Kan Cao Reverses Rapid Aging

Kan Cao's study showing rapamycin's ability to reverse an accelerated aging disease may lead to new ways to slow normal aging.

University of Maryland assistant professor Kan Cao has led a study showing that the drug rapamycin reverses the rapid aging effects of Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, a fatal genetic disease that resembles rapid aging, in skin cells taken from patients with the disease.

Kan’s group found that rapamycin can enhance the cells’ ability to degrade the protein progerin which accumulates in abnormal amounts in progeria patients to produce deformities in cell membranes, decrease growth and cause early death.

Children with progeria have health issues generally associated with old age, including balding, hardened skin, pain in joints, hip dislocations and heart disease. They typically die of the disease by the age of 12. No treatments currently exist for the disease.

Rapamycin is an immunosuppressant drug used to prevent rejection of transplanted organs that has been shown to extend life span in healthy mice. It is to be the subject of a clinial trial by progeria researchers. They believe the findings may be relevant to the normal aging process as well because progerin also accumulates in small amounts in normal cells and may contribute to the aging process. Rapamycin may also be able to clean up other proteins that accumulate as a by-product of normal cell processes and contribute to other age-related diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Kan Cao is an associate professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at the University of Maryland. Her group’s study was published recently in the journal Science Translational Medicine. She received her Ph. D. in 2005 from Johns Hopkins University.