Disagreement on foundational principles of biological aging

To gain insight into how researchers of aging perceive the process they study, we conducted a survey among experts in the field. While highlighting some common features of aging, the survey exposed broad disagreement on the foundational issues. What is aging? What causes it? When does it begin? What constitutes rejuvenation? Not only was there no consensus on these and other core questions, but none of the questions received a majority opinion-even regarding the need for consensus itself. Despite many researchers believing they understand aging, their understanding diverges considerably. Importantly, as different processes are labeled as "aging" by researchers, different experimental approaches are prioritized. The survey shed light on the need to better define which aging processes this field should target and what its goals are. It also allowed us to categorize contemporary views on aging and rejuvenation, revealing critical, yet largely unanswered, questions that appear disconnected from the current research focus. Finally, we discuss ways to address the disagreement, which we hope will ultimately aid progress in the field.

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Publication Details

Journal
PNAS Nexus
Published
2024-11-28
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae499
Citations
42
Primary Topic
Genetics, Aging, and Longevity in Model Organisms
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
9.34
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article

Disagreement on foundational principles of biological aging

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42 citations
PNAS Nexus
Genetics, Aging, and Longevity in Model Organisms
9.34
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Disagreement on foundational principles of biological aging

Steve Horvath, Alex Colville, Daniel Promislow, Alexander Suvorov, Jane Chuprin, Vyacheslav M. Labunskyy, Emma C. Teeling, Maximilian Unfried, Mia Petljak, Ruogu Fang, Glen Pridham, Bohan Zhang, Alexandre Trapp, Alexander Tyshkovskiy, Brianah M. McCoy, Vadim N. Gladyshev, Sruthi Sivakumar, Gary A. Churchill, Thomas Stoeger, Steven R. Shuken, Manish Chamoli, Mahdi Moqri, Peter Niimi, Joris Deelen, Diljeet Gill, Ayumu Sugiura, Martin Borch Jensen, Ken Raj, Brian H. Chen, Csaba Kerepesi, Alex Zhavoronkov, Jarod Rutledge, Jesse R. Poganik, KeHuan K Edmonds, Benjamin Barré, Wayne Mitchell, Andrey A. Parkhitko, Daniel W. Belsky, Subhash Kulkarni, Hanna Barlit, Morgan E. Levine, Hamilton Se‐Hwee Oh, Sun Hee Yim, Vera Gorbunova, Iosif M. Gershteyn, Benjamin Anderson, Brian Okundaye, Michael Florea, Michael Shadpour, Bradley English, Jeffrey M. Yunes, Amandine Chaix, Yuancheng Ryan Lu, Riccardo E. Marioni, Tomoko Kasahara, Andrea Cipriano, Yuri Deigin, Morten Scheibye‐Knudsen, Farzaneh Nasirian, Andrei E. Tarkhov, Sergiy Libert, Nadia R. Sutton, Nicholas J. Schork, Andrei Seluanov, Cavin Ward‐Caviness, Samuel J. Beck, Daniel Richard, Xin Jin, Kejun Ying, José Luis Ricón, Kaiyang Cheng, Anastasia V. Shindyapina, Laura H. Goetz, Leonid Peshkin, Patrick Griffin, Kathrin M Kajderowicz, Jinlong Y. Lu, Sara Jovanovska, Weronika Prusisz, Margaux Quiniou, Bahareh Behrouz
article en
42 citations

Abstract

To gain insight into how researchers of aging perceive the process they study, we conducted a survey among experts in the field. While highlighting some common features of aging, the survey exposed broad disagreement on the foundational issues. What is aging? What causes it? When does it begin? What constitutes rejuvenation? Not only was there no consensus on these and other core questions, but none of the questions received a majority opinion-even regarding the need for consensus itself. Despite many researchers believing they understand aging, their understanding diverges considerably. Importantly, as different processes are labeled as "aging" by researchers, different experimental approaches are prioritized. The survey shed light on the need to better define which aging processes this field should target and what its goals are. It also allowed us to categorize contemporary views on aging and rejuvenation, revealing critical, yet largely unanswered, questions that appear disconnected from the current research focus. Finally, we discuss ways to address the disagreement, which we hope will ultimately aid progress in the field.

PNAS NexusVol. 3(12)
University College Dublin (IE), Broad Institute (US), Boston University (US), Northwestern University (US), Sutter Health (US), Tufts University (US), Texas Tech University (US), Scripps Research Institute (US), University of Copenhagen (DK), Brigham and Women's Hospital (US), Translational Genomics Research Institute (US), Northeastern University (US), Dalhousie University (CA), Environmental Protection Agency (US), Buck Institute for Research on Aging (US), Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US), Harvard University (US), McGovern Institute for Brain Research (US), Johns Hopkins University (US), Medical University of South Carolina (US), University of California, Los Angeles (US), National University of Singapore (SG), University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (US), University of Pittsburgh (US), University of Cologne (DE), Utrecht University (NL), Tohoku University (JP), University of Zurich (CH), University of Utah (US), University of Massachusetts Amherst (US), Johns Hopkins Medicine (US), California Pacific Medical Center (US), Harvard University Press (US), Edinburgh Cancer Research (GB), University of Florida (US), Juntendo University (JP), Shanghai Institute for Science of Science (CN), Coherus BioSciences (United States) (US), Lung Institute (US), Enzo Life Sciences (United States) (US), Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (US), Jackson Laboratory (US), HUN-REN Institute for Computer Science and Control (HU), Insilicos (United States) (US), Particulate Solid Research (United States) (US), Institute on Aging (US), Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging Associated Diseases (DE), VIR Biotechnology (United States) (US), National Space Agency (MY), Io Therapeutics (United States) (US), Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing (DE), Center for Systems Biology (US), Research Network (United States) (US), Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research (US), Altos Labs, Insilico Medicine (United States), University of Rochester (US), Arizona State University (US), New York University (US), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US), Columbia University (US), Vanderbilt University Medical Center (US), Stanford University (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 1%
Genetics, Aging, and Longevity in Model Organisms
9.34
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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