Scientists Advance Toward Reversing Aging
Scientists say they have a path to reverse aging by keeping DNA more tightly packed in our cells.
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.
Copyright 2015 Liberaland
14 responses to Scientists Advance Toward Reversing Aging
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Anomaly 100 April 30th, 2015 at 23:37
I like being 57.
Carla Akins May 1st, 2015 at 12:24
I like being 53, I just want to look 42.
Anomaly 100 May 1st, 2015 at 13:31
I want to win the lottery.
Carla Akins May 1st, 2015 at 13:43
If I won the lottery I bet it would go far to make me look 42.
Anomaly 100 May 1st, 2015 at 13:56
Money does help womens look younger.
DogsRgoodpeople May 1st, 2015 at 14:43
I like being 62………………it’s 82 i’m worried about.
Anomaly 100 May 1st, 2015 at 14:46
You’ll still rock at 82.
DogsRgoodpeople May 1st, 2015 at 15:37
You’re awesome
fahvel May 1st, 2015 at 03:34
why? Damn, this kind of tinkering has to be punishable by death if one studied leviticus carefully. Sheeeeit, a world of 10 year olds???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOIKS
bpollen May 1st, 2015 at 05:12
Could they hurry? My knee hurts.
Suzanne McFly May 1st, 2015 at 06:32
Glad they are focusing on “life saving” issues.
Budda May 1st, 2015 at 07:24
I only have enough money to live another 30 years, what then?
trees May 1st, 2015 at 11:58
But wait, I thought immortality was only a myth…..
Immortality, resurrection, eternal life….
These are all myths, right?
AdultLoli May 2nd, 2015 at 08:33
It was a myth before science and technology is making it a reality.
Many things that are not myths have their origins in myths. Myths and legends are full of ideas that one day become true.
Though, by the way, reversing aging is not “immortality”, rather, it’s just another way of medically preserving health. Even if you reverse aging, you can still die. It doesn’t make you immortal. It just stops the disease of aging.
Stopping and reversing aging isn’t any more immortality than curing cancer, is.