Professor Shinya Yamanaka, director of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Kyoto University, will serve as an unpaid senior scientific advisor to Altos Labs, Inc. (Altos), a new US-based life science company dedicated to unraveling the deep biology of cellular rejuvenation programming, and oversee its research activities in Japan.

Altos, recently launched with $3 billion of funding from renowned company builders and investors, said in an announcement on January 19 (JST) that it aims "to restore cell health and resilience with the goal of reversing disease, injury, and cellular dysfunction that accrues throughout life." Altos will set up three institutes in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, and Cambridge, UK, where leading scientists and researchers will work together to achieve its goals.

In Japan, Altos will collaborate with researchers at CiRA by providing funds for innovative research projects to advance research in the field of cellular rejuvenation programming, which Yamanaka, a senior scientific advisor to Altos, will supervise. Research themes in Japan have yet to be determined.

Yamanaka said, "I am delighted to be part of Altos and believe it to be one of the most important and exciting new global scientific institutions. The possibility of rejuvenation programming has only recently become a scientific reality and has the potential to enable us to approach human disease in an entirely new way. I am glad that I will help scientists in Japan to work in this exciting field."

For more information, please visit the Altos Labs website (www.altoslabs.com).