Shift Bioscience Unveils Breakthrough Single-Gene Target for Safe Cellular Rejuvenation
SB000 reverses cellular aging across multiple cell types without triggering risky pluripotency pathways.
In a major advance for the field of regenerative medicine, Shift Bioscience today announced the identification of SB000, a novel single-gene target capable of reversing cellular aging without compromising cell identity or activating potentially dangerous pluripotency. The findings, now published in a preprint on bioRxiv, pave the way for next-generation rejuvenation therapies aimed at combatting a wide array of age-related diseases.
Unlike previous approaches that rely on the Yamanaka Factors (OSKM)—a four-gene cocktail known to reverse biological age but also capable of inducing pluripotency linked to tumor formation—SB000 offers a safer alternative. In extensive studies across multiple cell types, SB000 demonstrated rejuvenation at both the DNA methylation and transcriptomic levels, key indicators of cellular youth, without the hallmarks of induced pluripotency.
“The discovery of SB000 marks a major milestone, both for Shift and the wider cell rejuvenation field,” said Dr. Daniel Ives, CEO and Co-founder of Shift Bioscience. “This breakthrough confirms the power of our machine learning-driven approach to uncover hidden biological pathways, enabling us to design safer, more effective anti-aging therapies.”
Shift’s proprietary platform integrates machine learning with large-scale multiomic datasets to simulate cellular aging and identify high-impact intervention targets. SB000 is the first output of this pipeline to reach publication, and according to the company, it's only the beginning.
The study reveals that SB000 matches or exceeds the rejuvenation power of OSKM in terms of DNA methylation age reversal, with twice the magnitude of rejuvenation in some cases. Critically, SB000 preserved cellular identity and avoided triggering pathways associated with reprogramming cells into stem-cell-like states, a key safety concern with OSKM-based interventions.
“With SB000, we’re looking at a gene that not only resets the cellular aging clock but does so in a way that’s translatable to real-world therapy,” added Dr. Brendan Swain, CSO and Co-founder of Shift. “It’s a transformative development in how we think about treating age-driven diseases.”
A Path Toward Therapeutic Applications
With these promising results, Shift is moving quickly to validate SB000 further. The next stage involves:
Testing across an expanded range of disease-relevant human cell types
Investigating whether rejuvenated cells functionally behave like their younger counterparts
Launching proof-of-concept in vivo studies, including in mouse models
The long-term vision is the development of precision medicines that can systemically rejuvenate human tissues, potentially altering the trajectory of age-related diseases such as neurodegeneration, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
About Shift Bioscience
Founded in 2017 by Dr. Daniel Ives and Dr. Brendan Swain, Shift Bioscience is based at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, UK, with computational operations in Toronto. The company’s unique AI-driven discovery platform is designed to uncover the fundamental mechanisms of cellular aging and unlock new targets for therapeutic intervention.
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BioFocus Newsroom