The European startups that are hacking the ageing process News Highlights: The European startups that are hacking the ageing process. Today, for the first time in human history, more people are dying from diseases caused by old age – such as cancer and heart attacks – than from infectious diseases. It’s also the first time in history that humans are just starting to understand what actually makes us older, with a whole new science emerging around concepts like telomere failure, epigenetic changes, and zombie cells. Recommended Advertisement These forces have created a whole new ecosystem of biotech start-up companies and VC investors with a daring mission: to cure aging. While this is still dominated by the US, it is also an emerging force in European biotechnology.