UK SPINE Annual Conference 2020 - Free flow of knowledge to accelerate innovation for healthy ageing

The outputs of any study are only as good as the model employed. Dr Potter will summarise the challenges we face in studying ageing using animal models; from the the range of conditions we need to model to the variability in ageing seen even between individuals from inbred strains, as well as the methodologies used to study and measure ageing. Dr Miwa will discuss how premature ageing caused by radiotherapy is rescued by senolytics and the senostatic metformin in mice.

The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and Academic Health Science Network in Oxford have collated the present body of evidence on biomarkers and multi-morbidity currently published.

This workshop lead by Professors Carl Heneghan and Gary Ford will present key findings in the four areas, serum, molecular, physiological and brain function for interrogation by workshop participants.

The aim of this workshop is to build consensus of how we develop universal definitions of multi-morbidity, to better understand our risk factors and inform healthcare and medical policy.

As our scientific understanding of ageing advances, we appreciate that these are not mere parallel processes, but interconnected pathways with alterations to the immune system frequently taking centre-stage.

The recent SARS-Cov-2 outbreak has highlighted the importance of healthy ageing in building resilience against the corona virus and preventing serious COVID-19 symptoms. There are many reasons why this might be the case, but an important theory is that the immune system becomes less effective as we age through immunosenescense, allowing for chronic low-grade inflammation and detrimental acute infections (such as SARS-Cov-2) to take a foothold in the body and drive pathology.

Importantly, vaccines are known to have a considerably lower efficacy in triggering an immune response in older compared to younger individuals. This important caveat suggests that the mere development of a vaccine to SARS-Cov-2 may not be sufficient to protect our older population from infection or keep them healthy after infection has occurred.

In this talk, professors Janet Lord and Lynne Cox will, together with Dr Joan Mannick - chief medical officer of Biopharmaceutical company ResTORBio, discuss how ageing science can be harnessed to combat immunosenescence. Furthermore, they will discuss the recent clinical trials in the US of RTB101, a drug developed by ResTORBio to improve antiviral immunity and prevent serious COVID-19 infections in older adults.

In 2018, the UK government set out a mission to deliver 5 extra years of health life by 2035, whilst reducing the gap in healthspan between the richest and the poorest in society. So far, the government’s efforts in this area have focused on assisted living technologies, rather than developing medicines that target the underlying biology that drives poor health in old age. This panel brings together representatives from academia, large pharma, and the SME sector to discuss how UK drug discovery researchers from across these sectors can work together to deliver innovative new medicines.