"When the stem cells are re-programmed, as we have done, the epigenetic changes are cancelled.” said Wahlestedt.









"A critical factor that gives an indication of whether the procedure is going to work or not is the age of the bone marrow donor. By reversing the development of the stem cells in the bone marrow, it may be possible to avoid negative age-related changes." Wahlestedt explains that one of the possible applications of their findings lies in the treatment of older people requiring a hematopoietic stem cell transplant, for instance leukaemia victims





Finally, the researchers said that despite the great similarities shared by human and mouse blood their research is still on its very early stages, far from any human applications in the near future. Still, they are very excited with their findings as they indicate that the process if ageing may actually be reversible by cancelling epigenetic changes.

In their experiments, Wahlestedt and his team usedto rejuvenate stem cells taken from old mice. Specifically, they first generated induced pluripotent stem cells from the mice's hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and then they prompted them into re-becoming HSCs. It was later found that this process negated many traits associated with hematopoietic stem cell aging, essentially the new HSCs were younger compared to the original ones.