Jeff Bezos Funds New Age Reversal Company

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has reportedly invested in a UK based startup aimed at reversing human ageing.

Russian billionaire Yuri Milner’s Altos Labs has received the Bezos ceil of approval alongside other early investors managing to raise $270m (£231m) to develop biological reprogramming technology.

The company formed earlier this year has already hired scientists with offers of $1 million annual salaries reportedly flying around.

This only the latest in Bezos attempts to find the fountain of youth having already funded anti-aging research in 2018 with Unity Technologies, a biotech company whose goal is to make anti-aging therapies.

Nobel Prize-winning Shinya Yamanaka, who developed the breakthrough reprogramming technique spoke on the Altos project:

“Although there are many hurdles to overcome, there is huge potential.”

Altos Labs is also said to have brought Dr. Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte on board, a Spanish biologist who used Dr Yamanaka’s research in 2016 on mice and produced successful results in reverse ageing in the animals.

After the positive tests were completed, the Spanish researcher believed they were working with a potential “elixir of life”.

The major question now is how to tailor reprogramming to see if it can safely rejuvenate animals without killing them.

Fellow researcher Dr Manuel Serrano told Technology Review:

“The philosophy of Altos Labs is to do curiosity-driven research. This is what I know how to do and love to do. In this case, through a private company, we have the freedom to be bold and explore…,”

“The aim is to understand rejuvenation. I would say the idea of having revenue in the future is there, but it’s not the immediate goal.”