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Thanks for reading The Abstract. This month’s edition is
1,702 words, about a
6-minute read.
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While COVID-19 rightly captured much attention from the scientific community in recent years, progress has also continued apace on many other research fronts in 2022. For our December
Abstract, we asked members of our renowned Scientific Advisory Board to share what they consider to be important news in science during the past year. We hope you enjoy these expert takes on advancements across various fields, from nutrition to the origins of life.
To round out our scientific year-in-review, we’ve also included a list of breakthrough technologies with diverse applications, from medicine to nuclear energy, as reported by
MIT Technology Review.
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10 Breakthrough Technologies that Defined 2022
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Technology touches every part of our lives—our health, our finances, even our social lives. The major technological developments of the year tell us as much about our culture and what we care about as they do our capacity for ingenuity. That’s true of this exciting list of breakthroughs selected by the editors of
MIT Technology Review, from a malaria vaccine to carbon removal factories. We’re especially pleased to report that “aging clocks”—a category that includes the technology we developed for Index—also made the list.
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Experience a Breakthrough Technology for Yourself
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Track how fast you’re aging using the latest generation of epigenetics technology. With Index, you’ll learn your biological age so you can start making healthy changes—and age on your terms.
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Elysium Scientific Advisory Board's Top Picks for 2022
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The Biology of Exercise and Your Appetite
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“This is from my Sarafan ChEM-H colleague Jonathan Long, where he describes the discovery of a metabolite called LacPhe that is produced during exercise and limits appetite. The beginning of a new chapter in our understanding of how exercise alters blood metabolites that have beneficial systemic effects on human physiology.”
(Read the study)
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Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D.
Baker Family Director of Sarafan ChEM-H and Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University, HHMI Investigator, and a recipient of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
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Cacao Molecule Activates SIRT1 and Extends Life in Fruit Flies
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“This study identifies a novel activator of SIRT1 and the heat shock response, the fatty acid-tryptamide from cacao.
This class of compounds activates SIRT1 in vitro,
turns on the expression of heat shock proteins, and extends lifespan in Drosophila.
Fatty acid-tryptamide compounds add to a growing list of SIRT1 activators and
may have applications as novel anti-aging
interventions.” (Read the study)
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Leonard Guarente, Ph.D.
Novartis Professor of Biology and director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at MIT and Elysium co-founder and chief scientist
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Landmark Studies in Nutrition Science
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“In 2022, three new randomized trials provide landmark
findings proving that a Mediterranean diet reduces heart
attacks, that the omega-3 DHA improves brain development
and IQ in children, and that eating more dietary potassium
in place of sodium reduces strokes. These trials confirm numerous
observational studies on these topics, highlighting the growing strength
and consistency of nutrition science. At the same time, new research shows
that only 7% of all US adults are metabolically healthy—a dire call to action
to translate this new science into policies and practices for healthier eating
by all Americans.”
(Read the studies: Mediterranean Diet, DHA and Brain, Sodium and Stroke, Metabolic Health)
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Dariush Mozaffarian, M.D., D.P.H.
Special advisor to the provost, dean for policy, and the Jean Mayer Professor of Nutrition at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, and professor of medicine at Tufts School of Medicine
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What Gives Rise to Childhood Obesity?
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| “We have identified ultrasound-derived patterns
of growth of the fetal abdomen and maternal metabolite
signatures early in pregnancy that are associated with
infant size and adiposity at 2 years of age. The findings
are important because the antecedents of childhood obesity are unclear at present.” (Read the study)
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Stephen Kennedy, M.D.
Professor of reproductive medicine and director of the Oxford Maternal and Perinatal Health Institute at the Nuffield Department of Women's and Reproductive Health, University of Oxford, and co-lead for the INTERGROWTH-21st Project
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A Medication to Help Treat Obesity
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| “I think one of the most significant findings in 2022
was that there is finally an effective medication to
treat obesity. Increased body fat is a risk factor for
all chronic diseases and lifestyle interventions are often
difficult to implement in the beginning. Novel substances such
as semaglutide can help with weight loss and also motivate patients
to improve their lifestyles, increase physical activity, and make
changes to their nutrition.” (Read the study)
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Michael Sagner, M.D.
President of the European Society of Preventive Medicine and editor-in-chief for
Progress in Preventive Medicine
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AI Helps Understand the Role of Microbes in Pancreatic Cancer
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| “The paper is about the development of artificial intelligence methods to aid in assessing the presence of microbes in pancreatic cancer.
We found that many, but not all, tumors had a microbiome,
and that the T-cells within the tumor were responding, not
to the tumor, but to the microbes present; they had hijacked
the immune response. Importantly, patients whose tumors had
microbes present had much shorter survival than those without.
That implies that therapies that could remove the microbes from
the tumors could substantially prolong the life of pancreatic cancer patients.” (Read the study)
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Martin J. Blaser, M.D.
Henry Rutgers Chair of the Human Microbiome, professor of medicine and pathology & laboratory medicine at RWJMS, and director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, Rutgers University
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Toward a Unified Understanding of Neurodegeneration
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| “A polymorphism in the TMEM106b gene has long been known
to increase TMEM106b expression and to strongly promote
multiple neurodegenerative diseases. Prior to this study,
it was thought that TMEM106b is a lysosomal protein that
enhances neurodegeneration via its normal biological activity.
The current paper was the first in a series of studies that
discovered that TMEM106b is in fact proteolyzed into a fragment
that aggregates into fibrils similar to those formed by Abeta,
alpha-synuclein, and tau. This discovery unifies our understanding
of neurodegeneration as it suggests that most, and possibly all,
neurodegenerative diseases are associated with the formation of
protein aggregates with a similar cross-beta structure.” (Read the study)
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Thomas C. Südhof, M.D.
Avram Goldstein Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology and of Neurosurgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, HHMI Investigator, and a recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
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Unraveling the Origins of Protein Synthesis—and Life
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| “This research from my lab aims to get at the
origin of protein synthesis, from a different
perspective than the usual search for the origin
of the genetic code. RNAs with an amino acid attached
at one end are used by the ribosome for protein synthesis.
But why would such molecules have existed before the evolution
of protein synthesis? In this paper we showed that such ‘aminoacylated RNAs’
may have had a different primordial role in helping with the assembly of longer
RNAs that can act as primitive enzymes.” (Read the study)
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Jack W. Szostak, Ph.D.
Professor in the department of chemistry at the University of Chicago, HHMI Investigator, and a recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
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Did Grandmothers Lead to the Dominance of Humans?
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| “This paper...challenges a long-standing dogma
that natural selection does not act to prevent aging.
Humans (the only land mammals with potentially long-lived postmenopausal grandmothers)
harbor many uniquely human-specific alleles that
directly or indirectly protect the functionality and
cognition of elderly caregivers. Most of these alleles
are not present in Neanderthals, and other archaic hominin
lineages, suggesting that grandmothers are unique to modern
humans, and may have played a key role in the dominance of our
species. An important corollary is that studies of aging in other
mammals cannot always be extrapolated to humans. Thus it is critical
that results are validated in humans.” (Read the study)
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Ajit P. Varki, M.D.
Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, co-director of the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny, and co-director of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center at UC San Diego School of Medicine
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Sirtuin 6 Is Associated With Human Longevity
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| “This study demonstrates, for the first time,
that enhanced sirtuin 6 activity is associated
with human longevity. The variant of sirtuin 6
found in human centenarians is more efficient in
maintaining genome and epigenome stability.” (Read the study)
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Vera Gorbunova, Ph.D.
Doris Johns Cherry Professor of Biology and Medicine and co-director of the Rochester Aging Research Center at the University of Rochester
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The Role of DNA Mismatch Repair in Nervous System Diseases
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“Certain human genes contain triplet repeat sequences,
in which 3 letters of the genetic code are repeated multiple times.
These repeats tend to be genetically unstable, and an increase in the
number of repeat units beyond the normal range (repeat expansion) is the
cause of a number of human diseases, many of which affect the nervous system.
Huntington’s disease is a common example, in which expansion of the repeats is
believed to play an important role in determining the age of onset and severity of disease symptoms.
One of the big surprises in the triplet repeat
field was the finding by multiple laboratories that
the function of the DNA mismatch repair system is
required for repeat expansion. During the past several
years this has culminated in the demonstration that the
minor mismatch repair protein MutLγ, a complex of two proteins
called MLH1 and MLH3, plays an important role in the expansion
process. Because inactivation of MLH3 has only a modest effect on
function of the mismatch repair system, these findings suggest that
development of therapeutics that interfere with MLH3 function may provide
a means to delay symptom onset and alleviate symptom severity in patients
afflicted with debilitating diseases such as Huntington’s, Freidreich ataxia,
and Fragile X syndromes.” (Read the studies: Kadyrova, Roy, Halabi, Hayward)
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Paul Modrich, Ph.D.
James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry at Duke University and a recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
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AGING 101
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Epigenetics, DNA Methylation, and the Science of Biological Clocks
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Our DNA makes us who we are, but it’s epigenetics that brings our story to life. Here’s the science of epigenetics, including how it works and how it relates to biological clocks.
Read more
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