In the quest to find ways to help us live at a healthier level for a longer period of time, researchers are turning to existing drugs for clues.Medicines that are available for purchase are already approved for people to use, and it can be quicker and cheaper to repurpose them for longevity and aging studies than to try to discover and test entirely new medical compounds.Finding medications that might affect biological aging or lifespan is still a challenge though, as there are a lot of pharmaceuticals out there.To try and narrow down the search, a team from Northeastern University and Harvard Medical School has come up with a new framework for identifying promising candidates. Their framework, described in a new study in Nature Aging, works by matching drugs to clusters of genes and proteins that are connected to hallmarks of aging: those changes in the body that build up over time, like cells having less energy to work with.The researchers found genes related to aging hallmarks were clustered together on a map of protein interactions. (Gross et al., Nat. Aging, 2026)One of the drug candidates identified by this new process is oxymetazoline. It's available over-the-counter as a nasal spray for congestion (branded as Afrin or Sinex), as eye drops for eye redness, or as a topical cream for facial redness caused by rosacea.It hasn't previously been linked to longevity research, but through the new method, the study team discovered that it can improve cell-to-cell communication – something else that naturally wears down as we get older, impairing numerous biological functions."Ultimately, our findings underscore the potential of leveraging the extensive hallmark-associated genetic evidence to identify drug-repurposing candidates for healthy longevity," write the researchers in their published paper.