Ombudsman Alert – IS AN ANTI-AGING DRUG AROUND THE CORNER?

BY DR. LOUIS ALPERT 
Ombudsman

As an alumnus and former mathematics instructor at M.I.T. this ombudsman has closely followed M.I.T’s “cutting-edge” research into the development of drugs with the potential to boost the immune response in living beings by targeting how the body ages. Quoting from the current edition of the “MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW” with the title: “Old Age is Over,” I will quote from the article on anti-aging drugs written by Stephen S. Hall as follows:

“One of the most promising drugs for targeting aging has a long circuitous history.. In 1999, the US Food and Drug Administration approved ‘rapamycin’ as an immunosuppressant to prevent the rejection of transplanted organs. Scientists later found it affected all sorts of biological processes; the ‘mammalian target of rapamycin (or mTOR) includes immune function and inflammation.

“Experiments also showed that rapamycin extended the life span of of yeast, worms, and mice. Could it do the same thing in humans?

“At present, there’s no rigorous way to test rapamycin’s potential to slow human aging. Rather, researchers have zeroed in on a significant aspect of agiang- the decline in immune function- to see if drugs that mimic rapamycin can enhance immune function in older people.

“Joan B. Mannick is co-founder and chief medical officer of a biotech company called resTORbio, run out of Novartis in 2017, which is conducting trials of RTB101. It’s a drug candidate at the forefront of efforts to slow age-related decline of the immune response. Mannick says we will have our first answer about the potential of this anti-aging intervention within a year.”

The Ombudsman Alert will continue to monitor the trials of RTB101 and will report all new developments to our readers in this ongoing research on the frontier of this mission to slow down the aging of living beings.

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