Reengineering Life
A New Kind of Gene Editing Could Turn Back the Clock on a Rapid Aging Disease
Research in mice shows promise for treating progeria, a disease that causes rapid aging and early death
Reengineering Life is a column from Future Human about the ways humans are using biology to reprogram our bodies and the world around us.
Children who are born with a rare genetic disease called progeria tragically live, on average, only until their mid-teens, though they look much older. Their bodies age so rapidly — up to 10 times faster than normal — that they usually die prematurely from heart attacks or strokes before they can finish high school. The culprit is a single-letter misspelling in their DNA.
Now, scientists have successfully corrected this misspelling in mice that have the disease by using a new kind of gene editing called base editing, raising hopes that a cure for children with progeria may be possible. The results were published on January 6 in the journal Nature.
“It’s quite a remarkable finding,” Robert Goldman, PhD, a professor of cell and developmental biology at Northwestern University who was not involved in the study, tells Future Human. “They saw a really substantial correction of…
