# Testing the utility of miBioAge as a personalized aging biomarker

> **NIH NIH R21** · SCINTILLON INSTITUTE FOR PHOTOBIOLOGY · 2023 · $170,000

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Aging is highly individual phenomenon proceeding at different speed in chronologically identical people. These
differences kindle the notion of biological age for which candidate biomarkers include serum analytes and
frailty indices and more recently DNA methylation. Longitudinal profiling in humans revealed that organs and
tissues age with different speeds resulting in highly individual ageotype. Further, measurements at the single
cell resolution significantly improve the insights into human aging process. These and other studies underscore
the need for predictive biomarkers of aging at the molecular level preferably with single cell resolution to
unravel the complexity of organismal aging and to provide tissue-specific quantitative signatures of functional
age. To be informative such molecular signatures must be anchored in the functional readouts of aging such
as metabolic, physical, cognitive, and immune functions preferably at the level of individual organisms. The
Terskikh laboratory has developed a novel technique rooted in the analysis of epigenome topography at the
single cell level to quantitate changes in chromatin landscape. We capture patterns of nuclear staining of
epigenetic marks (e.g. acetylated and methylated histones) and employ automated microscopy and machine
learning to determine multiparametric signature of cellular state. Application of this technique to aging, termed
microscopic imaging of Biological Age (miBioAge), revealed robust separation of young and old freshly isolated
mouse and human tissues, and correlated with chronological age without linear regression. A recently funded
clinical trial (U01 AG07694) will determine whether the mTOR inhibitor everolimus safely promotes healthspan
in humans. We propose to take advantage of a unique set of human samples originating from U01 AG076941
clinical trial, to associate (using hyperbolic embedding and machine learning) individual miBioAge signatures in
PBMC and skeletal muscles with multiple functional readouts.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11091324
- **Project number:** 7R21AG083782-02
- **Recipient organization:** SCINTILLON INSTITUTE FOR PHOTOBIOLOGY
- **Principal Investigator:** ALEXEY V TERSKIKH
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $170,000
- **Award type:** 7
- **Project period:** 2023-09-15 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11091324

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11091324, Testing the utility of miBioAge as a personalized aging biomarker (7R21AG083782-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11091324. Licensed CC0.

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