Diagnostic, prognostic and treatment efficacy power of biomarkers of aging for frailty, age-related diseases and multimorbidity

According to the Geroscience concept, aging and age-associated diseases share the same basic molecular mechanisms, the main difference being only the rate of such mechanisms that varies in healthy aging and unsuccessful aging (with diseases). Given this assumption, biomarkers of aging and diseases are likely shared as well. Therefore, the discovery/validation/application of biomarkers of age could be extremely important for classifying patients as frail and/or at risk of progression into either specific diseases or multimorbidity. In many
cases, biomarkers of aging are already available, however, much less is known about the validity of these
biomarkers for frailty, age-associated diseases and multimorbidity, including Type 2 Diabetes, Alzheimer’s Disease, sarcopenia and cardiovascular diseases in terms of diagnostic/prognostic power and evaluation of treatment efficacy.

The aim of this Research Topic is to explore the field of biomarkers of aging in relation to their predictive power of age-related conditions such as frailty or multimorbidity, and, on the opposite side, to investigate the power of specific disease biomarkers as predictor of aging. In particular, the goal of the research topic will be to contribute on:

 the identification of new biomarkers of biological age and aging process;
 validation of new or known biomarkers of aging as far as the capability to predict frailty, age-associated
diseases, syndromes and multimorbidity (diagnostic/prognostic power),
 markers for the evaluation of treatment efficacy.
 New tools to evaluate frailty, and their efficacy as markers of age/aging

The aim of this Research Topic is to provide state-of-the-art original contributions (or reviews*) on:
 Circulating biomarkers (either freely soluble or linked to microvesicles)
 Imaging and instrumental markers
 Functional markers
 Genetic and epigenetic markers
 Omic and multi-omic analyses and validation
 Advanced statistical analyses with AI tools
Meta-analyses are also allowed. Preference will be given to studies on humans; however, animal and in vitro models are not excluded. Analyses considering gender are welcome.
*Reviews should be submitted only upon previous agreement with the Guest Editors – pre-submission enquiries required.

Keywords: Biomarkers, Aging, Frailty, Age-associated diseases, Biological age

Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.