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.