Finding drugs for muscle loss

Kleiton Silva, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical sciences at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, studies autophagy’s role in this condition, known as sarcopenia. Currently, exercise is the primary therapy that can counter these declines, but working out can be challenging, if not impossible, for those affected. 

“I am not trying to replace exercise, but to find something that makes it more feasible and more effective,” Silva says. 

In sarcopenia, as in aging in general, autophagy declines, causing debris to accumulate in muscle cells and leading to damaging inflammation. People with sarcopenia slowly lose the strength they need for routine tasks and become vulnerable to dangerous falls. Exercise and improvements to diet are the only recommended treatments for sarcopenia. 

Silva identified a way to activate autophagy in lab studies of sarcopenia, and preliminary studies of this approach, combined with exercise, produced promising results. For instance, he found that clinically relevant tools to detect sarcopenia, including grip strength and physical performance, were greatly improved in those who performed exercise and were treated with an autophagic inducer.

He has since received two grants from the National Institutes of Health to further this research. As part of this ongoing work, he is investigating a compound that appears to have potential as an exercise-augmenting therapy.