In a world where biohacking the DNA has become the delusional gateway to seemingly limitless supplies of vitality, power and wealth the latest edition of Time magazine provides us with an esteemed array of longevity leaders whose research might inform us about that gilded pathway.
Amongst this group of illuminating luminaries the road to a longer, healthier life is graced by the Nobel Prize winning Shinya Yamanaka famously acknowledged for his eponymous Yamanaka factors, proteins that can miraculously reprogramme ageing cells to become youthful stem cells, the one minor caveat being that overexposure to these factors might also engineer rogue, rudimentary cells to become cancers. Yamanaka has found a way to curb this aberration and just this year treatments have become available to treat diseases whereby dysfunctional, failing cells are replaced by their activated, youthful counterparts.
It’s mind boggling to consider the possibility of replacing the decrepit, ageing cells in our bodies with vibrant, embryonic cells that can provide an entire youthful rejuvenation and for the time being Yamanaka appears to be focused on using this remarkable technology to treat diseases like Parkinson’s, glaucoma and heart failure, rather than repurpose the human race to become never ageing Peter Pans.
Following Yamanaka’s pivotal input other scientists have used permutations of his factors to reconfigure skin cells in older animals so that they heal better and there is the firm conviction that many age-related diseases can be reversed using this technology.
How this breakthrough can be used to facilitate eternal youthfulness still needs a lot of work and Yamanaka cautions that if we draw an analogy to running a marathon we are only at the half-way point of this arduous exercise and the second half of this grueling race promises to be much tougher.
