Late-life rapamycin feeding extended lifespan across three independent research sites

English digest

A cheap immunosuppressant used to prevent organ rejection just became one of the most reproduced longevity results in mammalian biology.

Three independent research institutions participating in the National Institute on Aging's Interventions Testing Program fed rapamycin — an mTOR inhibitor already approved to prevent organ-transplant rejection — to genetically heterogeneous mice beginning at 600 days of age, roughly equivalent to starting treatment in a 60-year-old human. Rather than using standard inbred laboratory strains, the ITP uses four-way genetically diverse mice to ensure that any positive result reflects a broad population effect rather than a quirk of a single genetic background. The primary endpoint was lifespan, tracked independently at each of the three sites before pooling to achieve statistical power no single laboratory could match.