Laura Tran in The Scientist:
Imagine a steak sizzling in a pan. As it cooks, it undergoes non-enzymatic browning called the Maillard reaction. This chemical process between amino acids and reducing sugars creates flavor compounds, a savory aroma, and a nice, seared meat. But this reaction is not exclusive to food, it also occurs in humans.
“Instead of cooking at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, we are cooking at 98 degrees for 50–70 years, and we build up some of the same products [as food]…and the body has no way to get rid of them,” said Aaron Cravens, the chief executive officer of Revel Pharmaceuticals, a company that develops therapeutic enzymes. People accumulate advanced glycation end products (AGEs) in long-lived proteins, such as collagen, elastin, and eye lens proteins. The resulting protein modifications are harmful and can lead to accelerated biological aging through cellular damage and chronic inflammation; worse yet, this damage is thought to be irreversible.
Determined to reverse this damage, Cravens and his colleagues engineered an enzyme that targets the most abundant AGE in the human body. Their findings, published in Nature Communications, demonstrated that the enzyme oxidized the target AGE and thus repaired harmful modifications, bringing damage levels of a 75-year-old tissue donor down to those seen in a 31-year-old.1
More here.
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