Network medicine maps old drugs to aging pathways
Could a blood pressure pill you already take also slow your ageing? Researchers at Northeastern University and Harvard developed a method to find exactly those connections, using protein interaction networks.
Finding drugs that target ageing is hard. Ageing unfolds over decades, and directly measuring a drug’s effect on human lifespan is practically impossible. A new study published in Nature Aging offers an alternative route. Researchers used network medicine, a framework that maps how proteins in the body interact (the interactome), to predict which approved drugs could influence the hallmarks of ageing.
Ageing as a disease module in a protein map
The logic runs as follows. Genes involved in a given disease cluster together in the protein network, forming a module. Drugs with targets close to that module may influence the disease. The researchers applied the same logic to the hallmarks of ageing, such as DNA stability and intercellular communication. They mapped 2,358 ageing-related genes from a curated database onto the interactome and asked which approved drugs had targets in that neighbourhood. This is how the researchers describe their approach.
The result is a map of existing drugs and their potential relevance to each hallmark of ageing, giving scientists a ranked shortlist of candidates worth testing in ageing research.
A framework, not proof
Crucially, the study produces predictions, not evidence. A drug sitting close to ageing genes in the network does not automatically slow ageing. Network medicine offers a prioritisation for further study, not clinical proof of effect. The method has previously identified useful candidates in cardiovascular disease and COVID-19. Whether it can do the same for ageing remains to be tested.
For longevity science, the appeal of this approach lies in the use of already approved drugs. These have established safety profiles, shortening the path to clinical trials. Whether they actually slow ageing in humans is still an open question.
Search terms to explore further: network medicine interactome aging, hallmarks of aging pharmacology, drug repurposing geroscience