David Sinclair plans to test whole-body rejuvenation drugs in the XPrize competition

A bold new bet on whole-body rejuvenation: Harvard biologist David Sinclair plans to test an oral "reprogramming" drug on human volunteers as part of a $101 million XPrize competition. Chemicals instead of gene therapy: Sinclair's new drug candidate — code-named SL-100 — uses drugs to mimic the effects of embryonic genes, and will attempt to reset aging across the body. Experts urge caution: Other scientists warn that similar chemical reprogramming efforts have so far proven either ineffective at low doses or outright toxic at high ones — and Sinclair's unpublished animal data has yet to face outside scrutiny. The field's bigger problem: Scientists still can't agree on how to reliably measure aging or age reversal, making the XPrize competition as much about establishing scientific standards as it is about crowning a winner. " data-chronoton-post-id="1138545" data-chronoton-expand-collapse="1" data-chronoton-analytics-enabled="1"> The outspoken longevity scientist David Sinclair has been predicting that one day, you’ll go to the doctor and get a prescription that will make you 10 years younger. Now MIT Technology Review has learned that he has plans to launch human tests of an oral “reprogramming” drug as part of a $101 million competition organized by the XPrize Foundation. The foundation is offering cash awards to teams able to “restore” a person to an earlier apparent age, as measured by improvements in immune, cognitive, and muscle function. The grand prize goes to any team able to show a 10-year (or greater) relative improvement after one year of treatment. Reached by phone, Sinclair, a biologist at Harvard Medical School, confirmed that he plans to give an oral drug mixture to volunteers in a bid to seek “evidence for age restoration in humans.” The trial, if it goes forward, will be a significant new development in the race to harness so-called epigenetic reprogramming. That technology is based on the discovery, 20 years ago, of powerful genes able to turn an adult cell into a stem cell similar to those found in embryos. The age-reversal effect is believed to occur via a resetting of molecular controls on DNA known as epigenetic marks, which help determine a cell’s overall metabolism and identity. Companies are now racing to use that phenomenon for a new form of rejuvenation medicine. Only this January, one of Sinclair’s companies, Life Biosciences , made news by winning approval to launch an initial human trial using a set of powerful reprogramming genes. The company announced today it had treated its first patient. But that test involves a complex gene therapy and is limited to patients’ eyes, where it could treat conditions like glaucoma. Sinclair’s new plan is bolder: a reprogramming drug you’d swallow in order to promote such effects across the body. “What we’re aiming to do is to epigenetically restore the animal and eventually the person,” he says. “It is true that we’ve been doing extensive animal studies with the oral agent and are looking to compete in the XPrize.” This alternative method, chemical reprogramming, uses drugs to mimic the effects of the embryonic genes. That is significant because drug compounds can travel through the bloodstream, reaching most or all cells in a person’s body. Some experts expressed caution, saying the chemical process, at least as used in labs, is extremely harsh and not even particularly effective. “Who doesn’t dream of whole-body rejuvenation? I think it’s a great goal,” says Sergiy Velychko, founder of Soxogen, a stealth reprogramming company in Boston. “But these chemicals are used in very, very high concentrations for cell reprogramming.” Sinclair declined to describe the exact makeup of the drug candidate, code-named SL-100, calling its contents “highly, highly confidential.” However, he has previously published lab studies of what he called “epigenetic age-reversal cocktails,” which mixed powerful chemicals with known supplements and commercially available medicines. It’s those latter components that would be easiest to test on people, since doctors are free to prescribe them, even for unusual objectives like age reversal. James Clement , head of Betterhumans, an organization that specializes in life-extension studies using existing drugs, said in a message that he is “running clinical trials” of an oral reprogramming cocktail for Sinclair’s XPrize team. Sinclair’s team is competing in the XPrize Healthspan Competition , launched in 2023. It follows several previous competitions that focused on commercial spaceflight, lunar landings, and other goals. The XPrize Foundation is led by executive chairman Peter Diamandis, also an active promoter of longevity research. “If two teams are equivalent, they would split the award,” says Jamie Justice, a doctor and executive director for the contest, which was bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s Hevolution Foundation, “Bu