In this enlightening discussion, Morgan Levine, a leading researcher in aging biology and principal investigator at Altos Labs, dives into the science of epigenetics and biological age. She reveals how aging varies from person to person and explains the concept of epigenetic clocks that measure this biological time. Levine also discusses the potential of cellular reprogramming to alter age at a cellular level and emphasizes the pursuit of extending healthspan by delaying disease rather than eliminating aging altogether.
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insights INSIGHT
Aging Varies By Person And Starts Inside
People age at different rates and aging begins internally at the cellular and molecular levels.
Quantifying molecular aging likely predicts disease risk and remaining life expectancy.
insights INSIGHT
Epigenetics As The Cell’s Operating System
Epigenetics acts like a cell's operating system and defines cell identity despite identical DNA.
DNA methylation patterns change with age and can be used to predict biological age via epigenetic clocks.
insights INSIGHT
Epigenome Reversibility Changes The Aging Narrative
Reprogramming experiments show that the epigenome is dynamic and can be reversed at the cellular level.
This reversibility challenges the idea that aging is strictly unidirectional and immutable.
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Science can’t stop aging, but it may be able to slow our epigenetic clocks.
What if we could slow down the hands of our biological clocks? This question underpins much of the research of Morgan Levine, who leads a research team at the life science company Altos Labs.
Levine investigates the fascinating intricacies of aging, recognizing that it doesn't happen at a uniform pace for everyone. Central to her exploration is the concept of epigenetics — the factors that influence gene activity without changing the DNA sequence. Levine focuses on DNA methylation, a significant epigenetic change that occurs with aging, and the development of models called "epigenetic clocks" that can be used to predict biological age.
While she acknowledges that it might be possible to reverse aging at a cellular level, Levine clarifies that the ultimate goal is not to "cure" aging or death, but to delay disease onset and improve healthspan.
0:00 Fast agers & slow agers
1:25 The hallmarks of aging
1:59 What is the epigenetic clock?
3:05 Can we ‘Benjamin Button’ aging?
5:22 The holy grail for scientists
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About Morgan Levine:
Morgan Levine was previously a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the department of Pathology at Yale University where she ran the Laboratory for Aging in Living Systems. In 2022, she was recruited to join Altos Labs as a Founding Principal Investigator at the San Diego Institute of Science. She currently leads a research group at Altos Labs working at the intersection of bioinformatics, cellular biology, complex systems, and biostatistics with the overall goal of understanding the molecular trajectories aging cells, tissues, and organisms take through time.
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