| RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS |


ceramic coating with enhanced hardness and fracture toughness. “This could be a viable approach for the development of super-hard and tough protective coatings for high-tem- perature and high-pressure applications,” says Liu.


The team plans to use the results


in advanced manufacturing and engineering applications, such as protective coatings in high-speed machining tools for titanium and nick- el-based alloys.


1. Liu, S., Wheeler, J. M., Michler, J., Zeng, X. T. & Clegg, W. J. Plastic flow at the theoretical yield stress in ceramic films. Scripta Materialia 117, 24–27 (2016).


2. Liu, S., Raghavan, R., Zeng, X. T., Michler, J. & Clegg, W. J. Compressive deformation and failure of CrAlN/ Si3


N4 nanocomposite coatings. Applied Physics Letters 104, 081919 (2014).


Aging:


SEARCHING FOR A CURE FOR FRAILTY


AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF BLOOD CELLS REVEALS SIGNS OF AGING


“Doctors can’t give you drugs just because you complain of being old,” says Anis Larbi, who is trying to revolutionize the way elderly people are cared for. Larbi and his team at the A*STAR Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) are looking at aging as a complex process, including the appearance of symptoms as with disease, the first of which is frailty. Along with collaborators in Singapore, China


and Canada, Larbi’s team is the first to identify a link between inflammation, immunity and


A*STAR researchers are looking for biological markers of physical frailty.


the signs of physical frailty1. “By determining the biological signature of frailty, we can start thinking of possible medical interventions.” Frailty is a condition associated with aging


that limits a person’s mobility and increases their risk of falling, hospitalization and death. “Frailty per se will not kill you,” says Larbi. “But it will affect your quality of life.” Unlike most diseases for which there are underlying causes, scientists have typically described frailty in purely sympto- matic terms. Larbi and his co-workers wanted to


understand whether an ‘immunological frailty’ is also present in the general state of malaise. The researchers recruited around 100


Singaporean adults aged 55 or older from the Singapore Longitudinal Aging Study. They were assessed for their level of frailty based on two established models — the Fried frailty status, which looks at five physical symptoms from slowness to weight loss, and the Rockwood Frailty Index, which measures a broader range of dysfunctions. Blood samples were analyzed for markers of inflammation and signs of aging in immune cells. Of the multiple biomarkers simultaneously


tested using multiplex technology at the Immunomonitoring Platform at SIgN, eight were found to be either positively or negatively associated with frailty. Two of the biomarkers are linked to interleukin-6, an inflammatory cytokine which is associated with many age-related diseases. At the cellular level, frailer people had higher


levels of two types of white blood cells — poorly functioning, exhausted B cells, and inflamma- tory CD14+


CD16+ monocytes. Cytotoxic T cells


in these individuals “looked older”, expressing lower levels of a protein called CD28, which is essential for their activation, proliferation, differentiation and overall survival. The researchers are conducting similar


analyses on elderly populations in other regions. “We want to know if these indicators are specific to Asia, or if there is a universal signature for frailty,” says Larbi. Further molecular studies could ultimately lead to methods for detecting frailty early in life and identifying pathways to slow down debilitating physical symptoms.


1. Lu, Y., Tan, C. T. Y., Nyunt, M. S. Z., Mok, E. W. H., Camous, X. et al. Inflammatory and immune markers associated with physical frailty syndrome: findings from Singapore longitudinal aging studies. Oncotarget 7, 28783–28795 (2016).


www.astar-research.com A*STAR RESEARCH 47


© MILATAS/Getty


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52