Agetech investment and innovation round-up – and why dinosaurs stunted human longevity

German company dehaze has closed a €3.2m seed round which will support its ambitions to deliver a premium AI model for chronic disease detection.

The Munich-based business says its foundational AI model significantly improves the detection of chronic diseases, enabling users to reduce annual health spend by up to 10% in a US$8trillion-plus annual market.

The round was led by YZR Capital and DN Capital, with participation from Angel Invest, ZOHO and Better Ventures.

In a press release announcing the funding dehaze says it is the first ‘to close the chronic disease detection gap’.

This gap sees physicians unable to review the vast majority of the health data available to them before making a decision, ‘leading to more than 31% of chronic diseases being overlooked’.

Marius Klages, co-founder and CEO of dehaze, said: “Chronic disease is the biggest and most expensive problem in healthcare, and it has been unsolved for one simple reason: the data exists, but no one has been able to use it.

“Doctors see less than 3 per cent of what’s available before making a decision, and as a result roughly a third of chronic diseases go undetected until it’s too late or too expensive to act.

“That is the gap we close. We built dehaze in Munich, from first principles, as a foundational AI model for chronic disease detection – not a chatbot, not a dashboard. Our customers are global from day one, because the problem is global from day one.”

Epigenetic acquisition

Infinite Epigenetics has acquired Tally Health, the consumer longevity company co-founded by Harvard geneticist Dr David Sinclair, in what the company says is the largest acquisition in epigenetic age testing to date.

The deal creates a vertically-integrated platform spanning advanced epigenetic diagnostics, the world’s largest private adult DNA methylation datasets, and personalized interventions including longevity-focused supplements.

Tally Health will continue as a standalone consumer brand under CEO Melanie Goldey, while Dr Matthew Dawson continues as CEO of Infinite Epigenetics and its subsidiary TruDiagnostic.

He said: “We believe epigenetics will underpin the next generation of medical diagnostics, shifting healthcare from reactive treatment to proactive, data-driven prevention.

“By combining our scientific infrastructure, proprietary data, and clinical capabilities with Tally Health’s consumer reach, we can accelerate the adoption of epigenetics across healthcare – from research and clinical settings to population-scale applications.”

Infinite Epigenetics operates a CLIA-certified laboratory with 115-plus research partnerships with institutions including Harvard, Yale, Duke, and Stanford.

“From day one, Tally Health was built to take the most advanced science of aging and make it actionable for everyday people,” said Ms Goldey.

“Joining Infinite Epigenetics allows us to dramatically accelerate that mission by combining best-in-class data, scientific rigor, and consumer experience to deliver a truly end-to-end longevity platform.”

Healthy ageing advocate Super Age has launched the Super Age Games – trumpeting it as the  first competition designed to measure and extend human healthspan.

“The Games isn’t just about adding years to your life – it’s about adding life to your years: more time to travel, play with your kids, do what you love,” says Super Age founder David Harry Stewart.

“That’s worth training for.”

The company has designed eight trials built around longevity markers scientists use to measure healthspan and include: grip strength, aerobic capacity, agility, balance, functional strength, and endurance under load, plus two trials that most fitness events skip: working memory under physical stress, and relational capacity in real time.

The event takes place in New York on November 7.

For further details see: https://games.superage.com/

Gut research

The trillions of microbes living in the human gut may play a key role in muscle strength, say researchers.

Muscle strength can play a key role in maintaining independence later in life by supporting  our joints and keeping our bones healthy and a recent study explored whether specific gut bacteria might be linked to muscle strength.Researchers analysed the gut microbiomes of two groups of adults: 90 young adults aged 18 to 25 and 33 older adults aged 65 to 75 and discovered that higher levels of a bacterium called Roseburia inulinivorans were linked to stronger performance across muscle strength measures.

Further research involving mice which introduced Roseburia inulinivorans into the mice’s digestive systems found that those that received the bacterium developed noticeably stronger grip strength in their arms than those that did not.

Their muscle fibres also became larger and shifted toward a type of fibre associated with more powerful movements, say researchers at the UK University of Nottingham.

The human data revealed that older adults in the study tended to have lower levels of Roseburia inulinivorans in their gut microbiome than the younger participants.

If further studies confirm that Roseburia inulinivorans supports muscle strength in humans, it could be developed into a probiotic designed to help maintain muscle function as people age.

Inulinivorans refers to inulin, a dietary fibre found naturally in foods such as onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus and chicory root.

These fibres are known to support the growth of other beneficial gut bacteria, including members of the Roseburia group.

If it hadn’t been for the arrival of the dinosaurs humans would already be living well into the hundreds, claims new research.

Whilst the first humans evolved some 300,000 years ago with dinosaurs pre-dating this by some 250m years ago – before becoming extinct 66m years ago – it was their avaricious impact on earlier mammals which stunted longevity.

UK University of Birmingham microbiologist João Pedro de Magalhães contends that dinosaur dominance completely shifted the evolutionary track of virtually every mammal on Earth, refocusing  efforts on rapid reproduction instead of long life.

He contends that there was no point in trying to live for a long time with a predator dinosaur nearby, so to keep a species alive rapid reproduction shifted the evolutionary track, meaning the pressure to stay alive eliminated the genes needed for long life.