First Human Receives Therapy to Reverse Cellular Aging

Life Biosciences, a Boston based longevity startup cofounded by Harvard geneticist David Sinclair, has dosed its first patient in an FDA approved clinical trial that uses partial cellular reprogramming to reverse aging, the first time the technology has been tested in humans.

The experimental gene therapy uses a modified virus to carry engineered genes that reset age related epigenetic markers and regenerate neurons in the optic nerve, targeting glaucoma patients who face irreversible vision loss as their retinal ganglion cells die.

A built in safety switch requires patients to take the antibiotic doxycycline continuously over eight weeks to keep the added genes active, so the reprogramming shuts off without the drug.

The approach builds on work from Sinclair's Harvard lab showing that switching on three genes could restore vision in aging and glaucomatous mice, and on Shinya Yamanaka's Nobel winning discoveries about cellular reprogramming.

Researchers remain cautious about the risks, with neurobiologist Pete Williams of the Centre for Eye Research Australia warning that if the therapy goes catastrophically wrong it could set back the whole field, given past experiments in which reprogramming genes spawned tumors.

Sinclair now aims to build an oral version of the therapy to compete for the XPrize Foundation's 101 million dollar prize for treatments that restore about ten years of health, though investors caution that widespread rejuvenation medicine remains far off.

The first human test of cellular rejuvenation runs inside the eye, an organ isolated enough to contain a mistake. Life Biosciences is dosing about 18 adults over the coming year with ER-100, a modified virus carrying genes that rewind aged retinal neurons, active only while patients keep taking doxycycline Gizmodo. Glaucoma comes first, with NAION queued behind it, both conditions killing the optic nerve cells sight depends on WIRED. The catch is the technology's own record: those reprogramming genes grew teratomas in mice, tumors carrying hair and teeth Gizmodo, and one neurobiologist warned a catastrophe could discredit the whole field. The cohort runs for about a year, when the first safety data decide whether reprogramming gets a future in people.