Engineering rejuvenation.
Ageing may be reversible. We are learning how.
clock.health is building the science and technology to understand, measure and ultimately rejuvenate human cells and tissues.
Engineering rejuvenation.
Ageing may be reversible. We are learning how.
clock.health is building the science and technology to understand, measure and ultimately rejuvenate human cells and tissues.
What if ageing is reversible?
Ageing is usually understood as the progressive accumulation of biological damage.
But damage is only one side of the equation.
Throughout life, cells continuously maintain and repair themselves. We are investigating whether ageing emerges when these repair programmes become insufficient to counteract accumulating damage.
If we can identify the programmes that maintain youthful biological function, understand how they change with age, and learn how to restore them, rejuvenation may become possible.
Our mission is to engineer rejuvenation.
Cells can rejuvenate.
We discovered that human induced pluripotent stem cells can be experimentally aged.
Remarkably, when the ageing pressure is removed, they can return towards a younger biological state.
The observation suggested something fundamental:
Cells retain an intrinsic capacity for rejuvenation.
We wanted to understand how.
Discover.
Finding the biology of rejuvenation.
We systematically perturb genes across the human genome and measure how each perturbation changes cellular age.
Combining genome-scale CRISPR screening with single-cell transcriptomics reveals the genes and biological programmes that regulate cellular ageing and rejuvenation.
GeneAge™ Atlas
A functional map of the biology of rejuvenation.
20,000+ genes interrogated. 151 age-modulating genes identified.
Measure.
Making cellular age measurable.
imAgeScore™ uses machine learning to detect age-associated changes in cellular morphology from microscopy images.
By comparing images over time, we can quantify whether a cellular phenotype is shifting towards an older or younger state.
Rejuvenate.
From genetic discovery to intervention.
GeneAge™ identifies biological targets associated with ageing and rejuvenation.
We then test whether modulating the same targets pharmacologically reproduces the effects predicted by genetic perturbation.
~90% concordance
between genetic perturbation and pharmacological intervention across the targets tested.
Can we rejuvenate human tissue?
Our first focus is human skin.
We will test predicted interventions and measure their effects independently across multiple levels of biology.
Illustrative research framework. The images and trend plot are schematic and do not show results from a clock.health human study.
A learning system for human rejuvenation.
Human studies will help test and refine our predictions.
Human studies will test whether our molecular predictions translate into measurable biological changes.
Each study can help us understand which signals are informative and refine the interventions we test next.
Illustrative research cycle. The faces labelled “Control” and “Treatment” are illustrative images, not study participants or evidence of a treatment effect.
One biological principle. Many tissues.
The programmes responsible for maintaining and repairing cells operate throughout the body.
By learning how to restore youthful function in human tissue, we aim to build a foundation for applying rejuvenation biology to age-related disease.
Towards healthier lives and better outcomes from age-related disease.
