Jean-Marc Lemaitre, the researcher who wants to “cure old age”



“GHealing old age”: this is the deliberately provocative title of the book* just published by researcher Jean-Marc Lemaitre, Inserm research director and co-director of the Montpellier Institute of Regenerative Medicine and Biotherapy. This is the theme of the conference in which he will speak, this Saturday, as part of the Futurapolis Health forum in Montpellier. This world-renowned biologist showed, in 2011, that it was possible to rejuvenate the cells of centenarians. He is now carrying out an ambitious project for the Institute of Longevity, within the framework of the MedVallée in Montpellier.

What if old age was a disease that can be treated as such? This is the postulate of biologist Jean-Marc Lemaitre, who is the guest of Futurapolis Santé, a forum of the Point on October 7 and 8 in Montpellier.

Point : Cure old age, really? Is old age therefore a disease?

Jean-Marc Lemaitre: It’s a somewhat provocative title, to make you think and provide the keys and the tools. My ambition is to get people to understand that old age is probably a disease. We age because our cells age, either by senescence or by deprogramming. We can treat, as we do today, the pathologies linked to old age one after the other. Or perhaps tell ourselves that the disease of our cells is old age. It is the mother of diseases that will trigger age-related pathologies.

You have shown that you can rejuvenate a cell.

We were the first team in the world to demonstrate that cellular aging was reversible. The idea was to reprogram aging cells. From senescent cells of centenarians, we managed to obtain embryonic stem cells, as if they were on the first day of their life. Everything had been restored: the metabolism, the capacity for proliferation, the expression of genes… We then conducted tests on mice. We give them an antibiotic in their drinking water, with a molecule that will trigger gene expression, and we observe what happens. With treatment two days a week, they gained a healthy life expectancy of 30%, 15% by treating them two and a half weeks early in life.

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Concretely, how had they rejuvenated?

Towards the end of their life, they were protected from osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, the kidney and the spleen had a youthful structure, and the skin, it was incredible! Instead of getting thinner with age, all the layers were augmented. And, throughout their lives, the animals retained their muscle mass and decreased their fat intake.

And man, is it coming soon?

The scientific community is now focused on this subject with colossal funding to work on senescence, and even more colossal on cell reprogramming. Jeff Bezos has put 3 billion dollars on this subject. If I had the funding today, we could validate the first clinical trials on the skin in three to five years. We are also working on developing reliable tests to assess a person’s aging. If it can be reliably demonstrated that a person is 60 years old but that their physiological age is 65-70 years old, that they acquire age-related pathologies and that this is a risk factor, it can become a new tool for medicine. As long as we have not done so, I find it hard to believe that in France we can treat people who are not sick.

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What would the Longevity Institute project, which you are carrying out in Montpellier as part of MedVallée, bring?

It would allow people to work together on the same objective: to try to cure old age. This institute would bring together teams of researchers, with the necessary funding, companies responsible for dedicated research and development, by associating an experimental clinic to set up cohorts of patients. I want a place where everyone talks to each other, where start-ups can meet academic research, where researchers and postdocs can work and stay on site. An open and living structure, which would also study diet and physical exercise. This would be a flagship project for MedVallée, but also for France, with an international scientific council.

How would it be funded?

The communities, and in particular the metropolis of Montpellier, accompany us and support the project, but it will probably be private funding. I contacted companies and investors who are interested. We estimate the investment at 50 million euros. This is a major social issue: today, 900,000 people in France are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Their number is estimated at 2.1 million in 2050. France has 27,000 centenarians, it will be ten times more in 2070. Life expectancy continues to increase. We gain longevity, but not necessarily in good health.

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Until immortality?

Even when treated, the animals we have tested on end up dying. Reprogramming rejuvenates the cells, we take a step back and start again. But we end up dying anyway. The goal is to stay young longer, and die healthy!

*cure old age, by Jean-Marc Lemaitre, humenSciences editions.

To be found at Futurapolis Santé: Saturday October 8, at 4.45 p.m., conference “How to cure old age” with Jean-Marc Lemaître, the Pr Christian Jorgensen, head of the immuno-rheumatology department at Montpellier University Hospital, and Marina Shkreli, from the Institute for Research on Cancer and Aging in Nice. More info: https://evenements.lepoint.fr/futurapolis-sante/programme/.




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