This is the best summary I could come up with:
That reversibility makes a strong case for the fact that the main drivers of aging aren’t mutations to the DNA, but miscues in the epigenetic instructions that somehow go awry.
Once “aged” in this way, within a matter of weeks Sinclair saw that the mice began to show signs of older age—including grey fur, lower body weight despite unaltered diet, reduced activity, and increased frailty.
The researchers are attaching a biological switch that would allow them to turn the clock on and off by tying the activation of the reprogramming genes to an antibiotic, doxycycline.
Sinclair is currently lab-testing the system with human neurons, skin, and fibroblast cells, which contribute to connective tissue.
That could mean that a host of diseases—including chronic conditions such as heart disease and even neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s—could be treated in large part by reversing the aging process that leads to them.
Sinclair has rejuvenated the eye nerves multiple times, which raises the more existential question for bioethicists and society of considering what it would mean to continually rewind the clock on aging.
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Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
It is truly amazing to think that the newest generation of people might live in the age where the richest people in the world never die naturally.
NABDad@lemmy.world 11 months ago
And here am I thinking that I might be living in an age when I can be forced to become young again so that I can’t retire.
spudwart@spudwart.com 11 months ago
No. Why pay money to make the workforce young and immortal, when they can just replace you with cheaper and more easily manipulated workers in 20-30 years.