August 27th, 2004
Sirtuin Research Gets Private Funding
Yahoo! News notes that Sirtris Pharmaceuticals - a company founded by David Sinclair to investigate the biochemical processes associated with calorie restriction - has received seed funding from venture firms. Sirtris will focus on the class of enzymes called sirtuins, involved in the regulation of metabolism and aging. "Recently scientists found that the life-extending benefits of calorie restriction do not occur if the animal has been genetically altered to lack sirtuins, indicating these enzymes are crucial to this process." It is good to see more money entering this field of research - Sirtris joins other companies like Elixir and BioMarker in the search for healthy life extension drugs based on calorie restriction.