Status: Retro's first human trial began in December 2025, with eight people dosed with RTR242, an autophagy-boosting small molecule aimed at Alzheimer's disease, and higher doses planned through 2026 with results targeted for the third quarter. That is a disease program, and the ten-year mission can only be judged by 2040 through surrogates: a human lifespan trial started now reads out around 2047, because a cohort enrolled at 65 reaches median survival about 21 years later. The one place a Retro-style intervention could show a lifespan effect before 2040 is a dog trial, where a 10% extension is detectable in about 4.6 years with roughly 1,400 animals, which is why the running lifespan trials of anti-aging drugs are in dogs. The arithmetic with sources (mine): https://w0lph.github.io/k9/why-dogs.html?v=2

Why the path to human longevity runs through dogs

Computed from the cited life tables and trials: a lifespan answer takes 4.6 years in dogs and 21 in people; dogs share our environment and diseases, lifespan has already been extended in dogs, and a regulator has accepted lifespan extension as an indication for dog drugs.

How do you measure of this has been achieved? If you intend to wait after all test subject die, this will obviously not be resolved by 2040

A problem with this market is that if a different organization contributes to this as well, it's hard to figure out the causality of whether or not Retro should be given credit.

Sam Altman has invested a significant fraction of his wealth in this company

The website has a lot of fancy words and little science/data to show for it. Just saying “cell reprogramming” tells me nothing about the feasibility of their ideas.

@drcat https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-12-19/longevity-startup-retro-biosciences-is-sam-altman-s-shot-at-life-extension This tells me More, i trust their methods better now but I’m not still sure they will succeed