Professor Wolf Reik of the Babraham Institute in Cambridge has been working with a team of fellow epigeneticists to “rejuvenate” human cells, making them equivalent to the cells of someone much younger. The process builds off of the same cell generation technique (called IPS) that helped produce Dolly the cloned sheep back in the 90’s, in which scientists take cells from a living mammal and add in chemicals to induce genetic change.
The team’s research was published in the scientific journal eLife earlier this month. Their paper describes a new “maturation phase transient reprogramming” (MPTR) method that reverses the aging process in somatic cells. Reik’s team took dermal fibroblasts (cells responsible for helping skin recover from injury) from middle-aged donors and spent 12 days reprogramming them until the cells functioned at their prime. This allowed the cells to once again produce “youthful levels of collagen proteins,” which are essential to maintaining the skin’s elasticity. At one point, Reik’s team found they were able to rejuvenate the skin cells of a 53-year-old woman to the point that they behaved as if they were 23.
Human dermal fibroblasts, stained and imaged on a monochromatic microscope. (Photo: Roberts Biology, Creative Commons/Wikimedia Commons)
Though at first glance the scientists’ mission appears cosmetically motivated, Reik states their research is aimed at delaying or alleviating age-related diseases like diabetes, neurological disorders, and heart disease. Their MPTR technique also has the potential to assist with healing after severe cuts or burns. “The long-term aim is to extend the human health span, rather than the lifespan, so that people can get older in a healthier way,” Reik told BBC News. If MPTR is found to be applicable to immune cells, it may even boost people’s response to vaccinations.
Genetically changing cells through IPS does increase one’s risk of cancer, so it’s unlikely that human patients will receive rejuvenation therapy like this anytime soon. That being said, researchers are working on reducing IPS-related mutation risk—it’s just going to take a while to get the science right. Reik and his team are simultaneously working toward finding a safer way to conduct MPTR so the technique can be introduced to other human tissues.
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