Despite decades of promising data, rapamycin trials on Earth barely move forward. Astronauts—risk-takers already exposed to the extreme stress of space—age faster in space, making them ideal candidates to test low-dose, non-immunosuppressive rapamycin. A randomized, placebo-controlled study could monitor DNA damage and senescence in immune cells before, during, and after long-duration missions, revealing whether rapamycin truly protects the genome under extreme conditions—and potentially providing insights that could finally bring geroprotective interventions back to Earth.
1 Like
Absolutely! Seems like something might be able to get funded in this area. We’ve been discussing this paper (the pre-print came out almost a year ago) here: Rapamycin exerts geroprotective effects in the ageing human immune system by enhancing resilience against DNA damage