Can old age be “cured”? Researchers and biotechs are searching for a cure

"At first, it made some people laugh." When he began his first research on cell rejuvenation nearly twenty years ago, Jean-Marc Lemaître, research director at Inserm and co-director of the Institute of Regenerative Medicine and Biotherapies in Montpellier, surprised some of his colleagues. The researcher, who previously worked on embryonic development, had just secured funding in 2006 to begin his new project on genomic plasticity and aging.

At the time, the field enjoyed an unflattering reputation, considered by some to be the refuge of slightly eccentric minds in search of eternity. Few researchers dared to venture there. Even scientific journal publishing houses were cautious. The researcher experienced this firsthand in 2011, when the conclusions of the study he and his team had just completed on the rejuvenation of senescent human cells were published. "We had to fight to get the publisher to keep the word 'rejuvenation' in the title, even though that was exactly what we were demonstrating. I had to threaten to go to another publishing house," he recalls.

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