4 ms·

The first time I heard about telomeres many years ago, it blew my mind. What everyone has thought of, but no scientist is willing to say out loud is that maybe

The first time I heard about telomeres many years ago, it blew my mind. What everyone has thought of, but no scientist is willing to say out loud is that maybe if the telomere count is reset (like it is for babies!), then we'd have cellular immortality. You could still die from accidents, disease, homicide, but not from ageing. One sentence background info: Telomeres set a count on how many times a cell can divide before it ceases to divide and becoming old and useless; in humans, the count is 40-60 divisions and then you (the cell anyway) dies. Simplified, but that's the essence. Yes, this is all extreme speculation, but if telomeres are the basis of ageing, can you imagine the upside for discovering a "cure" for that? If only someone like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg were willing to throw a billion or $10 billion to answer this question. Ideally it should be government funding it -- like an Apollo moon shot or Manhattan project effort. But any kind of research with words like "immortality" in it will never get off the ground. It has to be funded by an individual or maverick organization.

krastanov 10y ago
On the contrary, plenty of scientist have had the idea and researched the topic. It is not that easy because immortal cells have the tendency to become cancerous. Before suggesting intellectual dishonesty in all scientists check the first paragraph of the article that says as much.
- cantrevealname 10y ago
  I didn't accuse anyone of dishonesty. Scientists do say that long telomeres are associated with longer life. But they are very cautious in not saying (at least publicly): Let's see if we can find a way to lengthen or regenerate telomeres and see whether that permits immortal cells and people living hundreds of years.
Lewton 10y ago
"What everyone has thought of, but no scientist is willing to say out loud" What no scientist is willing to say out loud, is basically what scientists have been saying out loud since the mid 90ies. It has nothing to do with unwillingness to talk about the subject, but it has not been pushed that hard because there was* a strong belief that messing with telomeres had a very high risk of causing cancer. *is? Although I think this belief has softened lately
- cantrevealname 10y ago
  > what scientists have been saying out loud since the mid 90ies Maybe when they speak privately, but every scientist has a huge fear of branded a crackpot if they said something even remotely like, "I'm researching the possibility that we can make immortal cells". To take one concrete example, Geron, a company that is/was very active in this area was always careful to say that they are investigating telomerase to control cancers, etc. They never even hint that they might possibly be interested in the Holy Grail result of solving ageing.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
PetitPrince 10y ago
> What everyone has thought of, but no scientist is willing to say out loud is that maybe if the telomere count is reset (like it is for babies!), then we'd have cellular immortality. Plenty of scientist are actively thinking about this and are fighting against that because that's precisely one of the things that cancerous cells do. Further reader: Hallmarks of Cancer, the next generation, Hanahan & Weinberg 2011, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21376230 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21376230 (open access)
- cantrevealname 10y ago
  Did you read the posted article? He's arguing the contrary position (longer telomeres, longer lifespan), which is the opposite of the traditional view that we can't tamper with telomere length because it'll cause cancers to grow too fast.
kmm 10y ago
They're not the basis of aging, they're just a component of it. Even with immortal cell lines, your body would still sag and decay, as there is so much we have no regenerative capability for. We can't even regenerate small patches of skin without leaving scars Telomeres also have a function. It's no coincidence that telomere-lengthening telomerase is active in 90% of cancer cells. Telomeres might be an important cancer-inhibiting mechanism. It's in principle a good first defense against uncontrolled cell division
- cantrevealname 10y ago
  You're speculating about what's not possible. Considering that the upside of telomere breakthrough is so enormous, why don't we also speculate on what might be possible? You can grow fresh skin, new legs, new arms, and a new heart by having a baby. A baby comes from your cells in which telomeres have been reset. If it possible for you to generate fresh skin, legs, etc. for a baby, there might be a way, hypothetically, for you to regenerate your own skin and legs using some similar mechanism.
  - kmm 10y ago
    We still have the homologues of the old regeneration genes that are still active in lizards and such. However, they're not usable because of our strong tumor suppression genes. We're at least a thousand times bigger than a small lizard and expect to live much longer. Sadly, evolution favored cancer suppression in our genes to ensure our longevity and regeneration didn't provide enough to keep it around. It would be an absolutely monumental task to reverse tens of billions of generations worth of genetic change, and we would basically have to cure cancer first for it to be useful.
carbocation 10y ago
Hoping for telomeres to be the basis for aging is unlikely to yield fruit. There is a nice summary of the basis for aging [1] and I think it lays out a case for aging to be more involved and harder to surmount than that. Telomeres are widely recognized as related to aging, and there is intensive interest in therapies to try to test the hypothesis that keeping them longer will prolong life or reduce disease. In fact, there are over 100 clinical trials on the topic [2]. 1 = https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836174/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836174/ 2 = https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=Telomere&Search=Search https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=Telomere&Search=...
- aetherson 10y ago
  The idea that we'll just find one simple magic change and that will vastly reduce aging/senescence is wishful thinking. Literally nothing in our biology works that way.
  - kanzure 10y ago
    > The idea that we'll just find one simple magic change and that will vastly reduce aging/senescence is wishful thinking I used to agree with that sentiment. Except a single mutation in a single protein seems to be responsible for sleepers that only require ~6 hours/night for a full night's rest. There's a lot of strange stuff in biology. http://diyhpl.us/wiki/genetic-modifications/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/genetic-modifications/
pmoriarty 10y ago
"then we'd have cellular immortality. You could still die from accidents, disease, homicide, but not from ageing." Is death from "aging" a medically recognized cause of death? I thought people died from things like heart attacks, cerebral hemmorages, etc. "If only someone like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg were willing to throw a billion or $10 billion to answer this question." Google's way ahead of you. They have an anti-aging startup.[1] I'd be curious to find out if the fruits of their research will be available to the general public or only Google employees. [1] - http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/googles-anti-aging-company-announces-new-research-facility/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/googles-anti-aging-...

krastanov 10y ago

On the contrary, plenty of scientist have had the idea and researched the topic. It is not that easy because immortal cells have the tendency to become cancerous. Before suggesting intellectual dishonesty in all scientists check the first paragraph of the article that says as much.

cantrevealname 10y ago
I didn't accuse anyone of dishonesty. Scientists do say that long telomeres are associated with longer life. But they are very cautious in not saying (at least publicly): Let's see if we can find a way to lengthen or regenerate telomeres and see whether that permits immortal cells and people living hundreds of years.

Lewton 10y ago

"What everyone has thought of, but no scientist is willing to say out loud" What no scientist is willing to say out loud, is basically what scientists have been saying out loud since the mid 90ies. It has nothing to do with unwillingness to talk about the subject, but it has not been pushed that hard because there was* a strong belief that messing with telomeres had a very high risk of causing cancer. *is? Although I think this belief has softened lately

cantrevealname 10y ago
> what scientists have been saying out loud since the mid 90ies Maybe when they speak privately, but every scientist has a huge fear of branded a crackpot if they said something even remotely like, "I'm researching the possibility that we can make immortal cells". To take one concrete example, Geron, a company that is/was very active in this area was always careful to say that they are investigating telomerase to control cancers, etc. They never even hint that they might possibly be interested in the Holy Grail result of solving ageing.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

PetitPrince 10y ago

> What everyone has thought of, but no scientist is willing to say out loud is that maybe if the telomere count is reset (like it is for babies!), then we'd have cellular immortality. Plenty of scientist are actively thinking about this and are fighting against that because that's precisely one of the things that cancerous cells do. Further reader: Hallmarks of Cancer, the next generation, Hanahan & Weinberg 2011, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21376230 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21376230 (open access)

cantrevealname 10y ago
Did you read the posted article? He's arguing the contrary position (longer telomeres, longer lifespan), which is the opposite of the traditional view that we can't tamper with telomere length because it'll cause cancers to grow too fast.

kmm 10y ago

They're not the basis of aging, they're just a component of it. Even with immortal cell lines, your body would still sag and decay, as there is so much we have no regenerative capability for. We can't even regenerate small patches of skin without leaving scars Telomeres also have a function. It's no coincidence that telomere-lengthening telomerase is active in 90% of cancer cells. Telomeres might be an important cancer-inhibiting mechanism. It's in principle a good first defense against uncontrolled cell division

cantrevealname 10y ago
You're speculating about what's not possible. Considering that the upside of telomere breakthrough is so enormous, why don't we also speculate on what might be possible? You can grow fresh skin, new legs, new arms, and a new heart by having a baby. A baby comes from your cells in which telomeres have been reset. If it possible for you to generate fresh skin, legs, etc. for a baby, there might be a way, hypothetically, for you to regenerate your own skin and legs using some similar mechanism.
- kmm 10y ago
  We still have the homologues of the old regeneration genes that are still active in lizards and such. However, they're not usable because of our strong tumor suppression genes. We're at least a thousand times bigger than a small lizard and expect to live much longer. Sadly, evolution favored cancer suppression in our genes to ensure our longevity and regeneration didn't provide enough to keep it around. It would be an absolutely monumental task to reverse tens of billions of generations worth of genetic change, and we would basically have to cure cancer first for it to be useful.

carbocation 10y ago

Hoping for telomeres to be the basis for aging is unlikely to yield fruit. There is a nice summary of the basis for aging [1] and I think it lays out a case for aging to be more involved and harder to surmount than that. Telomeres are widely recognized as related to aging, and there is intensive interest in therapies to try to test the hypothesis that keeping them longer will prolong life or reduce disease. In fact, there are over 100 clinical trials on the topic [2]. 1 = https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836174/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836174/ 2 = https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=Telomere&Search=Search https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=Telomere&Search=...

aetherson 10y ago
The idea that we'll just find one simple magic change and that will vastly reduce aging/senescence is wishful thinking. Literally nothing in our biology works that way.
- kanzure 10y ago
  > The idea that we'll just find one simple magic change and that will vastly reduce aging/senescence is wishful thinking I used to agree with that sentiment. Except a single mutation in a single protein seems to be responsible for sleepers that only require ~6 hours/night for a full night's rest. There's a lot of strange stuff in biology. http://diyhpl.us/wiki/genetic-modifications/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/genetic-modifications/

pmoriarty 10y ago

"then we'd have cellular immortality. You could still die from accidents, disease, homicide, but not from ageing." Is death from "aging" a medically recognized cause of death? I thought people died from things like heart attacks, cerebral hemmorages, etc. "If only someone like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg were willing to throw a billion or $10 billion to answer this question." Google's way ahead of you. They have an anti-aging startup.[1] I'd be curious to find out if the fruits of their research will be available to the general public or only Google employees. [1] - http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/googles-anti-aging-company-announces-new-research-facility/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/googles-anti-aging-...