Antibodies could soon help slow down the aging process

Normally, antibodies are protective proteins that our immune system produces to fight bacteria or viruses. Their strength lies in their specificity: When you get sick, the B cells of your immune system undergo an extremely precise process of accelerated evolution that quickly creates optimized antibodies that bind precisely to whatever is making you sick, without binding to any of your body’s own cells to adhere. The antibodies can block the functioning of a marauding germ or mark it for destruction by other parts of the immune system, making antibodies a crucial defense against disease in our immune arsenal.

This precise targeting ability also makes them an attractive tool for use in biology or medicine: you can use them to fight infections and cancer. After identifying a particular protein or process that goes awry in a disease, much of the time and work that goes into developing a drug is finding drugs that affect the process you have identified, while doing so as much as possible have little other impact. This is intended to enable the maximum treatment effect with minimal side effects. Because our immune systems have already figured out how to do this, scientists have speculated about using antibodies in clinical applications.

The first antibody approved for medical use was Muromonab-CD3 in 1986, which (ironically) was intended to suppress the immune system and prevent organ rejection in transplant patients. Hundreds of antibodies are now used for everything from cancer treatment to surprisingly commonplace things – pregnancy tests and rapid Covid tests rely on antibodies, for example.

Today, the latest wave of antibody applications is aimed at a larger target: the aging process itself. Because the biology of aging leaves us vulnerable to a whole range of different problems, from diseases like cancer and dementia to frailty, incontinence and gray hair. Slowing this process could keep us all healthier for longer – and parts of it are in the sights of the antibodies.

In 2021, a research group used antibodies against it Wield a deadly drug to aged, “senescent” cells, their removal was shown to give mice a longer, healthier life. Another 2023 article used subtly different drug-containing antibodies rejuvenate the skin from old mice. An antibody that targets a type of age-related protein modification for purification has led to genetically modified mice living longer. And in March 2024, another group reported that antibodies It targets defective bone marrow cells improved response to a vaccine against the (very poorly named) Friend virus in late middle-aged mice. It will be a beautiful symmetry that the very molecules our bodies use to fight disease could be repurposed to improve that ability as we age. We also know that these older bone marrow cells are able to do this increase the risk of blood cancer and heart diseaseso further testing could reveal broader benefits.

These are all fascinating proofs of principle, and better skin and immunity with age would be well worth it, but can antibodies slow the aging process and actually make mice or humans live longer? In July 2024, scientists showed this Antibodies that target a protein called IL-11 could reduce inflammation in mice and extend their lifespan by 25 percent – ​​by then the best anti-aging drugs that we know, such as rapamycin. Even better: Anti-IL-11 antibodies are already being tested in humans (very) preliminary results This indicates that they are safe.

Greg Winter, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018 for his work isolating and mass producing specific antibodies, said at a conference in 2020: “I’m old now and have to take different blood pressure pills.” I wish I could just once a month or every six Getting an injection for months and simply forgetting about all the combinations of different pills.” The year in which his dream comes true could be 2025.