SB000: a safer path to anti-aging therapies

Shift Bioscience, a biotechnology company, uses dataset-driven discovery to understand and manipulate cell rejuvenation. They recently announced that SB000 demonstrates a powerful rejuvenating effect across multiple cell types. Crucially, the gene induces this rejuvenation without activating the dangerous pluripotency pathways triggered by current approaches such as the Yamanaka Factors (OSKM).  

The Yamanaka Factors, a group of four genes (OCT4, SOX2, KLF4, and MYC), have been widely studied for their ability to reverse aging at the cellular level. However, their use has been limited by the risk of inducing pluripotency, a state in which cells can become tumorigenic. This significant safety concern has prevented OSKM from becoming a viable therapeutic strategy for many age-related diseases. 

SB000 demonstrates rejuvenation without pluripotency 

Shift’s new research offers a new alternative. SB000 showed strong rejuvenation effects at both the methylome and transcriptome levels, both of which are hallmarks of biological age reversal, while avoiding the pluripotency pathways that raise safety red flags. Notably, the study demonstrated comparable methylome rejuvenation to OSKM, but across multiple cell types and without the associated risks. 

“The discovery of SB000 marks a major milestone, both for Shift and for the cell rejuvenation field more broadly, and demonstrates the power of our unique, dataset-driven approach to target identification. Offering comparable efficacy to the Yamanaka Factors without the safety concerns associated with pluripotency, SB000 is well positioned as a target for next-generation, safer cellular rejuvenation therapeutics, helping us bring about a future where we have substantial control over the aging process and age-related diseases,” said Dr Daniel Ives, CEO of Shift Bioscience. “We are pleased to progress SB000 on to proof-of-concept studies and expect this paper to be the first in a series of publications as we uncover the previously hidden biology of cellular ageing and rejuvenation.” 

Next steps: proof-of-concept and broader studies 

With this discovery, Shift Bioscience is now moving forward with additional research to validate SB000’s efficacy in an even wider array of disease-relevant cell types. The company also plans to initiate in vivo proof-of-concept studies to further assess the therapeutic potential of SB000. 

Shift’s ongoing work represents a critical step toward the development of safer and more effective therapies for age-related diseases. This research offers hope for interventions that could one day slow or even reverse the biological aging process.