Ellen Kraig
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Drugs that block mTOR, a protein that acts as a central growth and nutrient sensor in cells, extend lifespan and healthy lifespan in older mice. This raises the question of whether they could slow age-related decline in people.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Pharmacology
Physiology
- Topics
aging
geroscience
mTOR
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Compare drug levels and biological effects of rapamycin and everolimus in healthy adults aged 65–90. A 6-week adaptive dose-finding study will test daily and intermittent dosing in both sexes.
- Identify the dose and drug that best restore 'youthful' values of mTOR activity markers: phosphorylated p70S6K and S6 for mTORC1, Akt for mTORC2, and the candidate marker soluble ICAM-1.
- Test the safety and tolerability of optimized daily versus intermittent mTOR inhibitor dosing in a 6-month randomized, placebo-controlled trial, with glucose tolerance tests and a 6-month follow-up.
- Measure drug levels and mTOR-inhibition markers in skeletal muscle and fat biopsies, looking for a simple surrogate marker of mTOR inhibition that holds across tissues.
More about the research
Older adults may be more sensitive to drug side effects, however. Before testing such drugs as anti-aging treatments, researchers need to know which drug to use, what dose and schedule are safe, and how to measure whether the drug is acting. This study, called RESTOR, compares two mTOR inhibitors, rapamycin and everolimus, in healthy adults aged 65 to 90.
Why it matters
Healthy older adults could eventually benefit if mTOR inhibitors prove safe for slowing age-related functional decline. The study aims to define the best drug, dose and schedule for this group. It may also identify an easily measured blood marker that future clinical trials can use to check whether mTOR inhibition is working. The sample repository will support further aging research.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Robert Svatek
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test in a phase II double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial whether one year of eRapa, an encapsulated oral form of the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin, reduces relapse in patients newly diagnosed with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer, using standard surveillance to estimate recurrence-free survival.
Christian Sell
Drexel University, PA·Biology
Test whether rapamycin, a drug that blocks the mTOR growth pathway, prevents cellular senescence (permanent cell-cycle arrest) by raising levels of the long non-coding RNA H19.
Elizabeth Thompson
Duke University, NC·Pharmacology·Early-career
Identify the best-performing population pharmacokinetic model of milrinone, a drug that helps the heart pump, by externally validating existing models against prospectively collected real-world data from an independent group of critically ill infants.
The school
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio: 15 labs on PI Pages, $313M a year on research, 149 research doctorates a year.
More about University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
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