A third generation DNAm clock that measures the speed of aging
Global Health Span Extension Consortium activity by Terrie E. Moffitt, MBE, PhD
Terry Moffitt is a partner of the Global Health Span Consortium and leads the team that developed DunedinPACE, an epigenetic speedometer. Unlike the other clocks, PACE measures DNAm that is involved in change in biological function. The aim of her team this summer is to design a new Intrinsic Functional Capacity measure, trained on change, that is responsive to interventions. The team is developing a longitudinal 3-wave phenotype model of Intrinsic Functional Capacity in the Dunedin Study cohort. The DunedinPACE team is using the most reliable measures of each of the 5 domains of Intrinsic Functional Capacity, which were repeatedly assessed in 1000 cohort members at ages 38, 45, and 52 (mobility, cognition, psychological, sensory, and vitality; selecting the strongest known predictors of mortality in each domain). The teams’s existing 2020 Dunedin cohort DNAm dataset from age 45 will be used for instant training to achieve a DNAm version that can be exported to other cohort data sets that have late life-disease and mortality outcomes. This is where the Global Health Span Extension Consortium comes in.