There are no restrictions for aging therapy?

Russian scientists have found a mistake in the theory of aging half a century ago, which limited the possibilities of life extension

Vitaly Shustikov, Skolkovo

Scientific group of the Russian biotechnological company Gero (resident of the biomedical technologies cluster of the Skolkovo Foundation) published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology a research paper Strehler-Mildvan correlation is a degenerate manifest of Gompertz fit ("Strehler-Mildvan correlation is a set of regression degeneracy on Gompertz's law of mortality"). 

The paper shows that the Streler-Mildvan correlation has no biological basis, as a result of which there are no fundamental limitations for aging therapy.

The Streler-Mildvan correlation (SM) was described in 1960 in a widely known and frequently cited scientific article in the journal Science. It establishes the relationship between two parameters of Gompertz's law of mortality – the time of doubling of mortality (MRDT) and initial mortality (IMR). The original work not only introduced empirical correlation, but also proposed a theory of aging, widely recognized among researchers. The theory says that if the initial mortality decreases due to any intervention at an early age, the time of doubling of mortality decreases, that is, aging accelerates. This hypothesis prevents the creation of an effective therapy aimed at prolonging life. For half a century, many researchers in the field of aging have expressed doubts about whether there is any biological basis for this correlation or not.

In the development of aging therapy, the Gero team prefers to be based on evidence, not just on machine learning methods. The company's scientists are investigating the physical causes of mortality dependence on measurable parameters ranging from gene expression to locomotor activity. When trying to establish the physical processes underlying the Streler-Mildvan correlation, the scientific leader of the group, Peter Fedichev and his team noticed a fundamental discrepancy between the analytical conclusions and the presence of the Streler-Mildvan correlation when using Gompertz's law of aging.  In the article, they showed that the Streler-Mildvana correlation naturally arises as a degeneracy set for regression to the Gompertz law curve.

Pyotr Fedichev explained: "We analyzed the survival curves for thousands of genetically identical nematode worms and it turned out that this correlation is really nothing more than an artifact of data processing." In experiments on worms, the erroneous model may work, but everything becomes more complicated in human models (because the product of the time of doubling mortality by the initial mortality is too small). It turns out that the Streler-Mildvan correlation is an artifact of the regression of the survival curves to the Gompertz curve, applied on an insufficient amount of experimental data, and therefore is not a biological law. According to Peter Fedichev, "the exclusion of the Streler-Mildvan correlation from the theories of aging opens up new opportunities in science, because if it were not just a negative correlation between Gompertz parameters, but a real dependence, this would lead to the ineffectiveness of optimal aging therapies and would limit a person's ability to prolong life."

Vera Rybko, Project Manager of the Cluster of Biological and Medical Technologies of the Skolkovo Foundation: "This revolutionary discovery, which refutes canonical restrictions on prolonging human life, will certainly play a significant role in increasing life expectancy. Previously, many skeptical statements were based on the Streler-Mildvan correlation, which hindered the development of medicine in this area. Now the barrier has been removed, and there is hope that a significant extension of life will move from the realm of fantasy to the real, based on the fundamental laws of nature, the field of science. Pyotr Fedichev's team are highly qualified scientists who, I am sure, have not yet said their last word in the development of this extremely promising direction."

Gero is a biotech company developing original medicines – low molecular weight inhibitors. The company focuses on finding therapeutic approaches aimed at anti-aging. The Gero scientific team develops methods for analyzing omix data to identify potential therapeutic targets and uses them to develop drugs for the treatment of age-related diseases and effects on the aging process.
In addition to projects in the fight against aging, the company is developing drug candidates in the field of oncology, for the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and infectious diseases. In addition, the company has developed a technology that allows assessing the health risks of smartphone users based on their motor activity data. The technology is already available for licensing, and a product has been created based on it – a web application and a chatbot informing the user about his health status.
Gero is a team of specialists from various branches of science: theoretical physics, development of new drugs, information technology. The scientific department is headed by Peter Fedichev, Ph.D., Director of the company for Science, a physicist who previously conducted research in the field of condensed matter physics. An international team of biologists, medical chemists and bioinformatics is working under the leadership of Peter.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  14.02.2017