Allogeneic mesenchymal stem cell therapy: A regenerative medicine approach to geroscience

Extraordinary advances in medicine and public health have contributed to increasing life expectancy worldwide. However, health span-"healthy aging"-has paradoxically lagged to parallel this increase. Consequently, aging-associated illnesses, such as Alzheimer's disease and aging frailty, are having a growing impact on patients, their families, and entire health-care systems. Typically, such disorders have been treated as isolated disease entities. However, the inextricable links between aging-associated disorders and the aging process itself have become increasingly recognized, leading to formation of the field of geroscience. The geroscience concept is that treating the aging process itself should lead to treatment and prevention of aging-related disorders. However, the aging process is complex, dictated by highly interrelated pleiotropic processes. As such, therapeutics with pleiotropic mechanisms of action (either alone, or as part of combinatorial strategies) will be required for preventing and treating both aging and related disorders. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have multiple mechanisms of action that make these highly promising geroscience therapeutic candidates. These cells have a high safety profile for clinical use, are amenable to allogeneic use since tissue-type matching is not required, and can have sustained activity after transplantation. Herein, we review preclinical and clinical data supporting the utility of allogeneic MSCs as a geroscience therapeutic candidate.