The treated mice were known as “supermodel grannies” in the lab because of their youthful appearance.

They were healthier, stronger and developed fewer cancers than their unmedicated peers.

The drug is already being tested in people, but whether it would have the same anti-ageing effect is unknown.

Identifying individuals who are at a high risk of age-related morbidities may aid in personalized medicine. Circulating proteins can discriminate disease cases from controls and delineate the risk of incident diagnoses^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}. While singular protein markers offer insight into the mediators of disease^5,9,10,11, simultaneously harnessing multiple proteins may improve clinical utility¹². Clinically available non-omics scores such as QRISK typically profile the 10-year onset risk of a disease¹³. Proteomic scores have recently been trained on diabetes, cardiovascular and lifestyle traits as outcomes in 16,894 individuals¹⁴. Proteomic and metabolomic scores have also been developed for time-to-event outcomes, including all-cause mortality^{6,15,16,17,18,19,20,21}.

Here, we demonstrate how large-scale proteomic sampling can identify candidate protein targets and facilitate the prediction of leading age-related incident outcomes in mid to later life (see the study design summary in Extended Data Fig. 1). We used 1,468 Olink plasma protein measurements in 47,600 individuals (aged 40–70 years) available as part of the UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project (UKB-PPP)²². Cox proportional hazards (PH) models were used to characterize associations between each protein and 24 incident outcomes, ascertained through electronic health data linkage. Next, the dataset was randomly split into training and testing subsets to train proteomic scores (ProteinScores) and assess their utility for modeling either the 5-or 10-year onset of the 19 incident outcomes that had a minimum of 150 cases available. We modeled ProteinScores alongside clinical biomarkers, polygenic risk scores (PRS) and metabolomics measures to investigate how these markers may be used to augment risk stratification.

Researchers administered an injection of an anti-IL-11 antibody to 75-week-old mice, neutralizing the harmful effects of IL-11.

face_with_colon_three mitochondria immortality.

In a new study, lab mice given an experimental drug were jokingly referred to as “supermodel grannies” because they looked so youthful even while aging beyond their expected lifespan.

As the BBC reports, the trials for a drug believed to flush out a protein known as interleukin-11 — which in early development helps build our bones but later in life causes the kinds of inflammation that triggers much of the illness of aging — have already had intriguing success in mice.

Published in the journal Nature, a paper about the research undertaken by scientists at Imperial College London, Duke-NUS in Singapore, and the MRC Lab of Medical Sciences found that when given a drug that purges interleukin-11, the mice became more lean, had healthier fur, and had significantly lower levels of cancer than their counterparts of the same age.

Promising.

A drug that inhibits inflammation helped mice live longer and reduced the animals’ incidence of cancer and age-related health problems.

By Grace Wade