Collaboration with Retro Bio reportedly boosts cellular reprogramming effectiveness via AI-proposed tweaks to Yamanaka factors.
Artificial intelligence giant OpenAI has made its first foray into biological data and scientific research with the development of a new AI model called GPT-4b micro. And it just so happens that the first application of the model is in the field of longevity science…
According to a story in MIT Technology Review, GPT-4b micro is a new language model specifically designed for protein engineering. Unlike Google’s AlphaFold, which predicts protein shapes, GPT-4b micro focuses on re-engineering proteins to enhance their functions.
GPT-4b micro’s initial focus on longevity focus is no coincidence; the model was created in collaboration with longevity biotech Retro Biosciences – a company backed to the tune of $180 million by none other than OpenAI founder Sam Altman.
With the goal of adding 10 years to healthy human lifespan through the development of antiaging therapeutics, Retro Bio is focused on using cell transcriptomics to target multiple mechanisms of aging, prevent age-related diseases, and extend lifespan. The company is building on Professor Shinya Yamanaka’s Nobel Prize winning discovery that an adult cell could be reverted back into an embryonic stem cell by exposing them to a key group of protein transcription factors, now known as the Yamanaka factors.
50-fold Yamanaka boost
Retro Bio and OpenAI researchers reportedly used GPT-4b micro’s suggestions to modify two of the Yamanaka factors, resulting in a more than 50-fold increase in effectiveness, based on preliminary measures. The results are expected to be published in due course, but longevity watchers are already buzzing with excitement about the potential implications for the field.
Foresight Institute CEO Allison Duettmann, applauded the two companies in a post on X, adding: “Finally, AI for science is really rolling in; glad it’s happening early for longevity!”
AI commentator David Shapiro hailed the news in a post on X, stating: “OpenAI isn’t just building another AI model here – they’re laying the groundwork for a complete revolution in medicine. And the best part? We’re just getting started. This is version one of a micro model, and it’s already outperforming human experts by 50x. Imagine where we’ll be in five years.”
Also commenting on the news in a post on X, Yuri Deigin, founder of cellular reprogramming biotech YouthBio Therapeutics, sought to temper the excitement a little, saying that “the real goal is not to improve Yamanaka factors but the opposite — to find novel factors that can rejuvenate cells like the Yamanaka ones but actually keep the cells’ identity rather than reprogram them.”
Others made the point that the news highlights the disparity between AI-driven advances in science and our current healthcare model.
In a post on LinkedIn, Dr Hilary Lin, founder of longevity medicine company Livora Health, said the news was a “wake-up call for healthcare that exposes a growing problem: our system is built for treating disease, not extending healthspan.”
“2025 needs to be the year healthcare leaders, policymakers, and clinicians have serious conversations about restructuring our systems for this new paradigm,” she added. “We can’t keep practicing 20th-century medicine in an era of AI-driven longevity breakthroughs.”
