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MILESTONE :
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TOKYO - JAPAN : ANTI-AGING METHOD RETURNS cells to a more youthful state.
The scientists reasoned that if cells could be induced to return to that youthful state, they would be able to repair damage.
Scientists said just recently, that they have restored sight in mice using a ''milestone'' treatment that returns cells to a more youthful state and could one day help treat glaucoma and other age-related diseases.
THE SCIENTISTS reasoned that if cells could be induced to return to that youthful state, they would be able to repair the damage.
The process offers the tantalizing possibility of effectively turning back time at the cellular level, helping cells recover the ability to heal damage caused by injury, disease and age.
''I'm excited about being able to rejuvenate organs and tissues that fail due to ageing and disease, especially where there are no effective treatments, such as dementia,'' senior author of the study David Sinclair told AFP.
''We hope to treat glaucoma in human patients [at the trial stage] in two years,'' added Sinclair, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School.
The treatment is based on the properties that cells have when the body is developing as an embryo. At that time, cells can repair and regenerate themselves, but that capacity declines rapidly with age.
The scientists reasoned that if cells could be induced to return to that youthful state, they would be able to repair damage.
To turn back the clock, they identified a process usually used to create the ''blank slate'' cells known as induced pluripotent stem cells.
Those cells are created by injecting a cocktail of four proteins that help reprogramme a cell.
The team did not want to reprogramme cells all the way back to that blank-slate status, but to restore them to a more youthful condition.
So they tweaked the cocktail, using just three of the ''youth-restoring'' proteins - dubbed OSK - in the hope they could turn the clock back to just the right point.
They targeted the retinal ganglion cells in the eye, which are linked to the brain through connections called axons.
These axons form the optic nerve - and damage to them caused by injury, ageing or disease causes poor vision and blindness.
To test the effects of the cocktail, they first injected OSK into the eyes of mice with open nerve injuries.
They saw a twofold increase in the number of surviving retinal ganglion cells and a fivefold increase in nerve regrowth.
''Th treatment allowed the nerves to grow back towards the brain. Normally they would simply die,'' Sinclair said.
With signs OSK could reverse damage caused by injury, the team turned to countering the effects of disease - especially glaucoma, which is the leading cause of blindness in humans.
They replicated the conditions of the disease, where a build up of pressure in the eye damages the optic nerve, in several dozen mice.
Those who received the OSK treatment saw ''significant'' benefits, according to the study published in the journal Nature.
Tests showed ''that half of the visual activity lost from increased intraocular pressure was restored''.
The treatment offered similarly promising results in elderly mice with poor vision caused by age.
After the cocktail was injected, the mice's vision improved and their optic nerves cells displayed electrical signals and other features akin to those in younger mice.
The study was conducted over the course of a year, and the mice displayed no side effects.
Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist, at Stanford University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research, said the findings were ''bound to ignite great excitement.''
The Honor and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research Nature, Research Life and Ageing, continues. The World Students Society thanks authors AFP.
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