3 ms·

People have been trying to “cure cancer” for a while, and though there is some success, we have many more cure for mice, no? However, I have not heard of even

People have been trying to “cure cancer” for a while, and though there is some success, we have many more cure for mice, no? However, I have not heard of even a 10 year old lab mouse that has the health of a young mouse. Isn’t that a bad sign we can’t even slow aging (beyond fractional amounts) in a mouse?

odyssey7 5y ago
This reasoning depends on how much effort has gone into the two goals. Cancer therapies are a proven business model, so a lot of R&D funding has been poured into searching for them. I'm not sure how comparably much has gone into slowing mouse aging.
grishka 5y ago
Aging is not an irreversible process like most people think it is. It would make much more sense to research rejuvenation than to try to cure various age-related conditions individually. In general: cells see signaling molecules in the bloodstream and "act their age" according to these signals. It's a self-sustaining process too. Google "heterochromic parabiosis" for actual research papers. It's impressive stuff.
patall 5y ago
Both your arguments share one feature: rapid iterations. It's much easier to iterate over various cancer factors/treatments/conditions when the duration of a single mouse experiment is in the range of maybe 6 months. But when you want a mouse to live for 10 years your iterations take 10 years. And you cannot do the research anymore with PhD students or postdocs because they aren't with you for long enough. A problem that actually arises right now in organoid research as human organs, for some reason, need in the order of 9 months to fully develop. And 9 months plus learning, experimental planning, analysis and thesis writing gets you uncomfortable close to the 3-4 years a PhD typically takes (or at least doesn't allow much back and forth iterating).

3 ms·

People have been trying to “cure cancer” for a while, and though there is some success, we have many more cure for mice, no? However, I have not heard of even

by VirusNewbie 5y ago

odyssey7 5y ago
This reasoning depends on how much effort has gone into the two goals. Cancer therapies are a proven business model, so a lot of R&D funding has been poured into searching for them. I'm not sure how comparably much has gone into slowing mouse aging.
grishka 5y ago
Aging is not an irreversible process like most people think it is. It would make much more sense to research rejuvenation than to try to cure various age-related conditions individually. In general: cells see signaling molecules in the bloodstream and "act their age" according to these signals. It's a self-sustaining process too. Google "heterochromic parabiosis" for actual research papers. It's impressive stuff.
patall 5y ago
Both your arguments share one feature: rapid iterations. It's much easier to iterate over various cancer factors/treatments/conditions when the duration of a single mouse experiment is in the range of maybe 6 months. But when you want a mouse to live for 10 years your iterations take 10 years. And you cannot do the research anymore with PhD students or postdocs because they aren't with you for long enough. A problem that actually arises right now in organoid research as human organs, for some reason, need in the order of 9 months to fully develop. And 9 months plus learning, experimental planning, analysis and thesis writing gets you uncomfortable close to the 3-4 years a PhD typically takes (or at least doesn't allow much back and forth iterating).