During the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Elon Musk called human aging a “very solvable” problem.
“When we figure out what causes aging, I think we’ll find it’s incredibly obvious,” the billionaire claimed during a conversation with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. “It’s not a subtle thing.”
For many years now, youth-obsessed billionaires have been forking out immense sums to try experimental techniques that could turn back the clock on their aging bodies. Meanwhile, a cottage industry of anti-aging companies claiming to have the answer has cropped up, racing to test their treatments on humans.
Case in point, Harvard professor David Sinclair, who has previously been accused of having little to show to investors after raising more than $1 billion for his anti-aging businesses, boasted in response to Musk on X that “aging has a relatively simple explanation and is apparently reversible,” cryptically hinting at “clinical trials” that will “begin shortly.”
As MIT Technology Review reports, Sinclair’s Boston-based startup, Life Biosciences, is working on a treatment code-named ER-100. The company announced on Tuesday that its planned clinical trials had been greenlit by the US Food and Drug Administration.
As part of its trial, Life Biosciences is looking to treat glaucoma, a group of eye diseases caused by pressure in the eye that often results in irreversible damage to the optic nerve, by “resetting” human participants’ cells, effectively “reprogramming” them to a healthier state.
A single dose of viruses that include gene-reprogramming instructions will be injected into one eye of each participant. A special genetic switch will be used to control how far the treatment goes.
The tech relies on research by Japanese stem cell researcher and Nobel Prize laureate Shinya Yamanaka, who discovered in the early 2000s that special genes — later dubbed Yamanaka factors — can be used to transform a cell back into a stem cell. The discovery has been likened to a “cheat code” for reversing aging.
The plan is to only use a subset of genes and a regimen of special antibiotics to ensure that the rejuvenation doesn’t go too far — cells losing their complete identity — a process known as “partial cellular reprogramming.”
The company is only one of several Silicon Valley firms investigating whether we can reset human cells’ epigenetic controls. Some of the biggest names in the tech industry have been caught up in the enthusiasm, with OpenAI claiming last year that it believes that AI can “meaningfully accelerate” longevity biotech.
As Tech Review points out, the approach comes with some inherent risks. Previous studies have found that reprogramming cells can cause cancer in lab animals.
However, Life Biosciences has already claimed that its approach is safe, pointing to experiments involving mice that had their vision restored after having their optic nerves damaged.
“The optimistic case is this solves some blindness for certain people and catalyzes work in other indications,” biotech investor Karl Pfleger told Tech Review. “It’s not like your doctor will be writing a prescription for a pill that will rejuvenate you.”
More on reversing aging: Scientists Find Evidence That Ozempic Can Reverse Aging
The post Scientists Testing Controversial Human Rejuvenation Compound Called ER-100 appeared first on Futurism.
