Aging is the single largest risk factor for neurodegenerative disease, and researchers have never been able to say precisely which age-related molecular changes actually set the process in motion. A research team at the University of Cologne identified one candidate: a protein called EPS8 that accumulates as organisms grow older and appears to switch on the signaling that drives toxic protein clumping.
An important dating note for readers. This research was published in the journal Nature Aging on September 3, 2025. It resurfaced in wide circulation this week through science aggregator coverage, but it is not a new finding, and nothing about the underlying evidence has changed since publication. It is laboratory mechanistic work in roundworms and cultured human cells.
