The geneticist whose work helped map the human genome, the first step in the quest to manipulate what is essentially the software of human life, says reversing the aging process in humans may be less than 20 years away.
George Church takes Scott Pelley into his Harvard Medical School lab to see his latest work for a 60 Minutes report to be broadcast Sunday, December 8, at 7:30 p.m.
Thanks to Church and others whose work decoded DNA, called the building blocks of life, the day when humans will no longer be prone to viruses or genetic diseases is coming.
But one of the next breakthroughs could be reversing the basic process of age itself.
"Age reversal is something that's been proven about eight different ways on animals," says Church.
He tells Pelley that in mice, tissue damage has been repaired, reaction times sped up and cognition improved.
The process could be perfected in humans in less than 20 years says Church. »