
Partial reprogramming shifted lab skin cells toward younger clocks
In a 2022 eLife study, researchers at the Babraham Institute and partner institutions used 13 days of maturation-phase transient reprogramming on middle-aged donors' skin fibroblasts and reported roughly thirty-year shifts on custom transcript and DNA methylation clocks, plus collagen-related signals and partial gains in a scratch-wound assay. Cells regained fibroblast identity in the dish; telomere lengthening was not seen on the methylation-based estimate used. FDA later cleared a separate company-sponsored phase 1 gene-therapy trial based on partial epigenetic reprogramming for optic neuropathies; starting that trial is not proof of anti-aging benefit in humans.






