Scientists successfully reversed the biological age of human skin cells by around 30 years.
This advance has the potential to transform regenerative medicine and treatments for age-related diseases.
A research team at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge developed a technique called maturation phase transient reprogramming (MPTR). By carefully exposing adult fibroblasts to Yamanaka factors for just 13 days, the researchers induced profound cellular rejuvenation without allowing the cells to lose their specialized identity and revert fully into stem cells. This precise timing enabled the cells to erase decades of accumulated aging damage while retaining their original function.
The reprogrammed cells not only showed molecular signs of youthfulness but also performed like younger cells. In functional tests, they produced substantially more collagen and closed experimental wounds much faster than untreated older cells.
[Gill, D., Parry, A., Santos, F., Okkenhaug, H., Todd, C. D., Hernando-Herraez, I., Stubbs, T. M., Milagre, I., & Reik, W. (2022). Multi-omic rejuvenation of human cells by maturation phase transient reprogramming. eLife 11: e71624. DOI/10.7554/eLife.71624]