The human genome contains billions of DNA building blocks. To estimate age from blood, a research team led by Wolfgang Wagner focused on just three selected sites. The stem cell researcher is now joining the neotes scientific advisory board.
Three measurement sites may seem like a very limited number when trying to learn something about a person's age.
Yet a study published in 2014 showed that the chronological age of blood donors could be estimated from DNA methylation at three selected positions. The team led by Carola Ingrid Weidner and Wolfgang Wagner examined a total of 151 blood samples. It developed the model using one subset and then tested its predictions on the remaining samples. The original study appeared in Genome Biology.
Behind this is an idea that continues to preoccupy aging research today: Time leaves measurable traces in our cells. If we understand these traces, we can learn more about what happens in the body as we age.
Wolfgang Wagner has been studying such connections for many years. He is the director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology at the RWTH Aachen University Hospital and a co-founder of Cygenia GmbH. Now his scientific expertise is also part of the neotes scientific advisory board. Biography at the RWTH Aachen University Hospital.
The small markers of time
When people think of DNA, they often picture the famous double helix. For aging research, it is also interesting which chemical markers are attached to specific sites on this DNA.
This includes methyl groups. These small chemical markers are part of the epigenetic mechanisms that help determine how cells use genetic information. The sequence of DNA building blocks remains unchanged. The National Human Genome Research Institute explains this connection in its overview of epigenomics.
At some positions, methylation changes particularly regularly over the course of life. Researchers can measure such patterns and develop statistical age models from them.
Such a model is often referred to as an epigenetic clock.
The name suggests a small clockwork mechanism in the body. In fact, it is based on a calculation. It uses patterns from research data to assign an age value to a new sample.
Wagner's three-site study showed how much information for a specific question can already be contained in a small excerpt. The key was the careful selection of these measurement sites.
What happens when researchers change the markers?
Reading a clock is one thing. Understanding its mechanisms leads to the next research question.
In 2025, a team involving Wagner investigated what happens when individual age-related methylation sites are deliberately altered. The experiments were conducted, among other things, on human T cells and mesenchymal stem cells.
It was shown that methylation patterns also changed at other sites in the genome. The interventions therefore had effects beyond the directly edited positions. This provides clues about connections within this epigenetic landscape. The study was published in Nature Aging.
For aging research, this contains an important distinction: If a calculated age value changes, this alone does not prove improved cell function or a longer lifespan. Additional studies are needed to establish that.
This is precisely why this research is so relevant. It also addresses what the numbers mean biologically.
Learning more than a single number
The research field is also advancing in the calculation itself. In another 2025 study, a team involving Wagner presented a method that calculates age values using probabilities.
It also captures how differently the age-related signals vary at the examined DNA sites within a sample. This brings another property of the measurement data into focus alongside the estimated age. Original study in Genome Biology, 2025.
Such work shows how much is behind a seemingly simple result. An age value on a report is quickly read. Developing it and investigating its significance occupies research teams for years.
Wagner's own path combines biology and medicine. After positions in Bonn, Norwich, and Biel, as well as in Heidelberg, he accepted a call to Aachen in 2009. An independent institute for stem cell biology and cellular engineering was established there in 2021. Scientific career at RWTH Aachen.
With his appointment to the scientific advisory board, neotes gains experience from the research of epigenetic markers and the development of corresponding analysis methods.
Three selected DNA sites were a remarkable starting point. The questions that have arisen from them reach much further. We are pleased to welcome Wolfgang Wagner and his scientific expertise to our advisory board.
Meet Wolfgang Wagner and the neotes scientific advisory board.
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