How to recharge life? A new study by scholars from the Chinese Academy of Sciences reveals that the KAT7 aging gene needs to be knocked out

Since ancient times, people's desire to return to youth has never ceased.

In the 5th century BC, Herodotus of ancient Greece described a people who could live to 120 years old, and claimed that they could stay young by bathing in a special spring, and the legend of the "Fountain of Youth" was widely circulated. In the Middle Ages, European countesses believed that there was some mysterious power in the blood of young people, and insisted on bathing, believing that they could restore youth and beauty.

This kind of appalling mystery still has a large number of followers. In order to maintain his health and achieve his goal of living to 150, Peter Thiel, an e-commerce billionaire in Silicon Valley, implements a quarterly blood replacement program to exchange blood with 18-year-old young people, spending nearly 40,000 US dollars a month.

With the breakthrough of modern aging control technology, the frightening "life extension" that was not standardized in the past is being replaced by science and industrialization.

01. Chinese scientists achieve aging-causing gene knockout

Not long ago, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing Joint Research Institute released new progress in joint research. Through genome-wide gene editing screening, a key gene closely related to the aging of life was finally identified: the KAT7 gene. The research results were published in Science.

Through the genome-wide gene editing screening platform, in more than 20,000 genomes, the researchers finally locked a key gene that can promote aging: the encoding gene KAT7 of histone acetyltransferase.

This gene acts like a switch that affects the degree of aging in the cell body. With age, the KAT7 gene has a greater effect, and the rate of cellular senescence increases.

After the researchers successfully knocked out the KAT7 gene of the recipient animals through gene editing technology, compared with the control group, the level of cell aging substances in the liver was significantly reduced, and at the same time, the median lifespan was prolonged by about 20%.

This research by scholars of the Chinese Academy of Sciences can be said to have pushed China's scientific research on aging to the international stage, and is regarded as an operation that "touches the underlying logic of aging".

02. Can large-scale popularization be achieved?

It is an indisputable fact that aging control technology is at a big outbreak point. However, what ordinary people are more concerned about is whether this type of technology is expected to go out of the laboratory and be popularized on a large scale?

Bezos, the former richest man, invested 3 billion US dollars in Altos Labs laboratory, betting on gene re-editing technology, and the momentum is huge, but the research also pointed out that such technology has great risks. Once the gene is activated, it may develop into teratogenicity tumor. The gene knockout technique of the University of Science and Technology of China is also very expensive because it covers too many cutting-edge technologies, and clinical trials are far away.

It is not easy to move from academia to industrialization. At present, only a few mature technologies are industrialized. Harvard GEnad+ enhancement technology (the core mechanism of domestic anti-aging supplements), and products such as exogenous intervention dietary supplements are brought to the market.

It is reported that GENAD+ levels are closely related to 95% of the body's energy supply. In 2013, Harvard animal experiments proved that supplementing coenzyme I substances in elderly subjects can increase the level of genad+ in the body, thereby improving aging indicators such as muscle, hair, and physical strength to varying degrees.

Since then, the University of Tokyo and Inkei University in Japan have carried out clinical experiments around such mechanisms. The research team recruited a group of 65-year-old men to experiment with a dose of 250 mg for 6 consecutive weeks. The results showed that the subjects' upper and lower limb muscle strength and gait speed were significantly improved.

Different from Altos Labs' programming technology or KAT7 gene knockout technology that has not yet been implemented, such exogenous supplements are more suitable for modern consumption scenarios.

03. In the race, who can decipher the aging code?

The wealthy business people who have come to hear the wind also smell the attractive potential of such a market. In 2021 alone, giants such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook have completed 34 acquisitions on such decline-suppressing tracks, and there is a trend of continuing to increase in the short term.

Take genehabor, a leading domestic and Hong Kong enterprise as an example, its launched healthy dietary supplement "Ruohui" has obtained a number of international certifications including the GRAS standard of the US FDA. It is synergistic with coenzyme I, PQQ, coenzyme Q10 and other substances.

According to data from JD.com, the shipment volume of "Ruohui" increased in the third quarter, and it was regarded as a "recharge card for years" among high-net-worth groups in first- and second-tier cities in China. Among the more than 20,000 comments in the background, there are many "energy recovery, sleep improvement" and so on.

Previously, Hong Kong billionaire "Li Chaoren" bet $25 million on the previous generation of ChromaDex's American-made technology. Due to extremely low shipments, the loss exceeded $7.18 million. Genehabor, a Hong Kong-based company, achieved mass production through a full-enzyme method, which greatly reduced the cost of such technologies by 95%.

In June of this year, the shrewd Li Chaoren may also take a fancy to the huge aging market, and will introduce the more friendly domestic "Ruohui" into his supermarkets.

The development of modern medical technology has greatly reduced the mortality rate of newborns and the elderly. Compared to the 19th century, the expected age of humans has almost doubled. Whether driven by profit or technology, the rapid combination of the world's top scientific research and capital will catalyze the realization of the goal of delaying aging.

At present, the KAT7 gene research led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences is still in-depth, and many life science and technology achievements are emerging. We have every reason to believe that technological progress will usher in an era of greatly extended lifespans.