Scientists reverse ageing in mammals and predict human trials within 10 years

Original publicity materials: http://www.salk.edu/news-release/turning-back-time-salk-scie...

As I've said in the past, it has always been pretty random as to what the popular press picks up versus what they ignore in the output of the aging research community. Possibly it doesn't much matter, as they'll horribly mangle the significance and meaning regardless.

In this case, this is an intervention which falls into the same general area as telomerase gene therapy and stem cell therapies that work via temporarily altering the signaling environment rather than integration of transplanted cells. It is putting damaged cells back to work, getting them to do more than they would otherwise have done.

The question mark on all of these things has been the degree to which they'll produce cancer - and certainly, inducing pluripotency in random cells throughout the body sounds very much like a terrible idea on that front. The decline in tissue maintenance in response to rising levels of cellular damage (e.g. over the course of aging) is thought to be an evolved balance between death by cancer and death by frailty. So far it seems that there may be more leeway than was feared when it comes to putting a thumb on the scales to shift things back to increased cellular activity.

But this isn't rejuvenation. This isn't reversing aging. This is (very) partial compensation for downstream effects of aging, achieved without addressing any of the root causes. The outcomes are going to be limited because root causes are allowed to continue as they are. The outcomes only look good by comparison to present day medicine for age-related conditions because that is even more limited, since it acts on consequences even further along the chain.

Right. The notion that aging is natures way of fighting cancer is quite interesting.

I've heard it suggested that curing cancer is probably a necessary step on the road to stopping/reversing aging.

Just what we need: baby boomers who never die.

I'm not proud to say I'd have a lot of schadenfreude if they wait until after Kurzweil passes before they make the world changing breakthrough which eliminates natural death

I think it's because people are tired of "but what about ML applied to [OP topic]?" It's quite frankly tiresome to keep seeing the world from the same lens, as if software trends are applicable to all other scientific advancements.