Anglo Japanese Global Partnering Award

国际科学合作为参与的国家和科学家带来多重利益。这些都是经济和技术上的，因为如果来自不同国家的科学家在共同的问题上合作，他们可以取得更多的集体比单独工作。这种合作涉及分享技术和独特资源，以帮助推进我们各自国家的共同目标，改善整个社会。在这方面，日本是英国研究人员研究老龄化的重要合作伙伴，原因有三：首先，日本拥有世界上最大和最具特征的罕见加速衰老疾病沃纳综合征（WS）患者群体。沃纳综合征是一个重要的起点，以发展转化的方法来理解衰老机制和解决严重的年龄相关疾病;这是一个患者群体，目前没有疾病修饰治疗，但与“正常衰老”直接相关。英国研究人员将丰富的分子和细胞生物学知识引入WS的研究，并确定可能对WS患者有益的新治疗/干预措施。其次，日本是世界上百岁老人和超级百岁老人最多的国家，包括冲绳的独特人口，他们表现出非常成功的老龄化。日本研究人员一直在收集和储存“超级老人”的生物材料和临床样本，这些材料和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的损伤非常相似，所以在其中一种中有效的技术在另一种中也可能有效。作为交换，英国能够向日本同事提供：独特的抗衰老化合物和这些药物如何发挥作用的专业知识干细胞生物学和肌腱生物力学和基质分析方面的专业知识基于“大数据”分析社会经济地位和影响健康的微生物种群之间的相互作用的专业知识获得日本没有的动物模型，如裸鼹鼠。

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.