Researchers noticed early on that rapamycin slowed the growth of cancer cells in the test tube.

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Rapamycin also is being studied for its impact on the normal aging process.

WSJ: Progeria Drug Study Helps in Search for Clues on Aging

They are chemical variants of an antibiotic called rapamycin, which Wyeth researchers found in soil samples from Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean in the late 1960s.

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He said his lab is testing a form of the drug rapamycin in mice with progeria that could eventually be tried as part of a drug-treatment cocktail.

WSJ: Progeria Drug Study Helps in Search for Clues on Aging

Wyeth scientists originally hoped rapamycin could become an antifungal drug.

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Then they found that rapamycin suppresses the immune system.

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The Novartis drug suppresses a protein called MTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin), which receives incoming growth signals from the surface of the cell and directs them to grow fatter, a necessary step before cell division.

FORBES: Magazine Article

The Buck Institute's Dr. Kennedy led a team earlier this year that found that another form of rapamycin was effective in increasing the life spans and improving symptoms in mice with two different diseases caused by other mutations in the progeria-connected Lamin A gene.

WSJ: Progeria Drug Study Helps in Search for Clues on Aging

The active ingredient in Rapamune, rapamycin, was discovered decades ago but scientists didn't understand how the drug worked until a graduate student named David Sabatini discovered the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), a protein that acts as part of a complicated set of chemical signals that causes cells to divide.

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