Tony Wyss-Coray Pioneers Blood Tests for 11 Organs' Biological Age

3 articles · Updated · TIME · Aug 20

Blood tests developed by Stanford neurologist Tony Wyss-Coray aim to estimate the biological age of the brain and other organs from protein patterns, offering a readout that may track health better than chronological age.
Higher biological age in a given organ has been linked in his research to greater disease risk in that organ, while older-looking organs overall correlate with a higher risk of death.
Vero Bioscience, a company Wyss-Coray cofounded, is now running clinical studies to test how accurately the assays work in real-world settings and whether they can guide personalized health decisions.
The work grows out of Wyss-Coray's long-running research on blood-borne signals in aging and neurodegeneration, including a 2007 Alzheimer’s blood-marker study and mouse experiments showing young plasma improved cognition while old plasma accelerated aging.
That broader approach has also led to Alkahest, another Wyss-Coray cofounded company, which is exploring plasma-based treatments for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.