Murcia, June 27 (EFE).- The professor of Developmental Biology at the Catholic University of Murcia (UCAM), Juan Carlos Izpisúa, announced his latest research on aging on Tuesday in Murcia, based on the rejuvenation of the cells to achieve greater quality and resilience to diseases, since, according to him, “it is about living better, not more”.
Izpisúa, who met this morning with researchers at the UCAM HiTech, explained that around the age of 45 or 50 there is a logarithmic growth of all diseases such as cancer, diabetes or neurodegenerative diseases, which are mainly due to to cell aging.
“When we are young, the disease hardly occupies part of our time, the disease occupies it as we progress. The idea is to try to rejuvenate the cell so that it works better and the disease takes longer to appear”, explained Izpisúa.
It is a medicine that does not look for the cause of the disease, but its main purpose is to increase the resilience capacity in the face of these diseases, since, as the doctor has indicated, “a large part of the causes of the diseases and you can’t go after them without knowing them”.
The starting axis of the research is the transcription factors, a discovery by Shinya Yamanaka Nobel Prize in Medicine, which made it possible to discover the possibility of transforming an adult cell into an embryonic cell.
In this way, scientists have managed to make the cell rejuvenate and become functional and much more efficient.
Although the research is in a very basic phase and with a long way to go to be transferable to humans, the researcher assures that in the experiments carried out with adult mice they have been able to verify that the rejuvenation of certain organs leads to a better quality of life in those animals.
The work, which began years ago at UCAM, is the result, as he stated, of a “long and fruitful collaboration” that continues today, and that has been possible thanks to the generosity and effort of the former president of this university, José Luis Mendoza, recently deceased.
“For me he was a key person in our research because of the generosity he always had and his ability to synthesize and think that thanks to research we can move forward and we can make a better world”, the scientist assured.
Izpisúa has stressed that financing is key to being able to carry out this type of project but that it should not fall solely on public bodies, but that there must be a closer interaction between industry and the private sector.
The vice-rector of the UCAM, Estrella Núñez, has stated that, in this sense, the UCAM has managed to attract almost two million euros to invest in research.
“We need support not only from politicians but from society in general so that research, which is what really moves us forward, is considered a little more”, the scientist concluded.
