<ul><li>Indian-origin doctor, <keyword id="13592230" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="diljeet-gill" source="Orion">Diljeet Gill</keyword> used a new technique to make skin cells younger.</li><li>The research included 3 middle-aged people (50 years old).</li><li>Earlier, <keyword id="1409162" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="shinya-yamanaka" source="Orion">Shinya Yamanaka</keyword> genetically reprogrammed the mouse skin cells. </li></ul>Diljeet Gill, a postdoctoral candidate at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge and his colleagues have developed a way to reverse the ageing process in skin cells by 30 years. The method was published on 8 April in the journal eLife <a href="https://elifesciences.org/articles/71624">‘Multi-omic rejuvenation of human cells by maturation phase transient reprogramming’. </a> The research was done by using ‘<keyword id="13677889" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="maturation-phase-transient-reprogramming" source="Orion">maturation phase transient reprogramming</keyword>’ to fibroblasts which is a common type of skin cell. The team took skin cells from three middle-aged donors, who aged around 50 years old. Once the research was completed, they compared them to younger skin cells from donors aged 20 to 22. They found skin cells were similar to younger cells, genetically and chemically. Further, the team also found that the techniques had affected genes related to age-related diseases such as cataracts and Alzheimer's. In addition, Gill and his team also examined the behaviour of skin cells that if why could also act like younger skin cells. According to them, when they wounded a layer of cells they found that the rejuvenated cells quickly moved to fill the gap similar to the behaviour of younger skin cells. This is not the first successful research on de-ageing cells. Earlier, Shinya Yamanaka, a Nobel prize-winning stem cell researcher, genetically reprogrammed the mouse skin cells and turned them into induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs, back in 2006. These cells type had the potential to form any cell type in the body. Yamanaka's method took 50 days and completely reprograms cells to the biological age of an embryo. Gill's method only took 13 days. In a statement, Gill said, “Our results represent a big step forward in our understanding of cell reprogramming. We have proved that cells can be rejuvenated without losing their function and that rejuvenation looks to restore some function to old cells.” A stem cell biologist and co-founder of the skincare company Heraux, Ben Van Handel told <a href="https://www.livescience.com/skin-cell-rejuvenation-30-years-younger">Live Science</a>, “technique will never be used in a clinical setting as it is currently a type of gene therapy that would be impossible to use in humans." According to him, there is still a lot of concern about these cells becoming cancerous and controlling how far back in age the rejuvenation process goes.” SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/mark-zuckerbergs-metaverse-obsession-is-driving-some-current-and-former-facebook-employees-nuts-its-the-only-thing-mark-wants-to-talk-about/articleshow/91001496.cms">Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse obsession is driving some current and former Facebook employees nuts: 'It's the only thing Mark wants to talk about'</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/barack-obama-said-social-media-is-turbocharging-some-of-humanitys-worst-impulses-and-called-for-reform-to-section-230/articleshow/91001492.cms">Barack Obama said social media is 'turbocharging some of humanity's worst impulses' and called for reform to Section 230</a>

Researchers have discovered a de-ageing technique that made skin cells 30 years younger

<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-chatgpt-openai-ceo-career-net-worth-ycombinator-prepper-2023-1">Sam Altman</a> is already a tech titan. Somehow, at 38, he's been coding for three decades, and with the advent of ChatGPT and (more recently) <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-video-text-model-creator-sora-leading-google-2024-2">Sora</a>, he's quickly amassed nearly as much hype and influence as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-elon-musk-fight-share-similarities-ai-tech-2024-3">Elon Musk</a> and Mark Zuckerberg.As <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/openai">OpenAI</a>'s CEO, Altman is widely considered to be the face of artificial intelligence, reprogramming the way we'll live and work for years to come. His relentless push into the future of tech — including early <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/list-of-companies-openai-sam-altman-invested-in-2023-2">investments in Reddit</a>, Stripe, Airbnb, and Instacart — has made him a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-01/sam-altman-is-a-billionaire-thanks-to-vc-funds-startups">billionaire</a> at least a couple of times over.But computers aren't his only passion. Over the past three years, Altman has been quietly spending a considerable amount of time and money on a more biological kind of moonshot: trying to reprogram the human body.In 2021, during a relative "lull" between becoming the CEO of OpenAI and unveiling ChatGPT to the world, Altman started a $180 million side project. Called Retro Biosciences, the startup's goal is simple yet supremely ambitious: Add 10 healthy, enjoyable years onto the back end of our lifetimes.To pull this off, Altman teamed up with Joe Betts-LaCroix, a Harvard, MIT, and Caltech-trained scientist, biophysicist, and computer whiz who once developed the world's smallest personal computer. While he isn't trained in geroscience, Betts-LaCroix has been a longtime promoter of more hard science and "deep biology" for longevity through his nonprofit Health Extension Foundation.To the casual observer, biohacking might seem like Altman's quirky pet project, a distraction from his day-to-day steeped in the business of all things tech. But Retro Biosciences actually fits quite neatly into Altman's futuristic worldview.As a doomsday prepper who says he has a stash of guns, gold, and land tucked aside for a just-in-case scenario, it makes sense that Altman is concerned with the future of society, and focused on <a target="_blank" href="https://apnews.com/article/uae-openai-sam-altman-artificial-intelligence-9593a03830c0ef83fdef76c68bb87118">identifying threats</a> to our existence. He also feels strongly that he is someone who can help solve all of these existential problems, future-proofing our world.Is this just what happens when you become rich and powerful in Silicon Valley, you become convinced you can fix everything? Or is it Altman's rugged, take-charge and fend-for-yourself ethos as a prepper that drives him to tackle both the future of fusion <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/helion-energy-fusion-company-backed-by-sam-altman-and-microsoft-2023-5">energy</a> and human longevity, in addition to all the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-raise-trillions-supercharge-chip-production-report-2024-2">chips</a> and AI stuff?Whatever it is that drives him, shockingly, this slightly longer-lived timeframe he imagines for our bodies is actually plausible.<h2>Betting big on 3 trendy anti-aging techniques</h2><div type="image" title="retro biosciences team" height="900" width="1600" msid="108730483" hostid="261" sizebytes="236036"></div>Retro Biosciences sits about 30 miles south of OpenAI's San Francisco headquarters, where ChatGPT was hatched. In true Silicon Valley startup fashion, it's closer to the campuses of Meta, Apple, and Stanford University than the Golden City.The company <a target="_blank" href="https://retro.bio/careers/">ethos</a> is pure Silicon Valley: "More pirate than navy." HQ is a warehouse-like office, filled with bold, bright murals of plants and glass beakers. The labs are a set of shipping containers that they built and ventilated themselves. Desks sit perched on a platform just high enough to let employees peek through narrow, barred windows. The whole aesthetic is "move fast and break things," but for longevity.<div type="image" title="clean rooms at retro bio" height="800" width="1200" msid="108730486" hostid="261" sizebytes="65960"></div>Since the shipping container experiments started in July 2021, Retro's divided its ambitions into three buckets. Essentially, much like the startup incubator Y Combinator (which Altman used to run), Retro's placing separate bets on what might work to extend human lifespan.While munching on some nuts at his desk, Betts-LaCroix told Business Insider the Retro model is "breaking all the rules of early-stage biotech, in which you're supposed to focus on one specific platform or one specific target, and pour everything into that." Here's where they're placing their bets:<ol><li>Autophagy</li></ol>The built-in recycling process that keeps our cells healthy and spry is probably the ripest research area of the three for a potential "quick" fix for aging, since (in theory) it could be tweaked with a pill. Right now, the closest we have to a pill to improve cellular efficiency is either <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-rapamycin-and-how-does-it-help-prevent-aging-2023-3">rapamycin</a> or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/metformin-diabetes-weight-loss-anti-aging-drug-long-covid-prevention-2023-2">metformin</a>. These two existing medications (for kidney transplants and diabetes, respectively) show promise for boosting longevity, and some biohackers are using them off-label as DIY aging interventions already. But as of yet, there's no drug that directly, definitively, and officially targets this cellular housekeeping issue.<ol start="2"><li>Cellular reprogramming</li></ol>One of the trendiest ideas floating around in longevity science today. This one is also logistically tricky. The idea is to make old cells act young again by "reprogramming" them into a slightly younger state using four well-known Yamanaka Factors (Japanese stem cell researcher Shinya Yamanaka won a Nobel Prize in 2012 for discovering this can be done.) But experimentally, it's been hard to accomplish this kind of remodeling in a way that doesn't potentially cause cancer or other health issues.Here, Betts-LaCroix imagines starting very slowly — extracting cells from people's ears or knee joints, partially reprogramming them to de-age them just a bit, then inserting them back in to people once they've been deemed safe for treatment."Don't even go straight into the person to start with," he said. "Take cells out of their body to program, make sure you're hunky-dory."If those experiments help with issues like age-related hearing loss or joint mobility, for example, Retro could then try something more advanced.<ol start="3"><li>Plasma therapy</li></ol>The concept that sounds the most Dracula-esque of all. Betts-LaCroix points to "promising rejuvenation" research that's been done in mice by <a target="_blank" href="https://engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2023/05/forever-young/">diluting their blood plasma with saline</a>. (This appears to work better than just giving old mice <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millionaire-bryan-johnson-swapped-blood-with-teenage-son-young-blood-2023-5">young blood</a>.)In aging mice that have undergone plasma dilution, a wide array of age-related issues improve. The procedure reduces inflammation, improves muscle and liver health, and boosts the formation of brain cells. Nascent research in people, including some underway at Retro, suggests the technique might work for us non-rodents too.<h2>Altman is very hands-on at Retro.bio, CEO says</h2><div type="image" title="guys working around laptop" height="1080" width="1620" msid="108730489" hostid="261" sizebytes="119042"></div>It's a gargantuan mission. And one that Altman believes in so strongly that he works on it literally all the time.Betts-LaCroix says he meets with Altman once a week, going over successes and failures in Retro lab experiments and chatting strategy. Somehow, amidst all the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-raise-trillions-supercharge-chip-production-report-2024-2">chip manufacturing plans</a>, and unveiling of new <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-video-text-model-creator-sora-leading-google-2024-2">AI tools like Sora</a>, Altman consistently fits this meeting in."The board is me and Sam Altman, and he is a very rational and technically capable person," Betts-LaCroix told BI."We don't have to wait for three months to go by for our quarterly board meeting and build up a big slide deck and get everybody all nervous and sweaty about 'should we actually show this data?' I show everything, all the warts."<h2>Altman is in a longevity race against Bezos, Thiel, and other billionaires</h2>These days it appears as if it's almost obligatory for tech titans like Altman to invest in life extension, in some way or another.Amazon's Jeff Bezos is widely believed to have poured hundreds of millions into the extremely secretive San Diego-based Altos Labs, which has plucked some of the most impressive and decorated longevity scientists out of universities around the world. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/altos-labs-launches-with-the-goal-to-transform-medicine-through-cellular-rejuvenation-programming-301463541.html">With $3 billion fully committed</a> from Bezos, Yuri Milner, and others, Altos may be the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/meet-20-best-funded-biotech-startups-pioneering-age-inaki-berenguer/">best-funded longevity lab</a> around.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-antiaging-investor-billionaire-longevity-routine-2023-11">Billionaire Peter Thiel</a> has famously agreed to have his body cryogenically frozen when he dies, so he can be brought back to life later. He's also donated cash to Aubrey de Grey, who touts the idea that we might be able to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/longevity-escape-velocity-what-is-it">"escape" the velocity of death</a> someday soon.Then there's German Billionaire Christian Angermayer, the chairman of Cambrian Bio, focused on developing a wide range of pills and treatments for improving aging, at various startups — including <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ovivatx.com/">one</a> that's aimed at keeping women's ovaries younger, prolonging their fertility window.<div type="image" title="Joe Betts-Lacroix" height="1080" width="1620" msid="108730493" hostid="261" sizebytes="124998"></div>Betts-LaCroix sees what Retro is doing as a moral calling more so than a savvy business model for increasing a billionaire's net worth."It's an obvious public good to create more health," he said.But not all experts agree. Some question whether tacking an extra 10 years of life onto the bodies of the richest, most privileged among us should really take precedence over finding ways that we might all live a little longer, by reducing health disparities, and implementing more <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/loma-linda-blue-zone-longevity-secrets-of-seventh-day-adventists-2023-11">systemic changes</a> that would improve the social, mental, and emotional health of all of us. There are things we already know work super well to improve human longevity, like exercise, diet, faith, and social support. (Presumably, the billionaire class is already adhering to these well-known pillars of health, which can <a target="_blank" href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/648593">extend healthy human lifespan by about 10 years</a>.)"If the geroscientists are successful at making people live five or ten years longer by taking a pill, the effects on the business world, on the insurance industry, on the healthcare industry, on social security will be a tsunami," biogerontologist Daniel Promislow, who directs <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/drugs-to-help-dogs-and-people-live-longer-2023-3">the Dog Aging Project</a>, previously told BI.Will Altman's approach, which worked so well for discovering several blockbuster Silicon Valley startups, win him the big race to a longevity-boosting product for people's bodies? It is possible that Retro will get there first, and unlock a huge windfall of <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/age1vc/status/1734344711304057246">hundreds of billions</a> of dollars. But nobody really knows who's leading the pack just yet. It's still way too early to pick winners and losers in this industry.Matt Buckley, one of Retro's co-founders, recently told <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-12-19/longevity-startup-retro-biosciences-is-sam-altman-s-shot-at-life-extension?itm_source=record&amp;itm_campaign=Longevity_Issue&amp;itm_content=Inside_Sam_Altman%27s_Lab-2">Bloomberg</a> that the company probably has until about 2030 to run with Altman's cash. Then they'll need to consider going public, or finding some more investors. By then, Betts-LaCroix says maybe, just maybe, they'll have some first breakthroughs in hand, similar to what's happened recently with OpenAI and ChatGPT."Back in 2000, I was like, 'man, I hope I get to live through the time that AI starts to sweep across society,'" Betts-LaCroix said.That time has come."And yay! I'm alive," he said.

Sam Altman's mission to increase human lifespan with a $180 million shipping container experiment at Retro Biosciences

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Babraham Institute in Cambridge announced on Thursday researchers had successfully rejuvenated <keyword id="11899253" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="skin" source="Orion">skin</keyword> cells.</li><li>Scientists reprogrammed adult skin cells to look and behave 30 years younger than the original.</li></ul>A team in the Babraham Institute in Cambridge has successfully rejuvenated a 53-year-old woman's skin cells to look and behave like a 23-year-old's, the research center <a href="https://www.babraham.ac.uk/news/2022/04/new-technique-rewinds-age-skin-cells-30-years">announced</a> on Thursday.The team had initially set out to create <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/embryonic-stem-cells-lead-to-human-cloning-2013-5">embryonic stem cells</a>, which can divide into any type of cell in the body, using adult cells. Nobel Award winner <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2012/press-release/">Shinya Yamanaka</a>, a researcher at Kyoto University in Japan, first turned "normal" cells that have a specific function into <keyword id="12394098" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="stem-cells" source="Orion">stem cells</keyword> back in 2006. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60991675">The BBC reported</a> German molecular biologist Wolf Reik, postdoctoral student Diljeet Gill, and a team at Babraham Institute built upon Yamanaka's work. Yamanaka grew stem cells by exposing adult cells to four molecules for about 50 days — a unique method he named <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/534310a">iPS.</a> Reik and Gill's team exposed skin cells to the same molecules for only 13 days, then let them grow under natural conditions.By <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/948982">studying collagen production in the cells</a>, the researchers found age-related changes on skin cells were removed and they temporarily lost their identity. After growing under normal conditions for a period of time, researchers found the cells began behaving like skin cells again.The team then measured age-related biological changes in the reprogrammed cells, and found the cells matched the profile of those 30 years younger to reference data sets, Gill said in a <a href="https://www.babraham.ac.uk/news/2022/04/new-technique-rewinds-age-skin-cells-30-years">release</a>."I remember the day I got the results back and I didn't quite believe that some of the cells were 30 years younger than they were supposed to be," Gill told BBC. "It was a very exciting day."The research was done in a lab, and Reik told the BBC the team cannot take the technique to a clinic because the technique used to rejuvenate the cells has the potential to <a href="https://jeccr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13046-020-01584-0">increase the risk of cancer, </a>likely due to creating <a href="https://www.eurostemcell.org/ips-cells-and-reprogramming-turn-any-cell-body-stem-cell">lasting genetic changes within cells</a>.But the biologist said the method of rejuvenating cells could help speed up healing time in burn victims, and may eventually extend human life. "Eventually, we may be able to identify genes that rejuvenate without reprogramming, and specifically target those to reduce the effects of aging," Reik said in a <a href="https://www.babraham.ac.uk/news/2022/04/new-technique-rewinds-age-skin-cells-30-years">press release</a>.The researchers published their findings in the journal <a href="https://elifesciences.org/articles/71624" target="_blank" rel="noopener">eLife</a> on April 8.

Scientists rejuvenated the skin of a 53-year-old woman to that of a 23-year-old's in a groundbreaking experiment

<ul class="summary-list"><li>An <keyword id="11931732" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="anti-aging" source="Orion">anti-aging</keyword> research company called <keyword id="12037014" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="altos-labs" source="Orion">Altos Labs</keyword> was founded earlier this year.</li><li>Sources told MIT Tech Review the company claims <keyword id="11908741" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="jeff-bezos" source="Orion">Jeff Bezos</keyword> as one of its investors.</li><li>Altos Labs hopes to develop technology to reprogram human cells, sources told MIT Tech Review.</li></ul>A new company dedicated to finding out how to reverse the aging process has received funding from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/04/1034364/altos-labs-silicon-valleys-jeff-bezos-milner-bet-living-forever/?utm_medium=tr_social&amp;utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&amp;utm_source=Twitter=Twitter">MIT Tech Review</a> reported Saturday.Altos Labs is a research-based company founded earlier this year which is hiring scientists with offers of $1 million annual salaries, per MIT Tech Review.Citing people people "briefed by the company," MIT Tech Review reported Altos Labs said Bezos was among its investors.Bezos' investment office Bezos Expeditions didn't reply to MIT Tech Review when contacted for comment. It also did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.Bezos <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-steps-down-amazon-ceo-july-5-sentimental-date-2021-5?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">stepped down as CEO of Amazon</a> in July. In a February <a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/email-from-jeff-bezos-to-employees">letter</a> to staff, he said he would spend his time on his philanthropic pursuits and passion projects, including his space exploration company <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-stepping-down-amazon-ceo-space-2021-2">Blue Origin</a>.Bezos has funded anti-aging research before - in 2018 he invested in <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/29/jeff-bezos-backs-silicon-valley-scientist-working-on-a-cure-for-aging.html">Unity Technologies</a>, a <keyword id="11908912" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="biotech" source="Orion">biotech</keyword> company whose goal is to make anti-aging therapies.MIT Tech Review reported Altos Labs would primarily focus on a technology called reprogramming, which works by adding proteins to a cell which essentially instruct it to revert to a stem-cell-like state.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/list-top-biotech-startups-san-francisco-bay-area-vcs-investors-2021">9 top Bay Area biotechs that VCs say are poised to take off in the next year</a>Scientist Shinya Yamanaka won <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2012/yamanaka/facts/">a joint Nobel Prize</a> in 2012 for demonstrating the technique in mice. Yamanaka will be joining Alto Labs as chair of its scientific advisory board."Although there are many hurdles to overcome, there is huge potential," Yamanaka told MIT Tech Review in an email.Delaware state <a href="https://icis.corp.delaware.gov/eCorp/EntitySearch/NameSearch.aspx">records</a> show the company was first incorporated in April, while UK <a href="https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13484917">Companies House</a> records shows it was incorporated there in June.MIT Tech Review reports Altos Labs plans to establish institutes in California, the UK, and Japan.The company was formed following a two-day conference on anti-aging biotech at the Palo Alto mansion of Russian investor and tech mogul <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/yuri-milner-biography-2016-4?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Yuri Milner</a>, according to MIT Tech Review.

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Researchers have discovered a de-ageing technique that made skin cells 30 years younger

Rahul Verma

Sam Altman's mission to increase human lifespan with a $180 million shipping container experiment at Retro Biosciences

Hilary Brueck

Scientists rejuvenated the skin of a 53-year-old woman to that of a 23-year-old's in a groundbreaking experiment

Allana Akhtar

Jeff Bezos has invested in an anti-aging biotech startup, a report says

Isobel Asher Hamilton