‘Living in France is an advantage for longer life’
Best way of ageing slowly is prevention, a healthy lifestyle and seeing your doctor, says longevity expert
Dr Dmitry Bulavin of Ircan wants Nice to become a hub for longevity research
Ircan
The director of the Ircan cancer and aging research institute in Nice told attendees of the recent Genii Longevity conference how they are looking to “build and enlarge the anti-ageing community in France”.
“We are moving towards improving our median lifespan and also our healthspan,” Dr Dmitry Bulavin said, “but one problem is that our absolute lifespan stands – as it did 100 years ago – at 120 years.”
The world’s oldest-ever person was Jeanne Calment from Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône) who died aged 122 in 1997.
Dr Bulavin said data from humans shows a clear link between advancing age and likelihood of death, however there are some animal species where this link does not exist.
“If we can identify the mechanisms present in these species, we will be able to extend our healthspan to at least 120 years, and probably push our lifespan as well.”
Dr Bulavin told The Connexion that his institute, which is affiliated to state research bodies Inserm and CNRS and Côte d’Azur University, is now reaching out to other local, national and international partners, including hospitals, universities and private firms in order to federate the anti-ageing community on the Riviera and beyond.
For example, they are planning a joint PhD programme with French and international universities in which students will work on “cell reprogramming” to return old or damaged cells to a more youthful state.
Scientists hope this could help rejuvenate tissues, repair damage, and slow or reverse ageing — for example in organs such as the skin, muscles or brain.
The students will also have placements in local companies working in AI.
Dr Bulavin predicts AI will be very helpful in analysing massive quantities of research data, for example to accurately work out the best way to monitor a person’s biological, as opposed to chronological, age, or to analyse images.
“A lot of emphasis is put on brain imaging and prediction for Alzheimer's or neurodegenerative disease now," he said.
Asked about the most promising Ircan research for early therapies, he pointed to a technique where immune system cells that carry out “surveillance” and repair of tissues could be collected from a patient or donor’s bone marrow and modified in the lab to a “younger or more active” state.
They could then be placed back into the body where they would monitor tissues and “remove bad cells starting to develop, whether cancer or Alzheimer’s or something else”, he said.
However, it is hard to put a timeline on when truly effective therapies will become widely available, he said.
“There are a lot of efforts now, so I think once the path is clear we will be there fast. The problem is we are still in the phase of trying different things to see which works best.”
In the meantime, Dr Bulavin said the best way of ageing slowly is prevention, a healthy lifestyle and seeing your doctor.
“Living in France is an advantage in that we have good access to doctors and screening programmes.
“And once we obtain more precise diagnostic tools, to define markers of biological age and find a correlation between them and the onset of diseases, I hope social security sees the need to invest, because it will save so many people from developing age-related illnesses.”
