Biological Information Preservation as a Strategy Against Aging: Toward the Engineering of Time-Stable Cellular Systems

Abstract

Ndenga Lumbu Barack

The classical paradigm of aging frames the process as the stochastic accumulation of molecular and cellular damage. While this model catalogs numerous hallmarks of decline, it fails to explain the profound plasticity and phenotypic reversibility demonstrated by interventions such as partial reprogramming and observed in robustly regenerative organisms. This article posits a shift from a damage-centric to an information-centric theory of aging. I propose that aging is, at its core, the progressive corruption and loss of coherent biological information necessary to maintain cellular identity and systemic coordination. Within this framework, the cell is conceptualized as a non-equilibrium, multi-scale information-processing entity. Longevity, therefore, hinges not merely on molecular repair, but on the active preservation, error-correction, and synchronization of information across genomic, epigenetic, proteomic, and metabolic layers. I argue that targeting the fidelity of biological information—moving beyond damage repair to systems- level information stabilization—represents a foundational strategy for attenuating, halting, or reversing biological aging. This perspective culminates in the conceptual target of a time-stable cellular system, wherein aging manifests as escalating informational noise and desynchronization, and rejuvenation is achieved through information restoration.

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