Prevent Aging within 20 Years? - Altos Labs' Cellular Reprogramming Excitement
Channel: Lifespan News
Date: 2022-03-20

Altos Labs recently exited stealth mode to announce $3 billion in funding, reportedly from investors including Jeff Bezos, and a team full of Nobel Prize winners and pioneering scientists. However, the secretive company’s representatives insist that “Altos is not an anti-aging or longevity company”. Despite this, a key member of their scientific leadership recently publicly stated that he is convinced that, using the same technologies they are working with at Altos, we will be able to prevent aging within twenty years.

The scientist making these bold statements is Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a Spanish biologist who has spent years pioneering innovations in developmental biology, regenerative medicine and aging research at the Salk Institute.

In 2006, a study showed that it was possible to reprogram cells using just four master genes. These four reprogramming factors are often called the Yamanaka factors after one of their discoverers, Shinya Yamanaka, who also happens to be part of the Altos Labs team.

In 2016, Belmonte and his team of researchers at the Salk Institute demonstrated that the cells and organs of a living animal could be rejuvenated using cellular reprogramming.

In January of 2022 it was announced that Belmonte would be leaving the Salk Institute to become the director of Altos Labs’ San Diego Institute of Science. Altos Labs says that they are “focused on cellular rejuvenation programming to restore cell health and resilience, with the goal of reversing disease to transform medicine.”

Recently Belmonte published new research in the journal Nature Aging, and showed that intermittently activating the Yamanaka Factors led “to rejuvenating effects in different tissues, such as the kidney and skin.”

Belmonte is already planning similar work on monkeys, and believes it could translate to humans as well. He spoke about this to the Spanish newspaper El País. 

“We can program and rejuvenate the tissues and organs of animals with different pathologies, as well as rejuvenate their cells… Conceptually, I find no reason that stops us from thinking that similar results cannot be achieved in humans... Indeed, we have already demonstrated this with in vitro human cells.”

“I am convinced that within two decades we will have tools that not only treat symptoms, but also can predict, prevent and treat diseases and aging through cellular rejuvenation.”

He’s saying that he is convinced that within 20 years, so by 2042, we’ll be able to treat aging. I hope he is right. Belmonte also made it clear that, despite the concerns that may exist in the general public, this technology is not expected to be only for the rich. He also made an argument similar to the one that Altos Labs might make when insisting that they are not an anti-aging or longevity company.

“The idea behind our investigations is not so that human beings live 100 or 1,000 years more... Our main goal is to enable people to have a healthier life for a longer period of time and to reverse illness in patients of all ages.”

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
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In vivo partial reprogramming alters age-associated molecular changes during physiological aging in mice - https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-022-00183-2/figures/12

In Vivo Amelioration of Age-Associated Hallmarks by Partial Reprogramming - https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674(16)31664-6

Induction of pluripotent stem cells from mouse embryonic and adult fibroblast cultures by defined factors - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16904174/

Additional Sources https://www.salk.edu/news-release/salk-institute-announces-departure-of-professor-juan-carlos-izpisua-belmonte/
https://www.the-sun.com/news/3610571/jeff-bezos-anti-ageing-company/
https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/altos-bursts-out-stealth-3b-a-dream-team-c-suite-and-a-wildly-ambitious-plan-to-reverse
https://altoslabs.com/

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