Je fais l’hypothèse qu’elle repose sur des modifications chimiques des protéines, modifications produites, pour l’essentiel, par oxydation, laquelle altérerait son fonctionnement. Le vieillissement et les maladies qui l’accompagnent seraient les conséquences phénotypiques progressives de l’accumulation du dégât oxydatif ainsi causé aux protéines au cours de la vie. Je discuterai également ici de la prévention des maladies « incurables » liées au vieillissement.

Life’s robustness depends on the resilience of fertile organisms (the soma) that assure the long-term evolutionary success of the germ-line, i.e., species. In the framework of this project we explore the chemistry of two types of biological clocks: the species-specific somatic clock (robustness of the proteome and life span) and the universal germ-line clock (mutations and evolution). As model organisms, we explore the bacterium D. radiodurans and aquatic animals bdelloid rotifers as well as complex animals like tardigrades, all equally resistant to long-term desiccation and extreme doses of ionizing radiation.

Scientific Vision and Projects by cofounders Miroslav Radman and Ivan Matic, March 2015.

Cellular life is maintained by the activity of a plethora of functions that prevent molecular damage from occurring in the first place and repair damaged DNA, proteins and other damaged cellular constituents. The phenomenon of aging arises from the fact such functions are performed by proteins that are themselves subject to damage by oxidative modifications. In the framework of this project, aging is studied as a process of progressive functional degeneracy of nearly all cellular functions due to diminishing protein activity and decreased precision of protein interactions within the cellular proteome caused by accumulation of oxidative damage.

Miroslav Radman, 20/02/2015 Prelude to new project: If the most upstream cause of aging is oxidative protein damage, then oxidative damage to the system of DNA methylation maintenance may be the root cause of cell-transmissible changes in DNA methylation patterns. We need to find out if such epigenetic change is subject to reversion by means other than cell reprogramming.

The Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences (MedILS) was conceived about 30 years ago by its founders Professors Miroslav Radman and Marija Alacevic as an international \'renaissance\' project inspired by the scientific culture of the most productive private institutes, such as the Rockefeller and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory MedILS is an independent private, but non-profit international institution set up as a courageous scientific and societal experiment.

A proposal for cooperation with pharmaceutical industry by Miroslav Radman (17/05/2016): Prevention and reversion of age-related diseases. We have uncovered the fundamental chemistry of aging and age-related diseases. We have also identified the root cause of a degenerative disease (Parkinson's disease), elaborated the strategy to identify the causes of other age-related diseases and defined an approach to protect or restore the function of the 'weakest link' in every person's health!

Two biological clocks determine the destiny of all living species and organisms: (1) The universal clock of genetic change in the germ line, common to all species (evolutionary destiny), and (2) The species-specific somatic clock determining the kinetics of emergence of age-related diseases and death of individual organisms (individual destiny). The cancer clock is part of the species-specific somatic clock. The chemistry of these two biological clocks is not known, and this project proposes to study both of them.

PLoS Genetics Krisko-Radman. Protein damage reduces the efficacy and precision of vital cellular processes resulting in high mutation rates and functional degeneracy akin to cellular aging...

The goal: Our recent research on robust bacteria and animals provides a basis for conceiving extension of healthy life and monitoring of the biological fitness of each individual. A specific biomarker provides for routine bio-gerontometric (BGM) diagnostics of real “biological age”

We conclude that the great radioresistance of bdelloid rotifers is a consequence of an unusually effective system of anti-oxidant protection of cellular constituents, including those required for DSB repair, allowing bdelloids to recover and continue reproducing after doses of IR causing hundreds of DSBs per nucleus. Bdelloid rotifers therefore offer an advantageous system for investigation of enhanced anti-oxidant protection and its consequences in animal systems.

This three tier project offers, at itsR & D stage,original science-based solutions to three major problems of humanity: healthy longevity, local food supplyand local energy supply. Mission and purpose of the first two projects is to profoundly change the public health by combining an original molecular diagnostics with a new treatment employing natural compounds, ofnutriceutical kind, that is both preventive and therapeutic.

Our results corroborate the hypothesis postulating that MutL accumulation assures the coordination of the MMR activities between the mismatch and the strand discrimination site.

Healthy longetivity via prevention of age - related diseases: vision and research strategy. If we could prevent molecular damage relevant to cellular aging and death, it is expected that the repair and maintenance systems would work at their best, keeping all other cellular functions at high performance for possibly unlimited time. It sounds like a dream of the eternal youth, which is, however, the reality of germ line and stem cells. But, it is a dream for individual human life: to be effectively 40 or 50 years old at the age 100 or 200!

Dea Slade and Miroslav Radman Universite de Paris-Descartes, Faculte de Medecine, INSERM U1001, 156 Rue de Vaugirard, 75015 Paris, France and Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences, Mestrovicevo Setaliste bb, 21000 Split, Croatia2