Aisheng Life Sciences: Leveraging AI and Gut Microbiome Data from Tens of Thousands of Centenarians to Predict Health Risks and Enable Longevity
“It is our heartfelt vision at Aisheng Life Sciences that everyone may enjoy health and longevity,” a statement prominently featured on the company’s homepage. True to its name, the company sincerely aspires to inspire people to cherish life. Established in 2017, Aisheng Life Sciences comprises Guangxi Aisheng Life Science Technology Co., Ltd. and Shenzhen Aisheng Life Science Technology Co., Ltd. It is a medical big data company dedicated to gut microbiota health and longevity technologies.
Numerous factors influence human lifespan, with individual longevity resulting from the combined effects of multiple multidimensional factors. According to relevant international studies, factors affecting human lifespan encompass at least nine major domains, including mitochondrial status, chromosomal stability, telomere length, and stem cell activity. This demonstrates that longevity technology constitutes a vast and complex medical industry.
Entrepreneurship and investment in the longevity technology sector have heated up in recent years, with most players opting for a biotechnology approach. Leveraging its own strengths, Aisheng has ultimately chosen to enter the field through gut microbiota, employing biotechnological methods to gradually explore and unravel the secrets of longevity.
Following the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, scientists gradually recognized that decoding the human genome alone could not fully elucidate the intrinsic relationship between human disease and health. This is because the human body harbors a vast number of microbial communities, which play a critical role in both health and disease.
The total number of microorganisms in the human body is ten times that of human cells, yet our understanding of them remains less than one-tenth. In 2007, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) officially launched the Human Microbiome Project, a venture far more complex than the Human Genome Project. As of now, the project has not been completed and is actively progressing.
Approximately 10 trillion bacteria reside in the human gut, accounting for 60% to 70% of the total bacterial load in the human body. These microorganisms influence body weight, digestive capacity, resistance to infections, and susceptibility to autoimmune diseases, and they also modulate the body’s response to cancer therapies. Evidently, the physiological state of the gut microbiota is closely linked to overall human health.
Aisheng Life Sciences has established the Ultra-Health Microbiome Laboratory Center, boasting a robust R&D and advisory team composed of numerous scientists and big data experts in the field of biotechnology. The company has gathered partners with years of experience in gut microbiota health, and its CTO is a specialist in gut microbiome research from the University of Pennsylvania.
Aisheng’s entry point into the longevity technology sector is anchored by its Longevity Big Data Cloud Platform and Longevity Microbiome Bank, pursuing a path that integrates biotechnology with information technology.
“Ensuring a massive volume of reliable raw data is the prerequisite for big data product development,” emphasized Liu Zhenshan, Co-founder of Aisheng Life Sciences. “To obtain more precise and reliable first-hand data on the gut microbiota of long-lived individuals, the company focused on a single objective during its first year and a half: collecting relevant data from healthy elderly people with exceptional longevity across China.”
Given the generally low educational attainment, diverse living conditions, and remote locations of centenarians, sample collection poses a primary challenge. Aisheng Life Sciences led a professional sampling technical team, investing substantial human and material resources. By adhering to scientifically standardized technical protocols and procedures, the team conducted on-site sample collection in local communities, thereby ensuring the reliability of first-hand samples and data.
Meanwhile, Aisheng Life Technology has actively collaborated with the government to collect over 10,000 gut microbiota samples from individuals aged 85 and above, as well as centenarians aged 100 and older, across China. Genetic sequencing has been performed on more than 3,000 of these samples, establishing one of the largest databases globally of gut microbiome genomes from the elderly and long-lived populations.
Liu Zhenshan stated that the ultimate goal of Aisheng Life Sciences is to build a database on the scale of 100,000 entries, expected to be completed within three years, becoming the world’s largest gut microbiome gene repository for long-lived elderly individuals.
A Corner of the Super-Healthy Microbiology Laboratory Center at Aisheng Life Sciences (Image provided by the company)
Collecting primary samples is merely the beginning of database construction; scientifically translating the associative data results derived from research into practical applications presents another significant challenge.
From the outset, Aisheng’s R&D team implemented a rigorous controlled study design for the sampled data, aiming to identify the most promising research directions from the extensive results obtained. Meanwhile, the company has established a scientific and comprehensive workflow encompassing in vitro experiments, animal model studies, and clinical validation trials, thereby ensuring the rigor and reliability of the collected data. This foundation supports the medium- to long-term development of probiotic products.
Leveraging trillions of microbial genomic data points from the gut microbiomes of long-lived individuals, and integrating these with human phenotypic, genetic, disease-related, lifestyle, and dietary data, the company has established a Longevity Big Data Cloud Platform and a Longevity Gut Microbiome Bank. These platforms facilitate the exploration of relationships between gut microbiota and genetics, diet, and health, and have served as the foundation for the development of a diverse portfolio of derivative products.
According to co-founder Liu Zhenshan, the company has currently developed four major product categories based on its Longevity Big Data Cloud Platform and Longevity Gut Microbiota Bank: a platform for user gut health testing and intervention; probiotic and prebiotic products developed using specialized strains isolated from long-lived elderly individuals; whole-gut-microbiota biologics for longevity; and AIAGE NMN, an anti-aging product that combines mitochondrial technology with gut microbiota technology.
AIAGE NMN Product Image (Image provided by the company)
Among these, the “User Gut Health Testing” service and the “AIAGE NMN” product have completed product development and production this month, officially entered the market and operational phase, and begun gradual implementation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as well as in Guangxi, Hubei, and other regions.
“User Gut Health Report” is based on the mining and biotechnological analysis of gut microbiota genomic data and living environment data from tens of thousands of elderly and long-lived individuals, combined with data from general control groups and disease control groups. The resulting analytical findings are supported by relatively reliable data. These conclusions differ significantly from those derived through literature reviews and comparisons with public datasets.
“AIAGE NMN” adopts a formula combining “NMN + nutritional yeast,” based on Aisheng Life Science’s gut microbiome technology. This approach first activates anti-aging targets in intestinal mucosal cells to promote cellular activation during NMN absorption. By improving gut function, suppressing intestinal inflammation, and enhancing the activity of beneficial gut bacteria, it delivers a synergistic effect that promotes NMN absorption.
In terms of business model, the company will continue to center on its Longevity Big Data Cloud Platform, leveraging user data analytics to build models of user health metrics and behavioral patterns. By integrating various commercial entities across domains such as diet, exercise, sleep, disease treatment, and mental health, it aims to cultivate a comprehensive longevity ecosystem. The export of its data capabilities will constitute the core competitiveness of Aisheng Life Sciences.
Currently, Aisheng Life Sciences has established partnerships with China Resources Run Jiasu, OCT Konka Venture Capital, the Greater Bay Area Health Association, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, the Guangxi Academy of Sciences, PetroChina, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, as well as industry companies specializing in anti-aging, genomics, and microbiome technologies. In 2019, the company successively obtained qualifications and certifications, including a Certificate of Qualification (with a perfect score) for the “National Pre-research Activity on External Quality Assessment of Intestinal Microbiota Metagenomic Testing,” designation as a Research Base of the Key Laboratory of Modern Anthropology, Ministry of Education, at the School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, and accreditation as the Nanning Digital Polymerase Chain Reaction Engineering Technology Research Center.
Looking ahead, Liu Zhenshan stated that Aisheng Life Technology will continue to develop at least five to ten longevity products, establish the world’s first longevity standards, release the first longevity white paper, and build a global longevity industry alliance, with the aim of becoming the world’s largest longevity cloud platform company.
It is reported that Aisheng Life Sciences completed an angel round of financing worth more than 10 million yuan in 2018. The company has recently launched a Pre-A funding round targeting 30 million yuan. The funds raised will be primarily used to establish a core database, develop an AI algorithm platform based on genomic data, conduct product development centered around big data users, and promote the marketing of existing products.