skulachev spoke about non-pharmacological ways to "push back" aging. First of all, this is a small stress that the body can cope with by itself: restriction of nutrition (but not complete hunger), muscle loads (but not to exhaustion), severe, but not too much, hypothermia, poisoning with poisons in "homeopathic" doses. Skulachev paid great attention to the psychological aspect of aging.
– It has been proven that elderly people who are integrated into society and feel their "neediness" live to 90 and above. People in the east live longer because they are very busy raising children and are generally socially active. In Japan, for example, there are no nursing homes. In Eastern culture, age is an achievement. When will a 60-year-old Japanese woman be told: "You look 80!", that would be a compliment.
According to research, active mental activity also prolongs life – among Nobel laureates 16.67% are over 90 years old, among academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences – 7.51% of 90-year-olds, and among ordinary Americans there are only 0.15%. It is curious that conductors also fall into the group of centenarians – 12.12%.
– I think this is a strong pedagogical moment. Man is a unique animal. We are allowed to live after we have stopped reproducing, because we transmit information to our descendants not only with the help of genes, but also with the help of speech. Only a person has developed the institution of "useful" grandparents. As a rule, all scientists, and conductors too, are people with a wide range of students. They actively share their experience, pass it on to new generations and thus perform an important evolutionary function.
The recipe for James Bond
When the hypothesis of aging as a program arose, scientists started talking about intervention – the use of substances that interrupt the work of the aging program. Academician Skulachev himself states that the search for a "cure for old age" has turned into a technological task today.
It is proved that the mechanism of aging is closely related to free radicals – active forms of oxygen that accumulate in cells. When the mass of free radicals becomes critical, the organ ceases to function. James Bond, by the way, in the movie "Never say Never," the doctor prescribed not to abuse meat, white bread and martinis, so as not to increase the number of free radicals in the body. "We'll have to give up white bread," Bond concluded.
However, Maxim Skulachev has a better recipe.
– Most of the free radicals are formed in the mitochondria, our "energy station", where food is burned in oxygen, which gives energy. Some of the oxygen turns into very active toxic molecules. It has been known for a long time, but only in the XXI century there was a technology that allows you to do something about it," says Maxim. – Antioxidants fight free radicals. They are well known to everyone: vitamins E and C: green tea, cranberries, blueberries… However, traditional antioxidants are ineffective. They cannot penetrate the mitochondria, as they are protected by a dense shell.
The third postulate and the main idea of Academician Skulachev is that he invented a mechanism for transporting antioxidants with an accuracy of up to a nanometer to the exact place where free radicals are formed. We are talking about the very "Skulachev ion" to which the remainder of plastoquinone is "sewn" – the strongest antioxidant available in nature.
– These ions are able to pass through any biological shells, there are no barriers for them in our body, – says Maxim. – They carry a positive charge. So lucky that there is only one place in our body with a negative charge – mitochondria. Any substance could be "sewn" to this ion to deliver it to the mitochondria. Skulachev invented and drew this construction. The ion to which the antioxidant is sewn passes through the walls into the mitochondria and begins to fight free radicals.
So scientists synthesized a new substance – mitochondrial antioxidants SkQ1 (antioxidant + ion Skulachev).
Since 2005, MSU has been developing the effect of SkQ1 on the aging process. More than five clinical trials have been conducted, one of them in the USA.
– We conducted a very simple experiment: we fed rats with SkQ1 substance, measured their condition. Here are two rats of the same age. The first one did not take SkQ1, look: she developed osteoporosis, she went blind, her mustache fell out. The second rat that took SkQ1 is devoid of these signs of aging, and the whiskers are intact.
Will there be a cure for old age by 2035?
It takes many years to conduct a clinical trial of a systemic drug that slows down aging on a person
Therefore, the fourth postulate of the Skulachevs: it is necessary to act locally. If now it is impossible to completely "cure" old age, you can start with senile diseases. This is how eye drops were created and patented, which are already officially proven to help against a number of senile diseases – dry eye, cataracts. The active substance in it is the same SkQ1.
– This is the only drug in the world that has a targeted effect on mitochondria and, according to our original idea, slows down the aging of the eye, – says Maxim.
Skulachev presented a roadmap for development. According to her, by 2018 it is planned to release a systemic drug that slows down the aging process (in September 2015, the first phase of clinical trials started), and by 2035, the "cure for old age" will be widely used.
Academician Skulachev himself, as the author of the idea, conducts an experiment on himself – for several years he has been dripping drops from SkQ1.
– It was risky, because not all the tests were carried out, – Maxim admits. – But Vladimir Petrovich made an argument that our experiments did not work on very old rats… And the academician is already 82 years old, so he did not delay the experiment. And, interestingly, now his hair has begun to darken, although he has been gray as a harrier for decades. We saw the same thing on rats taking SkQ1 – their skin darkened.
After the lecture, Maxim was hit by a flurry of questions – from "Does alcohol help in the fight against aging" to "Is gene therapy effective in this matter".
For the author of the best question, "Caravan + Me" has prepared a surprise – the book "Life without old age". By the decision of Skulachev himself, Pavel Korolev, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Tver Region, who asked serious scientific questions, received a gift (Pavel is a medical doctor by education, this is his hobby). The same prize went to Dmitry Bolshakov, the winner of the drawing in the group "Caravan + Me" VKontakte.
But the gifts did not end there – Maxim Skulachev prepared cosmetic gifts for the ladies, made using SkQ1. We hope that the domestic innovative development will find its application not only in Russia, but also abroad.
Discussions of the ideas voiced by Skulachev continued after the lecture and the next day. Everyone had something to say, something to agree with, something to argue with, something to think about. And this, in fact, is the goal of the project "Intellectual parties".
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru
15.07.2016