GenFlow: Making Your Final Years, Your Healthiest Shared By Eric Leire

Recently, there has been a surge in the amount of literature and advice on how to combat ageing. Soundbites include: getting enough exercise, sleeping and eating well and taking over the counter supplements. However, savvier consumers are looking for more technological advancements to combat the science behind why we age.

The BioIndustry Association affirmed that the sector produced over £2.8 Billion of economic value in 2020, with this set to augment. With focus on Research & development, private financing and even sharp interest from governments across the globe, it is fertile ground for “start-ups” to prosper in this sector.

Step forward, Eric Leire and his latest firm, GenFlow Biosciences, whom are interested in identifying the genetic and molecular pathways underpinning the aging process. It works on the established fact that DNA repair plays a crucial role in determining an organism’s lifespan. As humans and other mammals grow older, DNA prone to breakages.

Eric intends to provide extra copies of a gene involved in DNA repair called SIRT6, and more specifically a variant found in centenarians. As the years pass, our DNA self-repair mechanisms become overwhelmed. Our cells stop dividing and send pro-inflammatory signals and our stocks of stem cells reduce; our mitochondria fail to generate sufficient energy, our proteins do not fold properly, our muscle strength decreases, our neurons decline, our immune system weakens. We expect that these extra copies of a “super SIRT6 gene” will help delay the ageing process.

We asked Eric why he had been focussing on this body of research. “Through recent medical technologies, better public health policies and social advances, we have already provided a significant gain in Human longevity”.

For example, in 1990 the United Nations estimated that the global number of centenarians was only 95,000. The UN forecasts that, in 2100, more than 25 million people will live more than 100 years. As the world population approaches eight billion, some people may question the validity to targeting an increase of the maximum life span for Human. In fact, we argue that acting on the aging process is more urgent than ever. We should not target a significant increase of our lifespan without aiming at sustaining our well-being.

Quantity of life without quality of life is pointless. Science discovers increasingly promising tools to preventing the cognitive decline, the frailty, the weakening of our immune system associated with old age that even are more valuable than gains in maximum life span. These scientific advances such as providing extra copies of SIRT6 aim at offering better quality of life for an increasingly large aging population. It stands to be seen whether your last years will truly be your best; yet with the sustained advancements and focus, it could become all of a reality.