Ethical and social implications of approaching death prediction in humans - when the biology of ageing meets existential issues

Biomarkers of Aging and Relevant Evaluation Techniques: A Comprehensive Review

The risk of developing chronic illnesses and disabilities is increasing with age. To predict and prevent aging, biomarkers relevant to the aging process must be identified. This paper reviews the known molecular, cellular, and physiological biomarkers of aging. Moreover, we discuss the currently available technologies for identifying these biomarkers, and their applications and potential in aging research. We hope that this review will stimulate further research and innovation in this emerging and fast-growing field.

Biomarkers of aging

Aging biomarkers are a combination of biological parameters to (i) assess age-related changes, (ii) track the physiological aging process, and (iii) predict the transition into a pathological status. Although a broad spectrum of aging biomarkers has been developed, their potential uses and limitations remain poorly characterized. An immediate goal of biomarkers is to help us answer the following three fundamental questions in aging research: How old are we? Why do we get old? And how can we age slower? This review aims to address this need. Here, we summarize our current knowledge of biomarkers developed for cellular, organ, and organismal levels of aging, comprising six pillars: physiological characteristics, medical imaging, histological features, cellular alterations, molecular changes, and secretory factors. To fulfill all these requisites, we propose that aging biomarkers should qualify for being specific, systemic, and clinically relevant.

Blood Biomarkers for Healthy Aging

Measuring the abundance of biological molecules and their chemical modifications in blood and tissues has been the cornerstone of research and medical diagnoses for decades. Although the number and variety of molecules that can be measured have expanded exponentially, the blood biomarkers routinely assessed in medical practice remain limited to a few dozen, which have not substantially changed over the last 30-40 years. The discovery of novel biomarkers would allow, for example, risk stratification or monitoring of disease progression or the effectiveness of treatments and interventions, improving clinical practice in myriad ways. In this review, we combine the biomarker discovery concept with geroscience. Geroscience bridges aging research and translation to clinical applications by combining the framework of medical gerontology with high-technology medical research. With the development of geroscience and the rise of blood biomarkers, there has been a paradigm shift from disease prevention and cure to promoting health and healthy aging. New -omic technologies have played a role in the development of blood biomarkers, including epigenetic, proteomic, metabolomic, and lipidomic markers, which have emerged as correlates or predictors of health status, from disease to exceptional health.

Language, Time, and Death. An Ethico-Philosophical Perspective Following Hegel, Heidegger, Lévinas, and Blanchot

Our daily existence is affected by how we perceive death, be it our own’s death tocome or others’ death. The intimidating nature of death has the potential to affect our daily ethical existence in relation to the other, as is seen in various crises in human history. In such a context, since expansive literature in various approaches such as biological, sociological, psychological, and political addressing the question of death is already available, this essay presents an ethico-philosophical perspective on death and argues if death should be seen as the worst event that is to be experienced by being. In this essay, I correlate language, time, and death, contrasting popular analogies, i.e., death is possibility of impossibility (Hegel and Heidegger), and death is impossibility of possibility (Lévinas and Blanchot). Firstly, the essay stages the discussion with contrasting synchronic and diachronic perspectives of language, i.e., historical understanding of language and time in Hegelian terms and the messianic time in Lévinasian terms, to see how sensibility, i.e., universal meaning, is expressed through concept. Secondly, the essay sees how sensibility is expressed through a concept beyond dialectic opposition and negativity while acknowledging that the question of ethics arises only after the end of philosophy, for something is always inexpressible through expression; there is always remnant beyond philosophical significance. This essay not only argues language, time, and death as the ethical responsibility of the self towards the other, but also contributes to the understanding of language as ethics beyond philosophy, and death as passivity beyond ontology following Lévinas’s idea of messianic time and Blanchot’s views on literature and death.

[Ethical and social consequences of biomarkers that predict impending death in humans]

Fundamental research on ageing has taken an interesting turn in recent years with the rapid development of biomarkers predicting mortality in model organisms, particularly Drosophila, as well as in humans through improvements in approaches to the identification of circulating molecules in mass. These developments lead to a shift in our ability to predict the occurrence of death from the historically population level to the individual level. We question here the ethical, medical and social implications of this change of scale.