EDitor’s CornEr

There are a very few drug candidates that either extend lifespan or prevent a broad spectrum of age-related diseases. Of the few drug candidates that have exhibited preclinical success, rapamycin is the best characterized and perhaps shows the most promise for use in a clinical set-ting. Rapamycin inhibits the mTOR pathway, which integrates signals about nutrient availability, oxygen tension, ATP levels and mitogens to regulate pro-tein synthesis, ribosome biogenesis, cell proliferation, angiogenesis and survival in response to stress.1 Multiple stud-ies conducted using mouse models have demonstrated that rapamycin can extend murine lifespan by upwards of 15%,2,3 and additional studies have indicated that rapamycin can delay or mitigate the effects of a range of age-related patholo-gies. Currently, a large body of research is dedicated toward understanding pre-cisely how rapamycin extends lifespan, and whether the drug may be clinically relevant in the treatment of one of the most prevalent and deadly age-related diseases, cancer. Two new studies from the Gudkov and the Antoch labora-tories and their collaborators provide insight into the molecular mechanisms of rapamycin’s effect on lifespan and its anti-tumorigenic potential.4,5 A large-scale 2009 study from The National Institute on Aging Interventions Testing Program demonstrated that rapamycin extended lifespan in mice;2 intriguingly, the rapamycin-fed cohort experienced the same number of cancer-related mor-talities as the control group; however, cancer-related deaths were postponed by rapamycin treatment.2,3 Forever young? Exploring the link between rapamycin, longevity and cance