Meet Ike, the drug test sub­ject that lived to be 140

A team of in­ves­ti­ga­tors in Seat­tle re­cent­ly had a chance to cel­e­brate a test sub­ject’s 140th birth­day. Or, at least the mouse ver­sion of 140, which turns out to be 1,400 days.

Named Ike af­ter one of the re­searcher’s rel­a­tives, the mouse was treat­ed with ra­pamycin dur­ing late ro­dent mid­dle age. A pow­er­ful im­muno­sup­pres­sive drug used to pre­vent or­gan trans­plant re­jec­tion, ra­pamycin ap­peared to help re­ju­ve­nate Ike and his mouse pack, say the re­searchers, led by Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton’s Matt Kae­ber­lein, who’s been deeply in­volved in ag­ing re­search.

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