Fedor Galkin, Project Manager at Insilico Medicine, Inc., discusses his work studying the microbiome, human genotypes, and aging/longevity.

Galkin graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in Bioengineering & Bioinformatics. His work focuses on human microbiome aging clocks based on deep learning. Interestingly, the microbiome can serve as an incredibly accurate biological clock, able to predict the age of many people within just years.

Galkin discusses the earliest microbiome aging clocks and recent advances, and the technology that is behind them. Some of these technologies can make assessments based on an individual’s blood biochemistry and gene expression levels, etc., but as he states there has never before been a clock that predicts age based on gut microbes. Galkin discusses their work in detail, discussing how they select and look at the microbes.

Galkin explains the correlations and organization in the microbes, and how with age, things fluctuate. He details how they observe the changes that show age, and how certain conditions, such as diabetes will make the gut microbes appear as a much older person. Continuing, the bioengineering expert talks about nutrients, and how supplements, etc. can impact the biological systems. And he explains how their work on the species level is ongoing, but that they hope to delve deeper into the functional and genetic level as well, in their continued study of the human microbiome.

In this podcast:

What is a microbiome aging clock?

How nutrients play a role in the gut microbiome

The role of supplements in biological health