Reprogramming to recover youthful epigenetic information and restore vision

Interesting publication by Sinclair back in 2021: Reprogramming to recover youthful epigenetic information and restore vision > Using the eye as a model CNS tissue, here we show that ectopic expression of Oct4 (also known as Pou5f1), Sox2 and Klf4 genes (OSK) in mouse retinal ganglion cells restores youthful DNA methylation patterns and transcriptomes, promotes axon regeneration after injury, and reverses vision loss in a mouse model of glaucoma and in aged mice. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2975-4

I don't think Harvard would let Sinclair have a lab with some 35 people and publish articles under their name if he was a total fraud/quack. My impression of Sinclair is that he likes public attention too much and often reports on work in progress with too much certainty, but results like this [1] seem to be fairly impressive. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2975-4

What are your views on the trial that reversed epigenetic age in optic nerves, allowing them to regenerate? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2975-4

I previously posted this: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2975-4 Maybe because I included (in mice) in the title, it didn't get upvoted as much as this post.

Epigenetic clocks measuring methylation sites across DNA are currently the most accurate way to measure aging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetic_clock What's more, it seems that it is possible to reset the epigenetic of cells to their youthful state and reverse actual the biological age of those cells. They don't just "measure younger", they function as they did when they were younger. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2975-4

This is the article on which the video is based: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2975-4 The topic of epigenetic clocks is extremely interesting for me. A clock called GrimAge [0] is already capable of predicting lifespan, time-to-cancer etc. better than normal chronological age. It even seems to work for other mammal species [1]. The big question is: is methylation of DNA only a marker, or does it play some functional role in aging. This video contains a new bit of information: when they fixed methylation patterns in experimental mice, the therapy failed. That would hint on a functional role of DNA methylation in the process of aging. [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30669119/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paiw4QSOtzg

I previously posted this: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2975-4 Maybe because I included (in mice) in the title, it didn't get upvoted as much as this post.