In a laboratory outside Cambridge, a computer screen displays microscope views of two human cell cultures. One looks uniformly healthy. The other is dying, with dead cells showing up as a livid red blotch in the middle.
The difference between the culture conditions is that the thriving cells were treated with an experimental drug made by LinkGevity, a UK start-up with an innovative approach to extending life.
LinkGevity focuses on preventing necrosis — a pathological process of early cell death caused by injury or illness. Carina Kern, geneticist and chief executive of the business, said this process “underlies many diseases and, we believe, is a key driver of ageing more broadly?.?.?.?yet necrosis has until now been untreatable and is widely seen as unavoidable”.