Notes on the 2022 Longevity Summit at the Buck Institute
The Buck Institute recently hosted the 2022 Longevity Summit, and here find some notes on the event from a participant. The number of conferences dedicated to the field of longevity science is increasing steadily, year after year. The best are those in which one finds a mix of entrepreneurs, scientists, and investors, all networking to advance the state of the art in the treatment of aging as a medical condition.
The Longevity Summit at the Buck Institute, a relatively short two-day geroscience and longevity biotech conference held on December 6-7, was nevertheless densely packed with new research - to the point where we can only cover some of the talks here. The conference was organized by Longevity SF, a nonprofit organization founded by the CEO of NeuroAge Therapeutics.
The event opened with a lecture by Buck director Dr. Eric Verdin, who presented some fascinating new research fresh out of the institute's labs. Dr. Verdin's talk touched on one of the most important topics in today's geroscience: finding reliable biomarkers of aging. The next speaker was Morgan Levine, who is one of the best experts on epigenetic clocks and currently with Altos Labs. Levine described her team's work on bringing existing epigenetic clocks closer to her definition of the perfect biomarker of aging.
Dr. Priyanka Joshi, co-founder of NeuroAge, started her presentation by asking the audience whether they believed the amyloid theory of aging. Just like in the longevity community in general, there seemed to be no consensus in the crowd. Whether or not the theory is correct, it is clear that aggregated proteins fail to perform their functions. Neuroage is working on a large postmortem cohort of about 2000 brains, analyzing them using various biological age clocks. The main takeaway is that people whose biological age was younger than their chronological age at death, were less likely to have developed Alzheimer's. Based on this and other insights, NeuroAge has developed a proprietary platform to identify protein products that are specific to slowing brain aging and eventually develop therapeutics against Alzheimer's and other protein misfolding diseases.
Sergio Ruiz, CEO of Turn.bio, presented the company's latest work on CAR T cell rejuvenation. While Turn's solution based on cellular reprogramming can potentially be used in a wide variety of treatments, the company is currently focusing on the two low-hanging fruits that allow immediate commercialization: immunology and dermatology. CAR T cells are genetically modified cells usually procured from the patient themselves, which means there is already some cellular exhaustion due to age. Turn's technology can rejuvenate those cells to make them more aggressive in fighting cancer.
Link: https://www.lifespan.io/news/the-science-packed-longevity-summit-at-the-buck-institute/