Across the globe, hundreds of companies are working on developments that could increase longevity, improve health and slow the aging process. Researchers have made crucial steps toward improving lifespans by using remarkable innovations throughout the last few years. After the chaos that 2020 brought with the COVID-19 pandemic and a focus on senior care and protection, 2021 is anticipated to be a year that sets the stage for some incredible new longevity advances as companies in the field raise millions in funding.
Here are some longevity advances to keep an eye on in 2021 and the coming years:
Nanoparticles
For thousands of years, healers and medical experts have treated diseases by adding molecules to their patient’s bodies via herbs, pharmaceuticals and other nutrients. A pioneering nanomedicine company, NaNotics, is taking a different approach to human health and longevity. The company is creating subtractive nanoparticles named NaNots to target and reduce pathogens from the human body without introducing any molecules into the system. They may also be programmed to target and absorb specific pathogens that influence diseases from cancer to aging. These NaNots are biochemical engineered to absorb pathogens and then excrete them from the body. You can think of them as tiny, biocompatible sponges.
Restorative Therapy
Within five years, new restorative therapies may be a commonplace offering. Breakthrough gene therapy is aiming to treat diseases using software programs written in DNA. Oisin Biotechnologies is the firm behind the longevity platform that would be impossible using traditional pharmacy drugs. Their program is focused on terminating senescent or cancer-causing cells. The goal is founded on the idea that damaged cells know that they are sick and that they can use this knowledge to trigger their own elimination.
Oisin’s has also had success through their impressive studies involving mice. In the study, researchers found that a single injection of Oisin’s gene therapy shows a 90 percent reduction in solid tumors in 48 hours, while treated mice lived 20 percent longer even if they started treatment at an old age. It also found that age-related bone loss was effectively prevented in male mice. A third finding shows that the cancer cells’ removal rate reached up to 70 percent for a single treatment.
Compared to other delivery systems like viral therapies, Oisin’s platform is more cost-efficient, effective and significantly safer. Plus, it is reliable and easily reproduced. If future human trials are successful and the platform receives regulatory approval, this restorative therapy could help revolutionize longevity in the coming years.
Undoing the Effects of Aging
Among the major players in the longevity and BioTech industries, Turn Biotechnology has acquired the worldwide rights for a new technology that reprograms cells to undo various effects of aging. The company’s innovative epigenetic reprogramming tool, ERA™ technology, utilizes mRNA that can deliver transcription factors to a cell’s epigenome, the area of the cell that controls activity. The transcriptions can be sent to cells in different combinations, specifically targeting cells and revitalizing their ability to behave youthfully. The ERA technology was developed by three researchers from Stanford University who founded Turn.
Longevity Companies to Keep an Eye On
Among the top breakthrough technologies expected to make a significant impact this year, the 2020 MIT Technology Review cited anti-aging drugs as one of the top ten innovations that can help humanity. While no longevity therapeutics have achieved regulatory status yet, promising pharmaceuticals have passed Phase I and Phase II clinical trials, while others are in Phase III.
Companies like Juvenescence, a bio-pharma development company, are formulating therapies that may allow people to live longer and healthier lives. The company’s divisions include JuvRx, which targets the molecular, cellular and tissue pathways of aging, identifies pharmacotherapies and manages their development. JuvRegeneration focuses on organ regeneration and the unlimited regenerative capacity of cells.
Insilico Medicine is another company that is developing novel drugs with specified properties to precisely target diseases. The development team continuously invents and deploys new AI technologies to top pharma and biotechnology companies and transforms the way therapeutics and materials are discovered. The company focuses on advancing three areas of drug research and development: disease target identification, creating synthetic biology and predicting clinical trial outcomes.
In several key areas of longevity research, developments and studies, such as from the Buck Institute, are underway and experts anticipate a series of breakthroughs in the near future. Complemented by increases in funding, progress could deliver vital treatments as aging without illness could become a reality in our lifetimes.
