Biology of aging 1985 to 2015: are we ready for clinical interventions?

Abstract

The quality of research by our recent generation of geroscientists has been validated by a remarkable increase in the rates at which their publications have appeared in what most scientists would consider to be among the most prestigious journals – including Cell, Science, Nature and PNAS (GM Martin, FASEB J. 25: 3756-62, 2011). Validation has also come from the award of the 2009 Nobel Prize for the discovery of telomerase (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2009/press.html) and from a 2014 David Dan award for the elucidation of the role of the IGF1 signaling pathway in the modulation of the lifespan of C. elegans (http://www.dandavidprize.org/media-events/laureates-announcements/284-laureatesannounced-2011). But are we ready for translations of what we have learned towards clinical interventions? Google’s Calico and Craig Ventnor’s Human Longevity, Inc. are lines of evidence in the affirmative. More substantial evidence comes from the remarkable success of the Mouse Intervention Testing program of the US National Institute on Aging (https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/dab/interventions-testing-program-itp), particularly the discovery of the effects of rapamycin.