About a decade ago, 125 amateur cyclists from all over the UK filed into the laboratories at King's College London. Aged between 55 and 79, they were there to participate in a long-term study examining how regular physical activity affects the ageing process. Janet Lord, professor of immune cell biology at Birmingham University, who conducted the study in collaboration with King's professor Steve Harridge, said the team were surprised by some findings when they examined the cyclists' bodies and took blood samples over several years. Her subjects, described as "very keen cyclists", were fairly fit, riding up to 60 miles a week. "We found things like increased fat in the body, which a lot of people tell you'oh, there's nothing you can do about that, that's part of ageing' – just were not true. They didn't happen in this group. We compared them with healthy older adults who were not regular exercisers. Our group did not lose muscle … and didn't lose much bone mass either," said Lord, who is the director of the university's Institute for Inflammation and Ageing, and a special adviser to the House of Lords inquiry into ageing, which published a report in 2021.

A little over 15 years ago, scientists at Kyoto University in Japan made a remarkable discovery. When they added just four proteins to a skin cell and waited about two weeks, some of the cells underwent an unexpected and astounding transformation: they became young again. They turned into stem cells almost identical to the kind found in a days-old embryo, just beginning life's journey. At least in a petri dish, researchers using the procedure can take withered skin cells from a 101-year-old and rewind them so they act as if they'd never aged at all. Now, after more than a decade of studying and tweaking so-called cellular reprogramming, a number of biotech companies and research labs say they have tantalizing hints that the process could be the gateway to an unprecedented new technology for age reversal.

The fountain of eternal youth could come in technological form thanks to $100 million investment in a life sciences company. Juvenescence is working with drug developers and AI experts to create treatments and technologies to treat age-related diseases and to increase human longevity. The firm, set up by London City of London entrepreneur Michael Spencer, announced a total investment of $10 million from its founders. A further $10 million each will come from four cornerstone investors, including Grok Ventures, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Mr Spencer's private investment company. This brings the total to $165 Million that Juvenescence has raised in 18 months.

The idea of immortality has been ingrained in humanity's creative consciousness since our humble beginnings. In the present day, eternal youth may soon move out of the realms of myth and into a reality thanks to developing technologies. The 2045 movement, founded by Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov in 2011, aims to make humans immortal by transferring their personalities into a carrier superior to the human body. The movement's ideology is "to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual's personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality." There are four main avenues that the cooperative are walking down in an attempt to achieve human immortality. Each step reflects a chronological step in the project, with each stage representing a further degree of disembodiment.

Scientists have revealed a new plan to find the key to eternal youth – and artificial intelligence will be leading the way. Using computer simulations to screen hundreds of compounds, researchers have developed a tool that can identify geroprotectors, the substances responsible for extending healthy life. GeroScope can compare changes in the cells of young and old patients and search for the drugs that counteract the processes. The project is led by scientists from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and Insilico Medicine Inc, commissioned by the Center for Biogerontology and Regenerative Medicine. According to the researchers, using computer modelling techniques can help to cut down time and cost in the development of age-combating drugs.