Genetically engineering for trehalose expression has been shown (2006, in vitro) potentially useful for fighting Huntington's and Parkinson's. Since these are mainstream markets with funding behind them, perhaps a gene therapy that does this for brain cells is in the cards. If so, that could be good as a cryonics pretreatment, as trehalose (a non-reducing disaccharide composed of two glucose monomers) is a good cryoprotectant.

Currently its role as a cryoprotectant is mainly prevention of ice outside of the cells, as it does not penetrate the lipid bilayer (membrane) of the cell very well. Introducing genes that synthesize it inside the cell could work around that.

Trehalose, a novel mTOR-independent autophagy enhancer, accelerates the clearance of mutant huntingtin and alpha-synuclein.