Sit, Stay, Live Why testing drugs on our dogs is good for our health

摘要

The fountain of youth is going to the dogs. At least that's the case in Seattle, where biogerontolo-gists Matt Kaeberlein and Daniel Promislow at the University of Washington have given local pet owners the chance to have their dogs test an experimental antiaging drug. Owners offered up more than 1,000 pooches, and the researchers selected 32 to participate in the study, set to begin this spring. The drug they'll be taking, rapamycin, wasn't originally intended to extend canine longevity-it's often used as an immunosup-pressant, typically prescribed to people who have had an organ transplant. But rapamycin also blocks a gene called mTOR, which (among other things) causes cells to age and break down more rapidly. Several years ago, when scientists began feeding rapamycin to mice, they found that the rodents lived about 10 percent longer than control groups. That naturally evoked visions of (human) Florida retirees sipping rapamycin milk shakes, a scenario drug companies would already be fast-tracking toward reality if only rapamycin were still protected intellectual property. But the substance is off-patent, taking huge profits off the table. (You might still be able to patent the milk shake formulation, but you couldn't stop competitors from making rapamycin lollipops.)