Clearing aged cells makes old animals live longer
Aged cells (cells that have stopped dividing but will not die, and inflame their neighbours) build up with age. The question that matters for the headline is not whether they can be cleared but whether clearing them adds life. In 2016 a Mayo Clinic group bred mice in which such cells could be killed on command from middle age on, and the mice lived about a quarter longer and stayed healthier; in 2018 the same group gave old ordinary mice a two-drug course that kills such cells and the mice lived longer from that point. No human result of that kind exists, because a trial that could show it would take many years, and that gap is what this leaf tracks.
What would count
A peer-reviewed, controlled trial in people reports that those given a drug meant to kill aged cells lived longer, or stayed free of age-related disease longer, than those given a placebo, by a margin the trial was designed to detect. The animal rung is the same result in a living animal. For the clinic rung: a regulator approves such a drug to prevent age-related decline or disease, or it is in routine use in a named clinical setting for that purpose.
Who settles it: The peer-reviewed trial report; the regulator's approval record for the clinic rung.
Where it stands
Shown in animals. Reached 3 February 2016, on the record of Baker and 12 others, 3 February 2016 (doi.org). Next rung more than 20 years away, if ever.
When it reaches the clinic: the project's estimate
This is the one thing on this page that is a judgment rather than a record. The project's estimate of the year it reaches the clinic is 2050, no earlier than 2038 and no later than 2100; the model draws from that range every run, with the likely year the most probable draw. Set 16 October 2026, a first pass awaiting an outside review.
| Rung | No earlier than | Most likely | No later than | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First human | 2034 | 2042 | 2070 | |
| In clinical use | 2038 | 2050 | 2100 | feeds the year at the top |
Why. A human lifespan or healthy-years trial of a drug of this class has not been proposed, and the measuring branch says why: without an accepted marker of slowed ageing, such a trial needs thousands of people for a decade. The likely year assumes the clinic rung is reached through a healthy-years trial that starts in the mid 2030s once a drug of the class is approved for a single condition, and reads out a decade later; the earliest assumes a regulator accepts a marker of ageing as the proof before then; the latest is the case where no such trial is ever funded and the rung is reached, if at all, by a drug approved for ageing itself late in the century.
Changes to this record
None since it was written on 16 October 2026. Every change to the stage or the estimate lands here with its date, the old value, the new one and the reason, and a change to the estimate never happens because a number looked wrong: it needs a dated reason and a source.
The last readings
- 17 October 2026 Quiet
Nothing in the window. Both searches returned only the 2016 engineered-mouse result and the 2018 dasatinib-plus-quercetin result (36 per cent longer remaining life in old mice) that the record already holds, and no human trial with a lifespan or healthy-years measure was found proposed or started. The session's search budget ran out before a third query could be run for this leaf.
What the story so far says about it
On the record
Notes
This is the lifespan leaf for the branch; the measurement leaf (fewer aged cells in a person) and the clinical-benefit leaf (a controlled trial won) are separate, because a drug can clear the cells and help a knee without adding a year to anyone's life. The 2018 result is the one that matters most for people, since it used ordinary mice and ordinary drugs, and it is in the notes rather than the record because the 2016 engineered-mouse result came first.