A drug coaxes tired old liver cells back to work in the lab — clearing two troublemakers of ageing

Deep in the liver sits a layer of filter cells whose job is housekeeping: they clear waste from the blood, including amyloid beta — the protein associated with Alzheimer's — and LDL, the cholesterol that drives heart disease. With age, those filter cells lose their shape and stop releasing a growth factor that keeps them working. In a study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Sam J. de Leve and colleagues report that a drug called cinaciguat restored that capacity in aged liver cells: the cells regained their shape and function, including their clearing ability, and levels of both amyloid beta and LDL returned to normal in the lab model. It is early, cell-level science — the team next plans tests in rats, including whether lowering amyloid beta this way can measurably protect the brain — but it is the first demonstration that a treatment aimed at the liver can fully restore these ageing filter cells, and it reframes two diseases of ageing as, in part, a housekeeping problem that might be fixable.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation