Israel Agaku: Scientists May Have Found a Way to Push Back Biological Aging in Primates

Israel Agaku, Founder and CEO at Chisquares, shared a post on LinkedIn about a paper by Jinghui Lei et al. published in Cell:

“This past June, one of the most consequential papers of our time was published in Cell by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences—yet it received surprisingly little coverage.

Link.

They successfully used genetically engineered, senescence-resistant human stem cells to partially reverse aging hallmarks in primates.

In a 44-week trial, aged monkeys infused with these cells showed:

• Improved memory and preserved brain structure
• Reversal of bone loss, including periodontal and skeletal bone.
• Rejuvenation of blood and immune cells, with reduced inflammatory markers.
• Transcriptomic and DNA methylation ‘aging clocks’ dialed back by 3-7 years in over half of tested tissues, including brain, lung, muscle, skin, and reproductive tissues.
• In female monkeys, ovarian aging was reversed by ~4.5 years; in males, sperm health improved.
• Crucially, no tumors or major side effects were observed.

Bottom line: scientists may have found a way to push back biological aging in primates.

Of course, the usual caveats apply. This is still an early-stage study in animals, and the leap from primates to humans is no small matter. That said, let’s set those limitations aside for a moment and reflect on the implications.

Neil Armstrong once said: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” This feels like such a moment—a giant leap.

But as ethicists and as human beings, we must pause.

Do we really want to live forever?

For millennia, humans have sought immortality—the elixir of life. Augustine of Hippo said, ‘You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.’ That restlessness, that yearning for immortality, is built into us. Ecclesiastes puts it this way, ‘He has set eternity in their hearts.’

We are restless for eternity, yet bounded by mortality.

And just perhaps, mortality itself may be our greatest gift. Death gives life more meaning. Life is precious because life is finite. Finitude gives urgency. We hustle to “make it” because time is limited.

Also imagine if villains of history never died. Imagine if bad ideas never phased out. Death is the ultimate check and balance, the guarantor that renewal comes.

Even if science grants us decades more, we must also ask about equity. History teaches us that breakthroughs rarely spread evenly. Who will have access? The wealthy? The powerful? Will aging itself become a new axis of inequality, where some live in youth while others wither?

William Faulkner once wrote: ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ The disparities of our past often replay in our future. That will be true here, too.

So yes—what the Chinese team has done is extraordinary. It opens the door to possibilities once confined to myth. But it also confronts us with age-old questions:

• Is immortality a blessing, or a curse?
• What becomes of purpose when urgency vanishes?

May we count our days wisely.”

Title: Senescence-resistant human mesenchymal progenitor cells counter aging in primates

Authors: Jinghui Lei, Zijuan Xin, Ning Liu, Taixin Ning, Ying Jing, Yicheng Qiao, Zan He, Mengmeng Jiang, Yuanhan Yang, Zhiyi Zhang, Liyun Zhao, Jingyi Li, Dongliang Lv, Yupeng Yan, Hui Zhang, Lingling Xiao, Baohu Zhang, Haoyan Huang, Shuhui Sun, Fangshuo Zheng, Xiaoyu Jiang, Huifen Lu, Xueda Dong, Shasha Yue, Chencan Ma, Jichen Shuai, Zhejun Ji, Feifei Liu, Yanxia Ye, Kaowen Yan, Qinchao Hu, Gang Xu, Qian Zhao, Ruochen Wu, Yusheng Cai, Yanling Fan, Yaobin Jing, Qiaoran Wang, Pradeep Reddy, Xiaoyong Lu, Zikai Zheng, Beibei Liu, Amin Haghani, Shuai Ma, Keiichiro Suzuki, Concepcion Rodriguez Esteban, Jiayin Yang, Moshi Song, Steve Horvath, Weiqi Zhang, Wei Li, Andy Peng Xiang, Lan Zhu, Xiaobing Fu, Guoguang Zhao, Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, Jing Qu, Si Wang, Guang-Hui Liu