Aging, Stem Cell | featured news

For some, wrinkles are seen as a sign of character. For most, they are an unwelcome reminder of ageing. However, scientists are developing a method that may finally end the need for the routine of treatments and moisturisers used to try to keep facial lines at bay.

Scientists may one day slow down aging with a simple injection of youthful stem cells. They’ve just proven this can be done in mice, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications. The mice, which had been engineered to mimic a human disease called progeria, would normally have grown old when they were quite young. But that changed when researchers injected muscle stem cells from healthy young mice into the bellies of the quickly aging mice. Within days, the doddering and frail mice began to act like they were living the storyline of “The Strange Case of Benjamin Button” as they started looking and acting younger.

In a surprise result that can help in the understanding of both aging and cancer, researchers working with an engineered type of stem cell said they reversed the aging process in a rare genetic disease.