Time required to study the mechanisms of aging has been reduced from decades to four days

The technology is based on the use of blood serum from real donors of different age groups. Experiments have shown that when the blood serum of people over 62 years old is passed through the chip, young tissues begin to show signs of aging, such as chronic inflammation, metabolic disorders, and DNA damage. The speed of these changes contradicts the idea that aging is simply a result of random damage accumulation over time. Instead, the process is largely regulated by specific proteins that circulate in the blood and increase in concentration with age.

The microfluidic connection between the fat and liver tissue chambers allowed researchers to observe how the aging of one organ triggers the degradation of the other. When the aging fat tissue was connected to the young liver, the liver cells also began to show signs of dysfunction. This spreading effect of aging explains why age-related changes typically affect the entire body simultaneously. The study also revealed gender differences: the tissues treated with male serum aged faster and had more pronounced markers of inflammation compared to those treated with female serum.

The platform has already been used to test well-known anti-aging drugs. The results showed that oxytocin was highly effective in reducing inflammation and restoring metabolism, while the popular drug rapamycin had almost no anti-aging effect in this model. These findings are consistent with long-term human observations, confirming the high accuracy of the new technology. The ability to quickly screen drugs on human tissues could significantly reduce the number of unsuccessful clinical trials and accelerate the development of effective therapies for age-related diseases.