Antibodies may soon help slow the aging process

Antibodies are usually protective proteins produced by our immune system to fight bacteria or viruses. Its power comes from its specificity — when you get sick, the B cells in your immune system undergo an exquisitely precise process of accelerated evolution, rapidly optimizing antibodies that attach precisely to whatever is making you sick, without attaching to any of your body’s cells. Antibodies can neutralize invading germs or mark them 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 means it’s an attractive tool for use in biology or medicine: you can use it to target anything from infections to cancer. After identifying a particular protein or process that goes wrong in a disease, much of the time and work that goes into developing a drug is actually finding drugs that achieve the process you identified, while affecting as little other things as possible. This should provide maximum treatment effect, with minimal side effects. So, since our immune systems have already figured out how to do this, scientists have thought about using antibodies in clinical applications.

The first antibody approved for medical use was muromonab-CD3 in 1986, designed (ironically) to suppress the immune system and prevent organ rejection in organ transplant patients. There are now hundreds of antibodies used in everything from cancer treatment to amazing everyday tests, like pregnancy tests and rapid Covid tests, for example, that rely on antibodies.

Today the latest wave of antibody applications is after an even bigger prize: the aging process itself. This is because the biology of aging makes us vulnerable to a whole host of different problems, from diseases like cancer and dementia, to frailty, incontinence, and gray hair. Slowing down this process could keep us all healthier for longer, and parts of it are within the range of antibodies.

In 2021, a research group used antibodies to… Directing deadly drugs To the old “senescent” cells, which are removed It has been shown To make mice live longer and healthier lives. Another paper in 2023 skillfully used different drug-carrying antibodies Skin rejuvenation From old mice. An antibody that targets a type of age-related protein modification for cleanup Make genetically modified mice live longer. In March 2024, another group reported antibodies Targeting defective bone marrow cells Improved response to the (very poorly named) buddy virus vaccine in late-middle-aged mice. It would be a nice analogy if the same molecules our bodies use to fight disease could be repurposed to improve this ability in old age. We also know that aged bone marrow cells can Increased risk of blood cancers and heart diseaseSo further testing could discover broader benefits.

These are all great proofs of principle, and improving skin and immunity with age is worth having, but could antibodies slow aging and make mice or humans live longer? And in July 2024, scientists demonstrated this Antibodies that target a protein called IL-11 It can reduce inflammation in mice and extend their lives by 25%. The best anti-aging drugs Which we know, like rapamycin. Better yet, anti-IL-11 antibodies are already in human trials (Very) preliminary results Which indicates that they are safe.

“I’m old now, and I have to take different pills for my blood pressure,” Greg Winter, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018 for his work on isolating and mass-producing specific antibodies, said at the 2020 conference. “I wish I could get an injection all at once.” Every month or once every six months and forget all those sets of different pills. The year his dream will come true may be 2025.