Scientists make further inroads into reversing ageing process of cells

Researchers have developed a way to reprogram skin cells to behave as if they are younger, and they think they can turn the clock back by 30 years.

The Babraham Institute is affiliated with the University of Cambridge and could lead to the development of techniques that will stave off the diseases of old age by restoring the function of older cells and reducing their biological age.

Older cells were exposed to a mixture of chemicals that made them behave like younger cells and removed age-related changes.

The new work took 13 days to complete, compared to 50 days for the previous work.

Over the last decade, our understanding of aging on a molecular level has improved, giving rise to techniques that allow researchers to measure age-related biological changes in human cells. We were able to apply this to our experiment to determine the extent of reprogrammed.

Our results represent a big step forward in our understanding of cells.

The new method is based on how old cells from parents can be used to make stem cells in a newborn. These are blank slates without markers of aging.

The Babraham research does not completely erase the original cell, but it is a step forward. Researchers can find a balance between making cells biologically younger while preserving their specialized cell function with the halt of the reprogramming process.

Scientists rejuvenation tissues in middle-aged mice.

The cells rejuvenated in the experiment were better at healing wounds. The cells that were reprogrammed produced more of the healing substance, which helps heal wounds.

The method used by the researchers had an encouraging effect on other genes. The APBA2 and the MAF genes are associated with Alzheimer's disease and cataracts, respectively.

The researchers said that the mechanism behind the reprogrammment was not fully understood and must be further explored before the findings could be applied to regenerative medicine.

The question of how to reverse the aging process has attracted enormous attention and huge investment in recent years. Several of the researchers who worked on the Babraham Institute experiment have left to join Altos Labs, a startup backed by a 2.2 billion dollar Silicon Valley billionaire.