Humans have been on the hunt for eternal youth for as long as we can remember, from trying to track down mythical fountains, to coming up with all sorts of supplements, foods, creams, and serums that claim to prolong life or at least provide some semblance of enduring youthfulness.
While most of these efforts have proven to be ultimately futile, a new scientific breakthrough may have realistically moved us a step closer to that ultimate objective.
In a recent round of research, a team of scientists have managed to bioengineer human skin cells and reset them to a more youthful state, effectively rewinding the clock back by 30 years.
The research was conducted at the Babraham Institute in UK, and involved a technique that builds upon the work of Nobel Prize-winning stem cell researcher Shinya Yamanaka, who in 2007 managed to transform regular cells with dedicated physical functions into stem cells with numerous possible use cases. The limitation with this approach, however, was that the process ended up erasing the identity of the cells completely.
The new method developed at the Brabaham Institute has now allowed scientists to program skin cells to behave younger (from a molecular standpoint) while still retaining the functions that make them uniquely skin cells.
"Our understanding of aging on a molecular level has progressed over the last decade, giving rise to techniques that allow researchers to measure age-related biological changes in human cells," said the study's lead author Diljeet Gill.
"We were able to apply this to our experiment to determine the extent of reprogramming our new method achieved."
Without going into too much technical detail, the new method developed by the team is called "maturation phase transient programming", and works similarly to the technique developed by Yamanaka, save for the fact that it's done much faster – 13 days compared to Yamanaka's 50 – and stops before the cell fully reaches the stem cell state, which allows it to retain its identity and core functions.
Various metrics and measures were used to determine whether or not these affected cells had actually been reset, and key testers including the epigenetic clock (a chemical indicator for cellular age) and the transcriptome (cell-produced gene readings) all confirmed the method's success.
More proof of success was noted when the reverse-aged cells were observed producing collagen – which is important in giving skin tissue structure and healing wounds – and in amounts that were substantially more than control group skin cells that hadn't been reprogrammed .
"We have proved that cells can be rejuvenated without losing their function, and that rejuvenation looks to restore some function to old cells," Gill explained.
"The fact that we also saw a reverse of aging indicators in genes associated with diseases is particular promising for the future of this work."
Forever young?
Currently, the team are still yet to figure out how exactly all of this works, although they are hopeful that the technique could end up playing a major role in the development of medicine and treatment methods aimed at reversing the effects of aging in our bodies, such as heart disease, mental deterioration resulting in conditions such as Alzheimers, and of course, skin sagging and wrinkling, for instance.
The next steps for the team involve trying to make sure the method works on other cells types in the body, and to ensure that the process is completely safe and viable before moving into the clinical testing stage.
"Eventually, we may be able to identify genes that rejuvenate without reprogramming, and specifically target those to reduce the effects of aging," said Wolf Reik, a molecular biologist from the institute.
"This approach holds promise for valuable discoveris that could open up an amazing therapeutic horizon."
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Cover image sourced from New Atlas and Zove Beauty.
