China Enters the Longevity Race: Meet the XPRIZE Semifinalist Prometheus Team

What if we could convince our bodies to heal and regenerate like they did in our youth? This is the ambition of the XPRIZE Healthspan, a global competition pushing the boundaries of medicine. Out of hundreds of international teams, only one from China has made it to the semi-finals.

The Mission to “Steal Time”

The team is led by Dr. Yi Eve Sun, a researcher straddling two worlds with positions at UCLA and Shanghai’s Tongji Hospital. Their name draws from the Greek myth of Prometheus, whose liver regenerated every night a powerful symbol of the healing potential they hope to unlock.

Their goal is to “steal time” for humanity, not by simply extending life, but by ensuring those extra years are filled with health and vitality.

The Science: A Cellular Reset Button

At the core of their work are so-called Prometheus Cells. The process begins by taking a patient’s own skin cells (fibroblasts) and using Nobel Prize-winning technology to epigenetically “reprogram” them. This essentially resets the biological clock, making the cells young and powerful again.

These rejuvenated cells can then be used to repair tissue and rebalance the immune system. Early preclinical results show encouraging signs, such as longer telomeres (protective DNA caps) in immune cells, a key marker of biological youth.

And crucially, the team says they plan to dose their first human volunteers next year, with results expected by spring.

That makes this one of the closest real-world tests of epigenetic reprogramming as a strategy to reverse age-related decline, instead of being just theoretical.

US Dominance in Longevity

For now, the longevity biotech field is still concentrated in the West, especially in the United States, where bold bets and big checks are the norm. Companies like Altos Labs, Calico, and Retro Biosciences are pouring billions into reprogramming and cellular rejuvenation.

China’s Biotech Race

China, however, is stepping onto the field.  For those who followed our previous coverage on the , this will sound familia As we highlighted previously (breakneck speed of the China biotech race), Beijing has been betting heavily on biotech since Covid, shifting from generics to advanced medicines such as mRNA cancer vaccines. Just as in artificial intelligence, where China is racing the US for supremacy, biotech is now being treated as a strategic priority at a national level.

We’ve yet to see a true “DeepSeek moment” in Chinese biotech, that sudden, world-shaking ...