Immunotherapies for Aging and Age-Related Diseases: Advances, Pitfalls, and Prospects

Aging is characterized by a gradual decline in the functionality of all the organs and tissues, leading to various diseases. As the global population ages, the urgency to develop effective anti-aging strategies becomes increasingly critical due to the growing severity of associated health problems. Immunotherapy offers novel and promising approaches to combat aging by utilizing approaches including vaccines, antibodies, and cytokines to target specific aging-related molecules and pathways. In this review, we summarize the recent advancements of immunotherapies to eliminate senescence cells and senescence-associated secretory phenotypes (SASPs). Next, we describe immunotherapies against age-related diseases containing neurodegenerative diseases, vascular pathologies, type 2 diabetes (T2D), arthritis, osteoporosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), fibrosis, skin aging, and cancer, detailing the targets, corresponding manipulations, and clinical trials. Related problems including immunosenescence, serious adverse effects, the duality of function of senescent cells and SASPs, and inherent problems of immunotherapy are also discussed, suggesting directions for improvement. In addition to recent development and challenges in the field, we describe a blueprint of personalized aging immunotherapy by multi-omics, Big Data, artificial intelligence (AI), and nanobots in the future, aiming to inspire the development of novel strategies for healthy aging.