Longevity startup gave her first patient a drug to reverse age-related vision loss.
Life Biosciences is testing its drug ER-100, the company says has restored vision in monkeys to test for safety and side effects in a study of about 18 adults over the next year.
It will target patients suffering from glaucoma and NAION – two diseases that cause damage to key cells in the optic nerve, which transmits visual information from the back of the eye to the brain. ER-100 is designed to rejuvenate these cells to make them work again and restore vision.
According to Life Biosciences co-founder David Sinclair, who is also a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, this is the first-ever cellular rejuvenation therapy using this technology to win FDA approval to enter human clinical trials, and thus the first chance to test whether the technology can “mitigate disease in humans.”
The biology of aging – understanding how the body’s cells and functions deteriorate over time – is at the heart of the science of longevity. ER-100 is of great interest in biotechnology due to its potential to reverse cell aging. Boston-based Life Biosciences says it is developing applications of its technology to treat a range of age-related diseases in various organs, such as fatty liver disease.
“Our research suggests that aging is largely caused by loss of epigenetic information rather than irreversible damage. This clinical trial provides the first opportunity to test whether restoring this information can alleviate disease in humans,” Sinclair said.