The average American lives to be around 75 or 80 years old; but if you had an opportunity to slow down the aging process and live an extra couple of decades would you take it? It’s a loaded question, strife with philosophical, religious, and societal considerations. Humans have pondered the possibilities of extended, or even immortal, life for as long as we’ve inhabited this planet. But at the end of the day it’s all just a daydream, right?
“To understand how cells make these decisions, we identified the molecular processes underlying each aging route and the connections among them, revealing a molecular circuit that controls cell aging, analogous to electric circuits that control home appliances,” says senior study author Nan Hao, an associate professor in the Section of Molecular Biology, Division of Biological Sciences, in a release.
“Our study raises the possibility of rationally designing gene or chemical-based therapies to reprogram how human cells age, with a goal of effectively delaying human aging and extending human healthspan,” Hao says.
Next, researchers want to continue testing their new model on more complex cells before eventually upgrading to human cells.
“Much of the work featured in this paper benefits from a strong interdisciplinary team that was assembled,” says Biological Sciences Professor of Molecular Biology Lorraine Pillus, a study co-author. “One great aspect of the team is that we not only do the modeling but we then do the experimentation to determine whether the model is correct or not. These iterative processes are critical for the work that we are doing.”
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