Pasteur or Ponce de León?
C. H. Westphal MD, PhD1; M. A. Dipp, MD, PhD1; L. Guarente PhD2; D. A. Sinclair PhD3
1 Sirtris Pharmaceuticals
2 MIT
3 Harvard Medical School and Glenn Institute of Aging
Abstract
For thousands of years, society has been seeking a means to extend healthy life span. Yet the key genes that dictate life span were discovered only within the last decade. The challenge now is to utilize these discoveries to develop drugs to treat broadly prevalent diseases of aging, such as type 2 diabetes and cancer. From this perspective, we discuss the promising drug targets identified thus far in the field of aging research. Some of these targets appear to underlie the beneficial effects of calorie restriction, the most robust means to extend healthy life span in mammals. Insights gained from human clinical trials of calorie restriction, and from therapeutic interventions in animal models of diseases of aging, delineate a potential development path for drugs that treat diseases of aging.
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