---
title: "Gene-Hacking Company Says It Can Slow Your Aging for $1 Million"
description: "An American biotech firm claims it can slow or reverse human aging through gene-hacking, but the entire premise is scientificially questionable."
date: "2019-12-05"
modified: "2019-12-05"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/biotech-company-slow-human-aging"
categories:
  - "Cybersecurity"
  - "Future Society"
  - "Gene Editing"
  - "Genetics"
  - "Hacking"
  - "Health & Medicine"
tags:
  - "genetics"
  - "longevity"
  - "medicine"
---

# Gene-Hacking Company Says It Can Slow Your Aging for $1 Million

![An American biotech firm claims it can slow or reverse human aging through gene-hacking, but the entire premise is scientificially questionable.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/biotech-company-slow-human-aging.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

A biotech firm called Libella Gene Therapeutics claims that the genetic treatment it's currently developing can reverse aging by as many as 20 years.

For an eye-popping price of $1 million, the company will offer an experimental treatment to elderly customers that the company says will [extend their telomeres](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/mice-live-longer-hacking-dna>) — structures that sit at the end of our chromosomes like protective caps, but gradually shrink as we age.

Libella uses gene-hacking technology to introduce a specific gene into patients' cells that triggers a process through which telomeres are rebuilt, *[OneZero ](<https://onezero.medium.com/scientists-dodge-fda-to-offer-a-1-million-anti-aging-treatment-in-colombia-38756dfb3ad1>)*[reports](<https://onezero.medium.com/scientists-dodge-fda-to-offer-a-1-million-anti-aging-treatment-in-colombia-38756dfb3ad1>). The company extrapolates that doing so will freeze customers in time or even make them seem younger.

"I know what we're trying to do sounds like science fiction, but I believe it's a science reality," Libella CEO Jeff Mathis told *OneZero*.

But experts in the field aren't convinced, saying that the [company's business practices](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/pharma-rushing-drug-development-moving-trials-poland>) and scientific claims raise all sorts of red flags.

"Even though the company is based in the United States, they've managed to find a way to evade U.S. federal law by going to a jurisdiction where it’s easier to engage in this activity," University of Minnesota bioethicist Leigh Turner told *OneZero*.

Turner finds it particularly troubling that the biotech firm isn't running its anti-aging experiment through any major hospitals, choosing instead a low-key, out of the way clinic.

"I think of this as a study where many things could go wrong," he told *OneZero*.

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)