Trends in Aging and Rejuvenation Research | Eleanor Sheekey

What if we could treat aging as any other disease?

Today I am excited to meet Eleanor Sheekey on my podcast. Eleanor is a PhD student at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, where she focuses on p53 biology. Eleanor has a beautiful YouTube channel where she distills the most innovative research in aging with a creative and engaging rhythm, The Sheekey Science Show.

Eleanor and I go through some of the most promising trends in aging research (2022). This is not a technical episode, but rather an accessible introduction to longevity research. For most of the topics we explore, you can also find short videos on Eleanor’s YouTube channel to dig deeper and find more references to papers and reviews. Eleanor and I discuss how difficult measuring aging is, and how difficult it is to define the onset of aging, which should be known if we want to intervene on it. We define lifespan and healthspan, and consider quite a few biological mechanisms that are known to deteriorate with aging, including cellular senescence, protein aggregation and neurodegeneration, telomere shortening, accumulation of somatic mutations, changes in the gut microbiome, and more. We also describe a few innovative therapeutics being tested in cells and mice. This discussion does not aim to be exhaustive, in fact, we focus mostly on less popularized ideas, most of which are still far from the clinic, rather than better discussed molecules, on which you can still learn on Eleanor’s channel. We also discuss why the cloning of the sheep Dolly matters for aging research, and an example of vision restoration by cellular reprogramming with Yamanaka factors, one of the futuristic avenues for aging therapeutics. Eleanor clarifies the two main directions of research in the longevity space: protective strategies that try to slow down aging, and rejuvenation strategies that try to reverse it. Longevity is really an exploding field, and Eleanor’s contribution as a scientist and a youtuber will be as great!

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[OUTREACH] The Sheekey Science Show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/thesheekeyscienceshow

[ACADEMIC] Reprogramming to recover youthful epigenetic information and restore vision: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2975-4