Paper in Nature this week shows impressive longevity gains with rapamycin an mTOR inhibitor. We use these drugs now to treat kidney cancer. http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wiredscience/~3/V7UA3NJ-ed4/ Big drawback to rapamycin: markedly increased risk of cancer. So perhaps a person would live longer only to develop some sort of tumor. Still an interesting and unexpected finding. By the way watch for rapamycin hype starting right away.

This is quoted from the ASCO email update circulated 3/31. We now have four drugs for renal cell cancer! The Wall Street Journal (3/31 Whalen) reports "The US Food and Drug Administration approved for sale a kidney-cancer drug that Novartis AG hopes to eventually expand to a variety of other cancers." Afinitor [everolimus] acts by targeting "a protein in the body that appears to underlie more than half a dozen types of cancer " the company stated.