Texas Researchers to Determine if Rapamycin Extends
Human Life as it Does for Mice
$5.2 million from stimulus funds to back project at
Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging
Oct. 6, 2009 – Can the antibiotic rapamycin be the
silver bullet? Will it extend the lives of humans as it has mice?
Answers may come from new research at the Barshop Institute for
Longevity and Aging Studies, a research facility of The University of
Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, which just received a $5.2
million grant awarded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA).
Researchers will begin testing the therapeutic
qualities of rapamycin on age-related diseases and health span, thanks
to the grant coming through the Grand Opportunities (GO) program of the
National Institutes of Health resulting from the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.
Rapamycin is an antibiotic and immunosuppressant
approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It is in clinical
trials for the treatment of cancer. Health span refers to how long a
person or animal is able to maintain good health during the life span.
A first in mice
Breakthrough aging studies carried out at the
Barshop Institute showed that rapamycin increases the life span of mice
by 28 percent to 38 percent. Because of study challenges, the mice were
not started on the antibiotic until the age of 20 months — equivalent to
age 60 in humans — which made the results all the more intriguing.
These results, independently verified at two other
centers participating in the NIA Interventions Testing Program, were
reported in July in the journal Nature. The other centers are Jackson
Laboratory and the University of Michigan.
Scientists who study aging processes believe these
findings are especially significant because they are the first to
rigorously show that a pharmacological manipulation can reproducibly
increase the life span of mice. Until now, caloric restriction and gene
manipulations were the only two verifiable approaches to extend life in
mice.
One crucial question for investigators, however, is
whether long-term rapamycin treatment improves health span as well as
life span. “This question must be addressed because of rapamycin’s
potential negative effects on the immune system,” said Arlan Richardson,
Ph.D., professor of cellular and structural biology, director of the
Barshop Institute and the principal investigator on this newly awarded
project. He is also a senior research career scientist with the South
Texas Veterans Health Care System and occupies the Methodist Hospital
Foundation Chair in Aging Studies and Research.
Weighing the benefits and risks
To better understand the broader physiological
effects of rapamycin, Dr. Richardson is leading a team of 21 scientists
who will investigate the anti-aging effectiveness of rapamycin on
various biological systems in aging mice. Each researcher on the team is
an expert in the specific system selected for study.
Some of the vital questions this study is designed
to answer include:
• Does rapamycin delay or reduce age-related
diseases such as cancer, neurodegeneration, atherosclerosis and
nephropathy?
• Do mice given rapamycin maintain a longer health
span by preserving their sensitivity to infectious agents, healthy
autoimmunity and biological functions?
• Does rapamycin improve the biological function of
the cellular and molecular pathways that influence health, such as
autophagy (a process by which cells maintain efficient operations) and
inflammation?
“Answering these questions is essential to aging
research because our primary goal in the discovery of anti-aging
treatments and therapies is to extend healthy life span by warding off
the devastating diseases of aging, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s
diseases, cancer and cardiovascular diseases, and blindness and
deafness, ” Dr. Richardson said.
The NIH Grand Opportunities grants program supports
large-scale research projects that accelerate critical breakthroughs,
early and applied research on cutting-edge technologies, and new
approaches to improve the synergy and interactions among multi- and
interdisciplinary research teams.
U
The University of Texas Health Science Center at
San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one
of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an
operating budget of $668 million, the Health Science Center is the chief
catalyst for the $16.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San
Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $36
billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six
campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than
25,600 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and other
health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas.
Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer,
cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney
disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry
and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing,
dentistry and many other fields. For more information, visit
www.uthscsa.edu.
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Oct. 6, 2009 – Can the antibiotic rapamycin be the
silver bullet? Will it extend the lives of humans as it has mice?
Answers may come from new research at the Barshop Institute for
Longevity and Aging Studies, a research facility of The University of
Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, which just received a $5.2
million grant awarded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA).