An Anti-Aging Forum was held in Nantong, Jiangsu on January 18th, 2018. At the forum, China’s first telomere and telomerase diagnostics agency Jiangxu Kaiqiang Medical Diagnostics Compay *1 announced the official start of its operation. In addition to the United States and Spain, China is the third in the world with capability to conduct accurate detection and analysis of telomere length on a large scale. The agency is staffed with many top scientists in the field of aging. Through detection of telomere and telomerase, premature aging of cells and early cancer etc. could be accurately discovered. Short telomere and rapid telomere shortening are associated with various diseases including cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, senility, dementia, diabetes and cancer. These detections could help to identify underlying health risks.

Be more proper to include the official name of this organization here in the Chinese and publication too.

Telomere and telomerase are magical and enable us to understand biological age and to detect health risks at early stage

The anti-aging forum on January 18 focuses on "how long human being could live" and "how we should grow older". The scientists at the forum acknowledged a surprising secret that the telomere length is like the biological clock of the human aging. Individual’s biological age and aging conditions could be evaluated via telomere detection.

Why are telomere and telomerase so magical? At the forum, the renowned scientist Professor Song Yangzhou says: “A healthy human being has telomeres with normal-length. The telomeres in cells shorten at a certain rate. When the rate suddenly increases, it indicates possible health problems of the individual. Doctors could be reminded by detection the telomere length change to look for potential causes such as increased stress, changes in daily life. Telomerase is active at the blastula stage of embryonic development and is less active or undetectable in most matured cells. However, they are found to be highly active in cancer cells. The high active telomerase helps tumor cells avoid deterioration and acquire permanent ability of division. Telomerase is a crucial indicator of cell cancerization. If we could detect abnormal telomerase, we can determine precisely if the cancer cells are activated. Therefore, cancers could be diagnosed accurately by detecting telomerase at onset, and early treatment can reduce the mortality rate of cancer patients.” Professor Song Yangzhou is one of the first scientists to study the regulatory mechanism of cell telomere length and telomerase activity, and the stem cell pluripotency.

Telomere and telomerase were discovered by American scientists Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak in 2009. They shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009.

Telomere is a small segment of DNA-protein complex that exits at the end of a linear chromosome in eukaryotic cells. It protects chromosome integrity and controls cell division cycles. Telomerase is a nuclei-protein reverse enzyme that promotes telomere elongation in cells. It can lengthen the shortened telomeres and enhance in-vitro cell proliferation. Scientists also found that telomere length, telomere shortening rate and telomerase activity are closely linked to human aging, cancer and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. This finding is of great significance to humankind and has prompted more scientists to begin applying it to the healthcare and anti-aging industry.

A team of world-class scientist

At the forum, Jiangxu Kaiqiang Medical Diagnostics Compay., Ltd. announced the official launch of the telomere and telomerase detection project and the team that includes renowned top scientists in the field of aging R&D - Professor Song Yangzhou, Zhao Yong and Ma Wenbin. They have studied for over 20 years in the field of anti-aging medicine such as telomere and telomerase, stem cell applications. They have achieved may leading scientific research results.

The chief science adviser, Professor Song Yangzhou, looks like a thirty something fellow at the first sight. However, his eyes behind the glasses seem to be able to see through the human body. He holds a PhD degree from Tufts University in Boston, USA in 1995 and completed postdoctoral fellowship in Harvard University and MIT in 1998. He was Assistant Professor, Tenured Professor, Chair and Director of Molecular Drug Research and Development and High-throughput Research Center in Baylor College of Medicine. He returned to China via the first wave of “ Recruitment Program of Global Experts” by Central Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, and then served as Dean of School of Life Sciences at the Sun Yat-Sen University. He is also the chief scientist of the National “973 Project”.

Professor Song Yangzhou’s research areas are the cell senescence and regeneration, which mainly focuses on the regulatory mechanism of cell telomere length, telomerase activity, and the stem cells pluripotency regulatory network. He has published more than 130 papers in many leading international journals - Cell, Nature and Science; more than 20 articles are with 10 points or above of SCI Impact Factor and more than 13,000 citations. One of his papers was named by The Scientist as one of the most cited papers; another paper in Cell was selected as one of the 30 most memorable publications in the 30-year history of Cell magazine.

R&D consultant Professor Zhao Yongnang, came back to China via the second wave of “Repatriation of 1000 Oversea Top Young Talents Plan” by Central Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee. He is also a winner of the "Outstanding Young Scientist Award" by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He has engaged in research of cell senescence and cancerization. He has published more than 20 papers in well-known international journals including Cell, Molecular Cell, Nature Communications, PNAS and JACS. He was awarded the Excellent Postdoctoral Award by the American Ellison Foundation and the American Federation of Aging Research (AFAR), and is an influential scientist in the field of telomere biology internationally.

R&D Consultant Dr. Ma Wenbin graduated from the Health Science Center of University of Texas in Houston in 2005. He has engaged in research of the mechanism of aging and tumor genesis, and aging signal transduction network. He was a post-doctor at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center of University of Texas and Baylor College of Medicine. He received the Odyssey Scientific Achievement Awards jointly sponsored by the Cockrell Scientific Achievement Awards Foundation and University of Texas Anderson Cancer Center. He has published more than 30 SCI articles of his research achievements in the fields of telomere and oncology, in NAR, Cell Research and Cell Report.

The team also includes many other outstanding young experts and scholars who have been engaging in anti-aging research - Dr. Ge Yuanlong (from Tsinghua University), Dr. Liu Haiying and Dr. Wu Shu.

“Our scientific consultants Professor Song Yangzhou and Professor Zhao Yong have been attending the telomeres academic conference for 6 consecutive years in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, USA, which is the pinnacle of biological science research in the world. Professor Song Yangzhou is a commentator and a speaker, and Professor Zhao Yong is a speaker as well. This demonstrates the high academic standing of our team members.” Gu Kaiqiang, chairman of Jiangsu Kaiqiang Medical Diagnostics Co., Ltd., told reporters that he started the telomere detection project after they understand the significance of these research achievements could have on health protection and social impact.

A safe testing procedure with multiple benefit – I suggest that you add this title to the Chinese report. Or you could just remove it.

According to Gu Kaiqiang, telomere detection is different from CT or PET/CT. There are no radioactive and radiation damages during the testing process. It is entirely harmless to the human body.

This method is mainly based on the detection of telomerase activity, tumor markers and cancer risk genes, which could predict genitourinary cancer and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease risks in a multilevel and comprehensive way at the early stage and accomplish early detection, early prevention and early treatment. The multi-level indicators of telomere length, disease markers and genotyping of disease risk could describe the sub-health condition, the degree of aging of individuals and other information that hospitals and medical systems cannot provide at present. It could provide the most powerful scientific base for personalized health management.

Meanwhile, it enables individuals to know their aging status and disease risks from the perspective of cellular level, molecular level and gene level.

Huge market potential, integration of research and production brings vitality

How big is the market for telomere and telomerase detection? Let’s take China as an example. According to the UN report and the Blue Book on The Development of China’s Aging Industry, China is one of the fastest aging society in the world. By 2049, 60-year-old and above elderly people will account for 31% of the total population.

At the same time, incidents of various types of aging diseases have risen dramatically. According to the China Tumor Monitoring Annual Report of 2017, about ten thousand people are diagnosed with cancer every day, i.e, about seven people are diagnosed per minute. There are more than 200 million patients with cardiovascular diseases in China currently. Four out of every ten deaths are due to cardiovascular disease, which is higher than the death rate from tumor. Cardiovascular diseases and malignant tumors account for more than 70% of all disease deaths.

Gu Kaiqiang believes that the telomere and telomerase detection could supplement disease diagnoses at early stage. This market is unimaginably huge because it is closely related to the everyone’s health.

Dr. Ma Wenbin said bluntly that “the cost of telomere detection in the US and Europe is relatively high while the information is relatively little. However, Chinese scientists could have more precise scientific interpretations as they can collected a large number of samples at the earlier phase, especially the data of how different lifestyle affects telomere length.” He mentioned that in the telomere detection field, China not only has advantages, but has already ascended to the world’s top level. This biological detection is not harmful to human body. It could estimate the basic health condition, screen for the risk of early cancer and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, and enable individuals to know their aging status and disease risks from the perspective of cellular level, molecular level and gene level. The test results could provide personalized health management suggestions and ultimately enable individuals delay the aging process in a healthy way.

Gu Kaiqiang says he is fortunate to be able to assemble this team of excellent scientists in this exciting era. He hopes that the sophisticated medical detection and follow-up health management could improve everyone’s healthy for a more exciting life, while providing the platform where the scientists can make more impactful contributions to humankind.

Invited to the forum, chairman of NASDAQ-listed Dragon Victory International Holdings Limited, Sun Jianjun and Jiangsu Kaiqiang Medical Diagnostics Co., Ltd. signed a strategic collaboration agreement. Sun Jianjun says that his group is optimistic about the top talents, the science and technology at Kaiqiang Medical Diagonostics and the immense healthcare industry. They will use the advantages of their own capitals to drive the advancement of this industry and take Kaiqiang Diagnostics as an example to elevate it into the international marketplace.

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