Questneers : Junho Lee (Seoul National University), Seung-Jae V. Lee (KAIST)
Aging research began in earnest in the 2000s and has expanded from cellular level to organismal level research. Starting with telomerase research, the possibility of anti-aging has recently begun to be raised by controlling the expression of Yamanaka factors. Various directions of anti-aging research are being conducted, including these attempts, senescent cell removal, young blood transfusion, and cellular reprogramming. However, opinions are still divided on whether anti-aging occurring at specific cell and tissue levels can be applied to the organismal level. There are also concerns that anti-aging processes could cause diseases such as cancer through abnormal cell division. Nevertheless, anti-aging research is an important challenge for solving aging population problems and extending healthy lifespan. Can anti-aging really be achieved?
Humanity’s interest in aging has continued since ancient times, as recorded in history, but understanding the complex life phenomenon of aging was difficult, so aging research has long been one of humanity’s representative challenges. However, the secrets of aging began to be revealed one by one from the 1990s. Currently, research on cellular senescence has accumulated, and research to understand organismal aging is being actively conducted. Now humanity has reached the stage of raising the question of reverse aging. The research accumulated so far on aging and reverse aging induction is raising expectations for anti-aging to new heights. Indeed, is it possible to develop technology that can reverse aging and return to a previous ‘young’ state beyond slowing aging?
Cellular level aging research began when Professor Leonard Hayflick presented research showing that cells do not persist indefinitely, and has made considerable progress. In the 2000s, success was achieved in returning adult cells to stem cells through Yamanaka factors, and aging research based on this is also being conducted. In 2010, Professor Ronald DePinho published a paper claiming success in reversing aging by re-expressing telomerase enzyme in mice, and the possibility of anti-aging began to emerge in earnest. Meanwhile, as senescent cells became identifiable, attempts to find ways to control aging at the organismal level are being actively pursued.
Anti-aging research that started with sirtuin protein and NAD research in the past is currently developing in various directions. Particularly, various approaches such as senolytic and young blood transfusion (parabiosis) are being attempted, and recently attention is focused on cellular reprogramming research through overexpression of Yamanaka factors. These studies are expanding to the organismal level based on successful anti-aging results at the cellular level and are being studied more precisely by tissue. When these various attempts are organically combined, powerful anti-aging effects can be expected.
However, if these methods induce cells to continue dividing without aging, side effects such as cancer development may occur. Senescent cells secrete signaling factors to surrounding cells to maintain and regulate tissues. Therefore, if biological aging is inappropriately reversed, the possibility of various diseases and side effects including cancer at the organismal level cannot be excluded. Moreover, currently reported research results deal with only some of the various biological mechanisms of aging, so it is difficult to say they solve the core problems of anti-aging. In anti-aging research, studying aging at the organismal level is much more delicate and complex than cellular level aging research, and difficult challenges lie ahead before medical commercialization.
Meanwhile, establishing and standardizing thorough verification procedures is extremely important for conducting anti-aging research in earnest. There have been countless cases of frustration in anti-aging research by focusing only on specific factors. Therefore, it is necessary to present reasonable standards for verifying anti-aging effects and to monitor and verify them long-term and continuously. Simply making skin younger or turning white hair black and other specific phenomenon improvements are easy tasks, but comprehensively defining and judging aging or anti-aging phenomena throughout the human body including the brain is not easy due to human complexity. If these verification procedures are not established preemptively, organismal level anti-aging research will be difficult to accumulate.
In conclusion, it is time to present core technologies that can achieve organismal level anti-aging by synthesizing existing research.