Geroprotectors

Geroprotectors are interventions that aim to prevent, slow, or reverse the processes of aging in model organisms or humans such that the lifespan, and especially the healthy lifespan, can be extended. They can target any one of many pathways and gene networks involved in aging. However, because this is new territory for medical science geroprotectors and their effects remain largely uncatalogued.

Insilico Medicine, a company specializing in drug repurposing in cancer and bioinformatics of aging based at the Emerging Technology Centers at the Johns Hopkins University contributed to the development of Geroprotectors.org. This web-based knowledge management system is billed as a structured and curated database of therapeutic interventions in aging and age related diseases. 

The database does more than simply list geroprotectors, it catalogs over 250 experiments involving over 200 known or candidate geroprotectors. Each compound has a comprehensive profile complete with biochemistry, mechanisms, and lifespan effects in various model organisms with information ranging from chemical structure, side effects, and toxicity to FDA drug status. It also links back to the original research, making it possible for gerontologists to collaborate more quickly and efficiently than they ever could before.

"Geroprotectors is one of the timeliest and exciting areas of biomedical research since these have the potential to impact on multiple age-related maladies. By compiling what is known about this topic, Geroprotectors.org will be a great asset for researchers and even clinicians to ultimately allow people to benefit from recent discoveries in manipulating the aging process", said de Magalhaes, who heads the Integrative Genomics of Ageing Group, Institute of Integrative Biology at the University of Liverpool and is a trustee of the Biogerontology Research Foundation.

"The motivation behind creation of Geroprotectors database was to provide a one-stop resource for researchers interested in anti-aging compounds, saving countless hours of data mining, literature review and expert analysis. It took us several years of careful literature mining and discussions with industry experts to create this database," said Alexey Moskalev, lead author of the paper, head of laboratory of molecular radiobiology and gerontology, IBKSCUB RAS and adjunct professor at George Mason University and a scientific advisor to Insilico Medicine.

About Insilico Medicine, Inc

Insilico Medicine, Inc. is a bioinformatics company located at the Emerging Technology Centers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore utilizing advances in genomics and big data analysis for in silico drug discovery and drug repurposing for aging and age-related diseases. The company utilizes the GeroScope(TM), OncoFinder(TM), Pathway Cloud Intelligence(TM) and PharmAtlas(TM) packages for aging and cancer research, pursues internal drug discovery programs, and provides services to pharmaceutical companies. For more information on Insilico Medicine’s use of NVIDIA GPU Technology, please visit: http://goo.gl/u3J0CF
 

Multi-millionaire's dream may come true!

A Russian multi-millionaire whose dream it is to live forever has promised to give $1 million to the first person to reach the age of 123.

Dmitry Kaminskiy, a senior partner of Hong Kong-based firm, Deep Knowledge Ventures, is hoping his million dollar gift will trigger a new group of 'supercenternarians'.

He says research into stem cells, tissue rejuvenation and regenerative medicine will allow people to live beyond 120 - an age that has been quoted as the 'real absolute limit to human lifespan'.

'We live in the most exciting era of human development when technologies become exponential and transformative,' Kaminskiy told DailyMail.com. 

'They may not realise it, but some of the supercentenarians alive today may see the dawn of the next century if they live long enough for these transformative technologies to develop.

'I hope that my prize will help some of them desire longer lifespans and make their approaches to living longer a little more competitive.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3034300/Russian-oligarch-pledges-1-million-prize-person-live-123.html#ixzz3X2GJO4eR

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3034300/Russian-oligarch-pledges-1-million-prize-person-live-123.html#ixzz3X2GAMzGg
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Zoltan Istvan: Anti-Aging Experts Made a Million-Dollar Bet on Who Dies Last

Dmitry Kaminskiy, senior partner of Hong Kong-based technology venture fund, Deep Knowledge Ventures, and Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, CEO of bioinformatics company Insilico Medicine Inc. which specializes in drug discovery and drug repurposing for aging and age-related diseases, signed a wager to indicate exactly how sure they are that science is turning the tide against the eternal problem of human aging.

The terms go like this:

- If one of the parties passes away before the other, $1 million dollars in Insilico Medicine stock will be passed to the surviving party

- The agreement will vest once both parties reach 100 years

- Parties agree not to accelerate each other's demise (i.e. try to kill each other)

"Longevity competitions may be a great way to combat both psychological and biological aging," Dr. Zhavoronkov emailed me. "I hope that we will start a trend." He sees longevity bets catching on around the world, and thinks if people will embrace competition to live longer, they may leave behind a global culture that largely accepts aging and human death as a given. 

Kaminskiy agrees. "I would really like to make similar bets with Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg so they could live longer lives and create great products, but I don't think they will be worthy competitors on longevity," he wrote me in an email. "But I would like to challenge Sergey Brin and Larry Page to a similar competition due to their seemingly high interest in the sphere and Calico project."

There's been a plethora of activity recently in the longevity field, also known as life extension science, the practice of trying to find ways to stop aging and disease. Its supporters are often called life extensionists, transhumanists, and immortalists, and they aim to use medical discoveries in regenerative medicine, stem cells, tissue rejuvenation, molecular repair, pharmaceuticals, and organ replacement as means to live longer.

Reuters reported that Dr. Aubrey de Grey, a leading biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist at SENS Research Foundation, thinks scientists may be able to control aging in the near future, "I'd say we have a 50/50 chance of bringing aging under what I'd call a decisive level of medical control within the next 25 years or so."

The last two years have seen the creation of major anti-aging companies, such as Google's Calico and J. Craig Venture's new San Diego-based genome sequencing start-up Human Longevity Inc., (co-founded with Peter Diamandis of the X-Prize Foundation and stem cell pioneer Robert Hariri) which already has 70 million dollars in financing. Billionaires like Larry Ellison and Peter Thiel are also funding research into longevity science.

There's a growing stream of anti-aging studies, discoveries, and projects appearing in science journals and major media—the US political Transhumanist Party has made dedicating national resources to life extension science its top priority for Americans.

"Seems like a new investment boom is coming, resembling the Dot Com boom," Kaminskiy told me.

So is this kind of longevity wager just a gimmick, or can it actually help anti-aging science out? Andrew Garazha, an analyst at England-based biotechnology and regenerative medicine company Aging Analytics, who witnessed the bet and first told me about the story, explained the significance in an email:

The bet signifies:

1. We are very confident that lifespans will be extended dramatically

2. Competing for longevity provides extra incentives to take care of our health today and try various approaches to extend lifespans

3. Competing for longevity provides extra motivation to live

Of course other bets, competitions, and races are more well-known: The X Prize competition, the Soviet and American race to the moon during the Cold War, and even IBM's Deep Blue beating Gary Kasparov in chess. This match-up was originally spurred by a competition, in which the IBM team won the $100,000 prize.

Longevity competitions themselves may seem new and futuristic, but they have some historical precedence. A moderately popular investment annuity plan in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries called tontines encouraged competition to live longer by giving investment funds of deceased participants to living participants.

A more well-known longevity bet was made by 90-year-old Jeanne Calment and attorney Andre-Francois Raffray. The agreement was that Raffray would pay her a monthly amount of $500 while she was living—but he would inherit her apartment after she died. Given her old age, it seemed like a prudent business move. But Calment went on to become a supercentenarian, dying at 122.5 years, which is now the longest confirmed lifespan of any human being on record. Ironically, Raffray died before Calment, but not before paying double what the apartment was worth.

If the bet between Kaminsky and Zharvorokov seems a like a way to generate publicity hype for longevity science, that's because it is. But like many other longevity leaders, they are not in this to for money or fame. They are doing this for a singular and extremely human reason: They don't want to die. And they want others to know that—in the 21st Century, an age spilling over with new radical science, medicine, and technology—they might not have to either.

"Technology is evolving so fast," Kaminskiy said, "that I have no doubt that we will be able to live centuries instead of decades."

Insilico Medicine, Inc and Champions Oncology, Inc

Insilico Medicine, Inc announces research collaboration with Champions Oncology, Inc

Champions TumorGrafts are a personalized approach used to guide physician treatment decisions for cancer patients. A piece of the patient's living tumor is removed during surgery or biopsy and engrafted in immune-deficient mice. After the TumorGraft grows, still closely resembling the patient's tumor, Champions Oncology tests drug treatments in the TumorGraft and measures the response. TumorGraft has demonstrated high rates of predictability using multiple therapies, including single-agent and combination, chemotherapy regimens and targeted biological drugs.

Every TumorGraft is preserved as a living sample for future patient use. These banked TumorGrafts can be re-grown and tested in the event of cancer progression or recurrence. In oncology drug development, TumorGraft models are utilized extensively by pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations to predict the clinical effectiveness of their compounds in targeted patient populations.

In the scope of this research collaboration Insilico Medicine will analyze a portion of Champions Oncology gene expression data sets from tumor grafts before and aftertreatment with chemotherapy drugs and compare the signaling pathway activation state (SPAS) changes with the SPAS changes in human patients.

Baltimore, MD, November 6, 2014 - Insilico Medicine, Inc, a Baltimore-based bioinformatics company focused on research in aging and age related diseases announced a research collaboration with the international leader in personalized medicine of cancer, Champions Oncology, Inc (OTC: CSBR).