Key Points:
- Harvard’s Dr. David Sinclair predicts that pills will be available within the next 10 years that target certain genes to reverse aging in tissues throughout the body.
- Dr. Sinclair also believes that one day, scientists may find a way to double the human lifespan.
Harvard’s Dr. David Sinclair, one of the leading thinkers in longevity research, recently gave an interview with American engineer, physician, and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis on the current state of aging research. Intriguingly, Dr. Sinclair made a bold prediction that age-reversing pills may become available within the next 10 years or so, and he believes that scientists may one day find a way to nearly double the human lifespan. In the interview, Dr. Sinclair gave details on the potential age-reversing technology that may one day emerge in pill form, which could lead the way in aging researchers’ efforts to extend human lifespan dramatically. Dr. Sinclair’s interview gave an eye-opening view of the rapid pace of research on aging and just how close researchers may be to not only slowing aging but reversing it.
“What I’m seeing in my lab and labs that are competing with us or collaborating with us is something quite remarkable, and the pace of change is making my head spin off,” said Dr. Sinclair. “I’m an optimist, but I just can’t comprehend right now how fast things are going.”
Dr. David Sinclair Believes Human Age Reversal Will Become Possible
Delving into the interview, Dr. Sinclair recalled to Peter Diamandis that in 2017, he had a theory that researchers could not only slow aging but reverse it. Then, in 2020, Dr. Sinclair published a study showing that a gene therapy that activates genes coding for proteins called Yamanaka factors can reverse signs of aging, such as vision loss, in mice. According to Dr. Sinclair, this breakthrough study illustrated that activating genes coding for Yamanaka factors could help to rejuvenate tissues throughout the body and potentially reverse aging.
“Now we’re talking about the ability to truly reset the body, reset all of the cells in the body to be young again and not just slightly but by 50%, 75%, 80%, [or] 90%, and this isn’t science fiction,” said Dr. Sinclair. “We do this in my lab. My graduate students are doing this all the time.”
Yamanaka Factors Explained
Yamanaka factors are proteins that, when introduced into adult cells, can reset them to a younger state. Accordingly, Yamanaka factors bind to certain DNA sequences and act as switches, turning genes on or off. As such, Shinya Yamanaka, the scientist who discovered Yamanaka factors, showed in 2006 that treatment with Yamanaka factors can transform adult mouse cells into stem cells.
Interestingly, following up on Shinya Yamanaka’s research, Dr. Sinclair and colleagues used Yamanaka factor gene therapy, which delivers Yamanaka factor genes to cells via a virus, in a technique called partial cellular reprogramming. With partial cellular reprogramming, cells undergo Yamanaka factor gene activation for shorter, transient periods compared to full cellular reprogramming. This helps to avoid converting the cells to stem cells, which happens when these genes are activated for longer durations in full cellular reprogramming. Thus, partial cellular reprogramming was found to temporarily reverse age-related changes in cells without fully converting them to stem cells.
“What we do is we use a set of genes that are normally only on in embryos,” said Dr. Sinclair. “We turn them on in adult tissues—[in] mice and monkeys—and we can cure diseases and injuries that have never been cured before.”
Along those lines, Dr. Sinclair and colleagues published a paper in 2020 where they reversed glaucoma-related blindness in mice with partial cellular reprogramming. Furthermore, in 2023, Dr. Sinclair and his team restored vision in aged monkeys. Since those seminal studies using mice and monkeys, Dr. Sinclair says that he and his team have started using artificial intelligence (AI)-related techniques to speed up their research on this technique.
With AI-based research, Dr. Sinclair relayed that he and his team are now able to do experiments in a matter of months that, in the past, would have taken hundreds of thousands of years to do. In that regard, Dr. Sinclair said that trillions of molecules have entered the virtual screening pipeline. With the AI-based identification of all of these molecules, Dr. Sinclair says he and his team are coming up with alternatives to the partial cellular reprogramming gene therapy—alternatives that come in pill form.
Further Details on Future Age-Reversing Pills
According to Dr. Sinclair, a gene therapy based on partial cellular reprogramming, which still has not become widely available for humans, could cost around $2 million. In contrast to the high cost of the gene therapy method, Dr. Sinclair said that when pills become available, which will mimic the effects of the gene therapy and induce Yamanaka factor gene expression, they will cost a mere $100 for a month’s supply. This means huge savings in gaining access to tissue-rejuvenating technology in pill form.
As for tissue-rejuvenating pills, preclinical research has shown that four weeks of treatment with the molecules these pills would contain made mice physically and behaviorally younger. Moreover, the cocktail of molecules significantly lowered the mice’s biological age (an age assessment based on how well organs and tissues function). If these findings apply to humans, which will require human trials to measure, it may only be a matter of time before people start reaping the rejuvenating benefits of these molecules in pill form.
Turning Back the Clock with Tissue-Rejuvenating Pills
Currently, only the ultra-expensive gene therapy has undergone development for humans, and it is not yet widely available for human use. Nonetheless, Dr. Sinclair says that if all goes well with his research on the AI-generated molecules, pills with these molecules could be available in the next decade. In that regard, Dr. Sinclair said that someone could just take these pills for four weeks to make themselves younger.
The Future of Lifespan Extension
Being able to reset cells to more youthful states with partial cellular reprogramming aligns with Dr. Sinclair’s Information Theory of Aging. Broadly speaking, the Information Theory of Aging posits that aging is primarily driven by the degradation of information contained in chemical modification patterns on DNA (known as epigenetic information). Such chemical modifications on DNA control gene expression to essentially dictate what genes are turned on or off. In this way, when epigenetic information becomes corrupted as people age, gene expression patterns get disrupted and cells lose their proper function, leading to physiological markers of aging (known as hallmarks of aging).
Accordingly, Dr. Sinclair believes that partial cellular reprogramming techniques, whether with gene therapy or pills containing a cocktail of molecules, restore cells’ epigenetic information to a more youthful state. In that sense, partial cellular reprogramming also acts to restore cellular function to a younger state by improving gene expression patterns, sort of like rebooting a malfunctioning computer. According to Dr. Sinclair, the data acquired through research so far seems to suggest that his Information Theory of Aging holds some degree of truth.
For that reason, Dr. Sinclair relayed that if his understanding of aging based on the Information Theory of Aging is correct, using partial cellular reprogramming technologies could help people to reset and rejuvenate themselves in multiple tissues. Doing so, according to Dr. Sinclair, would help substantially extend human lifespan. Accordingly, Dr. Sinclair said that he believes the first person to live to 150 years has already been born and that eventually, we may use cell and tissue rejuvenating technology to potentially double human lifespan.
“I do believe that we could double the human lifespan,” said Dr. Sinclair.
Dr. David Sinclair’s Ambitious Predictions for Lifespan Extension and the Technology Under Development that May Make It Possible
Dr. David Sinclair’s bold prediction that humans could one day double their lifespan raises the question of whether researchers already have the technology under development to make this possible. In that sense, partial cellular reprogramming gene therapy and molecules discovered with AI that mimic this gene therapy’s effects may hold the key to resetting human body physiology to a younger state. If that is indeed the case, it may not take long before researchers provide humans with an astonishing way to extend lifespan.
“Since I was 18, I decided, damn it, I don’t want to be part of the last generation to live a normal human lifespan,” said Dr. Sinclair. “That’s not right, and I know it’s coming. [It’s] just a question of can we do it in time for all of us.”
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