Brooke Greenberg, aged 16, with sister Carly who was then 13
Posted on 05/09/2010 9:37:17 AM PDT by Steelfish
May 9, 2010 Girl Frozen In Time May Hold Key To Ageing American scientists are keenly studying the DNA of a 17-year-old girl who still has the body and behaviour of a baby
Brooke Greenberg, aged 16, with sister Carly who was then 13 IMAGE :3 of 3 Jonathan Leake
Scientists are hoping to gain new insights into the mysteries of ageing by sequencing the genome of a 17-year-old girl who has the body and behaviour of a tiny toddler. Brooke Greenberg [Pic in URL] is old enough to drive a car and next year will be old enough to vote — but at 16lb in weight and just 30in tall, she is still the size of a one-year-old.
Until recently she had been regarded as a medical oddity but a preliminary study of her DNA has suggested her failure to grow could be linked to defects in the genes that make the rest of humanity grow old.
If confirmed, the research could give scientists a fresh understanding of ageing and even suggest new therapies for diseases linked to old age. “We think that Brooke’s condition presents us with a unique opportunity to understand the process of ageing,” said Richard Walker, a professor at the University of South Florida School of Medicine, who is leading the research team.
“We think that she has a mutation in the genes that control her ageing and development so that she appears to have been frozen in time. “If we can compare her genome to the normal version then we might be able to find those genes and see exactly what they do and how to control them.”
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Hm tampering with the natural order of things..what could go wrong?
None of the hypothosies accounts for the lack of brain development.
Her senses are taking in information, why is it not being processed and built upon?
A mutated gene which stunts growth development predominately found in liberals.
Brooke Greenberg, aged 16, with sister Carly who was then 13
Thanks for the pic post- that was quick. May you never age.
I think they are missing the boat, because there is one animal that has recently become “immortal”, in a way, using a different idea. It is a small jellyfish, that once it reaches adulthood, and reproduces, then reverts to its immature form.
That is, it grows younger. Then at a particular point, it starts to age normally again. This is already causing a population explosion of this animal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula
While this is interesting in its own right, most people would assume that more complex organisms would not be able to pull off this trick. But they might be mistaken in this assumption.
Plants and animals vary wildly in the number of chromosomal pairs they have. Humans have 23 pairs, which is less than most other primates. A type of fern, called Adders-tongue, has over 1200. The Jack Jumper Ant only has 2 chromosomes, and its males only have 1.
Likely only a bare minimum of chromosomes are needed to achieve this “growing younger” capability, which is the flip side of aging. A distinct possibility is, that if you can grow old, you can grow young.
This is a very different technique than trying to just slow down aging.
Just because she isn’t growing doesn’t mean her body won’t deteriorate with age like it does for the rest of us. The reason we grow old and die is because when our cells are destroyed through damage and natural wastage, they are replaced with imperfect copies, which eventually get worse and worse until they are so bad one or more of our vital systems gives out and we die.
Its kind of like taking a videotape, making a copy of that videotape, making a copy of that videotape etc etc, until eventually the contents of the copy of the copy of the copy (etc)becomes indecipherable and is effectively destroyed...
There are a lot of sci-fi stories in which the only sign that a child isn’t really human is a difference in the aging rate . . .
What a strange thing. Has there ever been another case like this? I’ve heard of the reverse, children who age at an accelerated rate, they basically become old people before they mature. This is rare, of course.
It makes one wonder if that concept that was in that movie (can’t think of the title) where the man was born old and grew young could really happen.
Aacckkk! 16 years of diapers and counting!!
You are hitting directly on my first thought about the story. Isn’t there a difference between maturing and aging? This girl seems to have a deficiency that is preventing her body from maturing. Which doesn’t mean her body won’t age in the way you, correctly, describe.
I had a brother, born in 1964 who was like this. But he never got bigger nor acted older than a 6 month old.
He was my mother’s 12th child and she had some complication in pregnancy which caused her to be without oxygen for a few minutes.
We took him to all sorts of specialists and they pronounced cerebral palsy and that he could live 21+ years like that, no hope for improvement. When my brother was 4 my mother had to have an operation and she did not want us to have to stop our lives to care for Johnny while she was gone so she put him in a home for the week that she was recovering. When she left the hospital and went over to bring him home, he had died.
The hospital said it was pneumonia but I always have believed he died of a broken heart. He had all those family members who loved him and was held constantly, then he was among strangers who didn’t care.
Johnny could not even crawl, this one perhaps walks and moves more, so will possibly live longer. I doubt if she has the secret to long life.
She's got the mind of a child
And a body peaking over the hill
Well, she would if she could
And she should but nobody will
With her nails painted red
And her hair so unnaturally curled
Well I think that she may be
The oldest baby in the world
She's tasted the night life
But it's left her with nothing but hunger
And all the available men
Seem to think that they want something younger
But youth is a costume
And the beauty within lies unfurled
And I think that she may be
The oldest baby in the world
[bridge]
Fast horses win races
And royal flushes beat aces
And everyone's playing to keep
So let's turn out the lights
And rock that old baby to sleep
She loves the sound of the rain
But you know she's still afraid of the thunder
She keeps a head full of hope
And a heart that's so full of wonder
She may look like a woman
But she's still some daddy's little girl
And I think that she may be
The oldest baby in the world
Yes, I think that she may be
The oldest baby in the world
Right. I think that’s something entirely different from the girl in the article.
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