David Sinclair’s Research Is Now Testing Whether Blindness—and Aging—Can Be Reversed
The pioneering trial—conducted by LifeBiosciences, a company Sinclair co-founded—is the first test of the idea that, at least in certain cells, aging may not be inevitable, and can be reversed by restoring important information that older cells lose over time. The study will ultimately include up to 18 people: 12 with a specific form of glaucoma, and six with a condition called non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION, for short), both of which can lead to blindness. The two conditions are triggered when increasing pressure causes cells in the innermost portion of the retina to start to die, and, because they can’t be replaced, patients lose their vision. But Sinclair thinks these cells can be coaxed back from the brink. “There is still a little bit of the original signal, but it’s just weak and surrounded by other noise,” he says. “What we are doing is erasing the noise and re-establishing the original signal.”
What Sinclair calls the “information theory of aging” holds that cells age when they become overwhelmed by the onslaught of exposures that occur in daily life. Building off of Shinya Yamanaka’s seminal discovery that exposing cells to four specific genes can reverse the clock on those cells, turning them back to a youthful state, Sinclair tweaked the formula using only three of the genes so that cells did not completely revert back to an embryo-like state, but instead were restored enough to regain their original instruction guide and be rejuvenated.
Sinclair believes that this process can reverse age-related diseases that affect tissues in the eye, liver, brain, skin, and more. In lab tests, using both animal models and human cells in a dish, “we haven’t found a tissue or organ where [this epigenetic age-restoring therapy] wasn’t beneficial. So I think if this first trial goes well, then it will open up bigger opportunities to tackle other diseases,” he says. The eye is a good place to start with such a therapy, since it’s isolated from the immune system and cells with newly introduced Yamanaka factors would not immediately be seen as foreign and attacked. Doctors can also introduce ways to turn the reprogramming on or off, and monitor changes in vision relatively easily.
The longevity field is long on innovative ideas but short on proof that any of these approaches actually work, and Sinclair has been criticized for making bold claims and launching a string of companies that have not yet produced durable results. The scientific community, understandably, is closely watching for the results of this trial. Sinclair is optimistic that the study will catalyze a new way of restoring cells, starting with those in the eye. “The mere fact that there is at least one person who has this in their bodies right now is something that will be seen as an important milestone,” he says. “Patients are now receiving a therapy that was designed to reverse the age of a tissue.”
