You’ve probably heard something about longevity science. There have been plenty of fringe people out there doing things to, supposedly, add decades to their lives. The field itself has sort of become intertwined with the whole supplements industry to the point that it often seems more like hype than science. But there’s a good story today suggesting that, behind all the hype, there is actually some pretty remarkable progress being made over the past two decades.
In 2006, a scientist in Japan named Shinya Yamanaka identified four unusual genes that are active in early embryonic development. He introduced them into the skin cells of older mice in a petri dish and watched and waited. Over the course of two weeks, the skin cells transformed, becoming something close to embryonic stem cells — it was as if they were moving backward through time toward their infancy…
The discovery of the power of these four genes, now known as the Yamanaka factors, won the Nobel Prize in 2012…
The first effort to treat mice with the Yamanaka factors resulted in biological disaster. In a 2012 experiment at a cancer research center in Spain, the mice’s organs failed as their cells started dividing uncontrollably and forming teratomas — tumors made of bits of tissues like hair, teeth and skin.
It sounds like something out of a horror movie and for a while it seemed to slow down research into using these factors to reverse aging. But eventually, another researcher came up with a plan to make it work.
Altos [Lab]’s main campus is in Redwood City, Calif., just north of Palo Alto, but much of its work on rejuvenation takes place in San Diego, under the direction of Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte…
Izpisua Belmonte published his most important work in 2016, when he stunned his colleagues by finding a way to rejuvenate genetically diseased mice, extending their lives by 30 percent. If it is news to you that a scientist you’ve never heard of found a way to reverse aging in mice, you might be wondering why. I have a theory, which is the impenetrable name of the procedure he invented: partial epigenetic reprogramming…
Izpisua Belmonte figured out how to precisely manipulate the mice’s epigenetics — the term for the tiny clusters of molecules that sit on our DNA and give it instructions about which genes to turn on and off. They tell cells how to specialize — to decide whether they should become heart, lung or skin cells — and how to function well in their dedicated role. Although our DNA stays stable, these epigenetic molecules change with our exposure to the world — to sun, food, stress, even loneliness. Over time, some of them start to attach where they shouldn’t, and others lose their tight connection to the DNA, making it harder for our cells to read their instructions. When that happens, according to one theory, aging follows and our health suffers…
Izpisua Belmonte’s approach entailed exposing the mice to the Yamanaka factors intermittently, cycling them on for two days, then off for five. By the end of the treatment, the mice looked so drastically different that some of the lab techs assumed that they had been replaced. Once feeble, they became energetic, their fur thicker and darker, their hearts stronger.
Another lab at Harvard has also made some progress, though the leader of this lab has been criticized for promising too much and delivering too little in the past.
The lab that has pushed rejuvenation the furthest so far is one at Harvard run by the most controversial scientist in the longevity field, David Sinclair. A professor of genetics, Sinclair has published dozens of breakthrough papers, but he has also developed a reputation for overhyping the state of longevity science. In 2019, Sinclair published a best-selling book, “Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To,” and has theorized that the first person who will live to be 150 has already been born.
Hype aside, Sinclair’s lab has also presented some remarkable findings using the same Yamanaka factors in animal testing.
[In 2018,] Yuancheng Ryan Lu, one of his graduate students, decided to try, after many failed attempts, a novel approach to cellular rejuvenation that he and Sinclair had already been testing in the lab: leaving out one of the four Yamanaka factors, specifically the one most closely linked to cancer. Lu’s idea was to try to apply the three remaining factors to the optical nerve cells of mice he’d blinded. He was surprised to find that the treatment worked — the mice regained sight.
Sinclair’s lab has since repeated the same study on primates. The results haven’t been published but the story suggests that those who’ve seen the results found it impressive. And now human trials could be coming fairly soon.
Life Biosciences aims to build on Sinclair and Lu’s work by using a virus to shuttle three Yamanaka factors, without c-Myc, into one eye in people who have retinal nerve damage because of glaucoma.
The company will proceed slowly, says Sharon Rosenzweig-Lipson, chief scientific officer at the company, treating up to 12 people with a specific type of glaucoma, and then up to 6 people with another condition, called NAION, that causes acute optic nerve damage. The genes will be regulated by a genetic switch that turns them on only when participants take a certain antibiotic. Studies in monkeys have found no evidence of cancer or other harmful effects from the procedure, Rosenzweig-Lipson says, and participants will be followed up for at least five years.
Here’s David Sinclair, the researcher behind this, agreeing with Elon Musk that aging will be reversible to some extent. It’s the kind of hype that gets him in trouble, but we’ll see soon enough if his research backs it up.
You’re right @elonmusk. Focus on this topic. Aging has a relatively simple explanation and is apparently reversible. Clinical trials begin shortly🤞 https://t.co/oQlkEbfkD0
— David Sinclair (@davidasinclair) January 22, 2026
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