A Powerful Drug Successfully Reverses Ageing In Mice

Regular infusions of a peptide that can selectively seek out and destroy broken-down cells that hamper proper tissue renewal, called senescent cells, showed evidence of improving healthspan in naturally-aged mice and mice genetically engineered to rapidly age.

We treated mice for over 10 months, giving them infusions of the peptide three times a week, and we didn’t see any obvious side effects. FOXO4 is barely expressed in non-senescent cells, so that makes the peptide interesting as the FOXO4-p53 interaction is especially relevant to senescent cells, but not normal cells.”
This photograph shows two fast-aging mice. The mouse on the left was treated with a FOXO4 peptide, which targets senescent cells and leads to hair regrowth in ten days. The mouse on the right was not treated with the peptide....
de Keizer aims to start a company based on these findings, but in the short term, he and his group want to show that their peptide is non-toxic in humans with no unforeseen side effects. They plan to offer a safety clinical trial in people with Glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive brain tumor, which also shows high levels of the biomarkers needed for this FOXO4 peptide to be effective.