Joao Pedro de Magalhaes recently came out with a new paper critiquing the 2013 Hallmarks of Aging paper.
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202105.0310/v1
Although JP posted it to Twitter saying it was “controversial” I wonder who would object? Are there any researchers that believe the 9 Hallmarks to be a complete description of aging?
I don’t think it’s controversial at all. I’m in agreement with Jaoa that it’s likely characterizing secondary consequences of aging but serves as a great tool for distributing efforts across the field, studying synergies of various nodes in a complex network, and an excellent starter kit for longevity therapeutics.
That being said, it certainly isn’t all encompassing in terms of capturing the higher level complexities of aging or for capturing the influence of antagonistic pleiotropy, disposable soma, and information or triage theory. Damage accumulation across the hallmarks seems lacking as a stand alone description of aging but I do like it as a tool for developing therapeutics, discovering biomarkers,and as a multi-pronged and multi-factorial strategy for improving healthsoan
I agree that the Hallmarks of Aging isn’t a unified theory of aging, but that doesn’t mean science shouldn’t explore them as targets. By targeting the different hallmarks new discoveries can be made and then maybe eventually scientists can form a better theory. I don’t like this argument honestly, it reminds me if this NYT article titled " Science Plays the Long Game. But People Have Mental Health Issues Now." People are suffering from age related disease now and we shouldn’t wait until we have a unified theory to try a treat it. Also, exploring treatments for aging could very likely lead to discoveries in treating other diseases like mental health and probably cancer and infectious diseases as well.