Is Aging a Pandemic Equivalent to COVID-19? Not Really While Researchers Show Us 100 May be the “New 60”

June 11, 2020 – About a week ago I received an e-mail blast from Peter Diamandis, of X-Prize fame, in which he stated that the world is facing two pandemics: the first COVID-19, the second, aging. Aging has been with us as a species from the moment humans emerged from the tree of life. Calling it a pandemic seems facile. It’s like calling erectile dysfunction a disease in men rather than a sign of aging. But nonetheless, the biopharmaceutical industry and scientific community are tackling aging as if it were a disease.

In Peter’s e-mail he reviewed the technologies on the cutting edge that could add 20 to 30 healthy years to the lifespan of the average human. He describes 100 as the new 60 in the coming decades.

On this planet today live 7.8 billion humans of which 9% are over the age of 65. That’s approximately 720 million of us who have reached a point where the accumulations of our life’s journey has piled up leaving us with chronic health problems like heart and respiratory diseases, cancer, arthritis, dementia, and other conditions. These problems don’t start the day we turn 65. They are acquired over a lifetime and some believe they are symptoms of larger condition called aging. Peter argues that science and medicine is only now beginning to recognize the spectrum of conditions as being within the overall disease called aging.

Should we accept the natural limits of our species? And if we do, just what are these limits? Is it 90, 100, 110, or more? Many species on this planet outlive us. Bowhead whales can live for 200 years, and Greenland Sharks,  Sea Turtles, and some land tortoises can make it to 400 years or more. And then there are trees that can live thousands of years. What is innate in them that is not in us? Peter asks if this is a hardware or software problem, and if so, don’t we already have sufficient knowledge and the tools necessary to repair both?

On this blog site we write about some of these tools such as CRISPR, stem cells, gene drives, and more. Dr. David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School, in his book Lifespan, believes the technologies we have or are in the process of maturing will allow people born today to live to 120 in good health, and even make it to 150 or more. These tools include:

1. CRISPR & Gene Therapy
2. Stem Cell Therapy
3. Wnt Pathway Manipulation
4. Senolytic Medicines

CRISPR & Gene Therapy

Aging happens because our normal cell functions over a lifetime begin to destabilize. When cells no longer have the capacity to thrive they experience apoptosis, cell death. But in using gene therapy tools there is no reason for specific cells in our bodies to die. And with CRISPR-Cas9, we can go into our DNA and edit it inside the cell to provide a repair kit for almost any problem.

Today we can re-engineer our DNA instructions by target specific areas of the genome, snipping out bad code, and inserting a healthy bit of replacement instructions. CRISPR is cheap, fast, and getting easier to use. Recently, scientists at the Broad Institute associated with MIT and Harvard University, unveiled CRISPR 2.0, a next-generation editor that’s extremely precise capable of changing a single nucleobase of which there are four strung out along the double helix that is the basis for life on this planet.

David Liu, a Harvard chemical biologist states, “Of more than 50,000 genetic changes currently known to be associated with disease in humans … 32,000 of those are caused by the simple swap of one base pair for another.”

Stem Cell Therapy

We are made up of more than 30 trillion cells. All of them were derived from the embryo defined as pluripotent stem cells. Our bodies contain millions of stem cells which can replace damaged tissue. As we age the number of stem cells decline.

But what if we could restore our stem cell population? What if we could take stem cells from harvested placentas and augment our stem cell population? Celularity is a company doing just this to extend life using placenta-derived stem cells.

Wnt Pathway Manipulation

A San Diego-based company, Samumed, is targeting the signaling pathways that regulate adult stem cell self-renewal and differentiation through a pathway known as “Wnt” which stands for Wingless and Int-1, pathways to allow proteins that engage the surface receptors on the cell wall to pass signals to the cell’s inner workings. Proteins are critical to executing DNA and RNA instructions and Samumed is using this normal cellular process to deliver instructions through nine new drugs to regrow cartilage, heal tendons, remove wrinkles, stop a multitude of cancers, and reverse Alzheimer’s.

Senolytic Medicines

Our body’s cells have a limited shelf life. They can divide approximately 50 times before dying, a condition called apoptosis. But what if we could end programmed cellular death without unintended consequences?

In our body today a small fraction of our cells are senescent cells that don’t go through an end of life with damaging consequences for our bodies. These cells secrete molecules that trigger inflammatory responses and change the behaviour of nearby cells. They are associated with many of the symptoms of aging including fibrosis, blood vessel calcification, osteoarthritis, and diminished organ function.

Unity Biotechnology is a Brisbane, California company focused on developing senolytic therapies with a goal to eliminate senescent cells associated with osteoarthritis, pulmonary diseases, and other aging conditions. They have under development a number of senolytic medications aimed at musculoskeletal, ophthalmology, pulmonary, neurology, and multiple organ aging challenges.

One of their drugs under development, UBX0101, is being evaluated for the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee. That got me interested. ApparentlyUBX0101 is a small molecule inhibitor of the MDM2/p53 protein to trigger the elimination of senescent cells. In Phase 1 clinical trial, with patients suffering from moderate to severe osteoarthritis of the knee, initial results announced in June of last year showed promising improvements in pain and function. That’s not a cure, but for someone suffering from osteoarthritis of the knee, those two improvements would be a welcome relief.