The Curious Case of the Backwardly Aging Mouse

ScienceNOW ^ | 29 November 2010 | Jennifer Carpenter

[GeronL]

because the world needs younger mice.

heh.

[neverdem]

regenerative medicine ping

[americanophile]

This should really ruin social security.

[pepsionice]

I don’t see this as a positive for life on Earth. With the exception of cancer-like situations and car accidents...they’d be no life decrease. The population on the Earth in 300 years with this around would be a serious issue. Social Security? Well....we could make a rule that you could never retire, and you’d just keep working for the next 3,000 years. Maybe that’s the one positive if there were any.

[Hardastarboard]

Let’s hope they perfect this AFTER George Soros dies.

[GeronL]

I doubt we would live for 3,000 years, at least with the same body. If the world were run properly (i.e. capitalism, free markets) we could support and feed a lot more people.

[353FMG]

Don’t you worry — our benign government will find a solution for it.

[SampleMan]

But they artificially aged the mice first, why???

Will these ‘younger’ mice actually have longer life spans than a normal mouse, or were they simply able to undo what they had done?

I can make someone healthy by ceasing to poison them, but that doesn’t make me a healer.

[headstamp 2]

Logan’s Mice

[G Larry]

Hmmm.....
I’m opening me up a telomerase store....
Oh...and maybe a website....
oh, oh, oh, e-bay auctions once a day!!!!

[chris_bdba]

If that is the case then those who accept it will have to be prevented from collecting it.Perhaps insted of age it should be based on condition instead?Just a thought....

[chris_bdba]

Let’s try that again....If that is the case then those who accept social security can’t be alowed to take the drug.Perhaps social secuirty should then become conition based instead of age based?Just a thought...

[Jack Hydrazine]

The people from Ork can explain how it works.

[buwaya]

It seems they were exploring the effects of Telomerase generally.

They created the defective mice to see what would happen, and that was interesting in itself, as they needed to create methods to manipulate the gene.

Then they did the reverse experiments to see what effects restoring Telomerase would have, the important point being that aged tissues are not permanently degraded and can be made to “come back”.

[SERKIT]

[Young Werther]

Leave it to Harvard to take one step down the other brick road.

Hugh Downs, in 1998 reported on 20/20

The news is now out and it is astonishing," said Hugh Downs, co-host of ABC-TV's 20/20 program on January 16. "Researchers have discovered the mechanism that makes us age, and they claim they can slow it down."

The 20/20 show went on to tell the story of an eye-opening breakthrough by a California-based company, Geron Corporation, which was trumpeted around the world. The breakthrough involves the extension of the life span of normal human dividing cells in vitro by the introduction of the enzyme telomerase. Telomerase prevents telomere shortening, a process that has been described as the molecular clock that triggers senescence.

Telomeres are segments at both ends of gene-carrying chromosomes in the cell nucleus that maintain the integrity of the chromosomes. Normal dividing cells grow old and sluggish. Eventually they stop dividing because they lack telomerase to keep their telomeres from shortening, which weakens their chromosomes. Cancer cells, on the other hand, which have a plentiful supply of telomerase, continue dividing indefinitely, but are abnormal. The continuous, rapid division of abnormal cancer cells is a lethal process that leads, if unchecked, to the death of the organism.

"We believe that telomerase therapy will provide ground-breaking advances within the next 5 to 10 years for the treatment of the diseases of aging."

The treatment hasn't been implemented because of the societal implications.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

I don’t see this as a positive for life on Earth. With the exception of cancer-like situations and car accidents...

...and heart disease, diabetes, communicable diseases...and murder and war. Extending the human lifespan isn't conferring immortality.

they’d be no life decrease. The population on the Earth in 300 years with this around would be a serious issue.

I don't believe so - raising children costs quite a bit of time and money no matter how long we live. Few people are going to look upon 300 years of healthy adulthood as an opportunity to spend 300 years making the sacrifices needed to raise children. Even in our world today, as life expectancy climbs towards 100 in the West, the birth rate is falling, not rising.

[The Comedian]

Fortunately these sorts of experiments never result in unintended consequences.

(Young mouse mutation monster on left communicates its displeasure at being created to Will Smith)

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[SampleMan]

Then they did the reverse experiments to see what effects restoring Telomerase would have, the important point being that aged tissues are not permanently degraded and can be made to “come back”.

But curiously, they didn't just start with old mice. I infer from this that it doesn't work on normally aged mice. Otherwise, why wouldn't that have been done?

So this study is opens a window to another window.