Posted on 04/30/2015 2:47:14 PM PDT by Beave Meister
Researchers say it may be possible to slow and even reverse aging by keeping DNA more stably packed together in our cells
In a breakthrough discovery, scientists report that they have found the key to keeping cells young. In a study published Thursday in Science, an international team, led by Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte at the Salk Institute, studied the gene responsible for an accelerated aging disease known as Werner syndrome, or adult progeria, in which patients show signs of osteoporosis, grey hair and heart disease in very early adulthood.
These patients are deficient in a gene responsible for copying DNA, repairing any mistakes in that replication process, and for keeping track of telomeres, the fragments of DNA at the ends of chromosomes that are like a genetic clock dictating the cell’s life span. Belmonte—together with scientists at the University Catolica San Antonio Murcia and the Institute of Biophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences—wanted to understand how the mutated gene triggered aging in cells. So they took embryonic stem cells, which can develop into all of the cells of the human body, and removed this gene. They then watched as the cells aged prematurely, and found that the reason they became older so quickly had to do with how their DNA was packaged.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
baseball cap
More money.
Somewhat serious question: They’ve found how/why removing this gene accelerates the aging process. But, as I read it, this interesting research doesn’t cast light on how to do better than the undamaged/unremoved gene does, and DEcelerate the aging process. Or am I missing something?
apparently Time magazine still exists somewhere or other?
Too late for me :(
You aren't missing anything. They found out why people with that particular aberrant gene seem to age so fast, but they did not find out anything about how to keep cells from aging.
Actually, in the lab, we "immortalize" cells quite a bit for research. The process has no bearing on how to increase human life span.
“Who Wants To Live Forever”
(from the movie, “The Highlander.”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Qe6yDz1HI
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