TruDiagnostic signs an exclusive license agreement with Duke University to use the DunedinPoAm rate of aging algorithm

May 5, 2021

Lexington, KY & Durham, NC – Today, TruDiagnostic signs the exclusive license agreement to the DunedinPoAm pace of aging methylation prediction algorithm. Pace of Aging is how quickly a person’s epigenetic markers are changing to hasten or slow their progression of biological aging, which is associated with many predictive health outcomes. 

  • This will result in the first consumer-facing access to a test that determines a person’s epigenetic pace of aging with the DunedinPoAm algorithm. 
  • This is yet another in a series of strategic collaborations in which TruDiagnostic begins to reinforce its position as the leader in Biological Age testing and development. 
  • This compliments TruDiagnostic’s already expanding portfolio, including TruAge Epigenetic Biological Age Clocks, Epigenetic Skin Aging Clock, Epigenetic Telomere Length predictors, Epigenetic Mitotic clocks, and blood and tissues deconvolution methods. 

 

Duke University is recognized as one of the nation’s leaders in biomedical research and engineering. This exclusive license opens the door to more opportunities to validate and expand the use of this metric in advanced patient cohorts. Duke University and TruDiagnostic are currently collaborating on grant proposals to make this algorithm validated via other tissues as well. 

“We are extremely excited to offer the DunedinPoAm algorithm because it allows us to seperate overall biological age from the current rate of aging,” said lab director, Tavis Mendes, PhD. “This means we can conduct individual level investigations to identify which lifestyle, medical, and other factors are best at slowing a person’s age based on objective personalized data. Ultimately, DunedinPoAm allows us to influence patient outcomes to slow aging and ultimately risk and disease. Those individuals who are aging at a rate above one biological year per chronological year are 56% more likely to die, and 54% more likely to be diagnosed with a chronic disease over the next seven years. By measuring the rate of aging, we can evaluate what influences the aging rate in order to quantify the best age limiting interventions, and therefore reduce risk of negative health outcomes.” 

Duke Professors Terrie Moffitt, PhD, and Avshalom Caspi, PhD, head a team of six who developed the DunedinPoAm tool this year. Building the database took the international team five decades, while they tracked biological age changes in the bodies of 1037 New Zealanders who are members of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development study, a project that began with their birth in 1972. “We are now applying DunedinPoAm in 19 other large health-tracking studies,” said Moffitt. “One goal is to test just how sensitively it detects when people change their lifestyle and health behaviors. 

We are looking at many thousands of people: different ethnic groups, age groups, and men and women, living in different countries. DunedinPoAm is the only aging measure so far that was trained on biological change, and the enthusiasm from the international teams who are participating is super exciting.”