The 'Fountain of Youth' Is Nearly Here

The mystical “fountain of youth” has been the ultimate goal for scientists ever since medicine was first invented. The appeal of living for more than 1 or 2 centuries is so large for some people, that they will do nearly anything to see it accomplished. This explains why the basic principles of an environment-cleansing technique, which is regularly used to remove contaminants from various polluted areas, are now used to create an elixir capable of removing toxins from living organisms, and thus restore vitality and young age.

Basically, our body gets older constantly because cells and systems inside it fail to renew themselves with the same frequency and efficiency as they did when we were younger. But experts say that this process can be avoided, or even reversed. One way to do this is by physical exercises, and eating healthy food. The lack of dangerous chemicals in some products means that the substances don't get inside, where they can cause a lot of harm, and even trigger genetic mutations, which may lead to cancer.

“The mainstream approach to curing aging diseases is to delay them a little bit, which is great for pharmaceutical sales, but not so good for fixing people. What’s different about the Methuselah Foundation is that their approach is to directly repair the damage that the passage of time does to our bodies and eventually causes disease,” John Schloendorn, a PhD student in Molecular and Cellular Biology, who's working with the director of the Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute (BI), explains.

The BI and the Methuselah Foundation are collaborating in the new line of research, with the hopes of finding or synthesizing a drug that can make cells live longer by tricking them into thinking they are younger. Researchers in the team seek to address the most important cause of aging, which is the pilling up of “junk” molecules inside our cells. These molecules are usually processed by the body and then discarded, but some develop immunity to degradation, and start clogging the normal functioning of the host cells.

Schloendorn says that the team is now focusing its efforts on identifying the enzymes that can break up these compounds. Finding them would be a major breakthrough, because the little enzymes are capable of breaking the junk into its components, use what they need, and then discard the rest. “We are looking for these enzymes in all sorts of organisms. We have some that come from soil bacteria, we have one that comes from the crocus flower, another one that comes from mammals,” Schloendorn concludes.