The key to staying forever young could reside in a lab in Cambridge

Andy Martin would like to be 39 again. He talks to Wolf Reik about epigenetics, the science of cellular rejuvenation, and getting old without getting older

Mouse embryos labelled with fluorescent markers (Babraham Institute)

Imagine a terminator coming back through time to get you. It is programmed to cut you off in your prime, to stop you in your tracks before you can really get going. You are, in a word, doomed. Well, the good news is that you don’t have to imagine this apocalyptic scenario – because it really is happening, right now. And the sad truth is that the terminator is not just real, the terminator is you. Whether you like it or not, you will end up terminating yourself. And there’s not a thing you can do to stop this monstrous killing machine carrying out its mission. Or is there?

Wolf Reik leads me to think that it might be possible, in the final reel, to fight off the Grim Reaper that is within you. I’ve always liked the story of King Canute who planted his throne on the beach right where the waves are breaking and had a crack at holding back the tide. And of course failed (in the smart version of the legend he is proving to his incredulous followers that he is not in fact omnipotent and even he must submit to the greater power of nature). Something similar must apply, surely, to the tide of time: none of us can hold that back either. But maybe Reik has done just that. 

Reik is the director of the Babraham Institute, the world-class centre of research into the mechanisms of ageing and rejuvenation, located in the hills around Cambridge, and a professor of epigenetics (which is, in a nutshell, everything that impacts on the genome that is not strictly genomic, the realm where nurture meets nature).  And he is a keen cyclist too. He stresses that, for the time being, probably the best thing you can do to “slow down” the advancing tide is (a) cycle more (b) get a good night’s sleep (c) eat your greens and (d) brush your teeth properly (it’s true – good oral hygiene is crucial).