Source: BioTime, Inc.
Date: March 16, 2010
Summary:
BioTime, Inc., a biotechnology company that develops and markets products in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine, today announced the publication of a scientific paper titled "Spontaneous Reversal of Developmental Aging in Normal Human Cells Following Transcriptional Reprogramming." The article was released online today in the peer-reviewed journal Regenerative Medicine in advance of the print publication. The demonstration that the aging of human cells can be reversed may have significant implications for the development of new classes of cell-based therapies targeting age-related degenerative disease.
In the article, BioTime and its collaborators demonstrate the successful reversal of the developmental aging of normal human cells. Using precise genetic modifications, normal human cells were induced to reverse both the "clock" of differentiation (the process by which an embryonic stem cell becomes the many specialized differentiated cell types of the body), and the "clock" of cellular aging (telomere length). As a result, aged differentiated cells became young stem cells capable of regeneration.
