#13 Are you becoming a zombie?
This Halloween, The Longevity Update presents cellular senescence
The Agenda 👇
News bulletin 📰
Are you becoming a zombie?
Recent funding in longevity 💰
Upcoming events 📅
Jobs in longevity 🧑💼
1/ News bulletin 📰
🏦 Former Credit Suisse CEO gears up for Human Longevity investment - just as the bank’s own longevity is called into question
🧠 Halberd enters strategic alliance for longevity, Alzheimer's Disease, and cancer - collaboration will leverage technologies of the alliance member companies
🫘 Large-scale and long-term UK Biobank data study shows coffee is associated with better cardiovascular health - 2-3 cups a day of decaffeinated, ground, or instant coffee saw significant reductions in CVD and mortality
▫️ Nanoplastics demonstrate mitochondrial stress in human liver and lung cells - environmental impact of this increasingly common debris continues to be explored
🐁 Combination of Rapamycin and Acarbose extends lifespan of mice - although benefits of combination therapy as opposed to just Rapa was only seen in males
2/ Are you becoming a zombie?
Senescence is the cellular state of purgatory for which cells that have not yet died, continue to make up an organ without supporting the tissues of which they are part. In fact, these cells release potentially harmful chemicals that encourage nearby cells to enter the same senescent state. If there were a physiological equivalence of a zombie state, it would be called senescence.
The very presence of these ‘zombie cells’ degrades tissue function, increases levels of inflammation, and is known to raise the risk of cancer. Ordinarily they destroy themselves via a pre-programmed process called apoptosis, however, as the immune system weakens with age, an increasing number of these senescent cells escape this process and build up in our organs
By the time people reach old age, significant numbers of these senescent cells have accumulated in the body, causing inflammation and damage to neighbouring cells and tissue. It has long been proposed that the therapeutic removal of senescent cells could be a solution to the problem of their accumulation: enter the novel field of ‘senolytics’.
This new class of drug focuses on the destruction of these “death-resistant” zombie cells to reduce inflammation and improve tissue function. One of the challenges in dealing with senescence is that there are several populations of these cells in our tissues and organs, each using different pro-survival pathways. It could be that multiple senolytic drugs are needed to remove senescent cells using different pathways to survive.
Some mice studies have shown removing only 30% of senescent cells is sufficient to slow down age-related decline. These results suggest the feasibility of selectively ablating senescent cells and the efficacy of senolytics in alleviating the diseases of ageing and promoting healthy longevity.
In the last few years, interest in senolytics has soared, as longevity investment has ploughed into the field. Unity Biotechnology, the longevity firm that saw substantial investment from the Longevity Fund, Jeff Bezos Expeditions, Founders Fund, and ARCH Venture Partners, was the first biotechnology company to hit the clinic with senolytics. Although the company’s first drug candidate UBX0101, a MDM2-p53 inhibitor for knee osteoarthritis, failed to succeed, Unity has continued to persevere with its development pipeline. UBX1325 is a senolytic candidate for diabetic macular oedema and is currently wrapping up its phase 1 clinical study.
The oldest senolytic firm in the field is Siwa, having been founded in 2006. Compared to Unity, the company has raised comparatively little, with only $1.6 million in funding for their candidate 318H which is currently at the preclinical stage. Its approach is somewhat more unusual than the typical small-molecule approach used by other companies, as it has chosen to develop an immunotherapy answer to senescent cells, specifically a monoclonal antibody.
The therapeutic removal of ‘zombie cells’ using a senolytic drug to delay or prevent age-related diseases is a very promising area of medicine. Some researchers suggest there may be other ways to deal with senescent cells, such as rejuvenating the immune system to enhance its clearing process, or more recently, modulating the signalling pathways of senescent cells to make them less harmful. In any case, while you carve out your pumpkin this year, spare a thought for zombie fighting researchers.
3/ Recent funding in longevity 💰
Form Bio secures $30m for breakthrough computational life sciences platform
Cleara Biotech closes $2.5m seed financing to advance senotherapeutics
4/ Upcoming events 📅
🇧🇪 The Eurosymposium on Health Ageing is a unique biennial meeting of scientists working on the biology of ageing, and their next meeting is in Belgium, November 24-26th.
🇺🇸 The Longevity Summit will be hosting their second annual event in Novato, CA on December 7-8th. The event will unite top longevity entrepreneurs, pharma and biotech companies, longevity investors, researchers, and government organisations from around the world.
🇵🇹 Longevity Med Summit will focus on the development of ageing science, regenerative medicine, and longevity therapeutics. This two-day summit will take place in Lisbon, Portugal on May 4 - May 5, 2023 and feature five themes: Longevity Therapeutics, P4 Medicine, Diagnostics, AI and Digital, and a showcase of new trials and research.
5/ Jobs in longevity 🧑💼
Turn.bio // Research Associate - Immunology // Mountain View, CA
Insilico Medicine // Business Development Consultant // Europe, Remote
Spring Discovery // Senior Software Engineer // San Francisco, CA
Calico Labs // Associate Director, Medical Writing // South San Francisco, CA
Altos Labs // US general interest - UK general interest // US - UK