Bio-Technologies to Understand Aging, Frailty, and Resilience

Biotechnologies applied in gerontology field, might allow a better understanding of the biological basis of aging and its relationship to disease, to capture also biological mechanisms of frailty and resilience. Mechanisms underlying the aging process might be strictly interconnected with morbidity. Aging is conceptualized as the ratio between damage accumulation, and resilience strategies of maintenance and repair. The age-related unbalance toward the accumulation of molecular damage creates the susceptibility for the emergence of chronic diseases, which take different forms based on heterogeneous genetic background, behaviors, and environmental exposures. Several lines of evidence suggest that aging can be slowed down and perhaps even reversed. The identification and measurement of biomarkers of aging process would not only be useful from diagnostic and prognostic points of view, but also, and above all, from a therapeutic one. In fact, a biomarker could represent a therapeutic target, and, following its trend over time, an indicator of response to therapy. Finding strategies to slowing down biological aging could potentially delay the onset and progression of multiple chronic diseases and functional decline and reduce the burden of multimorbidity. To date more than 200 compounds has been tested as potential rejuvenation strategies. The effectiveness of such approaches on aging trajectories should be verified in the near future.