Reverse Aging?!

Frazier Lo (G7)

Science and Tech

Published Issue 6 2021-2022

Have you ever wanted to go back a few years to a time you were younger? Having the opportunity to perform this action may be reality as soon as scientists from the U.S have managed to reverse the aging process of middle aged to elderly mice by partially reverting the mice’s tissue back to a more youthful state.

Scientists have also previously reported that a mixture of four molecules – Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc – known as “Yamanaka factors'' – could reset epigenetic (epigenetic means that cells can change genetics without affecting the DNA structure) marks in cells to their original patterns, and using this approach researchers say adult cells can be dialed back into undifferentiated stem cells. Scientists have said that this process only works if they have been treated for about 10 months.

When the treated mice were analyzed midway through their treatment, the effects were not yet as evident, indicating that the treatment is not simply pausing aging, but actively turning it backwards, according to the researchers. However, more research is needed to differentiate between the two.

In the future when we can fully develop this new treatment, this kind of technology could soon be applied to human tissue to better understand how human bodies work, this can also help with people who have diseases that attack tissues such as Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA).