The longevity biotech industry revolves around the goal of increasing the period of life that a person spends in good health. There has been a rapidly expanding effort in recent years to develop drugs that target aging as a root cause of disease, and this type of biotechnology has come to be a very popular focus for many companies, leading to numerous anti-aging biotech startups popping up around the world.
The main technology currently being used when developing anti-aging therapies is epigenetic reprogramming, which involves the identification of four specific transcription factors – known as “Yamanaka factors”, named after Japanese stem cell researcher and Nobel Prize laureate Shinya Yamanaka – that can transform somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells, inducing changes in gene expression and cellular behavior. This effectively reverses or modifies the epigenetic markers associated with aging, rejuvenating cells and tissues, and potentially slowing down or reversing the effects of aging, and even age-related diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases.
2 Likes