Anglo Japanese Global Partnering Award

国际科学合作给相关国家和科学家带来了多重好处。这既是经济上的，也是技术上的，因为如果来自不同国家的科学家在共同的问题上共同努力，他们可以取得比单独工作更多的集体成果。这种合作包括分享有助于推进我们各自国家的共同目标和改善整个社会的技术和独特资源。在这方面，日本是研究老龄化的英国研究人员的重要合作伙伴，原因有三：首先，日本拥有世界上最大、特征最好的罕见加速衰老疾病沃纳综合征(Werner‘s综合征)患者。Werner综合征是开发翻译方法以了解衰老机制和解决与年龄相关的严重疾病的重要起点；这是一种患者群体，目前没有针对他们的疾病修改治疗，但与“正常老龄化”直接相关。英国研究人员为WS的研究带来了丰富的分子和细胞生物学，并确定了可能对WS患者有益的新疗法/干预措施。第二，日本是世界上最多的百岁老人和超级百岁老人的家园，包括冲绳独特的人口，这表明老龄化非常成功。日本研究人员一直在收集和存储来自超级老年人的生物材料和临床样本，这些材料和临床样本可能适合与英国研究人员就这一提议进行合作研究。第三，日本和英国过去曾合作修复受伤赛马的肌腱，这些肌腱除了本身很重要外，与人类运动员和老年人类的损伤非常相似，所以在一种情况下适用的技术很可能适用于另一种情况。作为交换，英国可以向日本同事提供：独特的抗衰老化合物，以及此类药物如何发挥作用的专业知识。擅长于干细胞生物学，以及肌腱的生物力学和基质方面的分析；擅长于基于“大数据”的分析，即社会经济地位和影响健康的微生物种群之间的相互作用。访问动物模型，如裸鼠，这在日本是不存在的。

International scientific collaboration brings multiple benefits for the countries and scientists involved. These are both economic and technical because if scientists from different countries work together on common problems, they can achieve more collectively than working alone. Such collaboration involves sharing techniques and unique resources that help advance the shared goals of our respective nations and improve society as a whole. In this regard Japan is an important partner for UK researchers studying ageing for three reasons:Firstly, it has the world's largest and best characterized population of patients with the rare accelerated ageing disease Werner's syndrome (WS). Werner syndrome presents an important starting point to develop translational approaches to understand ageing mechanisms and to address serious age-related diseases; this is a patient population for whom there are currently no disease-modifying treatments, but which has direct relevance to 'normal ageing'. The UK researchers bring a wealth of molecular and cellular biology to the study of WS as well as identification of novel treatments/interventions that may prove beneficial in WS patients.Secondly, Japan is home to the world's largest number of centenarians and supercentenarians, including a unique population in Okinawa which shows exceptionally successful ageing. Japanese researchers have been collecting and storing biological materials and clinical samples from the 'super-agers', that may be suitable for collaborative study with the UK researchers on this proposal.Thirdly, Japan and the UK have worked together in the past to repair the tendons of injured race horses, which, aside from being important in their own right, have very similar injuries to human athletes and ageing humans, so techniques that work in one are likely to work in the other. In exchange the UK is able to supply Japanese colleagues with:Unique anti-ageing compounds and expertise in how such drugs may workExpertise in stem cell biology and in the analysis of the biomechanics and matrix aspects of tendonsExpertise in the 'big data' based analysis of the interaction between socioeconomic status and microbial populations that influence healthAccess to animal models,such as the naked mole rat, which are not available in Japan.