Researchers at the University of Houston have created a vaccine that may mitigate the opioid epidemic in the U.S. The vaccine can counter the adverse effects of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that authorities say is 50-100 times stronger than morphine.Professor Colin Haile, the lead researcher, said that the vaccine was developed keeping in mind the people who are addicted to the drug and wish to quit. “If the drug does not get into the brain, there are no effects,” Haile said.”There are no euphoric effects, and there are no lethal effects as well,” he said, according to ABC News. The vaccine will allow the fentanyl to be eliminated from the body via the kidneys.The newly developed vaccine still requires approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for human trials. Toxicology studies of the vaccine are still pending, Haile explained.

If approved, the vaccine is expected to be available in the next three to four years, the outlet reported. “We are close, but every time I think about it, I get even more motivated,” Haile said.The University of Houston said on its website that the vaccine may act as a “relapse prevention agent” for people trying to quit the dangerous drug. “While research reveals Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is treatable, an estimated 80% of those dependent on the drug suffer a relapse,” it added.The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says that fentanyl was originally approved for pharmaceutical usage for cancer patients. It was majorly used for pain relief and was later “diverted for abuse.””Fentanyl is added to heroin to increase its potency, or be disguised as highly potent heroin,” the DEA website says. “Many users believe that they are purchasing heroin and actually don’t know that they are purchasing fentanyl – which often results in overdose deaths,” it adds.According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths involving synthetic opioids have been on the rise. “Death rates increased by over 56% from 2019 to 2020 and accounted for over 82% of all opioid-involved deaths in 2020,” the agency said.

Thanks to extensive research in the anti-aging field and funding by billionaires, a number of scientific startups are on the cusp of delivering age-reversal solutions.The newest entrant in the biotech world is Altos Labs. Launched earlier this year, it boasts four Nobel prize winners as its board members. With a funding of $3bn, Altos Labs has some high-profile investors like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.”Ageing is not the same as rust accumulating on a car, it’s not just breakdown,” Prof Horvath, one of the reputed academics at Altos labs, told SkyNews. “Rather, there are processes that can be manipulated, you can tweak it. In certain ways, I interpret aging as a software error.”Unbelievably, the oldest human to have ever lived was Jeanne Calment, who died aged 122 in France in 1997.

“There are no hard limits imposed by biology or by physics that says that we can’t live better longer,” Kristen Fortney, CEO of San Francisco-based BioAge Labs, told the outlet. Focused on discerning the markers of aging, BioAge Labs is using large amounts of biobank blood and tissue samples to do so.The company has already found a drug target that slows aging-linked muscle loss in mice.”There is a protein called apelin that circulates in the blood, and we saw that middle-aged people with higher levels of apelin in their blood were living longer, with better muscle function and better cognitive function as they age,” Fortney said, according to Express.”So, we gave this drug to really old mice and we showed that it could improve their muscle function. It helped them run faster in their wheels, it increased their muscle size, it improved their grip strength,” the BioAge Labs CEO added.All that’s left is to mimic the same results in older humans, and a trial is underway to this end.Another participant against the race of time is Salk Institute for Biological Studies, a scientific research institute in California. Scientists at the institute reversed the aging in middle-aged and elderly mice through their experiments and a method called cell rejuvenation therapy. The process involved the use of reprogramming molecules that turned back the cells to a younger state.”We are elated that we can use this approach across the lifespan to slow down aging in normal animals. The technique is both safe and effective in mice,” Juan Carlos, professor at Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory, said.The traction anti-aging is receiving is only going to grow. According to a report by P&S Intelligence, the global anti-aging market is expected to see an astronomical rise from the current $191.5 billion to a mind-blowing $421.4 billion by 2030, as per Express.