Full Report - Biomarkers of Longevity
Full Report - Biomarkers of Longevity
Full Report - Biomarkers of Longevity
Analytical Report
DEEP
Increasing Role of Data Science and Artificial KNOWLEDGE
Intelligence in Biomarker Discovery and GROUP
Monitoring
www.aginganalytics.com
Biomarkers of Longevity
Current state, Challenges and Opportunities Landscape Overview 2019
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 3 Blood-based Biomarkers 100
Based on the results of this analysis, the special case study presents its formulation of an ideal Minimum Viable Panel (MVP) of Longevity biomarkers:
a panel of biomarkers which though not as precise as possible are precise enough and easily implementable. The report also presents a “most
comprehensive” list of biomarkers of aging, devotes analysis to recent novel biomarkers of aging just entering R&D processes today, and highlights the
core conclusion that uses of Digital Biomarkers and AI in biomarker discovery, development and assessments will come to be a necessary and
indispensable component of Longevity Industry as the volume of data on both biomarkers and the complex networks of how they interact together
continues to grow.
The report also delivers extensive profiles of single biomarkers and whole panels: their advantages and strengths, disadvantages and weaknesses, and
future perspectives, challenges and opportunities with a focus on technologies currently used for assessment; concrete analysis of routine, advanced
and novel biomarkers of aging, emerging tools and platforms, and insights about the impact of these biomarkers on health systems and clinical
practice. The central purpose of those characterizations is to submit practical conclusions and recommendations regarding the Most Comprehensive
and Most Viable (or Minimum Required) single biomarkers and panels of aging for their immediate implementation, either in biomedical research,
therapeutic development and clinical trials, P4 Medicine and overall clinical practice, emphasizing the intersection between this wide new market,
digital environments designed for real-time integration of aging and Longevity health metrics, and the new possibilities offered by AI platforms. The
ultimate intention of Aging Analytics Agency is to solidly establish the relative and absolute usefulness of these presentations for precise and
actionable measurement of biological age and enhanced assessments of health status, age-related diseases, geriatric syndromes, and Longevity.
As the scope of P4 Medicine broadens actively and healthily, the number of biomarkers, measurement technologies and platforms will increase rapidly
to the thousands in the coming years; this will provide the opportunity to improve medical stratification to its maximum degree reaching Personalized,
Participatory, Precision and Preventive Medicine for both, non-healthy populations and the healthy and young; also, to achieve the conditions for
exhaustive and precise studies with samples of only one individual and allowing to prescind from conventional model organisms for biomedical
research, due to the enormous flow of biological digital data that will be extracted continuously, individual to individual. These vast amounts of
biomarkers data in the form of zeros and ones will make impractical the implementation of P4 Medicine by current, manual means; the construction
and evaluation of massive networks of interconnected biomarkers will be carried out by highly specialized digital systems in pattern recognition,
trained with aggregate information from hundreds of thousands of individuals minute by minute. Prototypes of these systems already exist, and are
beginning to be implemented today.
Aggregation of biomarkers of Longevity, rather than biomarkers of disease only, and from healthy populations - among the young and the even younger,
rather than bedside data from the hospital populations, will be part of everyday life due to the novel Digital Health platforms capable of extracting truly
massive amounts of clinical relevance data from a single patient through electronic layers.
These transformations already underway in biomarkers assessment modality will allow to move from the conventional therapeutic approach toward
large-scale precision preventive medicine, the necessary vehicle to build both individual and national Healthy Longevity; and this will also be the
foundation for the achievement of a unified theory of the root causes of aging and Longevity. The one plus the other, these two emerging together, will
provide -are providing- a framework to intervene the process of aging, in a rather accelerated way than gradual. Tech companies rather than healthcare
companies will play the leading role in this process; the threshold is already blurring. The use of AI will give sense to the thumping amount of digital
biomarkers data, and it will allow the development of undoubtedly multiple optimal biomarker panels for the monitoring of aging and its correction, as
well as countless other health biomarkers (digital and non-digital) for AI-driven analysis of each person's deep health status, allowing to orchestrate
extremely personalized therapeutic interventions in response to minimal and currently imperceptible fluctuations in all those biomarkers. As the
number of data points increases, AI-driven analysis will be strictly necessary in the Longevity industry and the health industry as a whole.
At this point, it is impossible to determine whether biotechnologies for Longevity have been successful if we cannot tell how advanced the aging
process is in any given individual; but at the same time the latter will not be feasible until successfully achieving highly actionable Panels that allow to
evaluate the aging process in broad healthy and less healthy differentiated ranges of the population spectrum. Is in this sense that Biomarkers are an
essential factor in Aging Analytics Agency's strategic agenda, which includes recommendations for the establishment of AI centres in the United
Kingdom, the indispensable medium to nail down the implementation of P4 Medicine and also to guarantee competitiveness in this new global health
market, in the same way that highly specialized advice for the success of longevity-related government initiatives worldwide. It is important to develop
and promote the widespread use of a comprehensive enough Panel of Biomarkers but, primarily, immediately actionable. We have documented many
of the aging Biomarkers here and identified from among them those which, by the metrics described - and never reported in pre existing literature-,
belong to this category we have named Minimum Required: the Most Viable Products for immediate implementation.
It is our hope that regardless of whether it is adopted wholesale, this entire work may serve as a starting point for discussion on how best to utilize the
deep knowledge we already have to maximum effect on health of aging populations and aging economies, as soon as possible.
The significance of biomarkers in the Longevity Industry is central since they are the primary metric in Geroscience, Regenerative Medicine, multiple
AgeTech implementations and especially in P4 Medicine. Biomarkers also provide the prime source of data for the AI for Longevity industry, Drug
Discovery and Development, Clinical Trials and for Translational Research. For these reasons, standardized metrics are needed to evaluate the
biomarkers and the Panels that occupy us.
Within the scope of the report, the following methodology will be implemented,
outlining the quantitative evaluation approach:
Such precision assessment will maximize the capacities of decision-makers to increase the efficiency of public health
programs and policies, as well as decision-making processes in the core of healthcare industries.
Aging Analytics Agency 7
Report Value Proposition
1. What are the current most comprehensive biomarkers and panels to This report seeks to answer these three specific questions, with an
follow the aging trajectory and its related conditions and the most upcoming +300 pages version that will be produced over the next 3-6
viable or minimum required ones, and how they can be implemented months, and a new edition of its content during each financial quarter,
in the most ideal and useful manner? incrementally increasing its breadth and depth as we go along, and with
each edition providing a deeper, more comprehensive and more precise
2. What leading personalised and preventive market-ready health understanding of the landscape. It will deliver:
assessments can aging biomarkers and panels dispense to the
existing pipeline of healthcare entities to maximize their competitive ● Concrete deep analysis of which biomarkers and biomarker panels are
advantage? available today; its strengths and weaknesses, their accuracy,
3. What novel updates and advances in biomarker-related research and availability and current actionability, and the opportunities and
development will impact the health industry in the next years? Which challenges related to its uses for real-time and precision monitoring of
of those should be watched closely for integration into clinics and health status, and ultimately the reversal of biological age;
biomedical or healthcare companies’ existing pipelines as soon as ● Tangible estimations of which biological age biomarkers and
their conditioning is achieved? implementations are consolidated, or their current conditioning stage
We feel that our efforts over the course of the past five years have for precision assessment of health status and endpoints of clinical
established a solid foundation of knowledge and expertise upon which we trials and therapies;
intend to summarize the entire landscape of aging and Longevity
● Highlights regarding the role of digital biomarkers and AI platforms
biomarker utilities in the health industry: the production of this new report
and how they will become necessary and indispensable components
entitled Biomarkers of Longevity Landscape Overview 2019: Current
of ageing and Longevity biomarker discovery, research, development
State, Challenges and Opportunities.
and users daily use;
The parties who will have early access to this report will gain deep expertise on how they can optimize their clinics’
strategic, technological and scientific prospects in order to deliver the most sophisticated and comprehensive precision
health products and services for their clients.
Healthcare-Ready
(waiting for clinical approval)
Biomarkers Real-Time
Assessment
Technology
Biomarkers of Longevity Distribution by Conditioning Stage
Deep Knowledge Analytics is a deep tech The Pharma Division of Deep Knowledge The GovTech Division of Deep Knowledge
analytical agency using multidimensional Analytics specializes in the production of the Analytics focuses on producing sophisticated
algorithms to produce advanced industrial most comprehensive analytical reports on the open-access and proprietary analytics the reveal
reports on DeepTech and frontier technologies. topics of Artificial Intelligence, Drug Discovery, factors driving the ongoing transformation of the
An online analytics platform with interactive Data Science and Digital Health within the global GovTech industry, main sectors to be
visuals updated in real-time was released early broader Pharma Healthcare Industry and changed, barriers to this process, and ways to
this year. intersection of AI and Pharma. overcome them.
Aging Analytics Agency began producing reports before the industry emerged Innovation Eye is a company providing market analytics and benchmark case
and it is exclusively focused on Longevity, Geroscience, AgeTech and studies. It has advanced tools for analysis and visualisation of Tech and innovation
Preventive Medicine. The company has been developing its methodology ecosystems. Its ultimate goal is to optimize the strategic agendas of corporations
since 2015 and is the main source of market intelligence in the field. and governments seeking to optimise their Tech driven industries.
Aging
The use of advanced infographics to distill The use of tangible, quantifiable, and proven A strong focus on the convergence of multiple
Analytics
complex industry landscapes into unified metrics to conduct near-future industry industries and technologies enabling the
Agency
frameworks, enabling comprehension of forecasts, including Technology Readiness identification of indiscernible mega-trends and
Unique Levels (TRLs), to examine a given providing a bird-eye view of industry
pertinent data at a single glance.
Approach technology’s market-readiness. developments as a whole.
Longevity Industry and the Microbiome Top-100 Supercentenarians Metabesity & Longevity
Landscape Overview 2019 USA Special Case Study
Longevity Industry in Switzerland Longevity Industry in Hong Kong Longevity Industry in Japan
Landscape Overview 2019 Landscape Overview 2019 Landscape Overview 2019
Aging Analytics Agency is currently developing a comprehensive, open-access report, Biomarkers of Longevity: Current state, Challenges and
Opportunities Landscape Overview 2019, a special analytical case study that uses comprehensive analytical frameworks to rank and benchmark
existing panels of biomarkers of aging, health and Longevity according to their ratios of accuracy vs. actionability, identifying the panels of biomarkers
that can have the greatest impact on increasing both individual and national Healthy Longevity in the next few years.
The use of biomarkers is an indispensable component of industry analytics and assessment. It is the foundation upon which measurement of Healthy
Longevity and the effectiveness of Longevity therapeutics is built. The report is designed as an in-depth review of the state of the art in biomarkers
development to advise accurately the market, industry and public sectors when addressing the challenges related to our following conclusions and
forecasts about the immediate future of the Biomarker and Longevity industries as a whole:
As the scope of P4 Medicine Aggregation of biomarkers That described shift will The use of AI will give sense to this
broadens, the number of of longevity and aging, allow to move from the thumping amount of data, and it will
biomarkers and rather than biomarkers of conventional therapeutic allow the development of surely multiple
measurement technologies disease, and from healthy approach toward precision optimal panels of aging biomarkers as
and platforms will increase populations - among the preventive medicine, and will well as other health biomarkers (digital
rapidly to the thousands in young and the even younger, also be the foundation for a and non-digital) for analysis of each
the coming years. This rather than bedside data unified theory of the root person's outcomes, and for orchestrating
makes the implementation from the hospital causes of aging and extremely personalized therapeutic
of P4 medicine impractical populations, will be part of longevity; both providing a interventions in response to fluctuations
by current, manual means. everyday life due to the framework to intervene the in those biomarkers. As the number of
novel Digital Biomarkers process. Tech companies data points increases, it becomes not
capable of extracting truly rather than healthcare only optimal, but strictly necessary to
massive amounts of clinical companies will play the use AI and big data analysis in not only
relevance data from a single leading role in this process. the longevity industry, but in the health
patient through electronics. industry as a whole.
The report is designed to make key strategic recommendations regarding technologies and biomarkers implementations within the reach of
companies, entities and nations in order to assist them in optimizing their developmental action plans and strategies, providing specialized guidance
for business and investment core decisions. It will deliver:
● A "most comprehensive" list of single biomarkers of aging and Panels, their advantages and strengths, disadvantages and weaknesses, and
future perspectives, challenges and opportunities with a focus on technologies currently used for assessment;
● Concrete analysis of recent novel biomarkers of aging just entering R&D processes today, emerging tools, and novel assay platforms
awaiting approval or standardization for clinical implementation, one step away of being market-ready within the next several years;
● Highlights respecting why AI platforms will come to be a necessary and indispensable component of Longevity biomarker discovery,
research and development;
● Overview of different categories of panels, whether for Research Use Only or Approved for Clinical Use;
● Conclusions and practical recommendations regarding the Most Comprehensive Panels and the Most Viable (Minimum Required) Panels for
immediate implementation, either in biomedical research, therapy development, P4 medicine and clinical practice, emphasizing the relative
and absolute usefulness of these Panels for precision measurement of biological age and enhanced assessments of health status,
age-related diseases, geriatric syndromes, and Longevity.
The parties with early access to this report will gain deep expertise on how they can optimize their development and implementation strategies, and
how to analyze the technological and scientific backgrounds and prospects of the Longevity industry in order to deliver sophisticated action plans
aimed for remaining at the forefront in the broad and changing field of healthcare.
Jamie Metzl for Longevity. Technology: "First, we’re increasingly understanding the biomarkers of aging. And that is giving us a language of
measurement. We can assess with more precision whether certain interventions are working or not working. With the new tools of AI and machine
learning we’re really seeing is a super convergence of different technologies that are all pushing forward, including the science of human
Longevity."
Since 2013, Deep Learning systems have surpassed human performance in multiple applications, such as face and image recognition. Predictors
of chronological age, and biological age - or functional age-, are rapidly gaining popularity and with this a deep outburst of research and
development is awakened, both in the scientific and industrial spheres. A new market is brewing. AI has shown that it is possible to overcome the
best human ophthalmologists or radiologists, the best conventional predictors of complex pathologies such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's have
been surpassed. And in this framework, AI-driven biomedical research and development efforts are now already facing aging.
For practical purposes, single biomarkers and biomarker panels used in the setting of biomedical research, drug discovery and development, and
clinical practice are often classified following any of the criteria outlined below:
● Clinical Outlook. In relation to clinical specialties, to organ systems and related vital functions, and to subordinated diseases of each one. We find
biomarkers for oncology profiling, cardiology and hematology profiling, neurology profiling, endocrinology, infectious diseases, immunology, and so
forth. Due to the low degree of specificity, here we usually find large biomarker panels and not single biomarkers.
● Disease and Conditions Outlook. Within each clinical specialty or often overlapping a number of them, the set of biomarkers that make up the profile
of a pathology or set of related pathologies. These categories are usually subsets of each one in the previous criterion, also using panels much more
often than single biomarkers.
● Functional and Structural Outlook. Based on its association with specific functional and structural variables, either physical, anatomical, histological
or physiological. For example, biomarkers for locomotor function, or for strength, balance, bone density, body impedance or waist circumference, in
this case all closely interconnected parameters. This approach is usually subordinate to the previous two. Due to its higher degree of specificity, it
usually allows the use of single biomarkers or small panels, although large panels are more descriptive.
● Source Outlook. By the source of the biological material or data, and its processing methodology. The clinical evaluation usually addresses a small
amount of biomarkers related to one or a few conditions, or to the general state of health. A broad examination of the biomarker network provided by
each test could allow the extraction of a large amount of data about health status.
● Focus Level Outlook. Based on the focus level, or the associated diagnostic or therapeutic depth, biomarkers can be divided by the domain to which
they belong on the organismic scale.There are six categories or levels, Biochemistry, Genomic, Proteins and Cell Signalling, Cellular, Tissue and Organ
markers, each one correlated with a particular set of evaluations, potential interventions, and an order of physical magnitude. Thus, Organ biomarkers
are related to Regenerative medicine, and Biochemical ones include lipid-, glyc- and metabolomics among others.
● Omic Outlook. In relation to the -omic field to which they belong, what will determine the types of technologies and evaluation methods.
● Application Outlook. More typical of the market analysis, according to the activities in which biomarkers are applied, or 'what are they used for’.
● Type Outlook. Indispensable. Classification according to characteristics of its operational definition, or 'how are they used for’.
Osteoporosis Arthritis
Drug Discovery
COPD Sarcopenia
and Development
Aging-associated
Biological Age
Ophthalmology Metabolic Osteopenia Drug Formulation
measurement
Syndrome
Alcohol/drug Genomic
Gastroenterology Type II Diabetes Obesity Preclinical Trials
treatment Instability
Alzheimer’s Locomotor
Oncology Orthopaedics Cancer Clinical Trials Telomere Attrition
Disease function; Dexterity
Special mention apart, biomarkers in pharmaceutical industry research and development are predominantly described based on a Type Outlook
classification, the most widely used criterion; that is, as validation, safety and efficacy biomarkers, and likewise also as surrogate and diagnostic,
prognostic, predictive, and pharmacodynamic biomarkers, all categories that are not mutually exclusive since specific clinical setting can determine
how the biomarker is used and interpreted. In the particular sphere of aging, age-related diseases and geriatric syndromes, biomarkers are usually
classified according to an Aging Mechanism Outlook: by the root causes and the mechanisms or phenomena triggered by these causes; for instance,
loss of proteostasis triggers inflammaging mechanisms, although this is not the single cause of age-related low grade inflammation.
Aging Mechanism Outlook. The proposed nine hallmarks of aging are grouped into three categories. Those hallmarks considered to be the primary
causes of cellular damage. Those considered to be part of compensatory or antagonistic responses to the damage. These responses initially mitigate
the damage, but eventually, if chronic or exacerbated, they become deleterious themselves. Integrative hallmarks that are the end result of the previous
two groups of hallmarks and are ultimately responsible for the functional decline associated with aging.
In the last two decades, the use of biomarkers in biomedical research and drug discovery and development has seen rapid growth as a result of the
advancement of laboratory techniques and bioanalytical assays, fundamentally:
These and other technologies of biochemical laboratory, analytical chemistry and biophysics, have allowed the identification and characterization of
innumerable genetic, molecular and cellular biomarkers, as well as their direct relationship with mechanism of disease or processes substantially
downstream from the primary disease processes. Despite this, due to economic viability limitations, regulatory or standardization issues, high technical
difficulty or time consumption, excessive specialization skills requirements, or lack of clinical certainty about usefulness in health promotion,
prevention, diagnosis, treatment, or prognosis, many technologies, techniques and biomarkers have been restricted to Research Use Only (RUO), not
taking place the transition or adaptation for Approved Clinical Use (ACU) or taking place in a very slow and limited way.
Because of the substantial risk of adversely affecting the public health if a biomarker is falsely accepted as a surrogate endpoint, robust scientific
evidence is needed to justify qualification of a biomarker for that use. There have been numerous biomarkers that represented plausible surrogate
endpoints, but when tested in outcome trails these have failed to predict the expected clinical manifestation. Qualification of a biomarker as a
surrogate endpoint will inevitably occur far less frequently than qualification of a biomarker for other uses. In this sense, to shorten the translation
delay from RUO to ACU, and for a deep impact on population health care as well as in the field of research and development, it is essential to move
towards the definitive establishment of digital health and P4 Medicine.
The disruptive impact of P4 Medicine is a consequence of the emergence of now well seated technologies of Data Science and AI making
possible the mapping and construction of biomarker networks, giving birth to a new market-ready health care paradigm: deep precision care
along with daily real-time digital monitoring to continuously adjust and set up the optimal state of health, and early stage prevention treatment.
Aging is a major risk factor for most chronic diseases and functional impairments. Within a homogeneous age
Ten winning business
sample there is considerable variation in the extent of disease and functional impairment risk, revealing a need for archetypes after health’s digital
valid biomarkers to aid in characterizing complex aging processes. The identification of biomarkers is further transformation
complicated by the diversity of biological living situations, lifestyle activities and medical treatments.
Data + platforms
Thus, there has been no identification of a single biomarker or gold standard tool that can successfully monitor
healthy aging, or perhaps not until the recent development of Horvath’s Epigenetic Clock and Glycomic Biomarkers. Data convener
How do we know when a biomarker is a Biomarker of Aging? It depends on how it is sourced. The current approach Science and insights engine
to biomarkers is to take them from people at various stages of a disease’s known progress, which in practice
means sourcing them from hospital patients. Isolating biomarkers of aging, however, means collecting data which Data/platform
infrastructure builder
marks the difference between healthy people only, e.g. between the young and even younger, with no traces of any
officially recognised diseases. Well-being + care delivery
Care enablement
The diagnostic technologies of the future should be anchored to Panels of Aging Biomarkers digitally obtained.
This will enable the current state of health of each patient to be continually and precisely monitored, allowing the Connectors and intermediaries
effectiveness of interventions and micro-adjustments to interventions to be continuously assessed in detail,
enabling an unprecedented degree of precision and prevention in biomedicine, and an unprecedented degree of Individualized financer
prescience in biomedical research. This, in a nutshell is the nature of the aforementioned digital transformation of
the Longevity Industry. Regulator
Within this frame, Biological Age is intended as a ● Be measurable with high reproducibility during extremely short intervals compared to the
synthetic index constituted by a single marker or lifespan of the organism.
the combination of few biological markers which, With such biomarkers, it should be possible to obtain Trajectories of Aging, where the
alone or integrated with functional markers, not “accelerated” ones would predict unhealthy aging and diseases, while the “decelerated” ones
only correlates with chronological age but is/are would be associated with healthy aging and longevity. The possibility to draw Trajectories of
capable of identifying individuals “younger” or Aging is a fascinating, far-reaching perspective, especially in consideration of the long
“older” than their chronological age in the same incubation preclinical period that characterizes most of the major age-related chronic diseases,
demographic cohorts; i.e., with a different health being also considered the critical time window for effective treatments. Biomarkers of Biological
status, globally or in relation to a particular vital Age could greatly contribute to identify the subjects characterized by higher risk to develop overt
function or organ system, allowing this index to clinical diseases who would have a major benefit from tailored preventive treatments.
accurately predict future health status and
functional capacity.
Artificial Intelligence will use Digital Biomarkers to reality-check the proposed longevity therapies and filter out inappropriate or impractical
biomarkers from those effective.
Gathering Aging Biomarkers means collecting data which marks the difference between healthy people only, e.g. between the young and even
younger, with no traces of any officially recognised diseases. The continuous monitoring of small changes in such biomarkers, and the
continuous and commensurate micro-adjustment of treatments in response, allows for some de facto reversal of biological age.
Aging Biomarkers already exist, but they are going through a period of discussion and validation. A major biomedical aim of these biomarkers today is
to identify the subjects at higher risk for each specific age-related disease and syndrome at very early stage; the challenge of precision preventive
medicine.
At present, the combination of last generation effective biomarkers, capable of assessing the deep biological age, with some classical and innovative
biochemical and functional disease-specific ones, represents the best strategy to identify Disease-Specific Aging Trajectories in each individual. This is
the core conclusion and recommendation of our analytical assessment.
Within this perspective, particular attention has to be devoted to the epigenetics, but also the genetics of each individual which is the complex result of
the interaction between nuclear and mitochondrial genetics (stable with the exception of somatic mutations) and microbiomes’ genetics (malleable
and adaptive to the environment), focusing on Gut Microbiota Biomarkers for its capability to be modified by basic habits such as nutrition.
In this sense, we predict that it will be useful enough to combine the above mentioned integrated biomarkers’ assessment (particularly the Horvath’s
Epigenetic Clock with some widely used and conventional routine biomarkers) with established and new genetic risk factors for Aging-Related
Diseases, taking into account some criticalities related to population genetics and demographic birth cohorts.
It must be mentioned; although a number of promising Aging Biomarkers candidates have been proposed in the last years, to date there are no clinically
validated ones. There are three disruptive and non mutually exclusive categories of last generation Biomarkers of Biological Age that have
revolutionized the sector due to its high correlation with chronological age and trajectories of age-related diseases, being of mandatory mention:
● DNA Methylation Biomarkers, especially the Horvath's Clock,
● Glycomic Biomarkers, and
● Gut Microbiota Biomarkers, also called Microbiome Biomarkers.
All of them have presence in the market as informational purpose tests provided by certain companies, but not clinical tests. And each one is up to the
challenge of establishing itself as a self-sufficient metric of Biological Age; particularly the first mention. The integration of any of these into a
Biomarker Panel would not only serve as a reference to evaluate the implication of the remaining, traditional ones like a Lipid Profile, in aging decline;
such a far-reaching and proactive decision would also accelerate the process of their clinical validation both to measure Biological Age and for the
evaluation of specific diseases in any other given context.
It is important in technology never to let the perfect be the enemy of good, especially when the technology is of great humanitarian significance. Aging
Analytics Agency has observed a tendency among governments and political strategic bodies to make the error of assuming that because the current
scientific quest for ever more precise biomarkers is not slowing down, that we don’t yet have a set of biomarkers precise enough and actionable
enough to take immediate action.
It is important therefore to develop and promote the widespread use of a panel of biomarkers which are not only comprehensive but also immediately
actionable. A panel of less precise but easily implementable biomarkers of aging would be much better than an extremely precise and comprehensive
panel of biomarkers of aging that is too hard or expensive to translate easily into widespread practical use across nations. As an example of minimum
viable biomarkers, consider that a set of of aging biomarkers was developed recently which is based on Deep Learning analysis of standard blood
biomarkers, which is less accurate than the most precise available biomarkers of aging (DNA Methylation clocks), but which is nonetheless good
enough, and can be implemented by any researcher, doctor and clinician that has access to routine blood tests.
As a further example, consider that biomarkers of aging have been constructed using Deep Learning-based analysis of photographs of mice, which
could quite easily be extended to humans. Their accuracy alone is not enough to make them a research priority, but the increasing video capabilities of
smart-phones means that these rapid development of photographic biomarkers of aging (e.g. of the face or the eye) could now be a very actionable
area of research whose practical level of precision and accuracy will develop quite rapidly in coming years.
However, the use of AI in R&D is lagging behind in its application to geroscience. While there is a small handful of companies that are working at this
frontier, the overall proportion in comparison to the total size of the Longevity industry is still quite small. Deep Knowledge Ventures has been
identifying and supporting companies working on the frontlines of AI for Longevity since 2014, when it provided the seed funding for Insilico Medicine,
now a leader in the application of AI for Longevity research, drug discovery and biomarker development. An MVP panel of biomarkers will make the
biotech sector of Longevity much more lean, and dynamic. It will allow for a more rapid assessment period, which in turn will allow for a rapid
succession of experiments with microdoses of different treatment and drugs.
It is impossible to determine whether biotechnologies for Longevity have been successful if we cannot tell how advanced the aging process is in any
given individual; but at the same time the latter will not be feasible until successfully achieving High Actionability Panels that allow to evaluate the
aging process in broad healthy and less healthy differentiated ranges of the population spectrum. From the above the following two notions emerge.
● It will be impossible to make concrete claims regarding global progress in health biotechnology, and in P4 Medicine in particular, without an
agreed and accessible panel of biomarkers as a tool to standardize results.
● These biomedical markers, measurable indicators of the severity or presence of some disease state, are able to serve as the basis for building
standard metrics for government programs and cost-effective healthcare policies, clinical implementations, and industrial output in global
Longevity Industry.
Biomarkers of aging can be used to predict the biological age, which reflects the state of health, via statistics and machine learning algorithms. A
single class of biomarkers, which is intrinsically a matrix of features, can be used in the prediction. DNA methylation was used to predict age with an
error of about 3.6 years using 8,000 samples. 3D facial images have also been used to predict age with a mean deviation of 6 years. Integration of
multiple biomarkers can be even more powerful.
Given the complex nature of the aging process, the biomarkers of aging are multilayered and multifaceted. Combined and integrated by AI and machine
learning techniques, reliable panels of biomarkers of aging will have major and tremendous potential to improve human health in aging societies.
Identifying and using biomarkers of aging organized in an objective and solidly founded panel to improve human health, prevent age-associated
diseases, and extend healthy life span are now facilitated by this fast-growing AI-driven capacity for multilevel cross-sectional and longitudinal data
acquisition, storage, and analysis, particularly for data related to general human populations.
Is in this sense that Biomarkers are an essential factor in Aging Analytics Agency's strategic agenda, which includes recommendations for the
establishment of AI centres in the United Kingdom, the indispensable medium to nail down the implementation of P4 Medicine and also to guarantee
competitiveness in the new global health market, in the same way that highly specialized advice for the success of longevity-related government
initiatives worldwide.
Sources: Xian Xia, et al. Molecular and phenotypic biomarkers of aging. 2017.
37
The Need for Maximally Actionable Biomarkers of Aging
It is important in technology never to let the perfect be the enemy of good, especially when the technology is of great humanitarian significance.
In the early 2000s, enthusiastic proponents of the application of Regenerative Medicine to aging were urging governments, entrepreneurs and
thought-leaders to make this a priority. They argued that technology was ahead of the science and the funding, and that while a great deal remains to
be discovered about the mechanisms of aging, we already know enough to optimize the existing toolkit of Regenerative Medicine to address the
damage of aging, which is already thoroughly researched. And thus, shift occurred out of this paradigm and the field of Rejuvenation Biotechnology
arose.
Now once again, the technology is ahead of the science, the funding, and the political leadership. And, once again, a paradigm shift is due.
Presently the necessary biotechnologies for the implementation of P4 Medicine technologies and therapies are already in place. What is needed now is
Big Data analytics to develop optimal Panels of Biomarkers of aging and to determine how to optimize their implementation. Thus, this is not a
biotechnology problem, but a data mining, analysis and management problem. In many countries, to various degrees, data mining, analysis and
management problem is a question of political coordination. In that way, there is a risk that governments and governmental or political strategic
bodies may make one or both of the following errors:
● They might assume that missing bridge on the road to HALE-extending P4 Medicine is still biotech progress, rather than a data analysis and
management problem; i.e., an AI and computational problem;
● They might assume that current scientific quest for ever more precise Biomarkers is not slowing down because we don’t have yet a set of Aging
Biomarkers sufficiently actionable and precise, in order to take immediate action.
As such government strategic bodies therefore risk limiting their strategic ambitions with regard to time frames. For example, in the United Kingdom,
Theresa May’s government has announced a commitment to adding 5 extra years on the nation’s HALE by 2035, whereas Aging Analytic Agency has
subsequently advised the UK’s newly formed APPG for Longevity that a much more relevant timeline would be 2025, provided actionable biomarkers
with sufficient accuracy are utilized. This aspiration better reflects real current rate and state of scientific and technological innovation.
Aging Analytics Agency is recommending that government place a strategic emphasis not on
the best Biomarkers of Aging, but on a Panel of Biomarkers that has the highest ratio of
comprehensiveness to actionability and implementability.
Having a panel of less precise but highly implementable Biomarkers of Aging close at hand is
much better than having an extremely precise and comprehensive panel of biomarkers that is
too hard or expensive to translate easily into widespread practical use across nations, as the
beneficiaries of earlier action are likelier to stand a chance of living long enough to
subsequently benefit from more advanced applications based on more precise, more
comprehensive biomarkers.
The past few years have seen a lot of progress in the development of Biomarkers of Aging
that are not as precise as the current leading methods, but that are precise enough, and most
importantly, extremely easy to implement in practice -in particular, those based on
Deep-Learning and AI-driven analysis of routine blood tests, and of photographs. These are
highly viable Biomarker Panels.
Consider that set of Aging Biomarkers developed recently, based on Deep Learning analysis
of standard blood biomarkers; while less accurate than the most precise available Aging
Biomarker, DNA Methylation Clocks, is nonetheless good enough and can be performed by
any researcher, doctor and clinician that has access to routine blood tests.
It should not be assumed that the use of Artificial Intelligence is widely embedded into
biogerontology and geroscience. AI in R&D is lagging behind in its application to the Longevity
industry. While there is a small handful of companies that are working at this frontier, the
overall proportion in comparison to the total size of the Longevity industry is still quite small.
Deep Knowledge Ventures has been identifying and supporting companies working on the
frontlines of AI for Longevity since 2014, when it provided the seed funding for Insilico
Medicine, now a leader in the application of AI for Longevity research, drug discovery and
development, and biomarker development. A MVP Panel of Biomarkers, hand in hand with
highly integrated AI for data processing will make the biotech sector of Longevity much more
lean, and dynamic. It will allow for a more rapid assessment period, which in turn will allow for
a rapid succession of experiments with microdoses of different treatment and drugs, and
then for translation into their parallel clinical applications, like preventive treatment in P4
Medicine or directly rejuvenation therapies in Regenerative Medicine.
It is important to develop and promote the widespread use of a comprehensive enough Panel
of Biomarkers but, primarily, immediately actionable. We have documented many of the Aging
Biomarkers here and identified from among them those which, by the metrics described,
belong to the category we have named Minimum Required: the Most Viable Products for
immediate implementation.
It is our hope that regardless of whether it is adopted wholesale, it may serve as a starting
point for discussion on how best to utilize the deep knowledge we already have to
maximum effect as soon as possible.
To calculate the final score of a Single Biomarker or a Biomarker Panel, 3 types of Indexes are applied:
Availability Index - value expressed within the BAI range [0.0-10.0 BAI].
Value that is calculated by omitting the significance degree of the biomarker as an indicator of age-related health status, assuming the implicit
condition of correlation between the biomarker and temporary progression of aging. It measures only the material capacity of extensive
implementation for the reference character, understood as an expression of the availability of assays or tests, its invasiveness, monetary value, the
proposed classification framework for qualitative characterizations used also in Accuracy Assessments, and so on.
.6657 .7214 .7771 .8328 .8885 .9442 1.0 ACCURACY VALUES AND SEVEN 3.82 4.85 5.88 6.91 7.94 8.97 10 AVAILABILITY VALUES AND SEVEN
LEVELS SEGMENTATION LEVELS SEGMENTATION
Illustrative only; non-real values. (coming soon) Illustrative only; non-real values. (coming soon)
It is Aging Analytics Agency’s hope that our comparative analytics framework and methodology will serve as a useful long-term analytical tool for aging single
biomarkers and panels assessment to identify the most advanced, available and actionable resources to create, manage, optimize and improve action plans for the
health and Longevity industry, market and public sectors.
Indexes Values for Single Aging Biomarkers and Aging Panels
0
1.
ACCURACY VALUES AVAILABILITY VALUES ACTIONABILITY VALUES
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Aging Analytics Agency uses detailed mathematical procedures to assign a value (or numerical factor) to each of the three
variables taken into account in the evaluation of single biomarkers and whole biomarker panels. Many qualitative considerations
are made when assigning scores to these three variables. In first place, the CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY of the single
biomarker or the panel; that is, if they are approved or not for clinical use. Second, its OPERATIONAL CATEGORY; if they are
offered in the market as laboratory research kits, as medical tests; if the company gives access to the prices; if it is a theoretical
panel or one employed in epidemiological surveys, in which case it is not materially offered to the market by the entity; if it is a
real-time evaluation technology for a set of biomarkers, which could decrease availability due to the increase in cost but actually
increases it because it allow large-scale assessment of vast amounts of patients, and so on. Thus, the numerical evaluation is to
some extent subordinated to a multiplicity of qualitative factors considered by our highly specialized professionals in the field of
Illustrative only;
biotechnology and pharmaceutical intelligence. non-real values.
Medical Test 2
WellnessFX Premium WELLNESSFX Approved for Clinical Use 0.665 3.375 BAI (0.665) + 0.3375 = 0.3898
(+2 Availability Weight Points) 0.7797
Medical Test 2
Aging Theranostic 1.0 OPEN LONGEVITY Approved for Clinical Use 0.66 3.45 BAI (0.66) + 0.345 = 0.3903
(+2 Availability Weight Points) 0.7806
Research Kit or OLPS 2
Phospho-H2AX (Ser139) Research Use Only (0.72) + 0.279 =
CISBIO (Accuracy Index x RKOLPS 0.72 2.79 BAI 0.3987
Cellular kit (-2 Availab. Weight Points) 0.7974
coefficient)
Medical Test 2
Immune-Frame RGCC Approved for Clinical Use 0.74 3.125 BAI (0.74) + 0.3125 = 0.43
(+2 Availability Weight Points) 0.8601
TeloYears + Advanced 2
TELOYEARS Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test 0.83 1.833 BAI (0.83) + 0.1833 = 0.4361
Ancestry 0.8722
Biomarkers Real-Time 2
Health Reviser Platform HEALTH REVISER Approved for Clinical Use Assessment Technology 0.8 4.4 BAI (0.8) + 0.44 = 0.54
(+5 Availability Weight Points) 1.08
Anti-Aging #4 2
Medical Test (0.69) + 0.87 =
Comprehensive Blood WALK-IN LAB Approved for Clinical Use 0.69 8.7 BAI 0.673
(+2 Availability Weight Points) 1.3461
and Urine Test Panel
Biomarkers Real-Time 2
AgeReader test DIAGNOPTICS Approved for Clinical Use Assessment Technology 0.87 7.1666 BAI (0.87) + 0.71666 = 0.7367
(+5 Availability Weight Points) 1.4735
INSILICO AI Platform 2
Aging.AI Healthcare-Ready 0.93 10 BAI (0.93) + 1 = 0.9324
MEDICINE (+5 Availability Weight Points) 1.8649
DNAge™ Epigenetic 2
ZYMO RESEARCH Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test 1.0 10 BAI (1.0) + 1 = 1.0
Aging Clock 2
(a) Their respective values presented in this chart are illustrative only; they were not calculated based on their actual availability or accuracy. For real values, access the full Report.
(*) Accuracy results depend on the number of replicates for each biomarker per study and between studies, therefore it is expected that biomarkers
with a lot of empirical support but few background studies (eg, gold standard ones; Horvath's Clock, Gut Microbiome Age Clocks, Advanced
Glycation End-products Clocks) may have lower values than markers less correlated with aging but a large amount of experimental background
(more replicas), like HbA1C, estrogens, testosterone and so on. The results, then, are always weighed against the total empirical support for each
biomarker, which depends on the quality of the publications rather than merely the quantity, this being evaluated by our life sciences team at Aging
Analytics Agency, highly trained in the analysis of Big Data from scientific publications.
(**) The numerical evaluation of Actionability is to some extent subordinated to a multiplicity of qualitative factors considered by our highly
specialized professionals in the field of biotechnology and pharmaceutical intelligence. These qualitative considerations can be summarized in the
following categorical delimitations:
● Research Use Only Panels or Single Biomarkers: Availability Index is reduced in 2 Points, because it negatively conditions the implementation of the panel; there is
little to no implementation of the Panel in healthcare assessment, even less in Longevity assessment.
● Research Kits or Other Laboratory Practice Supplies (OLPS) multiplies Accuracy Index by a RKOLPS coefficient (= 0.5) that causes the total value to fall, unless the
supply is specifically designed for the evaluation of biological age or aging itself: these kits and OLPSs are not usually designed for this purpose, and evaluation of
accuracy becomes highly subjective.
● A Medical Test Panel or Single Biomarker increases availability in 2 Points, but never exceeding the maximum 24 Points: facilitates large-scale implementation.
● A Real-Time Assessment Technology for a Biomarker or a Panel, increases availability in 5 Points, but never exceeding the maximum 24 Points: facilitates ultra
large-scale implementation and analysis.
● AI Platforms for biomarkers inputs, increases availability in 5 Points, but never exceeding the maximum 24 Points: facilitates ultra large-scale implementation and
analysis.
● Epidemiological or Theoretical Panel Only are those not in the market; they are references to scientific articles, or to academic developments or public
developments not necessarily published in journals. The availability is 0 BAI, and in the same way actionability falls to zero (0); they are not part of the practical
recommendations of this report.
● When the company or entity does not share prices, it is immediately assumed x> maximum tolerable in the calculation of Availability Index, thus causing the
magnitude of the Availability Index to fall.
Biomarkers Real-Time
Assessment
Technology
It will be noted that our core Biomarker Domains Classification Framework is absent in the previously exposed Classification Framework by Qualitative
Characterizations; although the first systematization is applied throughout the entire report, particularly in the profiles of Single Biomarkers and Panels,
it does not affect the scores of Single Biomarkers and Biomarker Panels at the time of its quantitative evaluation. The Biomarker Domains
Classification Framework is related only to characteristics of the selection process of the Panels offered by the market. Those Panels conform to the
Three Spectra Classification Framework exposed in the previous boxes; nevertheless, these three spectra precise and advanced systematization is not
enough, as detailed below.
The vast majority of the Panels offered by the market evaluate characteristics at a molecular level and based on laboratory procedures. For instance,
there are almost no commercial presentations for assessment of Cognitive Function; there are isolated neurological or psychological tests not
addressed by Biomarker Panels in the market. The same applies with Physical or Physiological Function assessments; classic imaging tests,
ultrasound, waist circumference, muscle mass, bone density, grip strength and so on, are almost not included variables in the Panels offered by the
market; in this sense, the only Panel for assessment of those conventional variables is a traditional Physical Examination -or Comprehensive Physical
Exams sensu stricto-; that is, checkups provided by clinical physicians, neurologists, and so on. In those cases, our Panels selection would overlap
entirely with the offer of clinical and specialized medical services related to these specific domains; it should be considered that a physician's service is
a Panel per se, or something similar to that. And which of those "Panels" for Physical, Physiological or Cognitive function would we choose? There are
as many as physicians. It will also be noted that most of the Biomarker Panels cannot be characterized with a Domains Classification Framework, since
the majority include Biomarkers distributed between these three Domains - some of Endocrine Function in conjunction with others of Immune Function
and sometimes with some of our Molecular Level Domain-.
Nor can we omit these Biomarker Domains. In Aging Analytics Agency we propose an exhaustive and advanced evaluation of all the variables that
influence the aging process and Longevity, and for that reason we have included this Biomarker Domains Classification Framework. For this
considerations, it has been decided to recommend a combination of all these categories; the following configuration for the most optimal Panel, the
one with the best availability vs. accuracy ratio: one that includes data from conventional physical, physiological and cognitive exams, offered by the
clinical services - and for which only an accuracy assessment is carried out, since its availability is, with certainty, maximum; or at least in the countries
with access to the minimum expected clinical services-, and additionally data provided by Panels that evaluate Immune, Endocrine and other Molecular
and Cellular Level Biomarkers, the remaining three domains that are satisfied by the offer of Biomarker Panels in the market.
● The Conditioning Stage Classification Framework allows to differentiate degrees of availability vs. accuracy in strata or layers according to the current
state of Panels uses.
● Research Use Only Panels and tests, as immunophenotyping of T cells, B cells and so on, could be highly decisive for aging and Longevity
assessments, nevertheless there is virtually no availability for healthcare evaluations. Sometimes they are used, but only in very particular health
conditions and frequently at the cost of making mistakes: the methodology is usually not well standardized, the results are sometimes confusing, the
association with aging conditions and Longevity is not so linear or clear. At the same time, RUO Panels are often very expensive ones; ELISA kits,
chromatographic assays or those involving NMR, and other laboratory kits not usually used in clinical practice. Here, poor availability and poor
accuracy overlap; this is the stratum that worse availability vs. accuracy ratio per Biomarker would have. Aging Analytics Agency does not intend to
exclude these presentations from the practical purposes of its studies; here we consider Panels such as those offered by Olink, BIOLEGEND, Myriad,
all companies and products deeply involved in P4 Medicine as they facilitate the study and assessment of the proteome specifically, and other-omic
levels in general.
● Routine and Approved for Clinical Use tests for our selected Single Biomarkers have usually a high correlation degree with age-related diseases and
aging conditions; they often show good availability and excellent actionability. We could focus mainly on these, but what will provide an increase in
their precision and utility for Longevity assessments is to combine them with the so-called "Healthcare-Ready" Panels.
● Healthcare-Ready tests (or "Used for Informational Purposes" tests) are those RUO sensu lato; although they are not Approved for Clinical Use - as
they lack clinical validity at some degree-, they are offered by companies and clinics to give complementary information on the state of health or
Longevity. Thus, they may or may not provide useful information, which should be analyzed in conjunction with data provided by validated, ACU tests.
This category has good general availability, despite constituting Non-Approved for Clinical Use presentations; so they are considered quantitatively
equivalent to ACU in availability calculations, but without being ACU at a qualitative level. Healthcare-Ready Panels are almost ready for the healthcare
market, although they are not implemented in these terms: they have an informative purpose only. Nevertheless, its continuous use in such
configuration and in conjunction with already validated Panels will allow a better interpretation of the outputs or endpoints, enhanced standardization
of the results, wide access to the products, and therefore its very prompt clinical validation. The increasing access of individuals to this presentation
stratum is an incredible new phenomenon in regard to the health care market; it should be used to introduce health endpoints in Digital Panel
Platforms already conditioning for assessments of biological age, aging itself and Longevity; that is, in a way that other RUO Panels are not yet ready
to achieve.
● An analytical and comparative approach of aging biomarkers makes it necessary for certain single ones to be considered as equivalent to whole
Panels, since they are strongly and self-sufficiently correlated with chronological age. This is the case regarding some classic examples such as
telomere length assays (Telomere Length Test from Cell Science Systems; Telomere Length and Biological Age Testing from Life Length) or CpGs
dinucleotides Methylation tests (DNAge™ Epigenetic Aging Clock from Zymo Research; Epigenetic Age Analysis Version 2.0 from Osiris Green), among
others. The single biomarkers selected in this report are almost always significantly correlated with chronological age - they are indicators of
biological age on their own-, although not usually with particular pathologies and conditions associated with the progression of aging; thus, its clinical
interpretation or validity is usually limited. The dramatic reduction in costs for most of these advanced assessments allows those biomarkers to be
currently used for informational purposes complementary to clinical validity tests, having good availability. In the other hand, a few single biomarkers
selected as Panels do not present such correlation with chronological age; they would only describe it to some extent, or not, depending on their
calculated accuracy index.
● In the same way, in a market study it can be seen that some of these Single Biomarkers are not integrated in Panels which also justifies this criterion.
These forms of presentation are at an equivalent amplitude level regarding to their correlation with chronological age; in practice, one of these Single
Biomarkers can be equivalent, in terms of Accuracy for biological age assessment, to an entire Panel.
● A Digital Panel is a platform in which data sets from Digital Biomarkers and non-Digital Biomarkers (eg, blood, physical, physiological or other tests
outputs) are introduced and integrated by an algorithm and analyzed to establish a biological age secondary output, allowing a real-time health status
assessment. Note that they include Digital Biomarkers, but are not restricted to them; they also include AI platforms, but not limited to these.
● Real-time monitoring combining Single Biomarkers and entire Panels from different sources provides a much higher level of amplitude (or
comprehensiveness) than the other two presentations; for this case study, highly consolidated Platforms only have been considered, this is, in terms
of their documented precision and reliability. Thus, all of them have comparatively a maximum degree of amplitude, or maximum Accuracy (1.0), with
availability being the conditioning factor of actionability.
The methodology and metrics featured in this teaser for this contracted analytical case study are public and could have been used in a number of
other open-access Aging Analytics Agency reports, whereas a large portion of the analytical frameworks used for the report’s benchmarking are
proprietary, available to potential partners via NDA. These include both absolute values (quantitative or qualitative) and dynamic parameters to
analyze metrics as they change over time. The following are examples of parameters used in assessment of P4 Medicine clinics, so many of
them may concern this report while others may not.
The first and second Ps in P4 Medicine are personalized and precision, which refer to the drugs and treatments that will be designed and applied using
precise, individually-tailored methods of dosing, cocktail compositions of micro-dosages, and efficient methods of delivery. Such advances also
represent a move toward greater prevention (the third P in P4 Medicine), and a shift away from reactionary treatments and towards optimized disease
prevention, by the application of micro-dosages of drugs long before the underlying pathology develops into actual chronic disease. Healthy Longevity
means prevention rather than treatment, through the maintenance of optimal states of health via continuous monitoring of Biomarkers, and
micro-adjustments in therapeutic, lifestyle and behavioural regimes to normalize those Biomarkers.
The fourth P in P4 Medicine is participatory, which refers to the increasingly active role that patients are taking in managing their own health,
culminating in a situation where citizens are empowered with the tools, approaches and services capable of enabling continual micro-adjustments to
their behavioural, lifestyle and therapeutic regimens in response to continuous AI-empowered monitoring of micro-changes in Biomarkers that measure
state of health and predict risk of diseases long before their actual onset and progression.
These changes are already being embraced by the medical communities and healthcare systems of progressive countries. In coming years, as P4
becomes the new norm, the new definition of failure will be when patients are forced to get doctors involved. In a world in which P4 Medicine triumphs,
citizens will have no need to engage with doctors until the very end of life. The term “Precision Health” is becoming increasingly common. The term
refers to the idea that the ideal and most comprehensive case of P4 Medicine will naturally and inevitably lead to a state of Precision Health, where
diseases and other sub-optimal forms of health are delayed for as long as possible, until near the very end of life.
The role of AI in P4 Medicine is already remarkably apparent, especially in places such as the UK, USA, Switzerland and Singapore. For example we have
seen very proactive efforts by the UK government, both through their AI Industrial Grand Challenge and their Aging Industrial Grand Challenge, to rapidly
apply AI to preventive medicine, advanced biomedicine and Digital Health, and the recent establishment of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for
Longevity, where Aging Analytics Agency was proactively involved.
Small doses of
medications Not only do new methods of
standard industry benchmarking and
forecasting need to be developed to
combat the issues of overcomplexity
and multidimensionality in the
Longevity Industry, but new methods
of testing the basic safety and
efficacy of Longevity and Precision
Personalized
Measurement of Health prevention, diagnostics,
dose
optimization
biomarkers prognostics and therapeutics need
to be adapted as well, moving away
from the use of model organisms,
towards a more human-centric
approach. Digital biomarkers satisfy
all these new industry requirements:
they can be continuously tested on
all users, notifying adverse
micro-effects and ultra-stratifying
Digital avatar patients.
visualization
Cell
Proteomics
Future benefits:
Biology
A large part of health information is digitized, which allows us to compile enormous amount of data, access global servers, and compare
patient information, sort of a dynamic repository of information that is constantly being updated. The massive advance as far as these databases
facilitates doctors in their diagnostic process, their ability to measure, analyze, compare patients, and produce medical reports that are more
accurate and personalized, that will, in turn, lead to the best available therapy or treatment of the time.
The intensive application of AI to all stages of Longevity and Preventive Medicine R&D, and healthcare, has the potential to rapidly accelerate the clinical
translation of experimental, validated and non-validated biomarkers, toward diagnostics, prognostics and therapeutics, to empower patients to
ultimately become the CEOs of their own health through continuous AI-driven monitoring of minor fluctuations in biomarkers, and the rapid
development of the global Longevity Industry to scale.
Sources: Digital Health. Fundación Innovación Bankinter.
59
Data science for Biomarkers
To shorten that translation delay from Research Use Only (RUO) and non-validated biomarkers and panels, to an Approved for Clinical Use (ACU)
condition in the field of age-related diseases health care, and for a deep impact on applied health in a world of aging populations, it is an essential
challenge, to obtain a set of biomarkers already Approved for Clinical Use with high availability and actionability, and use it in conjunction with others,
market- and healthcare-ready although less conventional biomarkers gathered in digital real-time monitoring environments. That will enable a
sufficiently accurate assessment of the overall process of aging, calculation of biological age, and analysis of the progression of particular elderly
conditions nested by biomarker networks leading to the creation of a Most Viable Product, or the Minimum Required Panel.
Biomarker networks, which consist of the alignment between interactome and phenome levels, reveals new disease genes and connections between
previously unrelated diseases or traits. Despite a great potential for novel discoveries, this approach is still rarely used in genomics and other omics. A
biomarker network is a group of functionally related units of indicators, of any biological level, that contribute to the same phenotype - understanding by
phenotype a molecular, metabolic, immune, physiological or physical trait, and so on-, pathological or not. The interactome - the whole set of molecular
interactions for a trait, a condition, a disease, a cell or another biological unit-, and the phenome - the set of all phenotypes expressed by that unit-, are
complexly connected at multiple levels. At the root of these networks is the epigenome. Only AI-driven methods can efficiently address such
complexity, those colossal bodies of data that can be currently entered into multiple and different digital platforms.
Unlocking the value of epigenetic data for actionable insights will drive aging research,
Applying AI in Epigenetics Research.
precision medicine, and ultimately population health. Fundamental questions should be
Input Layer
addressed by integrative personal omics profiling with epigenomics at its center,
combining genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic, and autoantibody profiles Exposome
from an individual to reveal dynamic molecular changes in health and disease. With the Hidden Hidden
Layer 1 Layer 2
evolution of better technologies and digital capacity, enormous amounts of omics data Metabo-
will be produced and stored in the digital space and researchers will need AI to be able to lome
keep track of it. AI is already transforming the world of medicine and will help healthcare
Proteome
providers make faster and more accurate diagnoses. Based on epigenetic data, deep
learning algorithms will predict the risk of a disease in time to prevent it and will help
scientists understand how interindividual epigenetic variability leads to disease. Epigeno-
me
However, ensuring security and privacy in transmitting and storing personal epigenetic
profiles will require building a new and open multi-omics data ecosystem. Blockchain, an Social
Graph
open-source technology that uses a distributed database for secure transactions, has Output
Layer
the potential to address many of the challenges related to security and privacy with Sensor
personal health information. Blockchain technology enables integrating data from a Data
The interaction of the diseased organ within the person produces a cascade of dysregulated networks, resulting in associated comorbidities, some of
which are evident and others that are asymptomatic (preclinical). In the state of wellness, networks are precisely regulated via complex homeostatic
mechanisms. Through one or a series of network (or sub-network) perturbations, wellness is driven toward altered nodal activity. Such nodal
modulation constitutes the at-risk state, and although preclinical, it typically provides systemic signatures, which can be discerned and quantitated, and
enable detection of dysregulation during a preclinical stage. Systems level wellness, disease prevention, and health, therefore, aim to characterize
specific nodal perturbations, some environmentally mediated, others rooted in the complexities of the intrinsic multidimensional networks only
revealed via the aforementioned perturbations.
Sources:: Fiandaca M. S., et al. Systems healthcare: a holistic paradigm for tomorrow. 2017.
Aging Analytics Agency 62
Data science and AI making Complex Biomarkers available
Machine and Deep Learning analytics has been applied in biology to deal
with the intrinsic complexity in omics data with a long history and its Predictive modelling and
Quality Assessment
integration in recent years. The high-level overview of the machine- analytics
learning analytic pipeline for integrated multiomics data consists of data
preprocessing, modeling, and active learning. Once a model is constructed Three major steps involved in AI-driven multi-omics: Data acquisition,
and evaluated, active learning guides what experiments to perform next to multi-omics integration and predictive modeling. An end-to-end
minimize uncertainty in the model. pipeline for multi-omics data as a source of biomarkers for health care,
biological age precise calculation and extension of lifespan.
Sources:: Minseung Kim, et al. Data integration and predictive modeling methods for multi-omics datasets. 2017.
Aging Analytics Agency 63
Data science and AI making Complex Biomarkers available
Machine and Deep Learning analytics over integrated multi-omics data have the capacity to make far-reaching impacts across multiple industries. In
biomedical applications, finding therapeutic targets and biomarkers is one of the major issues in human health, and such efforts are being more and
more translated into the real world (e.g. BERG, Eagle Genomics). Antibiotic resistance is of paramount importance as it is considered a global threat
and machine learning methods can be applied for predicting antibiotic resistance from the molecular signature of clinical isolates to select effective
antibiotics. In food and nutrition science, optimizing nutrition treatment for individuals is enabled by machine learning over personal omics data
accompanied with dietary information.
One prominent example of applying deep learning comes from gaming. In 2016, the program AlphaGo beat the world champion Lee Sedol
in four out of five games of Go, a complex ancient Chinese board game. It was a huge victory for AI that came decades earlier than most
experts believed possible. AlphaGo was developed by DeepMind, a subsidiary of Google that focuses on AI. Instead of relying on explicit programming,
DeepMind applies general-purpose learning algorithms to large data set to make predictions. It is this type of advancement in machine learning that is
delivering on the promise of real-time diagnostics and revolutionizing the future of precision medicine. In the same year, the field of machine
learning changed significantly because most of the major information and communication technology (ICT) companies have made their deep learning
codes open source and available to anyone. Consequently, most major machine learning implementations are available for free to use and modify for
everybody. This means it is possible for all researchers to set up a simple machine intelligence with nothing more than a laptop and a web connection.
Already, there are over 50 different deep learning tool sets available and most are already open source.
As a key case study that cannot be omitted, some early approaches to merge epigenetics and deep learning exist already. One of them is DeepCpG,
which was designed to help scientists learn about the connections between genomic data and DNA methylation to make predictions about
DNA methylation in single cells. In particular, DeepCpG is trained to predict binary CpG methylation states from local DNA sequence windows and
observed neighboring methylation states. The trained DeepCpG model can be used for different downstream analyses, including imputation
low-coverage methylation profiles for sets of cells and discovery of DNA sequence motifs that are associated with methylation states and cell-to-cell
variability. The long-term goal of using deep learning algorithms is to predict the effect of epigenetic drift and epimutations on a cell’s
regulatory landscape and how this, in turn, affects disease development. And aging itself.
1 3
AGING Physiological
There is strong evidence supporting
the validity and reliability of these
BIOMARKERS function
measures, and their use in healthy
aging studies have key advantages.
Physiological Physical
function function
BIOMARKERS
Validated Biomarkers of aging would
allow for testing interventions to extend
lifespan; effective lifespan would not be Adiponectin.
6 a practical means for long-lived species
4 Ghrelin.
such as humans because longitudinal
studies would take far too much time. Leptin.
DHEAS.
DHEAS:Cortisol ratio.
5 Growth Hormone, IGF-1.
Estrogens.
Testosterone.
Somatostatin.
Melatonin.
Physiological Physical
Thyroid Hormones.
function function
2 Executive Function.
Verbal Fluency.
1 3 Processing Speed.
AGING Digit-Symbol Coding.
Working Memory.
BIOMARKERS Digit Span Backward.
Crystallized Ability.
Validated Biomarkers of aging would
Boston Naming Test.
allow for testing interventions to extend
lifespan; effective lifespan would not be Cognitive Attention.
6 a practical means for long-lived species
such as humans because longitudinal 4 Function Stroop Task.
studies would take far too much time. Non-Verbal Reasoning.
Raven's Progressive Matrices.
Visual Memory and
5 Cognitive decline is a well documented Visuospatial Ability.
process common to old age. Structural and
function changes in the brain correlate with
Benton Visual Retention Test
cognitive decline, including alterations in and Block Design Test.
neuronal structure, neuronal loss, loss of Verbal Memory &
synapses, and dysfunction of neuronal
networks. Age-related diseases are directly Learning
connected with these processes since they Rey Auditory Verbal
Physiological Physical increase the rates of changes at brain level. Learning Test.
function function
The continuous monitoring of small changes in health, and the continuous and commensurate micro-adjustment of treatments in response, requires an
agreed panel of biomarkers. Biomarkers are typically classified as molecules which have properties that allow them to be measured in biological
samples in clinical settings. But what if we measure people's health outside the clinic with the help of everyday devices such as a phone?
Thanks to advances in digital technology we now have access to a whole new form of measurable indicator: Digital Biomarkers. Digital Biomarkers
are like any other biomarker, but measured through gadgets.
We can measure people's health outside the clinic with the help of everyday devices such as a phone. Digital biomarkers are defined as objective,
quantifiable physiological and behavioral data that are collected and measured by means of digital devices such as portables, wearables, sensors,
implantables and digestible devices.
"Digital" expresses the data collection methodology as using sensors and computational tools, and across multiple layers of hardware and software.
This data can be used not only to confirm the presence of any kind of disease but to predict and, moreover, prevent all possible pathologies.
A currently in development Digital Biomarker of aging that also use Deep Learning-driven analysis, for instance, involve the aggregation of photographs
continuously taken to mice under the MouseAGE Project; these images associate behavior and other traits with a biological age endpoint. These also
can be quite easily extended to humans and similar developments are taking place, involving algorithms designed to operate from mobile phone
applications or wearable devices. The precision of this electronic devices alone is still not enough to make these implementations a research priority,
but the increasing video capabilities of smart-phones means that the accelerated developments in Digital Imaging Biomarkers (e.g., for the face or eye,
collecting data about ocular or neurological diseases) may be implemented sooner rather than later.
Quantified in ones and zeros, the Digital Biomarkers or their related Digital Panel Platforms can support continuous measurements outside the physical
confines of the clinical or the hospital environment, using home-based connected products. These products have created new opportunities, enabling
remote monitoring for biomedical research, decentralized clinical trial designs, and routine patient care. These are components already well integrated
into the market, but still waiting to be used to good advantage by the world's health systems.
Nowadays Digital Biomarkers are widely studied in order to reveal the broad spectrum of possible uses, and to revolutionize current methods of patient
health state monitoring and disease outcomes prediction. According to Digital Biomarkers Journal, a multidisciplinary-by-design open access journal
that bridges the disciplines of computer science, engineering, biomedicine, regulatory science and informatics, Digital Biomarkers represent an
opportunity to capture clinically meaningful, objective data.
Digital Biomarkers could be the breakthrough bioscience has been waiting for, which is why not only individuals and health care providers but also
many companies have grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Breathometer, Xsensio, Scailyte AG, Nightingale Health, FEET ME, xbird, Mindstrong
Health, Serimmune, IXICO, etc., are top private companies that successfully carry out the mission of Digital Biomarker popularization. They are known
for the development of unique sensing platforms and chips, human liquid testing systems, devices for health monitoring, single-cell profiling devices,
and providing unique information that fuels development of new diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics. All of these enable novel approaches for
preventing and treating a great many diseases; not only pathologies and conditions of aging, but the vast majority associated without any doubt with
age and Longevity.
Digital Biomarkers span a broad range of preventive, diagnostic and prognostic measurements, with opportunities and challenges associated with their
use. Some Biomarkers are immediately familiar to patients or physicians as they are digitized versions of well-established metrics—for example,
glucometer readings transmitted by Bluetooth, or the timed six-minute walk test measured with the smartphone’s built-in gyroscope and accelerometer.
Others, such as the smartphone-derived tapping test for Parkinson’s disease severity, are entirely novel and evolving. They are able to detect eye
diseases from scans as accurately as experts, or to predict patient deterioration up to 48 hours earlier than currently possible, developments carried
out by DeepMind Technologies, now belonging to Alphabet. Also, Digital Biomarkers can be components in autoregulated closed loop systems; for
instance, a continuous glucose sensor linked to an insulin pump in a pancreas can automatically dose or micro-dose insulin in patients with diabetes.
[*] Detect arrhythmias using convolutional neural networks and a wearable single-lead
Repeated blood pressure
A biomarker used to heart monitor.
readings obtained outside the
detect or confirm the Source: Rajpurkar, P., Hannun, A., Masoumeh, H., Bourn, C. & Ng, A. Cardiologist-level arrhythmia
clinical setting in adults 18
Diagnostic presence of a disease or detection with convolutional neural networks. arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.01836
years and older may be used
Biomarker condition of interest or to
as a diagnostic biomarker to [*] Detect depression and Parkinson’s disease using vocal biomarkers.
identify individuals with a
identify those with essential Source: Gosh, S. S. & Ciccarelli, G. Speaking one's mind: vocal biomarkers of depression and
subtype of the disease.
hypertension. Parkinson disease. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 139, 2193 (2016).
[*] Diagnose asthma and respiratory infections using smartphone-recorded cough
sounds.
Source: RespApp. Diagnosing Respiratory Disease in Children Using Cough Sounds 2
(SMARTCOUGH-C-2).
[*] Quantify Parkinson’s disease severity using smartphones and machine learning.
Source: Zhan, A. et al. Using smartphones and machine learning to quantify Parkinson disease
severity: the mobile Parkinson disease score. JAMA Neurol. 75, 876–880 (2018).
A biomarker measured
serially for assessing the [**] Track time and location of short-acting beta-agonist inhaler use using an attached
Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) wireless sensor.
status of a disease or
may be used as a monitoring Source: Barrett, M. A. et al. Effect of a mobile health, sensor-driven asthma management platform
Monitoring medical condition or for
biomarker when assessing on asthma control. Ann. Allergy Asthma Immunol. 119, 415–421 (2017).
Biomarker evidence of exposure to
disease status or burden in
(or effect of) a medical
patients with prostate cancer. [*] Predicting sleep/wake patterns from a 3-axis home-based accelerometer using
product or an
environmental agent.
deep learning.
Source: Wolz, R., Munro, J., Guerrero, R., Hill, D. L. & Dauvilliers, Y. Predicting sleep/wake patterns
from 3-axis accelerometry using deep learning. Alzheimer Dement. 13, P1012 (2017).
A biomarker used to Increasing prostate-specific Stratify mental health conditions and predict remission using passively collected
identify the likelihood of a antigen (PSA) may be used as smartphone data.
clinical event, disease a prognostic biomarker when Source: Mindstrong Health. Mindstrong Health and Takeda Partner to Explore Development of
Prognostic recurrence, or evaluating patients with Digital Biomarkers for Mental Health Conditions (2018)
Biomarker progression in patients prostate cancer during
who have the disease or follow-up, to assess the Detect post-acute care deterioration in patients at home, applying machine learning to
medical condition of likelihood of cancer multi-sensor digital ambulatory monitoring.
interest. progression. Source: physIQ (http://www.physiq.com/resources/)
A biomarker used to Predict autism risk in the siblings of children with autism, using an EEG biomarker.
Human leukocyte antigen allele
identify individuals who Source: Bosl, W. J., Tager-Flusberg, H. & Nelson, C. A. EEG analytics for early detection of autism
(HLA)–B*5701 genotype may
are more likely than spectrum disorder: a data-driven approach. Sci. Rep. 8, 6828 (2018).
be used as a predictive
similar individuals without
biomarker to evaluate human
Predictive the biomarker to
immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
Biomarker experience a favorable or
patients before abacavir Detect asymptomatic atrial fibrillation (AF) as a stroke risk factor, remotely through a
unfavorable effect from
treatment, to identify patients connected device.
exposure to a medical
at risk for severe skin Source: Halcox, J. P. J. et al. Assessment of remote heart rhythm sampling using the AliveCor
product or an
reactions. Heart Monitor to screen for atrial fibrillation: The REHEARSE-AF Study. Circulation 136,
environmental agent.
1784–1794(2017).
(a) Selected from the FDA-NIH “Biomarkers, EndpointS, and other Tools” (BEST) classification for traditional biomarkers
[*] Digital biomarker under development
[**] Digital biomarker in use (in a clinical trial or an FDA cleared/approved digital health product, or a digital health app in use not requiring approval)
Sources Coravos A., et al. Developing and adopting safe and effective digital biomarkers to improve patient outcomes. 2019.
83
Digital Biomarkers, Pharma Industry, Translational Medicine and P4 Medicine.
Digital Biomarkers could potentially reorganize the whole pharma industry and become an integral part of the drug development process. Due to the
sensitivity and precision they provide, digital biomarkers can be used to improve clinical trials of drugs. While testing a treatment, finding the
appropriate dosage, and looking for side effects, this new form of indicator reveals a drug's efficacy and toxicity for individual patients.
In 2017 the Digital Biomarkers Journal provided a deep analysis of the modern pharmaceutical business model and how it implements digital
biomarkers. According to the article, in the case of some illnesses, Digital Biomarkers can improve the understanding of the natural history of a disease
through more continuous measurement of objective health data. Such information may become priceless in situations where symptom presence and
severity is more variable and disease prevention and treatment necessitates a more individualized approach to each patient.
As Digital Biomarkers are increasingly used as endpoints in drug discovery and development, translational research and clinical trials, we anticipate that
clinicians will have a growing number of validated means of gathering deep insights on patients health status remotely. Digital Biomarkers allow deep
collection of data on individual trial participants as well as patients in clinical settings, thereby providing an opportunity for “N of 1” clinical
investigations, the cornerstone of evidence generation for personalization of care. And with more data, an algorithm’s accuracy improves. This strong
feedback between massive amounts of data and improvement of interpretive algorithms is sufficient to consider that the amplitude levels of the Digital
Biomarkers and the Digital Panel Platforms are much higher than those of conventional biomarkers and panels - and will be even more, as the latter join
one by one to this emerging system, establishing a new paradigm of daily overall health assessment. This will trigger excessive accuracy in the
measurement of biomarkers; process that is already underway and can be seen in multiple market-ready products, such as the AgeMeter, developed by
Centers for Age Control, a functional or biological age test system using digital health inputs for improve personalized health parameters.
Availability of contextual information will enable more precise personalized algorithms, as a blood pressure fluctuation algorithm designed for a
population with a late-stage cardiovascular disease, and also providing opportunities to combine data sources to create novel measures for conditions
that have historically struggled to have meaningful endpoints, as the brain and nervous system disorders. Nevertheless, validation of digital biomarkers
require a uniquely collaborative effort, with translational science, engineering, data science and health information technology functions tightly
coordinated as a highly integrated multidisciplinary unit.
Sources: Coravos A., et al. Developing and adopting safe and effective digital biomarkers to improve patient outcomes. 2019.
85
Preventive Treatment
A virtual profile of all health data can be generated through collection of multiple types
What is an Avatar? of data, some of which are visualised also in 3D through devices or augmented reality.
Biomarkers serve not only to diagnose issues, but also to evaluate overall health status
An avatar is a graphic representation that is associated
and predict aging rates of each individual. Gathering more of this type of data e.g.
with a user to serve as their identification. Avatars can
periodic blood tests, will enable a complex, highly personal picture of each person,
be a picture, artistic drawing, or a three dimensional
whose predictive power will be proportional to the quantities of input classes and the
representation. With the advent of the digital revolution,
intrinsic capabilities of the AI-driven analysis aimed at recreating biomarker networks.
its use has spread to a large number of fields including
The added accuracy and size of the data sets means it will inevitably provide an
medicine. Currently, the digital avatar is being used in
invaluable source for AI to pick out key trends for each kind of patient cohort, or indeed
medical education such as for training models using
work out the cohorts itself.
augmented reality in order to explain anatomy to
students with a three-dimensional human body. Despite being a trove of knowledge for health practitioners and researchers, individuals
will still be the sole proprietors of their own health data, allowing them to control who
A good example for its usefulness within the context of
sees what, and how this data is used for various monetisation purposes. This is enabled
health is the projection of the effects of tobacco in a
by blockchain storage of patient data. In addition to biomarkers, all other types of data
patient who is a smoker, which allows us to visualize
relevant to healthcare will be integrated into the digital avatar. Health records,
their body within 5 years and analyze the consequences
medication, lifestyle will be fed into the profile. The ability to process patient data on a
to their health in the near future if they continue to
bigger scale compared to traditional medicine enables truly personalised
smoke. The challenge is keeping in mind the quantity of
healthcare, and removes the difficulties of identifying individual patient backgrounds
information that exists regarding pathological
and needs, that doctors may fail to obtain in time. With the technologies of healthcare
conditions and the consequences. How can we motivate
advancing, the digital avatar will evolve from a data collection and disease focused tool
people to adopt good habits? The digital avatar in health
to a truly longevity focused tool. Instead of looking at unidimensional, disease-linked
allows us to plan a path and observe the body of a
biomarkers, it will be able to look at the whole organism in an overarching health point of
patient in alternate scenarios.
view, and focus mainly on prevention and extending patient healthspan.
Measurements Verification
An input layer such as a camera, Analytical verification uses engineering
microphone, or sensor captures a digital bench tests to ensure that the product is
biomarker signal. For example, measuring and storing values accurately by
photoplethysmographs measure blood confirming the tool’s accuracy, precision, and
volume changes in the microvasculature reliability. Confidence in the performance of
using an optical sensor placed on the skin digital biomarkers is an important
surface. A signal processing layer, typically consideration for researchers, clinicians, and
an algorithm, converts the input signal into patients. For example, the verification step
actionable metrics (e.g., oxygen saturation ensures that the translation from raw data,
and/or heart rate), or digital biomarkers. e.g., that a heart rate sensor measuring
Although measuring blood volume changes electrical potential in millivolts, faithfully
using photoplethysmography is widely converts that signal into an accurate heart
accepted in medical practice, the interplay rate, expressed in beats per unit of time.
among hardware, sensors, and algorithms
can make the evaluation of emerging digital
biomarkers difficult. There are several Validation
challenges in deciding not only whether a
As with diagnostics, the performance of digital biomarker algorithms may vary across different
digital biomarker is valid, but equally
patient populations, producing different rates of false-positive or false-negative outputs in
important, whether it is “fit-for-purpose”,
different groups. Validation addresses whether the measurement is applicable in the target
meaning that the product has an explicit
population and context of use,6 which would render digital biomarker “fit for purpose”. For
context of use, meets appropriate
example, a tool measuring sleep and waking periods perform against polysomnography may
requirements for accuracy and precision,
perform differently in a patient population with insomnia versus sleep apnea versus healthy
and is accompanied by the metadata needed
volunteers.
for analysis and interpretation.
Sources: Andrea Coravos, et al. Developing and adopting safe and effective digital biomarkers to improve patient outcomes. 2019.
88
Biomarkers of
Physical Function and Physiology
Biomarkers of Physical Function Domain Overview
Measures of physical capability, that is, a person’s ability to perform the physical tasks of everyday living, are useful markers of current and future
health. Poor performance in tests of grip strength, walking speed, chair rise time and standing balance, and so on, are associated with higher mortality
rates. In addition, lower levels of physical capability are associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), dementia, institutionalisation and
difficulties performing activities of daily living (ADLs). Locomotor function, strength, balance and dexterity, are considered to capture underlying
functions that are used most commonly as objective measures of physical capability in longitudinal studies.
Objective, standardised tests of physical capability have been developed and are used increasingly in population-based studies. These objective
measures complement self-reports, improve validity and reproducibility, capture change over time, and may reduce the influence of cognitive function,
culture, language and education that can affect self-reported assessments and so limit comparability across studies. From the perspective of healthy
ageing, these objective tests have two key advantages. Firstly they enable the study of variation in functioning across the full spectrum. Secondly, they
facilitate identification of those people performing best who cannot be distinguished by self-reported measures which aim to identify people who have
difficulty in performing the tasks of everyday living.
There is considerable variability in the protocols of assessment for these measures, but attempts at standardisation across studies are now being
made through initiatives such as the NIH toolbox [intro]. All tests of physical capability are relatively quick, easy and inexpensive to perform with only
grip strength and the pegboard test requiring special instruments. An exception is the use of an accelerometer to measure swaying during balance
tests which is recommended by the NIH toolbox. There is strong evidence supporting the validity and reliability of these measures.
However, all the physical capability tests have exclusion criteria and an important consideration, not well addressed in the literature, is how to handle
the increasing proportion of people unable to perform these tests at older ages. Grip strength is the most comprehensively studied physical capability
test. Longitudinal studies show that grip strength peaks in the late thirties for both sexes, while longitudinal and cross-sectional studies show declines
in both sexes from the fifties and sixties. At all ages, grip strength is higher in men than women and there is some evidence for faster decline in men
than in women.
Sources: Jose Lara, et al. A proposed panel of biomarkers of healthy ageing. 2015.
90
Biomarkers of Physical Function Domain Overview
Measures of physical Risks and threats
capability
Disadvantages
Poor
Higher mortality rates
performance
Grip strength
Cardiovascular disease
Increasing proportion of people
Walking speed Considerable variability in the
unable to perform these tests at
Dementia protocols of assessment
older ages
Chair rise time
Institutionalisation and
difficulties performing
Standing balance
activities of daily living Facilitate identification of those people performing best who
(ADLs) cannot be distinguished by self-reported measures
Types of measures of
physical capability Validity and
reproducibility
improvement 2 Key
Locomotor function 2 Key
Advanta
Advantages
Self-reports Capturing changes over ges
Strength time
Evidence for age-related change in other measures of physical capability is more limited
Higher mortality rates prediction
because it is restricted largely to cross-sectional data from relatively small studies.
However this limited evidence is consistent in suggesting that physical capabilities
decline progressively in later life and that men perform better than women at all ages. Weaker grip strength
A systematic review has shown that weaker grip strength, slower walking speed, longer Slower walking speed
chair rise time and poorer standing balance performance are associated with higher
mortality rates, independent of age in older community-dwelling populations.
Longer chair rise
Meta-analyses of data from several American studies of older people have also revealed
a strong association between slower walking speed and higher mortality rates. More
Poorer standing balance performance
recent studies indicate that, in addition to grip strength and walking speed, standing
balance and chair rise speed in middle age predict mortality rates over 13 years of
follow-up.
In another recent systematic review, weaker grip strength was found to be associated Weaker grip strength was found to be
with functional decline as assessed by self-reported difficulties performing activities of associated with functional decline as
daily living (ADLs). Three other systematic reviews evaluating risk for subsequent assessed by self-reported difficulties
disability (assessed using ADLs) showed that older adults performing poorly in tests of performing activities of daily living (ADLs)
physical capability are more likely to become disabled.
There is also some evidence that poorer performance in grip strength, walking speed, Older adults performing poorly in tests of
chair rise times and standing balance, is associated with higher risk for cardiovascular physical capability are more likely to become
disease (CVD), dementia and institutionalisation (as a marker of loss of independence), disabled
but none of these associations has been studied sufficiently often to allow definitive
conclusions to be drawn.
Recent work suggests that there is added value, for the prediction of mortality, Physical Well-being and Exercise Effects
in assessing different measures of physical capability in midlife. However,
there is currently insufficient evidence, from the perspective of studying Genomic instability Telomere attrition
healthy aging, to establish the added value of assessing any one additional ↑ Systemic antioxidant
specific measure, if other measures have been assessed already, to defense and DNA repair ↑ Telomerase activity; TERT
activity and expression;
recommend an order of priority for these measures or to define with
↓ DNA and mtDNA damage Shelterin complex
confidence the minimum number of measures that should be made across the
full range of older ages and for different research questions. Some studies
consider each measure of physical capability separately, and some have used Epigenetic alteration Loss of Proteostasis
a set of tests of several aspects of physical capability interpreted as a total
↑ Histone PTMs (HATs, Induces autophagy in brain,
performance score, such as the short physical performance battery (SPPB) or HDACs, jmjC, LSD); miRNA hearth, skeletal muscle,
the index of physical fitness age. Further work should establish whether regulation (e.g. miR-33, 1, liver, pancreatic β cells and
deriving an overall score of physical capability is of greater predictive value 133a, 499-5p, 208a, 126) adipose tissue through
than considering each measure separately and the most appropriate approach several mechanisms (IGF-1,
AKT/mTOR, beclin1) and
is likely to depend on the specific research question being addressed. Deregulated nutrient sensing modulates ubiquitin-
proteasome system
↑ mTOR; AMPK; SIRT; Glut 4;
There is a need for more studies with longitudinal data on change in physical Testosterone; GH; IGF-1
capability, and a need to assess physical capability in relation to other positive
Mitochondrial dysfunction
aspects of health, such as quality of life, that may be important criteria for
Cellular senescence
healthy aging. Significant variability in the protocols used to assess any one ↑ PGC-1; SIRT; Antioxidant
measure of physical capability makes comparisons between, and combination ↑ NK-Cell activity; defense; mtDNA shifting
of findings from, different studies difficult. In addition, few studies have Antigen-presentation
compared formally the different measures of physical capability and, as with Stem cell exhaustion
Altered intercellular
measures of cognitive function, performance in any one measure of physical communication Stimulates proliferation and
capability is likely to be correlated with performance in other such measures.
↑ IL-4, 6, 10, 13, 1β; AUF1 migration of stem cells
There is also a need for larger longitudinal Physical Well-being and Exercise Effects
studies in which these age-related
patterns, as well as variations in Lung Function Brain Function
within-individual changes over time, can be
investigated further. Declines in mean ↑ Neurogenesis
↑ Ventilation;
levels of physical capability at the Gas exchange ↓ Neurodegeneration;
population level hide substantial Cognitive alterations
inter-individual variation in rate of decline.
For example, being able to identify people Muscle Function Cardiovascular Function
who maintain, or improve, their physical
capability despite increasing age will be ↑ Regional blood flow; Blood volume;
↑ Muscle strength/power; Muscle Body fluid regulation; Endothelial
important when studying healthy aging. endurance; Muscle quality; Balance function; Autonomic function; Vagal
More research is also needed on the utility and mobility; Motor performance and tone and HRV; Cardiac pre conditioning
of some measures such as dexterity control; Flexibility and joint ROM;
Oxygen arterio-venous difference
performance in the pegboard test ↓ Blood Pressure
(dexterity), which has been understudied;
this in addition to the aforementioned Body Composition Metabolism
dearth of evidence on the associations of
physical capability with measures of ↑ Fat-free mass; Muscle mass; Bone
density
positive aspects of health that may be ↑ Resting metabolic rate; Muscle
protein synthesis; Fat oxidation
important criteria for healthy aging. ↓ Weight; Regional adiposity
Complex molecular changes affecting the structure and function of most cells, tissues and organ systems are a hallmark of aging, and changes in their
function can be detected by the third or fourth decades of life. Such loss may translate, eventually, into metabolic dysregulation leading to the
development of early signs of pre-disease which, if not identified and managed, will result eventually in functional loss, chronic disease and finally
death. A well-recognised example is age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength potentially leading to sarcopenia. However, subtle changes
in the function of most organs can occur by the third or fourth decades of life.
This domain includes biomarkers of lung function, body composition (including bone mass and skeletal muscle), cardiovascular (CV) function and
glucose metabolism.
Body mass and body composition. Aging is associated with body composition changes including increased body fat, reduced muscle mass and, with
exception of the heart, reduced organ mass. Greater abdominal adiposity is a risk factor for aging and for age-related diseases with the lowest
mortality risk for those with waist circumferences (WC) below 94 and 77 cm for men and women, respectively. The relative risk (RR) of mortality is
doubled for those with WCs above 132 and 116 cm in men and women, respectively.
Body mass index (BMI) is a useful measure of overall adiposity, since each 5 kg/m2 Increase in BMI is associated with 30% higher overall mortality,
40% higher vascular mortality, 60–120% higher diabetic, renal, and hepatic mortality. High BMI, independent of gender and other confounding factors, is
a risk factor for cognitive decline. In addition, weight gain in middle age is associated with substantially reduced likelihood of healthy survival after age
70 years in women.
Muscle mass can be assessed using CT, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), DXA, bioimpedance analysis (BIA), and body potassium. Evidence shows
that muscle mass, such as leg muscle mass, declines with age. Cross sectional and prospective studies that have examined the relationship between
regional muscle mass per se and health outcomes have reported that low skeletal muscle index (skeletal muscle mass/body mass percent) is
associated with increased likelihood of functional impairment and disability. Recent developments from the FNIH Sarcopenia Project may help to
establish universal cut-points for low muscle mass and weakness.
Cardiovascular function. Aging of the cardiovascular system is associated with aging of both cardiac muscle and the vascular wall. Although there are
many inflammation and haemostasis-related biomarkers of cardiovascular function, the classical, widely measured, and well documented physiological
markers of risk of cardiovascular-related diseases remain the strongest biomarkers of aging. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses provide strong
evidence that blood pressure (BP), lipid profile (including total cholesterol, low- and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides
concentrations) are predictors of morbidity and mortality. A difference of 20 mmHg in systolic BP (or 10 mmHg in diastolic BP) is associated with > two
fold difference in death from several vascular causes. High BP in midlife is associated with lower cognitive function in later life. Among the
components of the Metabolic Syndrome, high-BP and impaired fasting glucose are significant predictors of greater CV-morbidity and mortality. There is
a lack of evidence on the age-related changes in most cardiovascular biomarkers but, using data from eight UK cohorts, a recent study evaluated the
life course trajectories in BP and confirmed age-related changes in BP, independent of BMI.
Systolic increased from childhood, with a markedly midlife acceleration beginning at 40 years of age, and deceleration and reversion of these increases
in late adulthood.
Lung function. From age 25, lung function assessed through forced expiratory volume (FEV1; the most common measure documented in
epidemiologic studies) declines at approximately 32ml/year in men and 25 ml/year in women. Numerous population studies have documented an
inverse association between FEV1 and aging-related endpoints including future total and cardiovascular mortality, cognitive function and fractures.
Bone health. Bone mass declines with age in both men and women although whether the decline is greater in women is debated. Techniques for
measuring bone mass include dual x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), broadband ultrasound attenuation (BUA), and quantitative computed tomography (CT)
and both site specific (hip or spine) DXA and heel BUA have been used extensively in epidemiologic studies. DXA is the most widely used method to
assess bone mineral density and is the method of choice to diagnose osteoporosis. Bone mass or density (measured using DXA or BUA) predicts
future fracture risk as well as mortality and other age-relevant health outcomes. BUA is an attractive alternative to DXA given its portability, lower cost,
and no exposure to ionising radiation. A recent meta-analysis showed that BUA predicted fracture risk similarly to DXA.
Most aging biomarkers measured within blood samples are related to cardiovascular function, glucose metabolism, inflammation, nutritional status,
endocrinology and simply hematology. As already said, although there are many less well understood inflammation- and hemostasis-related
biomarkers of cardiovascular function, the classical, widely measured, and well-documented physiological markers of risk of cardiovascular-related
diseases remain some of the strongest biomarkers of aging: systematic reviews and meta-analyses provide strong evidence that the lipid profile is a
predictor of morbidity and mortality; but there is a wide margin of error. Approximately 50% of the negatives for cholesterolemia and coronary heart
disease risk through a conventional lipid profile are false negatives; implementing timely access to advanced lipid testing for the population would
result in the effective prevention of at least a quarter of the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, quite possibly much more.
Amongst the best studied aspects of immunosenescence is the age-related increase in inflammatory peptide biomarkers (Interleukins 6, 1β, Tumor
Necrosis Factor-α and C-Reactive Protein), collectively termed inflammaging. Higher plasma concentrations of inflammatory factors such as IL-6 and
TNF-α have been associated with lower grip strength and gait speed in older adults, demonstrating the interconnection between immune and functional
status. CRP has been related to all-cause and specific causes of mortality and IL-6 was found to be a strong predictor of mortality.
Measurement of inflammatory markers has been conducted in centenarians. Centenarians demonstrate fewer signs of inflammaging. Whilst
inflammatory peptides are either absent or lowered than that evident in younger cohorts, there is a corresponding increase in the levels of
anti-inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-10. Importantly, much yet is to be understood with respect to the interactions between cytokines, the immune
system and target organs. It is apparent that these inflammatory markers have many non-classical functions, including the modulation of metabolic
functions, well beyond the classically described impact on inflammatory function.
Aging is associated with alterations in many aspects of metabolic and hormonal function, including altered expression of cellular insulin receptors and
glucose transporter units in target tissues. Within these tissues there is corresponding changes in carbohydrate metabolism including decreased
cellular glucose oxidation. These alterations result in a lowered glucose tolerance as measured by impaired ability to lower blood glucose after a
standard glucose load. There are several measures of glucose tolerance with the clinically accepted measures for diagnosis of diabetes mellitus being
the fasting and postprandial blood glucose concentration. Glycated hemoglobin, a measure of usual glucose concentrations over the preceding few
months, which does not require fasting or a glucose challenge, has also been suggested as a feasible indicator of glucose metabolism.
The Standard Lipid Profile (image) test is used as part of a cardiac risk assessment to help identify an individual’s risk of heart disease and to help make decisions about suitable
treatment if there is a borderline or high risk. The results of a standard lipid profile test are considered along with other risk factors of heart disease such as lifestyle, family health
history of a heart attack before the age of 50, family history of elevated cholesterol level, obesity, etc., to develop a plan of treatment and follow-up.
However, there are serious limitations to relying solely on the standard cholesterol panel. The well-known Framingham Study illustrated that the higher the cholesterol, the higher
the statistical risk of a heart attack; nonetheless, a frightening number of heart attacks still occur every day in people whose cholesterol values are seemingly normal. In fact, the
American Heart Association reports that 50% of men and 64% of women who died suddenly of coronary heart disease had no previous symptoms. Scientists, on the other hand,
have developed more advanced blood tests that can far more accurately gauge risks of heart disease. An Advanced Lipid Test augments the standard cholesterol profile with
additional measurements that can identify several risks related to cardiovascular disease. These tests not only offers a comprehensive assessment of cardiovascular risk, but
also supplies vital information that can help patients and clinicians formulate a customized disease-prevention program and measure its progress over time. This powerful
diagnostic tool can help take the steps necessary to avoid preventable health catastrophes — like heart attack and stroke— today. An Advanced Lipid Test is performed just like a
traditional cholesterol panel: a technician or nurse draws blood and submits it to a laboratory. At reasonable cost, the test provides a lot more data than routine cholesterol tests
and expands on this information. The comprehensive information derived from an advanced test enables physicians to more accurately predict their patients’ risk of heart
disease, and to customize more aggressive, patient-specific treatment plans.
Recently it was shown that markers related to red blood cells, more specifically
Markers related to red blood cells
hematocrit, hemoglobin and the red blood cell count are associated with
significantly higher chances of adverse health-status measures such as Hematocrit
multi-morbidity, cognitive impairment, disability and mortality. Age-related
Hemoglobin
changes in the endocrine system are very well established including a decline in
the sex hormones testosterone and estrogens due to andropause and Red blood cell count
menopause, and the reduced production of Growth Hormone and Insulin-Like
Growth Factor-1 (Somatopause). Multi-morbidity
The more recently discovered adipokines such as adiponectin, ghrelin, leptin and Adverse status Cognitive impairment
visfatin are key regulators of inflammation, insulin resistance as well as of central measures Disability
functions such as appetite regulation. Alterations in serum adipokine levels have Mortality
been linked with an increased risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome.
Interestingly, the concentration of adiponectin appears to change with age and is
Key regulators of inflammation. Key role in the development of
linked with age-related health outcomes, however further research on the insulin resistance and atherosclerosis.
association between aging and adipokines is required.
Hormone replacement studies add to the evidence for a causal link to age-related physical and psychosocial decline. In this respect, the strongest
associations are for both testosterone and estrogen and risk of physical frailty and bone health. There is evidence that circulating concentrations of
melatonin and of adiponectin decline with age but these relationships have been investigated in only a few longitudinal studies. Adiponectin shows the
strongest association with mortality even after controlling for BMI or change in BMI. Cortisol, a stress hormone produced in the adrenal cortex and a
component of the HPA axis, has been associated with age-related disease and disability. There is evidence from longitudinal studies that abnormal
cortisol secretion patterns are associated with increased BP, impaired glucose metabolism (fasting insulin and insulin/glucose ratio), and increased
incidence of CVD and type 2 diabetes in men. Recently, associations between heightened cortisol reactivity to stress and coronary artery calcification
have been identified which may influence the risk of coronary heart disease and hypertension.
Strong consensual evidence from longitudinal studies indicates that testosterone,
estrogen, DHEAS growth hormone and IGF-1 are linked with risk of premature mortality and
physical frailty. For some biomarkers, the relationship with aging appears to be non-linear,
for example both high and low IGF-1 are related to greater mortality rates. DHEAS declines
with age from the third decade onwards and low DHEAS is associated with increased
mortality in older subjects with concurrent frailty. Hormone replacement studies suggest
causal links for both testosterone and estrogen and risk of physical frailty, bone and
muscle health. Cortisol is associated with age-related disease and disability, and abnormal
cortisol secretion patterns with increased blood pressure, impaired glucose metabolism,
insulin resistance and increased incidence of CVD and type 2 diabetes in men. The
Cortisol:DHEAS ratio is even more precise in this regard.
For these reasons, we conducted what may be the first human clinical trial
designed to reverse aspects of human aging, the TRIIM (Thymus
Regeneration, Immunorestoration, and Insulin Mitigation) trial, in
2015–2017. The purpose of the TRIIM trial was to investigate the possibility
of using recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) to prevent or reverse
signs of immunosenescence in a population of 51‐ to 65‐year‐old putatively
healthy men, which represents the age range that just precedes the collapse
of the TCR repertoire. rhGH was used based on prior evidence that growth
hormone (GH) has thymotrophic and immune reconstituting effects in
animals and human HIV patients. Because GH‐induced hyperinsulinemia is
undesirable and might affect thymic regeneration and immunological
reconstitution, we combined rhGH with both dehydroepiandrosterone
(DHEA) and metformin in an attempt to limit the “diabetogenic” effect of GH.
DHEA has many effects, in both men and women, that oppose deleterious
effects of normal aging. Metformin is a powerful calorie restriction mimetic
in aging mice and has been proposed as a candidate for slowing aging in
humans. Neither DHEA nor metformin are known to have any thymotrophic
effects of their own.
Sources Steve Horvath, et al. Reversal of epigenetic aging and immunosenescent trends in humans. 2019.
107
Biomarkers of Immune Function Overview
Whilst the field of immunology is well developed, the study of Chronic Challenges (lifelong immune history)
age-related decline in immunity, termed immunosenescence, is more
recent. Here we focused on age-related immune function and Infections Cellular Debris
inflammatory factors. Longitudinal studies comparing immune cells or
Tumor Antigens Modified Proteins
function with mortality, or with age-related functions such as infection
rates or vaccination responses, are scarce.
Sources Image data: Tamàs Fulop, et al. From Inflamm-Aging to Immunosenescence. 2019.
108
Biomarkers of Immune Function Weaknesses
Longitudinal studies should examine relationships between number and function of T cells, neutrophils, NK cells, B cells, and mortality, risk of
age-related disease and wellbeing in later life. Given the switch from lymphoid to myeloid cell production with age, the lymphocyte/granulocyte ratio is a
potentially useful biomarker of healthy aging. The Immune Risk Profile needs validation in younger people and should be expanded to include measures
of immune function such as infection incidence or vaccination response.
Telomere length in leukocytes, including lymphocytes and monocytes, has received much attention. Despite its association with aging in several cohort
studies, it is likely that shortened telomeres are also a marker of infection frequency so that leukocyte telomere length may not be a reliable index of
biological aging. Lymphocytes proliferate rapidly in response to their cognate antigen and unlike most somatic cells have the ability to extend their
telomeres by inducing telomerase expression but, eventually, this is insufficient to prevent lymphocyte telomere length shortening with age. Further
studies of telomere length and aging should include investigation of exposure to infections and CMV seropositivity as possible confounders. In the
Newcastle 85+ Study and other studies thus far leukocytes’ telomere length was uninformative about health status.
The immune system protects the organism from pathogens and also from damaged or altered tissues, cells (as occurs with cancer or traumatic injury)
and molecules (as happens in phenomena such as loss of proteostasis, characterized by the loss of structural integrity of proteins, particularly
long-lived proteins or LLP), whilst not damaging the organism’s own tissues. In humans, the immune system develops a memory of exposure to a
pathogen or particular environmental molecules, so that when those threats are encountered a second time the response is rapid and specific to that
agents. This so-called adaptive immune system, based on lymphocytes activity, is also the basis of the vaccination response.
It is clear that each of these aspects of immune function declines with age; e.g. susceptibility to both bacterial and viral pathogens increases with age,
the incidence of cancer is age-related as is loss of tolerance to one’s own tissues, evidenced by increased autoimmunity. In addition, the ability to
mount an adequate, protective vaccination response also deteriorates with age. This age-related decline in immunity is termed immunosenescence
and, whilst the field of immunology is well developed, the study of immunosenescence is more recent, with papers beginning to appear in the 1980’s.
The best studied aspect of immunosenescence is the age-related increase in inflammatory cytokines (IL6, IL1β, TNFα and CRP) which is termed
inflammageing. Higher plasma concentrations of inflammatory factors such as IL-6 and TNF-α have been associated with lower grip strength and gait
speed in older adults. Measurement of inflammatory cytokines has been incorporated into longitudinal studies and have also been studied in
centenarians. The latter group shows fewer signs of aging of the immune system, including the Immune Risk Profile, and inflammageing is absent or
much reduced, being counteracted in part by high levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-10.
Although there is no exact understanding about the causes of inflammaging and the key aspects of their feedback with immunosenescence, a common
finding seems to involve a dysregulation of the cytokine network and its homeostasis. Several common molecular pathways have been identified that
seem to be associated with both aging, low-grade inflammation and immunosenescence, but these relationships are not yet sufficiently clarified.
HOMEOSTASIS
Control of Infection
Immunoregulation
Tumor Surveillance
Pathogen Responses Inflammageing
Memory Formation Immunosenescence
Supported by the free radical theory of aging, it is widely accepted that the production of ROS by mitochondria accumulates over the lifespan and leads
to a state of chronic oxidative stress at old age. As antioxidant defense mechanisms and DNA repair capacity seem to be impaired in the elderly, or at
least be overwhelmed by the damage occurrence rate, DNA damage has been proposed to be a consequence of aging. Impaired DNA stability and
genome instability increase the frequency of cytogenetic aberrations, which in turn is highly linked to age-related diseases such as cancer, diabetes,
cardiovascular diseases and cognitive decline. However, after linearly increasing until the age of 60–70 years, chromosomal damage tapers and the
rate of damage diminished with increasing age (over 85 years). Notably, the same seems to be true for telomeres, the protective ends of the
chromosomes. Longer telomeres and higher telomerase activity contribute to the stability of the genome, to DNA integrity and are positively correlated
with the aging process. These are evidently adaptive-based processes that have been consolidated and deepened throughout the pathway of evolution
by natural selection, cushioning the effects of aging on the human species.
Both, the “regular” aging process and the development of chronic diseases are accompanied by increased DNA damage, chromosomal damage, and
telomere shortening. Importantly, people exceeding the statistical life-expectancy, and especially the very oldest age-groups including nonagenarians
(90–99 years), centenarians (100–109 years) and super-centenarians (110 years and older), demonstrate a different picture of age-related diseases
compared to study cohorts at or below life-expectancy. Furthermore, an increasing amount of data suggests that chromosomal stability, DNA repair
activity, and antioxidant defense capacity in successfully aged subjects is comparable to younger cohorts.
Taken together, very old humans seem to contradict traditional theories of aging regarding the age-related accumulation of DNA damage, genome
instability and telomere shortening by demonstrating better DNA repair capacity and higher telomerase activity, even comparable to much younger
cohorts. Whether the superior resilience of “successful” agers originates from hereditary factors or an outstanding healthy lifestyle remains a field for
future research. Conclusively, markers of DNA integrity, genome stability, antioxidant defense or telomere length based on current evidence do not meet
the criteria for a valid biomarker for aging.
Aging Analytics Agency 111
Molecular-Level Biomarkers Overview
Bilirubin, the principal tetrapyrrole, bile pigment and catabolite of haem, is an emerging biomarker to monitor resistance against chronic
non-communicable diseases. Mildly elevated serum bilirubin levels have been reported to be strongly associated with reduced CVD-related mortality
and associated risk factors. Recent data also link bilirubin to all-cause mortality and to other chronic diseases, including cancer and type 2 diabetes
mellitus. Therefore, there is evidence to suggest bilirubin as a biomarker for reduced chronic disease prevalence and for the prediction of all-cause
mortality, but also as a novel biomarker for successful aging.
Advanced Glycation End-products (AGEs) represent further biomarkers with incredible potential to monitor healthy aging. Protein modifications such as
the non-enzymatic protein glycation are common posttranslational modification of proteins resulting from reactions between glucose and the amino
groups of proteins. This process, better known as “Maillard reaction”, leads to the formation and accumulation of AGEs throughout life. Interestingly, the
AGEs of long-lived proteins (LLPs) such as collagens and cartilage accumulate during normal aging; these are proteins that barely experience or do not
experience replacement throughout life, some with a half-life of more than 100 years. AGEs are involved either directly or through interactions with
AGE-receptors in the pathophysiology of numerous age-related diseases including cardiovascular diseases, amyloidosis, neurodegeneration, diabetes
and renal disease, among multiple others.
Metallothioneins (MTs) are low molecular weight, cysteine rich, zinc-binding proteins, which are down-regulated in older age groups. MTs exert an
essential role in zinc-mediated transcriptional regulation of genes involved in growth, proliferation, differentiation, and development, pathways of
importance in neural function. There is experimental evidence that MTs are induced in the aging brain as a defensive mechanism to attenuate oxidative
and nitrative stress. MTs may also act as free radical scavengers by inhibiting Charnoly body formation, thus contributing to protecting mitochondrial
function as a mechanism of neuroprotection in the aging brain.
Very recently the interesting model of the epigenetic clock has been advanced with the analysis of peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated from
semi-supercentenarians and their offspring. The epigenetic clock is a multivariate estimator of chronological age based on DNA methylation levels of
353 dinucleotide markers known as Cytosine phosphate Guanines (CpGs). These cytosines experience methylation selectively throughout life, they are
hot spots of greater probability and incidence of methylation. Extent and patterns of CpGs are independently associated with chronological age and
mortality; further data is required to understand whether these changes are causal or a consequence of aging, but it is almost unquestionable that the
first is true.
Aging Analytics Agency 112
Molecular-Level Biomarkers Overview
Epigenetic changes are but one of a number of emerging molecular biomarkers of
altered molecular function in aging that may be predictive of health status. Recent
studies have examined the novel molecular marker p16INK4a, which is classically
known for its capacity to inhibit cyclin-dependent kinase activity. Long-term p16INK4a
expression is a promoter of cellular senescence, a process of irreversible cell-cycle
arrest and the loss of regenerative capacity. Therefore, precise regulation of p16INK4a
is essential to tissue homeostasis, maintaining a coordinated balance between tumor
suppression and aging. As yet, studies in human populations and differing cell types
have yet to be conducted to provide evidence of its potential as a biomarker of healthy
aging.
Studies also demonstrate a specificity of age-related health loss, with the ability to
differentiate the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and/or mild cognitive impairment from Overexpression/knockout/knockdown
cognitively normal age-matched controls with some degree of accuracy utilizing a studies suggest that the wild-type
activity of the miRNA is:
miRNA signature analysis. Furthermore, miRNAs might also serve as circulating Anti-aging / lifespan-extending
biomarkers for cardiovascular aging or aging-associated diseases, but further Pro-aging / lifespan-shortening
research needs to be conducted to evaluate their sensitivity, selectivity and potential Unclear or unknown.
Sources Image: Holly E. Kinser, et al. MicroRNAs as modulators of longevity and the aging process. 2019.
113
Molecular-Level Biomarkers Overview
Accumulation of Bilirubin
DNA damage and
reactive oxygen Many of these markers
shortening of telomeres
species (ROS)
2 Key increase up to a certain Principal tetrapyrrole, bile pigment and
Aging
Advanta age, most commonly catabolite of haem, is an emerging
ges coinciding with the biomarker to monitor resistance against
Mitochondrial Impaired antioxidant statistical life-expectancy. chronic non-communicable diseases.
dysfunction defense
To date, computer-based tests are not widely used in major cohorts; availability of tools such as the NIH Toolbox and the imperative to increase
cost-effectiveness are likely to drive the migration to digital methodologies. This will require that tests are supported by ongoing technical development
to ‘future-proof’ operating systems and hardware. Where tests are administered repeatedly in the same individuals problems associated with practice
and familiarity need to be addressed. The issue of covariance among cognitive tests needs more attention because those who score well on one test
tend to score well on others. Timothy A. Salthouse and others have highlighted that the causes of cognitive aging might affect the variance shared by
tests or domains or the variance in a specific test or domain.
Given the heterogeneity and variability in any disease, a single biomarker may not be able to sufficiently reflect the pathological phenomenon itself or
its underlying complexity. Almost all single biomarkers have considerable fallibility. This reason, coupled with the disruptive burst of biotechnology, the
massive capture and aggregation of data and deep biomedical knowledge facilitated by frontier tech in the field of research and development, has
kindled interest in and accelerate progress toward Biomarker Panels design.
A Biomarker Panel is a group of biomarkers that reflect different interconnected processes or parameters of a disease or health status, creating
complex networks of biomedical outputs. In the particular context of aging biomarkers, a biomarker panel is some integrated composition of those
biological indicators predicting functional capacity at a certain time in the future in more optimal ways than single biomarkers and chronological age
itself.
d d d d
fiel fiel fiel fiel HRAS NF1
Physical
Deve- Head
ic ic ic ic Legius Skin lopment
m m m m
-o -o -o -o Gastro-
Intesti-
Prenatal
Deve-
SOS1 Cardio-
nal lopment
Noonan vascular
Mouth
Puberty And
Hema-
RAP1 NF1 tologic voice
KRAS Mental
Develo- Eyes
Lymph- pment
MAP2K2 CFC atic
MAP2K1
Hair
Genito- Nose
urinary
Costello
Tumors
Ears and
hearing
Sources: Image: T. Kunej, et al. RASopathies: Presentation at the Genome, Interactome, and Phenome Levels. 2016.
122
Biomarker Panels
The use of Biomarker Panels means more granular data, and more granular data translates into more finely tuned ways of performing risk and disease
progression stratification for assignment to different care regimens and shift from late stage care to preventive medicine. This shift from treatment to
prevention is ultimately leading to a coming age of Preventive Treatments and Precision Health, where patients are empowered with the tools
necessary to become the drivers and engineers of their own health status; i.e., through the application of P4 Medicine in response to continuous
monitoring of fluctuations in these aging biomarkers.
Aging Analytics Agency 123
Biomarker Panels
Sources: Image: T. Kunej, et al. RASopathies: Presentation at the Genome, Interactome, and Phenome Levels. 2016.
124
Selected Biomarker Panels
NAME COMPANY or ENTITY AMPLITUDE LEVEL CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY OPERATIONAL CATEGORY
Medical Test
WellnessFX Premium WELLNESSFX PANEL Approved for Clinical Use
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
Medical Test
Aging Theranostic 1.0 OPEN LONGEVITY PANEL Approved for Clinical Use
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
Medical Test
InsideTracker Ultimate Plan SEGTERRA PANEL Approved for Clinical Use
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
Medical Test
InsideTracker Inner Age SEGTERRA PANEL Approved for Clinical Use
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
Medical Test
Healthy Aging Panel (Comprehensive) LIFE EXTENSION PANEL Approved for Clinical Use
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
Medical Test
10 Hormone Saliva Test Kit LABRIX PANEL Approved for Clinical Use
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
NAME COMPANY or ENTITY AMPLITUDE LEVEL CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY OPERATIONAL CATEGORY
Medical Test
Adrenal Check FLUIDS iQ® PANEL Approved for Clinical Use
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
Medical Test
Immune-Frame RGCC PANEL Approved for Clinical Use
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
Genetic Age Test CERASCREEN PANEL Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
NAME COMPANY or ENTITY AMPLITUDE LEVEL CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY OPERATIONAL CATEGORY
Viome Gut Intelligence™ Test VIOME PANEL Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
SmartGUT™ Microbiome Test SMARTDNA PANEL Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
TFTAK CENTER OF
FOOD AND
Gut Microbiota Biohacker PANEL Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
FERMENTATION
TECHNOLOGIES
Medical Test
Health plus Ancestry Service 23ANDME PANEL Approved for Clinical Use
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
NAME COMPANY or ENTITY AMPLITUDE LEVEL CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY OPERATIONAL CATEGORY
Medical Test
PhysioAge Biomarkers of Aging Test PHYSIOAGE PANEL Approved for Clinical Use
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
NAME COMPANY or ENTITY AMPLITUDE LEVEL CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY OPERATIONAL CATEGORY
Medical Test
Regulatory T-Cell Panel ARUP LABORATORIES PANEL Healthcare-Ready
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
Medical Test
Cytokine Panel ARUP LABORATORIES PANEL Healthcare-Ready
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
Medical Test
Cytokine Panel, TH1 ARUP LABORATORIES PANEL Healthcare-Ready
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
NAME COMPANY or ENTITY AMPLITUDE LEVEL CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY OPERATIONAL CATEGORY
Medical Test
Carnitine Panel ARUP LABORATORIES PANEL Healthcare-Ready
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
Medical Test
Hepatic Function Panel ARUP LABORATORIES PANEL Healthcare-Ready
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
Medical Test
B-Cell Memory and Naive Panel ARUP LABORATORIES PANEL Healthcare-Ready
(+2 Availability Weight Points)
OMIP-004: In-Depth Characterization of Research Use Only Epidem. or Theoretical Panel Only
N/A PANEL
Human T Regulatory Cells (-2 Availab. Weight Points) (BAI=0; ACTIONAB.=0)
OMIP-007: Phenotypic Analysis of Research Use Only Epidem. or Theoretical Panel Only
N/A PANEL
Human Natural Killer Cells (-2 Availab. Weight Points) (BAI=0; ACTIONAB.=0)
OMIP-018: Chemokine Receptor Research Use Only Epidem. or Theoretical Panel Only
N/A PANEL
Expression on Human T Helper Cells (-2 Availab. Weight Points) (BAI=0; ACTIONAB.=0)
OMIP-027: Functional Analysis of Human Research Use Only Epidem. or Theoretical Panel Only
N/A PANEL
Natural Killer Cells (-2 Availab. Weight Points) (BAI=0; ACTIONAB.=0)
OMIP-029: Human NK-Cell Research Use Only Epidem. or Theoretical Panel Only
N/A PANEL
Phenotypization (-2 Availab. Weight Points) (BAI=0; ACTIONAB.=0)
NAME COMPANY or ENTITY AMPLITUDE LEVEL CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY OPERATIONAL CATEGORY
NAME COMPANY or ENTITY AMPLITUDE LEVEL CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY OPERATIONAL CATEGORY
ThrombomiRTM - Biomarkers of
TAmiRNA PANEL Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
Platelet Function
ToxomiRTM - Biomarkers of Toxicity TAmiRNA PANEL Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
DNAge™ Epigenetic Aging Clock ZYMO RESEARCH SINGLE BIOMARKER Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
Epigenetic Age Analysis Version 2.0 OSIRIS GREEN SINGLE BIOMARKER Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
DNAge® test BIOVIVA SINGLE BIOMARKER Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
NAME COMPANY or ENTITY AMPLITUDE LEVEL CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY OPERATIONAL CATEGORY
HKG
EpiAging SINGLE BIOMARKER Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
EPITHERAPEUTICS
HKG
EpiSocialpsych SINGLE BIOMARKER Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
EPITHERAPEUTICS
HKG
EpiLiver SINGLE BIOMARKER Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
EPITHERAPEUTICS
HKG
EpiBreast SINGLE BIOMARKER Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
EPITHERAPEUTICS
TeloYears plus Advanced Ancestry Tests TELOYEARS SINGLE BIOMARKER Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
CELL SCIENCE
Telomere Length Test SINGLE BIOMARKER Healthcare-Ready Informational Purpose Test or Platform
SYSTEMS
NAME COMPANY or ENTITY AMPLITUDE LEVEL CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY OPERATIONAL CATEGORY
AI Platform
Young.AI INSILICO MEDICINE DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Healthcare-Ready
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
AI Platform
Aging.AI INSILICO MEDICINE DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Healthcare-Ready
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
AI Platform
PhotoAgeClock HAUT.AI DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Healthcare-Ready
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
AI Platform
Haut.AI Skin Health HAUT.AI DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Healthcare-Ready
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
NAME COMPANY or ENTITY AMPLITUDE LEVEL CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY OPERATIONAL CATEGORY
Biomarkers Real-Time Assessment
Health Reviser Platform HEALTH REVISER DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Approved for Clinical Use Technology
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
Biomarkers Real-Time Assessment
MEDIAGE™ Biological Age
MEDIAGE DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Approved for Clinical Use Technology
Measurement System
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
AI Platform
CarePredict Platform CAREPREDICT DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Approved for Clinical Use
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
AI Platform
Enlitic Platform ENLITIC DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Healthcare-Ready
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
AI Platform
PathAI Platform PATHAI DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Healthcare-Ready
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
AI Platform
Buoy Health Platform BUOY HEALTH DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Healthcare-Ready
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
NAME COMPANY or ENTITY AMPLITUDE LEVEL CONDITIONING STAGE CATEGORY OPERATIONAL CATEGORY
Biomarkers Real-Time Assessment
KenSci Platform KENSCI DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Healthcare-Ready Technology
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
Biomarkers Real-Time Assessment
Research Use Only
Proscia Platform PROSCIA DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Technology
(-2 Availab. Weight Points)
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
DEEPMIND AI Platform
Google’s DeepMind Health AI Platform DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Approved for Clinical Use
TECHNOLOGIES (+5 Availability Weight Points)
AI Platform
Ada - Symptom Checker App ADA HEALTH GMBH DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Approved for Clinical Use
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
AI Platform
Babylon Health Platform BABYLON HEALTH DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Approved for Clinical Use
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
AI Platform
Digital Nutrition Platform ZIPONGO DIGITAL PANEL PLATFORM Healthcare-Ready
(+5 Availability Weight Points)
Healthcare-Ready
(waiting for clinical approval)
.6657 .7214 .7771 .8328 .8885 .9442 1.0 ACCURACY VALUES OF 3.82 4.85 5.88 6.91 7.94 8.97 10 AVAILABILITY VALUES OF
MOST VIABLE PANELS MOST VIABLE PANELS
(coming soon) (coming soon)
It is Aging Analytics Agency’s hope that our comparative analytics framework and methodology will serve as a useful long-term analytical tool for aging single
biomarkers and panels assessment to identify the most advanced, available and actionable resources to create, manage, optimize and improve action plans for the
health and Longevity industry, market and public sectors.
.6657 .7214 .7771 .8328 .8885 .9442 1.0 ACCURACY VALUES OF 3.82 4.85 5.88 6.91 7.94 8.97 10 AVAILABILITY VALUES OF
MOST COMPREHENSIVE PANELS MOST COMPREHENSIVE PANELS
(coming soon) (coming soon)
It is Aging Analytics Agency’s hope that our comparative analytics framework and methodology will serve as a useful long-term analytical tool for aging single
biomarkers and panels assessment to identify the most advanced, available and actionable resources to create, manage, optimize and improve action plans for the
health and Longevity industry, market and public sectors.
The use of biomarkers is an indispensable component of industry analytics and assessment. It is the foundation upon which measurement of Healthy
Longevity and the effectiveness of P4 (Precision, Preventive, Personalized, Participatory) Medicine and Longevity therapeutics is built. This special
analytical case study is designed as an in-depth review of the state of the art in biomarkers of biological age to advise private and public sector
participants effectively.
It was produced to offer a panoramic review of the global landscape of aging and Longevity biomarkers, containing selected lists, rankings and
enhanced profiles of more than 50 single biomarkers directly correlated with the trajectories of age-related diseases and syndromes, and exceeding
100 diverse biomarker panels for analytical data-driven comparisons that allow for an optimal integration of multiple biomarkers for practical use,
achieving highly actionable monitoring systems for healthcare, clinical practice, translational research, frontier developments that exploit the current
conditions of the rising Longevity industry, and the execution of public policies aiming to increase National Healthy Longevity that will result in a
renaissance never seen before in economic and social dynamics.
In addition to their purely descriptive and analytical approaches, the report is designed to make key strategic recommendations, and to offer guidance
regarding biomarker implementations, technologies and techniques within the reach of companies and nations today, in order to equip them with the
tools necessary for optimizing their strategy and action plans, providing specialized guidelines for business, investment and policy decision making.
The report delivers a most comprehensive list of single biomarkers and biomarker panels of biological age together with extensive and enhanced
profiles: their advantages, disadvantages, future perspectives, challenges and opportunities, with a focus on technologies currently used for
assessment; concrete analysis of routine, advanced and novel biomarkers of aging, emerging tools and platforms, and insights about the impact of
these biomarkers on health systems and clinical practice. A special treatment tracing the role of Digital Biomarkers and AI platforms as necessary and
indispensable components of the Longevity biomarker industry is also delivered, highlighting the fact that AI and data science are increasingly
necessary to handle the increasing volume of biomarker, life and health data.
The report’s central conclusion is that as the scope of P4 Medicine broadens actively and healthily, the number of biomarkers, measurement technologies and
platforms will increase rapidly to the thousands in the coming years. This will provide the opportunity to improve medical stratification to its maximum degree,
enabling the adoption of Personalized, Participatory, Precision and Preventive Medicine for both the young, the middle aged and the old.
This will also enable the conditions necessary for conducting more exhaustive and precise studies with samples of only one individual, and a shift away from
testing therapies using conventional model organisms and toward a more human-centered approach, due to the enormous flow of biological digital data that
will be extracted continuously, individual to individual.
These vast amounts of continuous biomarker data will make impractical the implementation of P4 Medicine by current, manual means without the use of AI
and advanced data science techniques and technologies.
Aggregation of biomarkers of Longevity, rather than biomarkers of disease only, and from healthy populations (e.g. the young, middle aged and healthy elderly),
rather than bedside data from hospital populations, will be part of everyday life due to the novel digital health platforms capable of extracting truly massive
amounts of relevant clinical data from single patients.
It is impossible to determine whether biotechnologies for Longevity have been successful if we cannot tell how advanced the aging process is in any given
individual; but at the same time the latter will not be feasible until successfully achieving highly actionable panels that allow for evaluating the aging process in
broad healthy and less healthy differentiated ranges of the population spectrum.
It in this sense that biomarkers are an essential factor in Aging Analytics Agency's strategic agenda, which includes policy proposals to national and
international governance bodies on how to effectively increase National Healthy Longevity via practical implementation of P4 medicine technologies. It is
important to develop and promote the widespread use of a panel of biomarkers that is precise enough and immediately actionable.
The report documents many aging biomarkers, and identifies from among them those which, by the metrics described (and which have never been reported in
pre existing literature), belong to the category we have named Minimum Required: the Most Viable Products for immediate implementation.
It is our hope and commitment that regardless of whether it is adopted wholesale, the results of the report’s analysis can guide relevant counterparties on
how to optimally utilize existing technologies to maximize the health of aging populations and aging economies, as soon as possible.
● Prediction
● Prevention Novel applications in medicine ● Biomarker panels
● Personalization and integration with other ● Digital biomarker platforms
● Participation biotech sectors ● Single biomarkers
● Diagnostics
We feel that our efforts over the course of the past five years have established a solid foundation of knowledge and expertise upon which we intend
to summarize the entire landscape of aging and Longevity biomarker utilities in the health industry: the production of this new report entitled
Biomarkers of Longevity Landscape Overview 2019: Current State, Challenges and Opportunities.
This upcoming version will be a 300 page report aiming to answer these three specific questions, to be produced over the next 3-6 months, with
a new edition of this report during each financial quarter, incrementally increasing its breadth and depth as we go along, and with each edition
providing a deeper, more comprehensive and more precise understanding of the landscape. It will deliver:
● Concrete deep analysis of which biomarkers and biomarker panels are available today, its strengths and weaknesses, their accuracy,
availability and current actionability, and the opportunities and challenges related to its uses for real-time and precision monitoring of
health status, and ultimately the reversal of biological age;
● Tangible estimations of which biomarkers of aging, health and Longevity are market ready and at the stage of development necessary for
precision assessment of health status and endpoints of clinical trials and therapies;
● Highlights regarding the role of digital biomarkers and AI platforms and how they will become necessary and indispensable components of
aging and Longevity biomarker discovery, research, development and practical use.
The information and opinions in this report were prepared by Aging Analytics Agency. The information herein is believed by AAA to be reliable but AAA makes no representation as to the
accuracy or completeness of such information. There is no guarantee that the views and opinions expressed in this communication will come to pass. AAA may provide, may have provided
or may seek to provide advisory services to one or more companies mentioned herein. In addition, employees of AAA may have purchased or may purchase securities in one or more
companies mentioned in this report. Opinions, estimates and analyses in this report constitute the current judgment of the author as of the date of this report. They do not necessarily reflect
the opinions of AAA and are subject to change without notice. AAA has no obligation to update, modify or amend this report or to otherwise notify a reader thereof in the event that any matter
stated herein, or any opinion, estimate, forecast or analysis set forth herein, changes or subsequently becomes inaccurate. This report is provided for informational purposes only. It is not to
be construed as an offer to buy or sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any financial instruments or to participate in any particular trading strategy in any jurisdiction.