The most important Longevity breakthroughs and advances of 2022
Rapid progress and important breakthroughs were made on many research fronts last year. We've summarized them.
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While COVID-19 has rightly attracted the attention of the scientific community in recent years, rapid progress and important breakthroughs were also made on many other research fronts in 2022. We have summarized them and present them here.
To round off our annual scientific review, we have also adopted breakthrough technologies from the MIT Technology Review list.
Breakthrough technologies 2022
Technology is touching every area of our lives — our health, our finances, even our social lives. The most important technological developments of the year say as much about our culture and interests as they do about our inventiveness. So is this exciting list of breakthrough developments selected by MIT Technology Review editors — from a vaccine against malaria to factories to remove carbon. It should not be too surprising that “Aging Clocks” - a technology for measuring aging - is also on the list (as winner of the Breakthrough Survey).
Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/23/1045416/10-breakthrough-technologies-2022
The most important health breakthroughs of 2022
100% remission of early-stage rectal cancer (rectal cancer) in all patients
What it's about: A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that cancer immunotherapy dostarlimab — a checkpoint inhibitor — resulted in complete remission of early-stage rectal cancer in all study patients treated. Dostarlimab was approved by the FDA in August last year and is one of the cancer immunotherapies called “checkpoint inhibitors.” The name comes from the fact that checkpoint inhibitors block the brakes (i.e. checkpoints) that tumors use to fight off the T cells of our immune system. In the United States, approximately 45,000 patients are diagnosed with rectal cancer each year. Although this was a small study, the results are both timely and impressive.
Why it's important: This breakthrough is important for two reasons: First, because this cancer is becoming increasingly common among younger adults. By 2030, cases will increase by 124.2% among patients aged 20 to 34 years and 46% among patients aged 35 to 49 years. It is conceivable that this could one day make surgery, radiation and chemotherapy unnecessary for patients with rectal cancer, as the immune memory prevents the cancer from spreading in the future. Second, this finding could lead to further breakthroughs in cancer treatment and the use of checkpoint inhibitors for other forms of malignant cancer. This is an important victory in the “war against cancer.”
AI predicts ALL known protein structures: DeepMind & Meta
What it's about: Since the 1960s, the major challenge of computer modelling has been known as a “protein folding problem,” in which a program must predict the 3D structure of a protein based on an amino acid sequence alone. At the beginning of July 2022, an AI program called AlphaFold, developed by Google company DeepMind, solved the 3D structures of the approximately 200 million proteins known to science. Last November, researchers from Meta AI (formerly Facebook) announced that they were able to use AI to predict the structures of around 617 million proteins from bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms that have not yet been fully characterized. This work by Meta AI took just two weeks, and the structures and underlying code are freely available.
Why it's important: Scientific teams around the world are using DeepMind's AlphaFold2 software to research COVID-19, cancer, and antibiotic resistance. DeepMind has also set up a public database for protein structures predicted by AlphaFold2. That database currently has around 1 million entries, and DeepMind says it will add more than 100 million entries over the next year. Meta AI's database, the ESM Metagenomic Atlas, will enable scientists to quickly access protein structures via an API. This is so important because almost everything the body does is done with proteins. Understanding both the structure and function of individual proteins is crucial for understanding diseases and developing drugs. By expanding capacities to predict 3D structures, the causes of diseases can be precisely identified and drugs can be developed with improved safety and effectiveness.
sources: 1. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/23/1044957/ai-protein-folding-deepmind/
2nd https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03539-1
Illumina unveils human genome sequence for $200
What it's about: Genomics giant Illumina has unveiled its latest genome sequencing devices: The NovaSeq X series. The devices are the company's cheapest and fastest to date and can sequence a human genome for 200 dollars (compared to 10,000 dollars ten years ago and 600 dollars today) and provide twice as fast reading results. According to Illumina, the NovaSeq X-series devices will cost around $1 million and generate 20,000 entire genomes per year.
Why it's important: The first human genome cost about 3 billion dollars. The next about 100 million dollars. Since then, costs have fallen five times as fast as Moore's Law. Genome sequencing has led to numerous advances in medicine: from blood tests that can detect cancer at an early stage, to genetically targeted drugs, to the diagnosis of rare diseases and even Covid-19 vaccines. However, one barrier to wider use of sequencing is cost. Illumina's latest device has the potential to make genomic medicine mainstream. In future, this could mean that every newborn is automatically sequenced to prevent childhood illnesses. Sequencing could also be carried out automatically upon admission to a hospital to find out which drugs and/or treatments are best suited for patients.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/the-era-of-fast-cheap-genome-sequencing-is-here/
Cancer vaccine shows positive results in phase 2 clinical trial
What it's about: A combination of Moderna's experimental cancer vaccine mRNA-4157/v940 and the Keytruda immunotherapy from Merck has proven successful in fighting melanoma, which is considered the deadliest skin cancer. Results from the phase 2 clinical trial showed that the combined therapies reduced the risk of tumour recurrence or death by 44% compared to standard treatment with Keytruda immunotherapy alone.
Why it's important: The immune system is responsible for identifying and stopping cancers for a lifetime. Sometimes our immune system is exhausted or is bypassed so that it does not recognize the cancer early on. For decades, the idea of a “cancer vaccine” that would enable the immune system to do its job has been discussed. Now, for the first time, it has been shown on a larger scale that it could actually work. Cancer is a group of more than 200 diseases that affect millions of people around the world. There are almost 10 million cancer-related deaths worldwide every year. The study by Moderna and Merck is the first proof of the effectiveness of mRNA-based cancer therapy in a randomized clinical trial. The results pave the way for a phase 3 clinical trial, the potential future approval of the first mRNA cancer vaccine, and the opportunity to use the technology to treat other types of cancer.
sources: 1. https://time.com/6240538/mrna-cancer-vaccine-moderna/
2nd https://www.cancer.org/research/cancer-facts-statistics/all-cancer-facts-figures/cancer-facts-figures-2022.html
Further health advances from 2022
The biology of movement and appetite
Jonathan Long from Sarafan Chem-h describes the discovery of a metabolite called LacPhe, which is produced during physical activity and curbs appetite. This is the start of a new chapter in our understanding of how exercise alters blood metabolites that have positive systemic effects on human physiology.
Source: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04828-5
Cocoa molecule activates SIRT1 and extends the life of fruit flies
This study identified a new activator of SIRT1 and the heat shock response, the fatty acid tryptamide from cocoa. This class of compounds activates SIRT1 in vitro, activates the expression of heat shock proteins and extends the lifespan in Drosophila. Fatty acid tryptamide compounds complement the growing list of SIRT1 activators and could be suitable as novel anti-aging applications.
Source: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-16471-1
Groundbreaking studies in nutritional science
In 2022, three new randomized studies provide groundbreaking results showing that a Mediterranean diet reduces heart attacks, that omega-3 DHA improves children's brain development and IQ, and that eating more potassium in the diet instead of sodium reduces strokes. These studies confirm numerous observational studies on these topics and underline the increasing strength and consistency of nutritional science. At the same time, these studies are seen as an urgent call to action to translate these new scientific findings into strategies and practices for a healthier diet.
sources: 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00122-2
2nd https://www.nejm.org/do/10.1056/NEJMdo006732/full/?
3rd https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2109794?
4th https://www.jacc.org/doi/abs/10.1016/j.jacc.2022.04.046?
AI helps understand the role of microbes in pancreatic cancer
The paper is about developing artificial intelligence methods to help evaluate the presence of microbes in pancreatic cancer. The results showed that many, but not all, tumors had a microbiome and that the T cells in the tumor did not react to the tumor but to the existing microbes; they had hijacked the immune response. Importantly, patients whose tumors contained microbes had a much shorter survival time than patients without microbes. This means that therapies that remove microbes from tumours could significantly extend the lives of pancreatic cancer patients.
Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2022.09.009
A unified understanding of neurodegeneration
It has long been known that a polymorphism in the TMEM106B gene increases TMEM106B expression and strongly promotes several neurodegenerative diseases. Until this study, it was assumed that TMEM106b was a lysosomal protein that promotes neurodegeneration through its normal biological activity. The current work was the first in a series of studies to discover that Tmem106b is actually proteolyted into a fragment that aggregates into fibrils similar to those formed by Abeta, alpha-synuclein, and tau. This discovery unifies our understanding of neurodegeneration as it suggests that most and possibly all neurodegenerative diseases are linked to the formation of protein aggregates with a similar cross-beta structure.
Source: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04670-9
Sirtuin 6 is linked to human longevity
This study shows for the first time that increased Sirtuin 6 activity is linked to human longevity. The variant of sirtuin 6 found in centenarians is more efficient at maintaining genome and epigenome stability.
References
Publiziert
1.7.2024
Kategorie
Science
Experte
While COVID-19 has rightly attracted the attention of the scientific community in recent years, rapid progress and important breakthroughs were also made on many other research fronts in 2022. We have summarized them and present them here.
To round off our annual scientific review, we have also adopted breakthrough technologies from the MIT Technology Review list.
Breakthrough technologies 2022
Technology is touching every area of our lives — our health, our finances, even our social lives. The most important technological developments of the year say as much about our culture and interests as they do about our inventiveness. So is this exciting list of breakthrough developments selected by MIT Technology Review editors — from a vaccine against malaria to factories to remove carbon. It should not be too surprising that “Aging Clocks” - a technology for measuring aging - is also on the list (as winner of the Breakthrough Survey).
Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/23/1045416/10-breakthrough-technologies-2022
The most important health breakthroughs of 2022
100% remission of early-stage rectal cancer (rectal cancer) in all patients
What it's about: A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that cancer immunotherapy dostarlimab — a checkpoint inhibitor — resulted in complete remission of early-stage rectal cancer in all study patients treated. Dostarlimab was approved by the FDA in August last year and is one of the cancer immunotherapies called “checkpoint inhibitors.” The name comes from the fact that checkpoint inhibitors block the brakes (i.e. checkpoints) that tumors use to fight off the T cells of our immune system. In the United States, approximately 45,000 patients are diagnosed with rectal cancer each year. Although this was a small study, the results are both timely and impressive.
Why it's important: This breakthrough is important for two reasons: First, because this cancer is becoming increasingly common among younger adults. By 2030, cases will increase by 124.2% among patients aged 20 to 34 years and 46% among patients aged 35 to 49 years. It is conceivable that this could one day make surgery, radiation and chemotherapy unnecessary for patients with rectal cancer, as the immune memory prevents the cancer from spreading in the future. Second, this finding could lead to further breakthroughs in cancer treatment and the use of checkpoint inhibitors for other forms of malignant cancer. This is an important victory in the “war against cancer.”
AI predicts ALL known protein structures: DeepMind & Meta
What it's about: Since the 1960s, the major challenge of computer modelling has been known as a “protein folding problem,” in which a program must predict the 3D structure of a protein based on an amino acid sequence alone. At the beginning of July 2022, an AI program called AlphaFold, developed by Google company DeepMind, solved the 3D structures of the approximately 200 million proteins known to science. Last November, researchers from Meta AI (formerly Facebook) announced that they were able to use AI to predict the structures of around 617 million proteins from bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms that have not yet been fully characterized. This work by Meta AI took just two weeks, and the structures and underlying code are freely available.
Why it's important: Scientific teams around the world are using DeepMind's AlphaFold2 software to research COVID-19, cancer, and antibiotic resistance. DeepMind has also set up a public database for protein structures predicted by AlphaFold2. That database currently has around 1 million entries, and DeepMind says it will add more than 100 million entries over the next year. Meta AI's database, the ESM Metagenomic Atlas, will enable scientists to quickly access protein structures via an API. This is so important because almost everything the body does is done with proteins. Understanding both the structure and function of individual proteins is crucial for understanding diseases and developing drugs. By expanding capacities to predict 3D structures, the causes of diseases can be precisely identified and drugs can be developed with improved safety and effectiveness.
sources: 1. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/23/1044957/ai-protein-folding-deepmind/
2nd https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03539-1
Illumina unveils human genome sequence for $200
What it's about: Genomics giant Illumina has unveiled its latest genome sequencing devices: The NovaSeq X series. The devices are the company's cheapest and fastest to date and can sequence a human genome for 200 dollars (compared to 10,000 dollars ten years ago and 600 dollars today) and provide twice as fast reading results. According to Illumina, the NovaSeq X-series devices will cost around $1 million and generate 20,000 entire genomes per year.
Why it's important: The first human genome cost about 3 billion dollars. The next about 100 million dollars. Since then, costs have fallen five times as fast as Moore's Law. Genome sequencing has led to numerous advances in medicine: from blood tests that can detect cancer at an early stage, to genetically targeted drugs, to the diagnosis of rare diseases and even Covid-19 vaccines. However, one barrier to wider use of sequencing is cost. Illumina's latest device has the potential to make genomic medicine mainstream. In future, this could mean that every newborn is automatically sequenced to prevent childhood illnesses. Sequencing could also be carried out automatically upon admission to a hospital to find out which drugs and/or treatments are best suited for patients.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/the-era-of-fast-cheap-genome-sequencing-is-here/
Cancer vaccine shows positive results in phase 2 clinical trial
What it's about: A combination of Moderna's experimental cancer vaccine mRNA-4157/v940 and the Keytruda immunotherapy from Merck has proven successful in fighting melanoma, which is considered the deadliest skin cancer. Results from the phase 2 clinical trial showed that the combined therapies reduced the risk of tumour recurrence or death by 44% compared to standard treatment with Keytruda immunotherapy alone.
Why it's important: The immune system is responsible for identifying and stopping cancers for a lifetime. Sometimes our immune system is exhausted or is bypassed so that it does not recognize the cancer early on. For decades, the idea of a “cancer vaccine” that would enable the immune system to do its job has been discussed. Now, for the first time, it has been shown on a larger scale that it could actually work. Cancer is a group of more than 200 diseases that affect millions of people around the world. There are almost 10 million cancer-related deaths worldwide every year. The study by Moderna and Merck is the first proof of the effectiveness of mRNA-based cancer therapy in a randomized clinical trial. The results pave the way for a phase 3 clinical trial, the potential future approval of the first mRNA cancer vaccine, and the opportunity to use the technology to treat other types of cancer.
sources: 1. https://time.com/6240538/mrna-cancer-vaccine-moderna/
2nd https://www.cancer.org/research/cancer-facts-statistics/all-cancer-facts-figures/cancer-facts-figures-2022.html
Further health advances from 2022
The biology of movement and appetite
Jonathan Long from Sarafan Chem-h describes the discovery of a metabolite called LacPhe, which is produced during physical activity and curbs appetite. This is the start of a new chapter in our understanding of how exercise alters blood metabolites that have positive systemic effects on human physiology.
Source: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04828-5
Cocoa molecule activates SIRT1 and extends the life of fruit flies
This study identified a new activator of SIRT1 and the heat shock response, the fatty acid tryptamide from cocoa. This class of compounds activates SIRT1 in vitro, activates the expression of heat shock proteins and extends the lifespan in Drosophila. Fatty acid tryptamide compounds complement the growing list of SIRT1 activators and could be suitable as novel anti-aging applications.
Source: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-16471-1
Groundbreaking studies in nutritional science
In 2022, three new randomized studies provide groundbreaking results showing that a Mediterranean diet reduces heart attacks, that omega-3 DHA improves children's brain development and IQ, and that eating more potassium in the diet instead of sodium reduces strokes. These studies confirm numerous observational studies on these topics and underline the increasing strength and consistency of nutritional science. At the same time, these studies are seen as an urgent call to action to translate these new scientific findings into strategies and practices for a healthier diet.
sources: 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00122-2
2nd https://www.nejm.org/do/10.1056/NEJMdo006732/full/?
3rd https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2109794?
4th https://www.jacc.org/doi/abs/10.1016/j.jacc.2022.04.046?
AI helps understand the role of microbes in pancreatic cancer
The paper is about developing artificial intelligence methods to help evaluate the presence of microbes in pancreatic cancer. The results showed that many, but not all, tumors had a microbiome and that the T cells in the tumor did not react to the tumor but to the existing microbes; they had hijacked the immune response. Importantly, patients whose tumors contained microbes had a much shorter survival time than patients without microbes. This means that therapies that remove microbes from tumours could significantly extend the lives of pancreatic cancer patients.
Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2022.09.009
A unified understanding of neurodegeneration
It has long been known that a polymorphism in the TMEM106B gene increases TMEM106B expression and strongly promotes several neurodegenerative diseases. Until this study, it was assumed that TMEM106b was a lysosomal protein that promotes neurodegeneration through its normal biological activity. The current work was the first in a series of studies to discover that Tmem106b is actually proteolyted into a fragment that aggregates into fibrils similar to those formed by Abeta, alpha-synuclein, and tau. This discovery unifies our understanding of neurodegeneration as it suggests that most and possibly all neurodegenerative diseases are linked to the formation of protein aggregates with a similar cross-beta structure.
Source: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04670-9
Sirtuin 6 is linked to human longevity
This study shows for the first time that increased Sirtuin 6 activity is linked to human longevity. The variant of sirtuin 6 found in centenarians is more efficient at maintaining genome and epigenome stability.
Experte
Referenzen
Publiziert
1.7.2024
Kategorie
Science
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