Scientists find natural mimetics of anti-cancer & anti-aging drugs metformin and rapamycin

IMAGE: This figure depicts an AI-driven drug discovery workflow schematic. Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017, London, UK: Researchers from the Biogerontology Research Foundation, Insilico Medicine, Life Extension and other institutions announce the publication of a landmark study in the journal Aging on the identification of natural mimetics of metformin and rapamycin. Metformin, a common type 2 diabetes drug, and rapamycin, a common anti-rejection drug, have both been shown to have substantial anti-aging and anti-cancer effects in a variety of model organisms. However, both compounds have known side effects and are regulated drugs for existing disease indications, factors that problematize their off-label use as healthspan extending drugs. In this study, the researchers applied deep-learned neural networks to profile the safety and gene- and pathway-level similarity of more than 800 natural compounds to metformin and rapamycin, in an effort to identify natural compounds that can mimic the effects of these anti-cancer and anti-aging drugs while remaining free of the adverse effects associated with them.