Eternal life could be achieved by procedure to lengthen chromosomes

[humble3d]

Eternal life could be achieved by procedure to lengthen chromosomes

Procedure helps cells grow and could be used to treat a range of diseases associated with ageing

The key to eternal life could be a procedure to lengthen chromosomes.

The procedure would allow scientists to lengthen telomeres, the protective caps that are on the end of chromosomes and shorten with age.

The telomeres protect chromosomes from getting damage as cells divide and grow. But as they do, they slowly become shorter and eventually are unable to protect the chromosomes. When that happens, they are liable to deteriorate — thought to be a key part of the ageing process.

The new process allows scientists to lengthen the telomeres, effectively turning back the biological clock and making the chromosomes — and the people that are made out of them — younger.

When the cells have been treated, they behave as if they are younger and multiply quickly rather than stagnating or dying.

The procedure could eventually be used to treat patients with genetic diseases that lead to the telomere being shortened before it should be, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It could also be used to treat more general symptoms of ageing, like diabetes and heart disease.

“This new approach paves the way toward preventing or treating diseases of ageing,” said one of the researchers on the study. “There are also highly debilitating genetic diseases associated with telomere shortening that could benefit from such a potential treatment.”

The researchers behind the study hope that the procedure will be able to allow scientists to generate large numbers of cells to study or use to develop drugs.

The process has been discovered by Helen Blau of Stanford University, who was senior author on a paper describing the procedure with John Ramunas of Stanford and Eduard Yakubov from the Houston Methodist Research Institute.

“Now we have found a way to lengthen human telomeres by as much as 1,000 nucleotides, turning back the internal clock in these cells by the equivalent of many years of human life,” said Helen Blau, who is also professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford and director of the university’s Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology. “This greatly increases the number of cells available for studies such as drug testing or disease modeling.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/eternal-life-could-be-achieved-by-procedure-to-lengthen-chromosomes-10020974.html

[VileTouch]

[player]

i hold no grudge toward rainny day personally. this baffles me as to what message the picture is trying to deliver.

[flash48]

As technology advances, man is becoming more like God.

To quote the Bible 1:26

And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness:

Perhaps in a million years we will get there.

[Chancer]

Perhaps man is god.

[freeforever03]

This is very interesting. But extending life doesn't address other issues like disease, cancer, etc. This will kill you as well and immortality would be lost.

[CODYQX4]

This is very interesting. But extending life doesn't address other issues like disease, cancer, etc. This will kill you as well and immortality would be lost.

Nor does it solve a bullet to the head.

You don't have eternal life or immortality unless you can get hit by a Supernova and say it tickled.

[VileTouch]

i hold no grudge toward rainny day personally. this baffles me as to what message the picture is trying to deliver.

so you want to live forever to be eternally bored and complain to no end about how shitty an endless life is when all your friends and relatives are dead?

[flash48]

This may also cause an over population problem real quick.

[dcs18]

Die young - leave behind a handsome corpse!