Two of the biggest bottlenecks in aging research are deciding which genetic pathways to test and understanding the enormous data produced by these experiments. Biologists Omar Abudayyeh and Jonathan Gootenberg apply Co-Scientist to facilitate them get through both.
Their lab runs huge genetic screens that turn thousands of genes on and off, then reads how cells respond to these changes. The goal is to find changes that push cells away from senescence – the damaged state associated with aging – towards a youthful state in tissues such as skin, hair and muscles.
The co-scientist helps on two fronts. First, it generates leads. When the team asked him to search the scientific literature for factors that could reverse the aging process, he scanned tens of thousands of articles, considered many hypotheses, and ultimately proposed more than 20 novel, plausible genetic factors for testing. Laboratory tests confirmed several of the co-scientist’s hypotheses, and the agents they recommended were effective in returning the cells to a younger state with improved overall function.
Second, the co-scientist expedites follow-up. Once the team has the results displayed on the large screen, they need to figure out what the huge amount of data might mean and what directions to take next. This type of analysis – trying to link test results to years of scattered scientific literature – can take a researcher up to six months. Because the co-scientist analyzes the screening data along with the literature, this work is reduced to just a few days.