For nearly two decades, Pinghua Liu<\/a> searched for ways to regulate or reverse the human biological clock. His solution may come from an unlikely source: mushrooms.<\/p>\n Liu, an associate professor of chemistry, long wondered: If our bodies can grow from birth through puberty\u2014and later break down\u2014is there a way to disrupt and slow the aging process? With the creation of Ergo-health, the company he cofounded with Mark Grinstaff<\/a>, a professor of chemistry at Arts & Sciences and biomedical engineering at BU\u2019s College of Engineering, Liu has taken a major step toward answering that question.<\/p>\n The basis of the company\u2019s work is ergothioneine, an amino acid that naturally occurs in low concentrations in mushrooms. It\u2019s a common ingredient in modern cosmetics and dietary supplements; reishi mushrooms, known as \u201cthe mushroom of immortality,\u201d have been a staple of Eastern medicine for centuries. But ergothioneine\u2019s cost\u2014$50,000 per gram\u2014has made large-scale studies unfeasible.<\/p>\n In a collaboration with a team of colleagues and peers, Liu developed a method to mass produce synthetic ergothioneine. Within two years of that discovery, he had found that ergothioneine could extend a mouse\u2019s median lifespan by nearly 40 percent.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question remains what this means for understanding aging in humans,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can\u2019t run human trials for longevity. It takes too long and there might be ethical issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, Ergo-health will focus on the potential to use ergothioneine-based longevity compounds to study the aging process and to treat aging-associated cardiovascular and neurological diseases.<\/p>\n
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