Harvard scientists achieve a feat: reverse aging with a simple injection

scientists of the Harvard University in the United States have achieved a major milestone in learning how to reverse aging after a series of experiments with mice.

Is that with an injection they have managed to double the life left by some very old mice, after a work that took 13 years of development and which was published this week in Mobile magazine.

The study, conducted by researchers from the start-up Organic rejuvenateemerging from Harvard’s Wyss Institute, he injected three of the four Yamanaka factors — OCT4, SOX2 and KLF4 — into 124-week-old, roughly 77-year-old human mice.

Australian genetics professor David Sinclair and his team realize that not only can they manipulate rodent aging in an accelerated period of time, but they can also reverse the effects of that process and restore some of the biological signs of youth in animals.

While it is often assumed that aging is the result of genetic mutations that cause our bodies to deteriorate and die, Sinclair believes that is not the case.

I study demonstrates for the first time that degradation in the way DNA is organized and regulated, known as epigenetics, can cause aging in an organism, independent of changes in the genetic code itself. Dr. Sinclair has argued for years that aging is the result of the loss of critical instructions that cells need to continue functioning: he defined it as the “Information Theory of Aging”.

To test your hypothesis, the effects of aging on the epigenome were mimicked by injecting breaks into the DNA of young mice. Once “aged” in this way, within a few weeks the animals were observed to begin to show themselves signs of old age: gray coat, lower body weight despite an unaltered diet, reduced activity and increased frailty.

The researchers then gave the mice a gene therapy that reversed the epigenetic changes caused by the DNA breaks. Consequently, elderly and blind mice managed to regain their sight and they developed younger, smarter brains.

Sinclair summed it up like this: “It is how to restart a computer that does not work properly”. The specialist said that his work supports the hypothesis that the mammalian cells maintain a kind of backup epigenetic “software” that, when accessed, can allow an aging and epigenetically encrypted cell to restore a healthy and youthful state.

​Professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, a collector of honors for his scientific advances and one of the 100 most important people in the world For Time magazine in 2020, David Sinclair has developed his career in pursuit of the same goal: to achieve the secret of eternal youth, or at least the formula for delaying aging as much as possible.