<\/p>\n
Lu is behind one of the coolest results in rejuvenation science\u2014and in eye research. In 2018, while earning his PhD at Harvard Medical School, he used an age-reversal technique called reprogramming to repair the optic nerves of mice. He crushed the nerves, blinding the animals, and then injected the cells with a gene therapy meant to restore them to a youthful state. Sixteen days later, the nerves were growing back, their axons showing up through a microscope as spidery orange filaments.<\/p>\n
\nAs hype around age reversal swirls, Lu has been busy in the lab searching for what he calls \u201cthe next generation of rejuvenation therapies.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The head of that lab, the longevity scientist David Sinclair, remembers when Lu texted him the pictures: \u201cHe asked me, \u2018What do you see here?\u2019 And I said, \u2018I see the future.\u2019\u201d Later tests carried out in a box with rotating bars of light showed the mice were tracking the changes. They could see again.<\/p>\n
This year, nearly the exact genetic therapy Lu created for mice entered human clinical trials. On June 9, the startup Life Biosciences, which Sinclair cofounded and in which Lu owns a small stake, announced it had injected the treatment into the eye of a person with glaucoma. The trial has been big news. A headline in the New York Times<\/em> suggested the technology could \u201cchange humanity.\u201d Posters on X gushed, with one declaring that \u201cthe fountain of youth is here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s remarkable that what he developed as a student is now going into humans,\u201d says Sinclair of the treatment, now called ER-100. \u201cIt\u2019s barely even changed since he built it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reprogramming refers to an age-\u00adrestoring process that takes place inside an embryo. It\u2019s why babies are born young, not old: The DNA they\u2019ve inherited from their parents has been scrubbed and reset. In 2006, Japanese researchers showed they could cause the process to occur in the lab by introducing just four key genes, known by the acronym OSKM. Add these to a cell from a 100-year-old and it will turn into a stem cell that acts as if it was plucked from an embryo.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
#geneticists #agereversal #tech #restore #sight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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