Sirtris puts longevity therapy to the test

Over the past several years there's been a growing amount of research to prove that caloric restriction can trigger longer life spans. And the potential to use drugs to trigger the same biologic pathways that can extend life has inspired a biotech company to take its therapeutic approach into the clinic.

The New York Times explores the progress that Sirtris Pharmaceuticals is making with its therapeutic approach to longevity. Researchers are combining a specially formulated version of resveratrol with drugs that activate sirtuin in a diabetes study. Sirtris chose diabetes because it can't get a regulatory approval for a drug based on longevity alone. Evidently the agency doesn't consider aging a disease.

Harvard Medical School's David Sinclair provided a big part of the scientific foundation Sirtris built itself on, which was promising enough to spur GlaxoSmithKline to pay $720 million for the company. And Sinclair dismisses skeptics, saying that "the results from the Sirtris compounds are promising and will be submitted for publication in coming months."  

- read the article from the New York Times

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