A biotech company called Revel Pharmaceuticals is looking into ways to reverse aging, and the company’s science team, along with researchers from the company Calico and the University of Colorado, may be a step closer to realizing the so-called fountain of youth. The team recently published their study in Nature Communications detailing how they engineered an enzyme capable of reversing a particular form of age-related damage and demonstrated its competence with test results.

One common sign of aging in the cells of living organisms is a type of protein damage called N^ε-carboxymethyl-lysine (CML). CML is part of a group of harmful compounds aptly named “AGEs” (or advanced glycation and lipoxidation end products). Oddly enough, it is also part of the Maillard reaction, known for causing the browning in cooked food that creates rich, savory flavors, complex aromas and golden-brown crusts. In living organisms, CML builds up on long-lived proteins, like those in skin, blood vessels and the eye. This stiffens tissues and can fuel chronic inflammation through an immune-signaling receptor called “RAGE.”

“The engagement of the CML-RAGE axis triggers a signaling cascade that activates NF-κB and stimulates the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines and profibrotic growth factors. In the context of the central nervous system, CML accumulation has been linked to oxidative stress and mitochondrial damage in microglia, further disrupting brain homeostasis during aging,” the authors of the new study explain.