Altos Labs

Altos Labs, Inc. is an American biotechnology research company founded on 19 January 2022.

What are Altos Labs developing?
They are developing cellular rejuvenation therapies that may potentially delay or even reverse the human aging process in order to stop age-related diseases.

Specialized cell therapies based on partial cellular reprogramming are being developed by Altos Lavs for this purpose.  Partial cellular reprogramming works by resetting gene expression in aged cells to a more youthful profile, doing this reverses a number of aspects of aging and makes old cells function like young cells again. Changes to gene expression, known as epigenetic alterations, are believed to be one of the reasons we age.

You can read more about how the actual technique works by clicking on the topic box below.

Yamanaka Factors - Opportunities for Rejuvenation

Drs. Takahashi and Yamanaka showed that they could use Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc (OSKM) to reprogram cells back to pluripotent, embryonic stem cells. While this discovery showed that cellular identity and aging could be reset with just four reprogramming factors, it causes cells to forget their functions and organs. However, exposure to reprogramming factors for just long enough can reverse the age of a cell without erasing its identity. This is the basis of partial cellular reprogramming.
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Altos Labs has expressly denied being a longevity company despite others claiming they are. We have a special episode of Lifespan News which explores why they might be saying this.

The company operates out of the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, and Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Some additional work is also being done in Japan.

Who founded Altos Labs?

It was founded by the biologist Richard D.Klausner and Hans Bishop.

Who is investing in Alto Labs?

Some of the money behind Altos Labs comes from Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner along with Jeff Bezos, who is the world’s richest person and the former CEO of Amazon.

Who are the researchers at Altos Labs?

Altos has attracted a number of respected researchers including Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, who demonstrated that partial cellular reprogramming could be done in mice. Steve Horvath is also involved and is best known for his work with epigenetic aging clocks, biomarkers which measure biological age and changes to that age following interventions. Shinya Yamanaka is also part of the team and is best known for his pioneering work making one type of cell transform into another one using reprogramming factors in stem cells. The board of directors also boasts famous scientists Jennifer A. Doudna, David Baltimore, and Frances Arnold.