Meet Lakshya Sharma, a teenage prodigy working on 'revolutionary anti-ageing' drug

Lakshya Sharma, a 17-year-old boy from Gurgaon is a prodigy in the field of research. A class 12 student, from DPS Gurgaon, Lakshya utilized the lockdown for his outstanding work on revolutionary research, actually turning the COVID 'aapada into avsar' (calamity into opportunity). After losing his grandmother to cancer, young Lakshya was worried about losing his parents to age-related ailments. This thought inspired Lakshya to work on the development of a new drug that will increase the cellular life of humans.

Post-Covid lockdown, Lakshya associated with R&D heads of various companies (Solvay, Tata Projects. BASF, India) and professors of research institutions like IIT Bombay, IIT Jammu, IIT Roorkee, IIT Kanpur, IISC Bangalore etc. where he has been working closely for a couple of months now on independent research work along with professors.

Teenage prodigy working on 'revolutionary anti-ageing' drug

Lakshya is working on a relatively newer research field of Cellular Senescence & Senolytic Drugs that have the potential to increase the average lifespan & healthspan of a human being. Treating certain senescent cells in our body will help to cure 15-20 age-related diseases like osteoarthritis (loss of cartilage), osteoporosis (weakening of bones), sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass), hearing loss, vision loss, etc. with not 15-20 different medications but with a single medicine (Senolytic Drug).

Treating senescent cells would result in an increase in the number of years a person lives and would not suffer from age-related diseases as mentioned above in old age. It has the power to revolutionize modern medicine since there won’t be any doctors required specializing in Eyes, Heart, Lungs, etc., we would only be teaching Doctors to treat Ageing/Senescent Cells that would help in possibly increasing the number of years we live and remain healthy in our old-age free of age-related chronic diseases and increasing our efficiency.

Lakshya has worked at IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi and I has also published a book regarding the same which has been reviewed by professors. Teenage prodigy Lakshya has also been recognized/awarded for his research efforts by the Education Minister of India Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Director of the DRDO (Defense Research Development Organisation), Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), Government of Uttar Pradesh & Rajasthan.

Lakshya is planning to set up his own research lab where he can work on the new drug.Lakshya has also written a book on the cellular senescence and phenotypes that has been highly appreciated by the researchers.
“I had lost my grandmother due to cancer and was in agony about her loss. I did not want to lose my parents to any ailments or due to their old-age any time soon. I wanted the presence of my mother and my father till I am alive. Living without them would seem meaningless to me. I decided to read about how can I increase the number of years that they can live and making sure that they don’t suffer from any ailments in their old-age as I could not absorb to see them impaired,”

Lakshya envisions a world where senior citizens can live a disease-free life. Lakshya tells how researchers in USA experimented on mice by removing their senescent cells after which they found that the animals survived longer and didn't suffer from any age related chronic disease like vision loss, hearing loss, osteoarthritis among others.

"I had a general interest in the research from a very young age and I was particularly curious about things that were happening around me so I wanted to dig deeper, I wanted to read more about it. I had connected with couple of professors in the past couple of years and I had also worked at a couple of laboratories in top IITs like IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi. At IIT Bombay I got motivation for writing my book because while working there, under the professor at a lab, he had explained me how the protein analysis was going on in cancer. So, from there, I read about this particular term called senescence," Lakshya said in an interview with Republic.

"Senescence is a cellular condition brought on by internal or external stressors that causes cell cycle halt, morphological alterations, mitochondrial and lysosomal dysfunction and the senescence-associated secretory phenotype. Terminally developed somatic cells may now be reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells or another differentiated state using reprogramming technologies. During cellular reprogramming, epigenetic regulation undergoes a dynamic rearrangement. Reprogramming can be used to actively adjust epigenetic regulation since it does not need modifications to the underlying DNA. Although reprogramming has primarily been studied at the cellular level in vitro, investigations have shown that somatic cells in multicellular animals may be reprogrammed in vivo," read the synopsis of his book

"Cellular Senescence and Secretory Phenotypes through the Lens of Ageing, In Vivo Reprogramming Technology".
Lakshya is determined and focussed on his 'lakshya' (aim) to develop the magic drug that will postpone ageing.