Most deaging injections focus on cosmetic signs of aging, but what about the vital organs that keep us alive in the first place? According to a recent Telegraph article, researchers at the Bristol Heart Institute are looking to inject hearts to make them function like they were 10 years younger. Certain people carry a variant of the BP1FB4 gene that makes them live longer with fewer heart problems. The Bristol scientists extracted those genes, and inserted them into a benign virus and injected them into elderly mice. They interestingly found that the shot rewound the heart’s biological clock the equivalent of 10 human years.
On top of that, when presented to damaged elderly human heart cells in a lab setting, the gene triggered construction of new blood vessels and restored lost function. The team is now working to see if giving the protein rather than the gene will produce the same results. While the concept is still new and in development, it could lead to a new way to treat heart failure or even prevent it in the first place.
