40% of people over the age of 65 in Europe are affected by protein deficiency

Nutrition as a key intervention in order to maintain health and promote healthy aging. This is the idea that José Viña, professor of physiology of the University of Valencia, has defended for many years, based on his work at the head of the research group Freshage. To this end, he highlights some “serious impediments” currently faced in this respect, such as the fact that “up to 40% of people over the age of 65 in Europe suffer from protein deficiency.”

 

Furthermore, Dr José Viña emphasises the need not only to provide supplementation to older people, but to do so in a personalised manner. In this way, although longevity depends by approximately 30% on genetics, “we have a margin for manoeuvre for life expectancy. Without doubt, improvements in physical exercise, nutrition, stress control and preventive medicine can greatly increase the quality of life of older people,” he explains.

 

With regard to the current debate on calorie restriction, José Viña acknowledges that this is “the best intervention to prolong longevity”. However, although its mechanisms have been widely studied since 1930, the professor explains the limitations. “The problem we face with human beings is that this is an intervention that is very uncomfortable to carry out. Always stopping short of malnutrition, few people are willing to restrict food so much that they have a permanent feeling of hunger or discomfort.”

 

Specifically, the myths and realities of life expectancy will be the focus of Dr Viña’s presentation at the Longevity World Forum, the international congress that will be held on 13, 14 and 15 November in Valencia. Here, he will share his knowledge with other authoritative voices on the subject such as Rafael de Cabo, chief of the Translational Gerontology Branch of the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore (USA); Pura Muñoz, researcher of the Spanish National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), who has this year received the Jaume I Prize for Medical Research for her contributions on the molecular mechanisms of aging; Manuel Serrano, a doctor and professor who is currently working on the ICREA programme of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine of Barcelona (IRB Barcelona) leading research into senescence and cellular plasticity; and María Blasco, director of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) who has recently managed to increase longevity without genetic intervention on mouse models born with longer than usual telomeres.

Vicente Andrés

Head of the Department of Basic Research at CNIC (Spain)

Dr. Andrés holds a PhD in Biology from Universidad de Barcelona. After postdoctoral research in Harvard University (1991-1993) and Tufts University (1993-1995), he was appointed Assistant Professor by Tufts University (1995-2000). He joined in 1999 the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) to establish his research group in the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia. In 2009, he joined the Spanish National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), where he leads a research team and heads the Department of Basic Research since 2015. His research has focused on cardiovascular disease and the role of lamin A/C in the regulation of gene expression and signal transduction in health and disease, including physiological ageing and Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome. He has received national and international awards, such as the Dr. Leon Dumont Prize 2010 (Belgian Society of Cardiology), and a Progeria Research Foundation (PRF) Innovator Award 2012. Since 2015, he is member of PRF’s Medical Research Committee.

Fabio García Castro

Technical Director of R&D at Quibim (Spain)

Telecommunications Engineer from the Polytechnics University of Valencia (UPV). He works in the field of radiological image processing and analysis as Technical Director of R&D at Quibim S.L., developing new and innovative image biomarkers and quantification methods that can be easily integrated in the radiological flow.

Santander Bank Scholarship to finance his degree thesis on automatic detection of breast lesions. He is a collaborator of the Biomedical Imaging Research Group (GIBI 230) of the Health Research Institute of the La Fe University and Polytechnics Hospital of Valencia. CPE by Cambridge University in 2015. He has participated in several Horizon 2020 projects of the European Commission. He currently has 8 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and 8 communications in congresses.

The researchers María Blasco and Manuel Collado will attend the Longevity World Forum to present the latest discoveries reached in Spain on delaying aging

Two of the most recent major scientific achievements on longevity have been accomplished by Spanish research teams. Specifically, those led by María Blasco at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) and by Manuel Collado at the Health Research Institute of Santiago (IDIS). Both professionals will participate at the second edition of the Longevity World Forum, an international congress on healthy aging and life expectancy which will be held on 13, 14 and 15 November in Valencia.

 

Thus, María Blasco will present some of the work developed by the Telomeres and Telomerase Group of the CNIO, which has shown that longevity can be increased without gene manipulation, using mouse models born with longer than usual telomeres. This not only increases their life expectancy, but also improves their health, since they are better protected against diseases such as cancer and obesity. Dr Blasco will lead one of the conferences included in the symposium of 13 November.

 

Manuel Collado, who will give a presentation on Thursday 14 November, will explain how an active ingredient extracted from Digitalis or foxglove, a plant very common in Galicia, is able to selectively eliminate senescent cells. “We have sufficient evidence today to affirm that the accumulation of senescent cells contributes significantly to a large number of what are known as age-related diseases and it has even been possible to demonstrate that, by specifically eliminating them, we can generate an improved state of health at an advanced age in experimental animal models”, affirms Dr Collado.

 

The Longevity World Forum will bring together more professionals from around the world, who will share other breakthroughs on longevity made by the many sectors involved in this field. For example, participants will include Rafael de Cabo, chief of the Translational Gerontology Branch of the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore (USA); Maria Entraigues Abramson, Global Outreach Coordinator of SENS Research Foundation (USA); Pura Muñoz, researcher of the Spanish National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), who has this year received the Jaume I Prize for Medical Research for her contributions on the molecular mechanisms of aging.

 

Also taking part will be Avan Sayer, director of the Newcastle Institute for Ageing (United Kingdom); Reason, co-founder of Repair Biotechnologies, Inc. (USA); Bruno Vellas, doctor of the Aging Unit and chairman of the Gerontopole at the University Hospital of Toulouse (France); Álvaro Pascual-Leone, professor of Neurology at the Harvard Medical School (USA); and Manuel Serrano, a doctor and professor who is currently working on the ICREA programme of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine of Barcelona (IRB Barcelona) leading research into senescence and cellular plasticity. “We want to understand how tissues respond to damage, which includes aging, degenerative diseases and cancer,” explains Dr Serrano.

 

Altogether, the 2019 edition of the Longevity World Forum will serve to inform on the latest research currently underway on longevity, the recently proven guidelines on the best ways to live a longer and healthier life, as well as the social and economic effects implicit to societies with increasing life expectancy. For the second year running, Spain will be the international forum par excellence on healthy aging and, furthermore Valencia is consolidated as one of the scientific capitals of the world.

Mercedes Sanchis Almenara

Head of Innovation Occupational Safe and Health Promotion of IBV (Valencia, Spain)

She obtained her PhD in industrial engineering from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and now works at the Biomechanics Institute of Valencia, a technology centre that studies the behaviour of the human body and its relationship with the products, environments and services people use. She has extensive experience in the development of products and services designed to consider the functional and cognitive characteristics of elderly people and which incorporate in their design all those aspects that ease their acceptance and use by this population group. She worked as a researcher on national and international projects from 2005 to 2015, when she became head of the Occupational Health and Wellbeing Unit of the Biomechanics Institute, the post she currently holds.

Liz Parrish

Founder and CEO of BioViva Science (USA)

Liz Parrish, the Founder and CEO of BioViva Science, is a humanitarian, entrepreneur, innovator, author, podcaster, and a leading voice for genetic cures. As a strong proponent of progress and education for the advancement of regenerative medicine, she serves as a motivational speaker to the public at large for the life sciences. She is actively involved in international educational media outreach. Dedicated to the cause of improving and safeguarding more and more lives, Liz asserts, “We are focused on saving as many lives as possible by making tomorrow’s therapies available today. This is about life and death. Risk aversion and delaying the approval of therapies that have been successful in research simply kills”. Liz Parrish is founding member of the International Longevity Alliance, member of the Board of the Coalition for Radical Life Extension and affiliated member of the Complex Biological Systems Alliance.

“Imaging is the key to the health of the future focused on prevention and regular monitoring”

Ángel Alberich-Bayarri, director and founder of QUIBIM, will participate for the second year running at the Longevity World Forum. His intervention, which will form part of the session on RDI in longevity, will reveal the applications and possibilities of artificial intelligence in this field.

What new lines of work are you currently developing in Quibim?

We are currently developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms for application in different clinical scenarios more closely related with the study of disease and also in the field of prevention and health preservation. In the more clinical scope, we are continuing to evolve our image analysis platform with the launch of a new version next December. This incorporates a detector of pathologies in chest X-rays based on artificial intelligence and an integrated application for the diagnosis and characterisation of prostate cancer, which will be the first artificial intelligence tool in the world focused on this disease. In the field of health, quality of life and longevity, we are working very intensively on characterising the state of health of organs and tissues. We are able to calculate the health of an organ and to know its real “age” based on all the parameters that we measure. We can discover the real age of a person’s brain or the state of health of their liver, bones, cartilage and muscles, among others. This enables us to provide an overall indicator of an individual’s health based on the condition of their organs.

What do the advances in medical imaging and biomarkers mean for the end patients?

The main advantage provided by the analysis of medical images based on computational models (mathematical models) such as Artificial Intelligence is better knowledge of the pathology, beyond what can be seen by the human eye of the radiologist. The patient has interacted very little with the radiologist and has hardly any knowledge of the preparation details of the radiology report. QUIBIM makes this process more objective and transparent, providing objective reports, in addition to that of the radiologist, more similar to the reports provided for a blood test: What is my value and what is the normal range? Am I inside or outside the range? We can provide this type of information for many organs and tissues: What is the volume of grey matter in my brain? Is it normal? Does my liver have fat deposits? What is the condition of the cartilage in my joints? Is it sufficiently hydrated?

In your opinion, what has been the principal milestone in your sector during the last year?

The main milestone has been the change in the type of client, reflected by the maturity of the market: from the stage where the commercial adoption of artificial intelligence algorithms for medical imaging was focused on visionary clinics adept in technology, that saw AI as a way to stand out from the competition, to a second, more mature stage in which the main criterion for purchase is the search for value, which is followed by the vast majority of clients: How can this new technology improve my work?

What new advances for health will artificial intelligence bring in the near future?

One of the forthcoming advances for health provided by the processing of medical images using artificial intelligence will be provided by what is known as radiomics, since this will make it possible to improve the precision of diagnosis, the evaluation of prognosis and the prediction of therapeutic response. Thanks to the immense quantity of data currently generated by the use of AI, radiomics will enable us to perform populational studies to monitor the evolution of a disease over time and to discover new imaging biomarkers related to the clinical goals such as survival and response to a treatment, among others. Radiomics, based on a multivariate analysis of large quantities of imaging biomarkers extracted from the processing of radiological images (CT, MR, PET), enables us to find the relationship between the image parameters and the diagnosis, prognosis or therapeutic efficiency.

Why have you decided to participate at the Longevity World Forum again and what is the main idea that you would like to transmit this time?

QUIBIM is seriously committed to aligning its future with the creation of digital twins of the human body for every one of us, fed with information on the state of health of our organs obtained from medical images. We think that imaging is the key to this health of the future, focused on prevention and regular monitoring of how we are on the inside. From a perspective more closely related to social commitment, Valencia is a land of companies that have been models of success in the health sphere. Having the Longevity World Forum in the city is a great milestone involving a huge effort by the organisers and we want to be part of it.

Longevity World Forum completes its programme for 2019 with a symposium at the Príncipe Felipe Research Centre

The organisers of the Longevity World Forum have confirmed that the programme for the 2019 edition is to be completed with the holding of a symposium in collaboration with the Príncipe Felipe Research Centre (CIPF), where it will be held on Wednesday 13 November at 2 p.m. Specifically, this symposium will deal with preclinical research models of aging and metabolism, as well as looking at their implications for age-related diseases.

 

To this end, the Longevity World Forum symposium to be held at the CIPF will benefit from the participation of benchmarking scientists such as Dr María Blasco, director of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), who has recently discovered the key to the longevity of species in telomers, Dr Pura Muñoz, researcher of the Spanish National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), who has this year received the Jaume I Prize for Medical Research for her contributions on the molecular mechanisms of aging, and Dr Avan Sayer, director of the Newcastle Institute for Ageing (United Kingdom), among others.

 

This symposium has been added to the programme already scheduled for the Longevity World Forum, which will be held over two days, 14 and 15 November, at the Palacio de Congresos (Conference Centre) of Valencia. The forum will focus on scientific research, explaining the latest research currently underway in the field of longevity, the recently proven guidelines on the best ways to live longer and better, and the social and economic effects inherent to societies with an increasing life expectancy.

 

Here, professionals from around the world will meet to share their knowledge on longevity from the point of view of the many sectors involved. These include Rafael de Cabo, chief of the Translational Gerontology Branch of the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore (USA); Maria Entraigues Abramson, Global Outreach Coordinator of SENS Research Foundation (USA); Reason, co-founder of Repair Biotechnologies, Inc. (USA); Manuel Serrano, a doctor and professor who is currently working on the ICREA programme of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine of Barcelona (IRB Barcelona); Bruno Vellas, doctor of the Aging Unit and chairman of the Gerontopole at the University Hospital of Toulouse (France); and Álvaro Pascual-Leone, professor of Neurology at the Harvard Medical School (USA), among others.

 

With all of this, thanks to the Longevity World Forum, Spain is once again the forum par excellence on human longevity and, furthermore Valencia is consolidated as one of the scientific capitals of the world. Those interested in attending can handle their registration via the official website: www.longevityworldforum.com.

María Trinidad Herrero Ezquerro

President of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Murcia (Spain).

Maria Trinidad Herrero is Professor of Human Anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Murcia.

She is director of the Official Aging Research Institute of Murcia and head of the “Frailty” Group of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Aging (EIP on AHA) of the Murcia Region Department of Health.

Director of the PhD Programme on Aging and Fragility (University of Murcia) (since 2017).

Director of the Healthcare Communication Chair (University of Murcia and ASISA Foundation) (since 2019).

Director of the Master’s Degree in Movement Disorders in Spanish: online master’s degree for Spanish speaking neurologists with students in different countries (since 2011).

Principal investigator of the Clinical and Experimental Neuroscience (NiCE) group of the Biomedicine Institute of Murcia (IMIB).

Her research is focused on brain aging and associated neurodegenerative diseases (Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases) with special interest in neuroinflammation, cognitive impairment and the effect of different strategies (such as natural smart foods and/or anti-inflammatory agents) on cognitive and emotional improvement. She is very interested in aspects of Gender, Health and Aging (Transnational Research Project GENDER ERA-NET H2020: “Going Forward”).

She has published over 150 scientific articles with an h index of 40/41 and has completed 6 five-year periods and 5 six-year periods of recognized research activity.

She has been the principal investigator on more than 20 regional, national and European scientific projects (for both basic and clinical research). She has directed 24 doctoral theses in her sphere of research, with 8 doctoral theses underway.

She has been a Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Murcia since 2006 (having been its president since 2018).

She is Correspondent and/or Honorary Member of Medical Academies in Latin America and a Member of national and international Academic and Scientific Neuroscience Societies.

She was president of the International Neurotoxicity Society (NTS) (2015-2017), and since 2012 has organized the biennial international symposium “Mechanisms of neurodegeneration and progression” with speakers on neurotoxicology from all continents.

She is co-director (together with Prof. J.A. Obeso and Prof. F. Micheli) of the International Master’s Degree on Movement Disorders in Spanish for neurologists (9 editions, from 2011 to date).

She was joint organizer of the Spanish Basal Ganglia Club (together with Prof. F. Grandas) for 18 years (1993-2012).

She has organized the Neuroclub in Murcia (meetings of clinicians specialized in the nervous system, every two weeks on Thursdays, at 8 a.m.) since 2007 (13 editions to date).

She has organized the International Brain Awareness Week in Murcia since 2003, with the aim of teaching the general public about brain activity and functioning, with 16 editions to date. She has obtained additional support from the DANA Alliance and FENS for several years.

She has organized the International Older Persons Week (first week of October) since 2015.

Head of Health at the Centre for Studies on Women and Gender (CEMUGE). University of Murcia (since 2018).

President of the Association of Women Scientists of the Region of Murcia (Lyceum de Ciencias) (since 2017).

Her main interests include equal opportunities, social justice and human rights. She has collaborated with the UN and UNESCO (Peace Culture) participating in outreach activities and Cooperation for Health Development in different Latin American countries, organizing events on equity and International Humanitarian Law.

Jay Sarkar

Co-Founder and CTO of Turn Biotechnologies, Inc. (USA)

Dr. Jay Sarkar is a Co-Founder for Turn Biotechnologies, a Stanford-born biotechnology company focused on multifaceted age-reversal via epigenetic reprogramming.  He completed his Ph.D. at Stanford University and has an Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering background that helps him focus on studying aging and biology from an information science and dynamical systems perspective. His scientific work has shown that while aging is generally associated with tissue and organ dysfunction, these can be considered the emergent consequences of fundamental transitions in the cellular state of cellular physiology. These transitions have multiple manifestations at different levels of cellular architecture and function, but the central regulator of these transitions is the epigenome, the most upstream dynamic regulator of gene expression. Reproduction is the only general phenomenon in nature where the age of (parental) cells is truly reset – to produce an embryo and ultimately an age zero offspring. Here we present a technology that captures part of this age reset mechanism but uses transient reprogramming to drive more youthful phenotypes without the full reset back to an embryo. This reprogramming technology is distinct from previous anti-aging/pro-longevity interventions, as instead of just modulating a few identified aging pathways, reprogramming engages a global and balanced state transition in the case of reproduction, or state of perturbation in our transient approach, which he shows leads to a multifaceted age-reversal effect at the DNA, metabolic, whole cell, and local environment levels.