When Yamanaka and his colleagues analyzed the progression (or rather regression) of the skin cell to the embryo-like cell, they uncovered a cascade of events. Circuits of genes were activated or repressed. The metabolism of the cell was reset. Then, epigenetic marks were erased and rewritten. The cell changed shape and size. Its wrinkles unmarked, its stiffening joints made supple, its youth restored, the cell could now climb up Waddington’s slope. Yamanaka had expunged a cell’s memory, reversed biological time.
