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Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Scientists have built "Pasta," a tool that estimates a cell's biological age by analyzing gene activity across tissues. Developed using data from over 17,000 tissue samples, it can identify drugs and genetic pathways that speed up or slow down cellular aging. Two compounds — pralatrexate and piperlongumine — were validated in lab experiments as potential candidates for age-related disease research.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University have unveiled Pasta, a freely available tool that calculates a cell's biological age based on gene expression — which genes are switched on or off. Unlike previous tools limited to a single tissue type, Pasta works broadly across many tissues, cell types, and lab techniques, making it widely accessible to research teams worldwide.
To build it, the team analyzed gene activity from more than 17,000 healthy tissue samples, then tested the model on independent datasets. They found that biologically older cells tended to show heightened activity in genes tied to DNA damage and cellular stress, and the tool could distinguish between aged "senescent" cells and more youthful stem cell-like ones. Pasta was then applied to over 3 million gene profiles from public databases, scanning thousands of drugs and genetic changes for their effect on cellular aging — with some findings confirmed in human cell experiments.
Key Takeaways:
Why it matters: Biological age is a stronger predictor of disease risk than chronological age, but reliable measurement has been elusive. Pasta could open a new era of aging research — helping scientists systematically hunt for treatments targeting age-related diseases and cancer.
