Telomere extension turns back aging by decades in cultured human cells

Article

“Previous attempts to deliver mRNA-encoding TERT caused an immune response against telomerase, which could be deleterious. In contrast, our technique is nonimmunogenic. Existing transient methods of extending telomeres act slowly, whereas our method acts over just a few days to reverse telomere shortening that occurs over more than a decade of normal aging. This suggests that a treatment using our method could be brief and infrequent.”


So you go in and you get the nucleotides and your out and your body gains a couple decades of life as if you have all of a sudden gone from 65 to 35. Sounds nice. The kind of news I like to hear.

From Stanford, for those who want a second read elsewhere:
med.stanford.edu...

A new procedure can quickly and efficiently increase the length of human telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that are linked to aging and disease, according to scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Treated cells behave as if they are much younger than untreated cells, multiplying with abandon in the laboratory dish rather than stagnating or dying.

The procedure, which involves the use of a modified type of RNA, will improve the ability of researchers to generate large numbers of cells for study or drug development, the scientists say. Skin cells with telomeres lengthened by the procedure were able to divide up to 40 more times than untreated cells. The research may point to new ways to treat diseases caused by shortened telomeres.

Telomeres are the protective caps on the ends of the strands of DNA called chromosomes, which house our genomes. In young humans, telomeres are about 8,000-10,000 nucleotides long. They shorten with each cell division, however, and when they reach a critical length the cell stops dividing or dies. This internal “clock” makes it difficult to keep most cells growing in a laboratory for more than a few cell doublings.

Potential uses for therapy

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

Blau and her colleagues became interested in telomeres when previous work in her lab showed that the muscle stem cells of boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy had telomeres that were much shorter than those of boys without the disease. This finding not only has implications for understanding how the cells function — or don’t function — in making new muscle, but it also helps explain the limited ability to grow affected cells in the laboratory for study.

Very cool discovery here. This could end up helping people in more ways than one, given time to develop the treatments.

a reply to: bubbabuddha

I know that doctors consider Diabetes of both types to be an "aging disease." I hope something like this becomes available to diabetics (like me). I do not expect this to become available to the masses, but one can hope...

I think it WILL become available to the masses in time, because it will mean the end of human procreation.

Burgeoning world population is a massive headache for globalists.

a reply to: InFriNiTee

How Brain controls fat production

I knew a professor at UC Berkeley who had his lab destroyed and his work stolen for comming up with a way to make telemeres imortal just like cancer cells. He was also kicked out of the Berkeley labs after that incident, his name is Sham Sundar if I remember correctly.

With that biotechnology people can be immortal which is why I think his work was destroyed.

But who knows. . . .

The question for me will be , what will happen when imortality could be realised into humans? Will there be birth control as the counterpart ? Would it be payable to have such treatment? Do you want to survive your grandchildren? Ethically your psychical mind would have to endure all these questions. .

Diseases and accidents will still kill people, immortal or not, new diseases will keep popping up, old diseases mutate, murders will continue, TPTB will kill off 'useless mouths' planes will fall out of the sky, ships will sink, you name it...

a reply to: pikestaff

I think there will be managed procreation at some point (managed by the government, that is).

Fertility, sex (with a view to procuring children), the nuclear family...these things will soon be anachronisms.

originally posted by: InFriNiTee
a reply to: bubbabuddha

I know that doctors consider Diabetes of both types to be an "aging disease." I hope something like this becomes available to diabetics (like me). I do not expect this to become available to the masses, but one can hope...

Type 1 is genetic, Type 2 is preventable and essentially curable with the correct diet.

On topic, This kinda scares the crap out of me. If they could extend aging we all know who would get the first doses. The elite of our current day could live another 50 years. The poor won't be able to touch the stuff.

a reply to: bubbabuddha

Great news! This may lead to a vaccine which can be given at birth to enable the child to be human!

I'm going to be skeptical until I understand how this new technology will be used and abused to make profit.

a reply to: 0bserver1

The question for me will be , what will happen when immorality could be realized into humans?

I say everyone that signs up for the immortality suite of treatments also gets to be shipped off into space to colonize other worlds. The problem of overpopulation is solved if we leave the petree dish that is Earth

Where to I sign up? Seriously though, this sounds promising and reaching extended life is inevitable IMO. As others have pointed out it is not "immortality" it'll just extend life and give the lucky ones the choice of when they want to die. Eventually everyone would get bored with life and want to see what's next. It could take a million years but eventually I'd be ready...unless at that point science has some other options for me to choose from! :O

a reply to: bubbabuddha

This has been around for awhile. Look up TA-65. They recommend you start after age 40 when most of the damage has already been done and it costs about $200/month.

Borderline cells that start reproducing make cancer more likely.

I would want to beef up my immune system before doing telomere therapy.

And get a lot of cancer screens.

originally posted by: Semicollegiate
Borderline cells that start reproducing make cancer more likely.

I would want to beef up my immune system before doing telomere therapy.

And get a lot of cancer screens.

That would be a concern if the therapy altered telomerase expression permanently. it doesn't. this activity ceases when they stop administering the therapy. so if you had say a precancerous cell that only lacked the telemerase mutation common to many cancers it would still lack that mutation after the therapy stopped. the telmerase gene is not in the telomere it is in the regular genetic codes in the working/coding parts of the chromosome.

a reply to: bubbabuddha

Limits on births, rearrangement of social security infrastructure and legislation, changes to working and leisure...i can live with all of that.

Where do i get my jab?

originally posted by: InFriNiTee
a reply to: bubbabuddha

I know that doctors consider Diabetes of both types to be an "aging disease." I hope something like this becomes available to diabetics (like me). I do not expect this to become available to the masses, but one can hope...

How can doctors consider diabetes as an 'ageing disease' when children regularly get diabetes of both types, along with people of all ages who are obese or out of condition for long periods of time?

Doesn't seem a particularly correct or scientific consideration to me.

originally posted by: stormbringer1701

originally posted by: Semicollegiate
Borderline cells that start reproducing make cancer more likely.

I would want to beef up my immune system before doing telomere therapy.

And get a lot of cancer screens.

That would be a concern if the therapy altered telomerase expression permanently. it doesn't. this activity ceases when they stop administering the therapy. so if you had say a precancerous cell that only lacked the telemerase mutation common to many cancers it would still lack that mutation after the therapy stopped. the telmerase gene is not in the telomere it is in the regular genetic codes in the working/coding parts of the chromosome.

Telomerase only causes cancer by keeping worn out cells alive.

This therapy would keep some percentage of old, worn out, cells chugging on, with their old worn out DNA. Worn out DNA is more likely to become mutated and or malfunctioning DNA and so to possibly become cancerous.

In 1995 the NY Times published an article about telomeres and longevity. The article pointed out the cancer threat.

without the cancerous mutation of the genetic code for telomerase expression the pre-cancerous cells would not divide any more than normal cells. the mRNA agent just appends telomere non coding dna to the ends of the body's normal telomeres. when the agent is gone there is no further lengthening of the telomeres which is needed constantly by rapidly dividing cancer cells. there are other factors that kill cells that have become worn out. also there are factors that repair DNA damage that slowly begin to be overwhelmed or lose efficiency as we age; However, these also can be ramped up with suitable therapy.

For example there is a compound derived from cruciferous vegetables that NASA and others have experimented on and found that it nearly gives humans the radiation resistance of a cockroach. This is important because radiation works by damaging DNA , breaking it or introducing cross linkages or even encoding errors. but this substance radically boosts the bodies ability to repair damaged DNA.

www.sciencedaily.com...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...