A groundbreaking step in medical science. What was previously considered science and fantasy has now become reality. Scientists have made great strides in reversing the effects of aging and reversing age.
Boston-based biotechnology company Life Biosciences, in the US, has announced that it has completed the world’s first human trial of partial cellular reprogramming. The historic milestone was achieved through an experimental treatment called ER-100. It is being tested on patients with vision loss due to glaucoma and other age-related eye diseases. The therapy will rejuvenate and activate aged cells, which researchers hope will help restore lost vision.
In the first phase of the trial, the gene therapy was injected directly into one eye of a glaucoma patient. The trial involved fewer than 20 patients. They were selected from specialized clinics in major cities such as Boston, New York, Los Angeles and Charleston. Doctors and scientists will monitor the patients for several months to ensure that the technology is completely safe for humans. The process involves first giving the patient a single injection of gene therapy into the eye, followed by a special course of antibiotic drugs for several weeks.
The antibiotic drugs enter the body and act as chemical ‘on switches’ for three types of treatable genes, which initiate the ‘reprogramming’ of cells. In previous successful trials on mice and monkeys, the technology successfully reconnected the optic nerve (eye nerve) of an aged animal, restoring vision.
The experiment is based on the Information Theory of Aging, a theory proposed by renowned geneticist David Sinclair of Harvard University. According to this theory, as our bodies age, their cells lose the ability to access the biological instructions that help us function properly. ER-100 therapy uses gene therapy to deliver a specially modified reprogramming factor to the affected eye cells. This factor reactivates the old and young patterns of gene expression that existed long ago, without completely changing the original identity of the cell.
