Started by Grace Whitfield (@gracewhitfield) ·
can you reset a cell's age? (Yamanaka factors)
Four transcription factors can turn an adult cell back into a stem cell and wipe most of its age markers along the way. The longevity idea is to do it only partially, so cells get 'younger' without forgetting what kind of cell they are.
6 sources · 57 min down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- Is cellular reprogramming a realistic way to reverse aging?
- Ended at
- Altos Labs
The Trail
- “partial reprogramming yamanaka factors aging mice” (google.com)
- Induced pluripotent stem cell (en.wikipedia.org)
- Shinya Yamanaka (en.wikipedia.org)
- John Gurdon (en.wikipedia.org)
shared the 2012 Nobel. his frog cloning experiments around 1960 showed an adult nucleus could be reset at all
- Epigenetic clock (en.wikipedia.org)
- Altos Labs (en.wikipedia.org)
What I came away with
There are striking results in mice with brief, cyclic reprogramming. But push too far and you get tumors called teratomas, and nobody knows how to deliver this safely to a whole body. Lots of money going in; nothing shown in humans.
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