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Turning back time with epigenetic clocks

If biological ageing can be slowed, halted or rewound, are the machine-learning algorithms the best way to measure it? Some experts are unconvinced.
  1. Liam Drew

    1. Liam Drew is a freelance writer in Kent, UK.

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Cartoon of a human arm wearing four separate wrist watches, each of which is a different colour

Illustration: Sam Falconer

In 2019, a small study raised the tantalizing prospect that ageing could be reversed. Scientists in California gave 9 men aged 51 to 65 a growth hormone and two diabetes medications for a year1. The drugs seemed to rejuvenate the men’s thymus glands and immune function. They also shaved 2.5 years off the men’s biological age, as measured by one of the most talked-about technologies in ageing research: epigenetic clocks.

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Nature 601, S20-S22 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00077-8

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Ageing, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

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