Went to overtime
How geneticists, Google and Rusnano are fighting for eternal life
Anastasia Zyryanova, Forbes, 29.11.2016
What if old age is a disease and you can fight it? A detailed analysis of advanced research shows that such a hypothesis is not far from the truth.
The world belongs to the young, advertising tells us. As if not so, the official statistics laugh. The average age in the EU, according to Eurostat, as of January 1, 2015 is 42.4 years. More than half of EU residents are over 40 years old, and from 2001 to 2015 the average age of an EU citizen increased by 4.1 years.
In October 2016, the journal Nature published the results of a study by scientists from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (New York, USA), according to which the natural life expectancy of a person cannot exceed approximately 115 years. Scientists studied the database of human mortality, which includes 38 countries, and found that since the beginning of the XX century, human life expectancy has steadily increased, and after 1980, reaching about 99 years, it significantly slowed down the growth rate. After making some calculations, Jan Weig, the geneticist who led the study, determined that a person's chance of crossing the 125-year mark is less than 1/10,000.
Many elderly people die from diseases, and not from natural causes. Scientists at Newcastle University (UK) report that old people have an average of four to five chronic diseases. More and more money is being invested in the development of predictive medicine and the digital sector (applications for remote access to consultations and health monitoring). One of the main goals is the fight against cancer. 36% of all investments of American venture funds in 2015 and the first half of 2016 went into this area. The ATEM Capital fund, founded by Anton Gopka, a former managing partner of the venture company Rosnanomedinvest, invests in cancer companies. L1 Health, a division of Mikhail Fridman's company LetterOne Holdings, is also engaged in investments in the biotechnological sphere.
Scientists are beginning to perceive old age as a disease that can be fought. Science offers more and more ways to cope with senile diseases.
DNA anti-aging
One of the radical methods that scientists propose is gene editing. The first person with a modified genome for the purpose of rejuvenation was an American Elizabeth Parrish, who heads the biotech company BioViva. In April 2016, the company announced an experiment conducted on Parrish, as a result of which she allegedly biologically rejuvenated by 20 years. According to Parrish, she went through two stages of therapy. At the first, she was injected with a drug, a myostatin inhibitor, which is usually taken to combat muscle loss, at the second, the telomeres of her chromosomes were lengthened (their end sections, which become shorter with each cell division).
This summer, Parrish came to Moscow and some perceived her presentation as a theater in order to attract more customers to fake bait. Scientists really have doubts about Parrish's methods. Timothy Caulfield, a professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta (Canada), told the Guardian that BioViva's methods lack scientific accuracy. Parrish is a "patient zero", so it is not yet possible to draw far–reaching conclusions about the effectiveness of such gene editing, but the way she actively promotes this technique can mislead many people. Project consultant George Martin, a professor of pathology at the University of Washington, collaborated with Parrish for several weeks and quit: he says that he did not suspect that BioViva was going to conduct tests on a person without proper preclinical studies.
The role of DNA in aging is also addressed by Human Longevity Inc. (HLI), one of the founders is geneticist Craig Venter, a man who sequenced the human genome (his own) for the first time in the world. HLI is building the world's largest sequencing center and is analyzing the human genome in order to calculate possible diseases. Including senile: as indicated on the company's website, it focuses its activities on cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart and liver diseases, as well as dementia. Now a genetic test from HLI costs the patient $250. The company plans to sequence 40,000 human genomes per year, and then reach the 100,000 mark. HLI is also engaged in developments related to human stem cells. She is going to analyze the changes in the genome that occur during the differentiation of stem cells, aging and the development of diseases.
Calico, a company founded by Google in 2013, whose activities are mostly kept secret, is also engaged in DNA research: it is going to analyze the genetic data of centenarians (thanks to cooperation with the AncestryDNA DNA database containing information about 7 million births) and use its findings in the development of a cure for aging. Alphabet, which owns Google, has already invested about $730 million in Calico.
Dreams of longevity in Silicon Valley
The IT giant dreams of fighting aging. The position of technical director of Google is occupied by one of the most famous futurists – Raymond Kurzweil, founder of Singularity University. He believes that man will achieve immortality by 2029. The transhumanist view is shared by the ex-head and founder of Google Ventures, Bill Maris (by the way, he is a neuroscientist by education). In an interview with Bloomberg, he once expressed confidence that the development of technologies and biomechanics in the future will allow a person to live about 500 years. Maris played a key role in the creation of Calico. Under his influence, Google Ventures funds were directed to the development of companies engaged in cancer diagnostics and genome research. And he is not the only one in Silicon Valley who sees the future behind such developments.
Billionaire, PayPal co-founder and Facebook investor, Peter Thiel has given millions to the development of regenerative medicine and increase human life expectancy. Thiel's $3.5 million helped Cambridge gerontologist Aubrey de Grey to found his non-profit project Methuselah Foundation, which helps researchers struggling with aging, and has already invested more than $4 million in various projects on this topic. The goal of the Methuselah Foundation is to make "90 the new 50" by 2030. Thiel himself is going to live to 120 years old, takes growth hormone daily and has signed up for the services of Alcor, a cryonics company. His Founders Fund actively invests in biotech startups, including, for example, Stem CentRx Inc., which is investigating the problem of cancer treatment using stem cells, as well as Modern Meadow Inc., which is developing a method of growing muscles and skin in the laboratory.
Is longevity in our hands?
Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a study on the effect of the drug metformin on people's life expectancy (although metformin has been widely used for several decades as a cheap drug against type 2 diabetes). Director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University (USA) Nir Barzilai, who oversees this study, believes that metformin can prevent the development of health problems that appear in old age. We are talking about such phenomena as cellular aging, autophagy and others. In 2014, British scientists found that metformin prolongs the life of a patient with type 2 diabetes by 15% if he takes the drug every day. But even if the tests of Barzilai's team prove the anti-aging effect of metformin, it will take years before the regulator allows it to be widely used in the fight against aging.
While scientists still do not know exactly and definitively how another drug, rapamycin, affects a person's life expectancy, the research of which was invested by the Mikhail Batin Science for Life Extension Foundation.
Rapamycin is an immunosuppressant that is used to improve the survival of transplanted organs. Now scientists already know that it is able to prolong the life of some organisms – nematodes, fruit flies, yeast and mice (middle-aged individuals). Rapamycin blocks the action of the mTOR protein (it is called the mechanical target of rapamycin, that is, the "target of rapamycin"), which is responsible for cell division and growth, respectively, slowing down the aging process. In addition, rapamycin accelerates the renewal of mitochondria – organoids, the energy sources of our cells.
Interestingly, the effect of rapamycin – suppression of the action of mTOR and, accordingly, cell rejuvenation, can be achieved without the use of the drug itself with the help of dietary restriction therapy (calorie restriction, CR), implying a serious reduction in calorie intake. Now the US National Institute of Aging is conducting research on the effects of CR on humans.
Scientists have found that by reducing the number of calories in the diet of laboratory rodents by 30%, their life expectancy increases by 40%.
It is known that fasting and dietary therapy reduces the risk factors of senile diseases and has a beneficial effect on blood pressure, cholesterol levels in the blood and insulin resistance - these indicators affect a person's life expectancy. Scientists have also found that by reducing the number of calories in the diet of laboratory rodents by 30%, their life expectancy increases by 40%. CR also slows down the aging of primates. It turns out that Maya Plisetskaya's miraculous recipe called "Don't eat!" is about to be scientifically confirmed.
Speaking of diets, resveratrol should also be mentioned. This substance, contained in grapes, some nuts and red wine, has a rejuvenating effect: in 2003, scientists from the laboratory of Dr. David Sinclair at Harvard discovered that it activates the SIRT1 gene, which is associated with longevity and stress resistance of cells. Resveratrol is able to prolong the life of the nematode by 70%. Sinclair founded Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, which was bought by British GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2008. The company's goal is to develop drugs with an anti–aging effect (however, so far it has not brought a single drug to the market). But another company, Elysium Health, is already selling its Basis "pills of youth" (you may even have come across their advertising on Facebook), which entered the market last year.
The manufacturer promises that Basis tablets will support "the metabolic system, DNA repair, energy production, protein functioning and detoxification at the cellular level," said the author of New York Magazine, who decided to try the tempting drug on himself. Basis is sold for 60 capsules in a package, which can be ordered online without a doctor's prescription. The monthly course costs $50. Now Elysium Health is conducting clinical trials in humans and simultaneously uses its clients as a test group. Interestingly, Basis managed to get past the FDA approval procedures, since its main components (nicotinamide riboside and pterostilbene) are of a natural nature. However, Elysium Health seems to be absolutely confident in its development and its scientific base. However, some scientists (and not only them) are extremely confused by the lack of clinical trials before the release of the drug.
Domestic "anti-aging pills"
Russian scientists are also developing their own "anti-aging pills". For example, by the end of 2016, the first phase of clinical trials of the drug under the working name "Plastomitin" should be completed. The name of the drug is formed from two words: mitochondria and the plant antioxidant plastoquinone, which is part of the antioxidant SkQ1.
Scientist Vladimir Skulachev has been working on SkQ1 for many years with his son Maxim, a leading researcher at the MSU biofactory and director of Mitotech. The idea of the Skulachevs is based on the fact that aging can be stopped if mitochondria wear is prevented. Alexander Chikunov, a former member of the Board of RAO UES, who is now the president of the Rostock Group, allocated $10 million to develop a substance that could cope with this. Mitotech received $15 million at the beginning of its work from the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. Plastomitin is planned to be launched on the market in 2018-2020, Olga Shpichko, Managing Director for Investment Activities of Rusnano Management Company, told Forbes Life. This drug is expected to treat a number of cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases associated with old age.
A subsidiary of Rostock Rosscreening Inc. Together with the Jackson Laboratory (USA), she conducted research on the effect of thousands of biologically active chemicals on the life expectancy of rodents – a project called "Screening 1". The goal is to search for substances that increase the life of mammals by more than 30%. The tests were supposed to be completed back in 2012, but the results have not yet been published. Chikunov also invested $10 million in "Screening1" – two years ago in an interview Lenta.ru he said that he had high hopes for this project. The money that he invested in Mitotech, on the contrary, considers lost. Rusnano has been investing in Mitotech since 2010 – Anatoly Chubais was not confused by Chikunov's dissatisfaction with this project. In the first four years, the corporation invested 357 million rubles in Mitotech. Now Rusnano participates in the management of the company at the level of the Board of Directors. According to Shpichko, the corporation fully finances Mitotech and plans to continue cooperation until the moment of withdrawal from investments, which is expected until 2020.
Freezing as immortality
While neither Russian nor foreign laboratories have invented a breakthrough cure for aging, there is another opportunity to prolong your life: the company "KrioRus", created by Russian transhumanists Danila Medvedev and Valeria Pride, offers clients freezing of the body or brain (neural preservation). An option for those who believe that in the future science will allow thawing bodies and bringing them back to life. The body of the cryopatient is placed in liquid nitrogen and contained at a temperature of -120 ° C, in such an environment all chemical reactions stop. As the founders of KrioRus say, if science cannot invent a way to defrost the body, progress will allow creating an artificial one – for the defrosted brain of a cryopatient.
Another question is whether it will be possible to restore consciousness in its former form. David Crippen, professor of intensive care and neurological surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, believes that brain functions responsible for memories and behavior are most likely preserved after cryopreservation. But how the brain shapes our consciousness is not well understood. Science is ready to offer another solution to this problem.
Your "I" in the computer
The idea that the human mind can be downloaded to a USB stick and inserted into a computer may seem phantasmagoric to you, but researchers have already started working in this direction. The preservation of human consciousness with the help of computer data is also a kind of prolongation of life, and this time, perhaps forever. Entrepreneur Martina Rotblatt, the founder and head of United Therapeutics, caught fire with such an idea, and as a result, in 2002, the non-profit project Terasem Movement, Inc. appeared. He specializes in collecting, preserving and reviving the human mind with the help of data from a person's personal computer, his email, social networks, etc. In Russia, the former CEO of Newmedia Stars, multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov, can be called an adept of this idea. He believes that by 2045, people will transfer their consciousness into computers that will control artificial bodies – avatars. Itskov invested $4 million in his project "Russia 2045", and some variants of controlled robots and prostheses have already been created for him. "Russia 2045" implies the creation of an avatar that ensures the vital activity of the brain and consciousness during (and after) human life together with a robotic body.
Multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov believes that by 2045 people will transfer their consciousness into computers that will control artificial bodies – avatars.
Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University in North Carolina (USA), who develops an exoskeleton for the paralyzed, believes that feelings such as intuition, love or anger cannot be programmed in any way, and this calls into question the possibility of a complete transfer of the human "I" into a computer.
You can argue about this endlessly. It is hardly worth drawing concrete conclusions right now. Whether you believe in the power of gene editing or consider it impossible to tame something that has been created by evolution for millions of years, scientists will find convincing arguments to support any point of view. The reality is that even things like predictive and preventive medicine, improving quality of life and the invention of new drugs are already beginning to affect life expectancy.
Bright minds argue that it would be nice to upload the brain to a computer and live indefinitely. But people have not even realized yet whether the world is ready for people to live stably to at least 120 years. It would be good if those who lead anti-aging developments could imagine where society is moving along with science.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru
30.11.2016