Gaming Aging in the "Omic" Era.

Abstract

The present article, “Suppression of Activated FOXO Transcription Factors in the Heart Prolongs Survival in a Mouse Model of Laminopathies,”1 is an exemplary application of new science. Its potential translational merit to further molecular mechanistic understanding in the advancement of therapeutic approaches which may improve the survival of the rare LMNA -mediated cardiomyopathy phenotypes might prove to have a broader application than the authors can suppose, having far-reaching implications extending into the field of human longevity and aging. Article, see p 678 Twenty-first–century medicine is being redefined by its quantum leap into the study of the omes—genome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, epigenome; the big data its generating; and the information technology that handles it. A 21st-century conceptual framework transition is underway which repurposes the monomodal 20th-century silver bullet pursuit to multimodal silver buckshot therapeutic strategies. Early applications of these multimodal metabolic therapies which are using programmatic, precisioned, and personalized approaches to treat some of the most dreaded and complex diseases associated with aging are reporting unheard of success. Conditions such as Alzheimer’s, which has been largely unresponsive to targeted amyloid drug therapy, are for the first time being described as reversible. A new model of understanding the pathophysiology of aggregated amyloid proteins as the brain’s protective response to insult is driving a new course of treatment.2 Biomedical advancements are providing an unprecedented opportunity to gain a dynamic systems-level understanding of the causes and pathophysiologies of age-related chronic disease which results from integrated extrinsic and intrinsic causes. In view of continuing failures in health research, drug discovery, clinical translation, patient outcomes, and costs of these chronic degenerative conditions, this new understanding is of vital need. Through the advent of New Generation High-Throughput Sequencing, CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), RNA-Seq, and other emerging technologies, we are beginning to realize …