Is it possible to reverse the aging process, dissolving all human diseases in the future?

Now, scientists have been able to reverse the aging process in mice by turning adult cells into stem cells, helping old and blind mice to become young, bright and clear. The researchers hope to reverse the aging process in humans in the future, helping people stay young and live longer.

In the lab of molecular biologist David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School, old mice were rejuvenated. From the first experiment to restore sight to old blind mice, Sinclair's lab has now reversed aging in the muscles and brains of mice and is now working to rejuvenate the entire body of mice.

Reversing aging, diseases may disappear

Using proteins that can convert adult cells into stem cells, Sinclair and his team reactivated adult cells in mice into versions of themselves. In the team's groundbreaking work in late 2020, old mice with poor eyesight and retinal degeneration were able to see well again, with the vision of young mice.

"This is long-term rejuvenation, as we can say now. And we think this is going to be a universal process that can be applied throughout the body to return to our youth. ", scientist Sinclair recently shared about this achievement as a speaker of Life Itself.

By reversing aging, people can live a hundred years younger and live longer, preventing old age diseases

"If we reverse aging, diseases may not continue. Today we have technology that can help people live to a hundred years old without having to worry that you will get cancer in the future. age 70, heart disease at age 80 or Alzheimer's disease at age 90," Sinclair said.

According to him, that is the future world that we can experience thanks to genetic engineering. It's just a question of when exactly, but that will be in the not-too-distant future.

The goal of changing age through gene editing is to help people stay younger or live longer. "When reversing the age of an organ in the body is like reversing brain aging in mice, the diseases in mice caused by aging will disappear. The memory returns, there is no longer any sign of mental decline. remember more," said scientist Sinclair.

"I believe that in the future, slowing down or reversing the aging process will be the best way to cure disease," said molecular biologist David Sinclair.

Start the body rejuvenation process

In Sinclair's lab, two mice sit side by side. One mouse looked very young, and the other was old and sick. In fact, these are two brother mice, born at the same time. However, one was genetically modified to age faster. So is it possible to do the opposite, that is, to rejuvenate adult cells? That's what scientists on Sinclair's team hatched the idea of.

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese biomedical researcher, has reactivated adult skin cells to act as embryonic stem cells or pluripotent stem cells, capable of developing into every cell in the body. body. The Japanese scientist's 2007 discovery won him the Nobel Prize in Medicine, and his work on "pluripotent stem cells" soon became famous, and was named "Yamanaka factors".

Even so, adult cells transformed back through "Yamanaka factors" lose their identity. They forget whether they are skin cells, blood cells or heart cells.

Laboratories around the world are starting to step in to find a solution. A study published in 2016 by the Salk Institute for Biological Research in La Jolla, California (USA) showed that it was possible to erase the signs of aging in old mice in a short time thanks to 4 main Yamanaka factors, which without losing the identity of the cell.

However, there is also a downside to this factor, which is that in some cases, this aging reversal can cause mice to develop cancerous tumors.

To find a safer alternative, geneticist Yuancheng Lu at the Sinclair laboratory selected three of the four Yamanaka factors and transformed them into a harmless virus. The virus was designed to deliver rejuvenating Yamanaka factors to damaged retinal ganglion cells at the fundus of an aged mouse. After the virus was injected into the eye, the pluripotency genes were switched by feeding the mice an antibiotic.

"Antibiotics are just tools. This tool can be any chemical agent, as long as it helps to get three genes activated," said Sinclair scientist. "Normally these genes are turned on in very early developing embryonic cells and they are turned off as we age."

Miraculously, the damaged neurons in the eyes of mice injected with these 3 types of cells rejuvenated, even producing nerves to connect the eyes to the brain, helping the mice to see again. again. From this initial study, Sinclair says his lab has reversed aging in both the muscles and brains of mice and is now experimenting with whole-body rejuvenation in mice.

"Somehow the cells know that the body can restart itself, and still know which genes to turn on when young," Sinclair said. "We're thinking of a regenerative system in some animals where when you cut off a salamander's limb, it grows back. The fish's tail will grow back, and the mouse's fingers will grow back, too. back," he said.

This finding indicates that there is a backup copy that stores information about our youth in our bodies. "I call it information theory of aging," he said. "It's the loss of gene storage information that leads to aging cells forgetting how to function, forgetting what type of cell they are. And now we just have to turn the trigger button back on to restore the ability of the cells to function. cells read the genome correctly again, like when we were young."

According to Sinclair, we have found a way back to the biological clock of life. The body seemed to wake up, remembering the way it worked when it was young.

Scientist Sinclair revealed that studies are now looking into whether gene intervention to help rejuvenate in mice can be done in the same way as in humans. It will be years before human trials are complete. If safe and successful, large-scale experiments will need to be approved.