Once reviled as dirty germs you wouldn’t want to touch or let inside you, humans are now making good use of microbes. We have found that they can be beneficial—such as gut bacteria—and we are eating them in droves to make us regular. Scientists have also found that certain bacteria on the skin are important for keeping it healthy. Scientists have tweaked bacteria to do all kinds of useful things, such as make fuel out of biomass, or clean up environmental hazards. There’s also a new company that aims to unlock their therapeutic potential—the power of bugs to make drugs. Now scientists are claiming they could also have the potential to be the elusive fountain of youth.

Russian scientists say they have discovered a type of bacteria in the Siberian permafrost that may slow the aging process—at least in mice. These bacteria, dubbed Bacillius F, were found in one of the coldest inhabited places on earth—in Russia’s northern region of Yakutia and can reproduce at temperatures as cold as 5 degrees Celsius. They are also very primitive in an evolutionary sense, lagging by 3 million years similar bacteria found today, in terms of their biological characteristics.

Because the bacteria were so well-preserved, researchers at the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences decided to inject them into mice to see what would happen. They found that the bacteria seemed to boost their natural defenses. Mice injected with Bacillius F had a 20 to 30 percent increase in their metabolism compared to a control group, according to the scientists who found that it also seemed to reduce the incidence of age-related blindness, but not the emergence of tumors.

“Bacillius F injections have favorably affected the quality of being of the aging animals,” the Russian scientists say, according AFP. Although the Russian Academy of Sciences gave little clue as to how many mice were in the experiment, it said that it needed to be tested in a larger group of animals to ascertain draw any conclusions. The institute says the mice from the test group outlived the control group. But it remains to be seen whether the results will translate to humans.