Living longer by beating cancer

Promising developments for those hoping to live to be 100. 

By John Heilprin

April 5, 2023

At the start of the 19th century, people could expect to live for about 30 years. It took another century for that expectation to grow to 40 years. And in 2022, science and technology pushed the boundaries of human life expectancy up to 73 years. 

In parts of Italy and Japan, many people can expect to not only have a lifespan of at least 70 years – it’s not unusual for them to live for a century. But the United States and Japan have the most centenarians and supercentenarians – those who live to be 110 years old or older. 

That’s only partly a reflection of their DNA, the genes they inherited from their parents. Research shows the benefits of a good diet and exercise, social support, and reduced stress and mental outlooks on aging and age-related disease. 

Now there’s a growing idea that more people on the planet could share their good fortune by beating cancer or at least turning it into a less dreaded phenomenon, according to GESDA’s latest Science Breakthrough Radar®.

Engineering pathways for radical health extension, including using drugs that can help turn back cells’ ‘epigenetic clock,’ is one of the key opportunities identified in the Radar.

Experts believe new pharmaceutical and natural products, gene therapies and stem cell treatments could increase the average lifespan to 120 years, meaning that blood biomarkers may come into use to determine the ‘biological’ versus ‘chronological’ age of a person. That could lead to more elderly people contributing longer to society as workers, investors, teachers, or mentors. 

Cancer, a chronic disease

The compendium of science trends and breakthrough predictions mentions cancer dozens of times among its 37 science and technology emerging topics.  

For example, most types of cancer may eventually turn into chronic diseases. Within a decade, researchers will be able to intervene in our immune system as they better understand the complex mechanisms of healing and regeneration.

BioNTech’s co-founders told Der Spiegel in February that clinical trials for the company’s cancer vaccines should start this year in partnership with the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. 

Dr. Özlem Türeci, the company’s chief medical officer, and her husband, Dr. Uğur Şahin, the CEO, said they expect personalized cancer immunotherapies – using the same mRNA technology they used to develop their successful COVID-19 vaccine with U.S. partner Pfizer – will be a regular treatment for cancer patients by 2030.

Safer genetic editing is expected to further blur the boundaries between therapy and prevention, while somatic cell engineering would allow for the treatment of conditions caused by the malfunction of several genes, such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, and other conditions related to aging. 

And the costs of genetic research have decreased considerably. The price of sequencing a human genome, or fragmenting our DNA to use it more effectively, particularly for therapeutic purposes, has plummeted to as little as US$300 dollars, down from US$2.7 billion (about $8 per person in the US), in just 20 years. 

Pushing human limits: opportunities and what’s next. 

Research is also being done on interventions to cells – stem cells and gene therapy – that may lengthen our lives, but our biological limits aren’t fully understood. 

The Longevity Science Foundation, based in Switzerland and the United States, says it is providing US$1 billion over 10 years for research, institutions and projects that advance healthy human longevity and help extend the healthy human lifespan to more than 120 years.

In January, the world’s oldest living person, Sister André, a French Catholic nun born as Lucile Randon, died in Toulon, France at the age of 118. That makes María Branyas Morera, a 116-year-old woman who resides in Spain, the oldest living survivor, according to the Gerontology Research Group. 

Though it’s still rare to live to be 100 years old, it’s getting more common. There are some 593,000 centenarians around the world, according to a 2022 estimate by the United Nations, which projects that 3.7 million centenarians will be alive by 2050. 

As our health spans increase, there has been a commensurate rise in the incidence of cancer, Alzheimer’s and other diseases that correlate to aging.  

Scientists are working along those fronts by experimenting with genetic engineering, neurotechnology and drug development that could make a major difference. Within 25 years, the ability to enhance human capabilities will come within reach. 

Human augmentation is a key area of debate identified in the Radar, though younger people were mainly interested in how brain-computer interfaces could bring them added health benefits.  

Positive attitudes were generally higher in Europe and North America, particularly for someday using gene-based treatments with a range of diseases and conditions; in Africa, it’s more often associated with social inequality, and in Central and South America, with potential cyber threats to the body. Sentiment was neutral or mixed around the potential use of immunome-based therapies or brain stimulation to treat Parkinson’s, OCD and other cognitive diseases. 

Given the rampant misinformation that has sprung up around the COVID-19 pandemic, accompanied by skepticism and fear or misunderstandings toward mRNA vaccinations, feelings were more negative about gene therapies and enhancement due to fears about losing mental autonomy and susceptibility to cyber threats. The Radar finds therapies that “reprogram” or “educate” the body’s immune defenses will also be developed making use of mRNA’s ability to teach the body how to make specific proteins that can help the immune system prevent or treat many diseases. 

Malaria, rabies, cancer, and influenza also are in the sights of researchers. Early results are promising for personalized vaccines against pancreatic cancer. Beyond vaccines, mRNA could be used in novel therapies for cystic fibrosis, heart disease and rare genetic conditions. 

Given the immense costs of today’s experimental gene therapies, however, more efforts must be made to ensure that their benefits are shared equitably. 

Based on the 2022 Science Breakthrough Radar®, here’s where we stand in several important areas: 

• Genome editing is improving diagnostics and treatments for cancer, with research into human applications of genetic engineering pointing the way to a future where bodies can be engineered to be free of cancer.
  




• Over the next five years several large-scale stage III clinical trials for ex vivo therapies will take place and some ex vivo therapies will be commercially available for some cancers and blood diseases. Early-stage clinical trials will use in vivo editing techniques, targeting easily accessible tissues such as the cervix, the eye, or the liver. Within a decade, safer genetic editing will further blur the boundaries between therapy and prevention. Somatic cell engineering will allow treatment of conditions caused by the malfunction of several genes, including cancer, and other conditions related to aging.Radar, page 81: https://radar.gesda.global/sub-topics/gene-therapies-and-enhancement




• Organoids will help revamp personalized medicine, including drug screening for cancer therapy, predictions for the toxicity of drugs, and whether a drug will work given a particular individual’s genetic makeup. Organoids may also be the future of regenerative medicine.
  Radar, page 100: https://radar.gesda.global/sub-topics/translation-and-personalised-organoids




• Over the next five years trials of mRNA-based cancer vaccines, currently underway or planned, will begin to show consistent results. Researchers will develop therapeutic agents that destroy faulty proteins using the cell’s own machinery, generate different cell lines in the field of immunotherapy, and modify T-cells. In the 10-year timeframe, AI-assisted insight into clinical and research data helps to turn cancer into a chronic disease.
  Radar, page 106: https://radar.gesda.global/sub-topics/cell-gene-biomimetic-and-nucleic-acid-therapies




• New combinations of immune system modulating drugs will enter cancer trials in the next five years and reduce drug toxicity.
  Radar, page 107: https://radar.gesda.global/sub-topics/immunome-based-therapies




• Biosensors to detect pathogens, gas leaks and other dangers will pick up signals in real-time and rapidly amplify them, making them useful for detecting pathogens or signs of disease such as cancer, and for killing cancer cells.
  Radar, page 108-109: https://radar.gesda.global/trends/invited-contributions/xenobots-computer-designed-organisms




• Drugs that target biological pathways that underpin ageing and interventions that turn back cells’ ‘epigenetic clock’ could soon extend our healthy years long into old age.
  Radar, page 298: https://radar.gesda.global/opportunities/engineering-pathways-radical-health-extension

Further reading:  

From the Radar:
https://radar.gesda.global/topics/radical-health-extension/ 

Trends: Xenobots and computer-designed organisms
https://bit.ly/3JlEUcb

New Scientist: Growing younger: Radical insights into ageing could help us reverse it
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25433843-000-growing-younger-radical-insights-into-ageing-could-help-us-reverse-it/ 

ELife insight: The aging epigenome
https://elifesciences.org/articles/78693.pdf 

MIT Technology Review: Has this scientist finally found the fountain of youth?
https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/08/08/65461/scientist-fountain-of-youth-epigenome/