What if we really could turn our bodies’ clocks back? In some cases, that could be a really good thing. Take sickle cell disease. A scourge of tens of thousands worldwide, it stems from a genetic defect in hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying protein in red blood cells.

Normally, our bodies can produce two forms of hemoglobin: adult hemoglobin, the form susceptible to the sickle cell mutation; and fetal hemoglobin, which is largely produced during development and for a short time after birth. Our bodies finish making the switch from fetal to adult hemoglobin production by about four to six months old – the same time frame when children with the sickle cell mutation first start to show symptoms of the disease. …