Jeff Bezos is reportedly funding a new anti-aging venture that aims to help humans live longer.
Altos Labs is looking into biological reprogramming technology and whether a variety of methods could help reverse the aging process.
One method being studied is whether this reprogramming could teach cells to revert back to their ‘stem cell’ origins and make them readapt to the skin and give it a more youthful appearance.
The company has raised more than $270 million in funding thanks to massive donations from people all over the world who are banking on the company’s promise.
MIT Technology Review reported that some people briefed by the company were told former Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and Russian-Israeli entrepreneur Yuri Milner are among the investors.
LADbible has contacted Bezos’ investment company Bezos Expeditions for a comment.
Altos Labs has recruited Nobel Prize winner Dr Shinya Yamanaka, who won his coveted award in 2012 for ‘the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent’. He will serve as an unpaid senior scientist, chairing the company’s scientific advisory board.
The Japanese researcher discovered that four specific proteins, now known as Yamanaka factors, could be added to a cell that would help reprogram it into its stem cell state.
Altos Labs is also said to have brought Dr. Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte on board, who is a Spanish biologist from California’s Salk Institute.
He used Dr Yamanaka’s research in 2016 on mice and produced successful results in reverse ageing in the animals.
After the positive tests were completed, the Spanish researcher believed they were working with a potential ‘elixir of life’.
According to the Daily Mail, he is also known for contoversial experiments on mixing monkey and human embryos. He reckons he could extend the average human life by 50 years under this research.
Technology Review adds that the company has also hired the University of California’s Peter Walter, who is looking into memory molecules, as well as UCLA professor Steve Horvath, who came up with a ‘biological clock’ calculator, Dr Jennifer Doudna, who won a Nobel Prize in 2020 for her co-discovery of CRISPR gene editing, and Manuel Serrano from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine.
Serrano said in a statement: “The philosophy of Altos Labs is to do curiosity-driven research. This is what I know how to do and love to do.
“In this case, through a private company, we have the freedom to be bold and explore. In this way it will rejuvenate me.”
While it all sounds very promising, the research still need a lot of work before it could ever be applied on humans.
While they were able to reverse the signs of ageing in mice in 2016, they also produced embryonic tumours, so they are trying to work out way they can achieve the desired result without causing harm.
