This episode is reminiscent of the TOS episode The Deadly Years. A chance for the makeup artists to have a little fun, and not much more.

Actually, the thrust of this episode is quite different from "The Deadly Years"--that one was about the inescapability of age, the loss of control and respect suffered by the elderly. It wasn't the best episode, but it really was an attempt to deal with the issue of aging.

In this episode, aging is merely the monster of the week. If there is a point, I suppose it is that genetic engineering is dangerous--but that's a sufficiently fantastic point that there's no point in making it.

A similar device, with overeager human cells causing a deadly disease, was used in Contagion, a 1950 short story by Katherine MacLean.