An experimental drug for a scarring lung disease, designed with the help of artificial intelligence, was associated with lower biological age readings on six blood-protein aging clocks in a small group of patients, according to an analysis published September 7 in Nature Biotechnology. The findings come from 42 patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and rely on biomarkers, not on whether anyone lived longer or stayed healthier.
Headlines have described the drug, rentosertib, as potentially reversing biological aging by several years. The study itself is more limited. Its authors write that the clocks cannot separate an effect on aging from the drug's effect on the lung disease it was built to treat.
