Longevity doesn’t enter the clinic with fireworks. It enters with protocols.

ER-100 is a perfect example—not because we already know it works, but because it shows how the field is trying to cross the only bridge that matters: from mechanistic promise to human evidence.

A Phase 1 study for ER-100 is listed for optic neuropathies, including glaucoma (POAG) and NAION. Life Biosciences has also publicly discussed a Q1 2026 clinical timeline for its ocular reprogramming push.

Why the eye is the “first reasonable place” for reprogramming

Epigenetic reprogramming carries existential risks: you are messing with cell identity. In theory, push too hard and you can drift toward uncontrolled growth or wrong-cell-state behavior.

The eye lowers the risk in three ways:

  • Local delivery: you can confine exposure.
  • High-resolution measurement: imaging and functional vision endpoints are unusually precise.
  • Clinical urgency: blindness is not abstract. It’s a daily-life collapse.

What “success” would look like (without the hype)

A Phase 1 study usually emphasizes safety and tolerability. That’s not a disappointment—that’s responsible medicine.

But even in early-stage work, the world will look for:

  • Signals of functional improvement (or slowed decline)
  • Durability (weeks vs months vs longer)
  • Dose-response hints (the true mark of mechanism)

The hidden editorial story: regulators don’t approve “aging”

No major regulator approves “aging” as an indication. That’s why the field keeps choosing diseases with clear outcomes. Reprogramming’s first wins—if they come—will likely be disease-modifying effects in specific tissues, not a generalized “age reversal.”

What to watch next

  • Updates to trial registry details (enrollment, endpoints, timeline shifts)
  • Any safety flags
  • Any readouts suggesting durable functional benefit
If ER-100 shows a clean safety profile with even a modest directional functional signal, it will be one of the most important “proof-of-translation” moments in longevity medicine.

Why This Matters:

Vision loss is one of aging’s most feared trajectories because it steals independence fast. If a reprogramming-based therapy can protect optic function—even partially—it validates the idea that aging mechanisms can be therapeutically targeted. The ethical stakes are enormous: gene therapies require trust, long-term safety monitoring, and careful access models. Done right, this is the kind of longevity that improves ordinary life—not just lifespan math.

Back to hub: Longevity 2026: The Clinical Turn