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A start-up invests to keep young people younger, despite doubts about its science.
"What if aging did not have to suck?"
This is the slogan of a new spin-up from Harvard University that plans to put millions of people behind a highly controversial rejuvenation discovery.
San Francisco-based startup, Elevian, says it plans to test whether daily injections of a protein called GDF11 can promote "the body's ability to recover" and eventually treat coronary, Alzheimer's, and muscle diseases . loss condition sarcopenia.
The company builds on the results of research conducted many years ago, that if the blood flow of young and old mice is linked, it seems that it rejuvenates the older ones.
Harvard biologist Harvard biologist Harvard co-founder Elevian later concluded that a protein, GDF11, was the essential "rejuvenation factor" in the blood of young animals and produced this effect.
In addition, she and other Harvard researchers have stated that protein levels are declining in the elderly, suggesting that boosting it may counteract some of the effects of aging.
The discoveries of paris aroused great interest, but when large pharmaceutical companies tried to replicate the research, they could not. In a 2015 study, for example, Novartis scientists found that GDF11 levels did not decrease with age and that the protein actually inhibited rather than promoted muscle regeneration.
"At this point, there is a general consensus that, according to the published literature, GDF11 is not a rejuvenating factor for injured or aging skeletal muscle," says Nathan LeBrasseur, associate professor and director of a program on aging in Canada. health. and independent living at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
The company says it will soon be presenting new data that will support the idea of the drug and make the skeptics feel comfortable. In addition to the Wagers, Elevian's scientific founders include Harvard biologists Lee Rubin and Rich Lee.
"We have overcome this problem to our satisfaction and to the satisfaction of our investors," says Mark Allen, a health software entrepreneur who is the CEO of Elevian. "We hope to convince the scientific world as a whole."
Elevian said today it raised $ 5.5 million in seed funding. The tour was led by Bold Capital, the investment company of Peter Diamandis, a futurist whose resume includes the creation of the X Prize Foundation and the Singularity University.
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