Can you reverse aging? The short answer is: not yet. But a new study presented at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) annual conference in New Orleans last month suggests that effective nonsurgical anti-aging treatments might be a possibility in the future.

The study, which identified what the authors believe are critical markers to tissue aging, indicates that “histones and the way our genes are organized in our cells are important to aging—they affect how cells age,” according to Dr. Ivona Percec, the lead author.

To perform the study, the authors extracted fat from the abdomen of healthy patients between the age of 18 and 85 who were undergoing plastic surgery and examined the genes regulating age within the fat cells and stem cells they isolated from the fat. By comparing the younger subjects’ tissue with the older subjects’ tissue, they were able to identify the molecular changes to the genome structure that occur as we age—and now that they’ve identified it, they hope to find a way to reverse aging those changes. Percec and her colleagues claim that it may be possible look younger by taking a pill, using a topical product, or receiving treatment in injectable form in the future.

“Our goal is to define the molecular changes responsible for normal human tissue aging to identify novel, less invasive, therapies for the prevention and treatment of aging,” says Dr. Percec.

Sounds pretty incredible doesn’t it? Unfortunately, a pill that will reverse aging is probably years away—but in the meantime, the plastic surgery field still has tried-and-true methods to get you there!