“It has been calculated that the TOR complexes are upregulated and contribute to tumorigenicity in, let’s say, 70% of all cancers,” said Hall.
Sometimes a seemingly minor discovery in science can snowball into something huge. So it was with Professor Michael Hall’s investigations into a compound called rapamycin, originally discovered in a handful of soil from Easter Island in the southern Pacific.
In 2024, he was awarded the Balzan Prize for “groundbreaking contributions” to our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that regulate cell growth and ageing. Based in Italy, the Balzan Prize is an annual international award set up to recognise outstanding achievements in various fields, including science.
Hall is an American-Swiss scientist based at the Biozentrum, the Center for Molecular Life Sciences at the University of Basel, Switzerland. What he has unearthed over the past 30 years has transformed our knowledge of the cellular processes linked to ageing and age-related diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
“When you inhibit TOR with rapamycin, you mimic the effect of restricting calories,” said Hall.
This slows the ageing process and delays the onset of age-related diseases such as cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.
“Now we know that rapamycin is the most robust and reproducible intervention that extends lifespan in eukaryotes,” said Hall. All animals, plants, fungi and many single-celled organisms are eukaryotes.
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/curiosity-and-a-simple-compound-in-soil-bacteria-help-unlock-a-potential-way-to-slow-down-ageing/
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