Reverse Aging in Mice - A Fountain Of Youth?

A medical breakthroughs involving mice was published online by the journal Nature on November 28 and provides the first compelling evidence of aging’s reversal — not just delay — in a high-level organism, according to the following article. By tweaking enzymes that prevent chromosome tips from unraveling, researchers have shown age-related tissue degeneration can be reversed in some mice. This would really be very exciting as it marks for the first time, the possibility of actually stopping and reversing the visible signs of aging.
    . . .  June

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Telomere Tweaks Reverse Aging in Mice
Wired Science | Wired.com:

By tweaking enzymes that prevent chromosome tips from unraveling, researchers have shown age-related tissue degeneration can be reversed in some mice.

Medical breakthroughs involving mice must be taken with rock-sized grains of salt because, despite their superficial genetic similarity, rodents are a very long way from humans. The latest findings, published online by the journal Nature on November 28, are no exception. Nevertheless, they provide the first compelling evidence of aging’s reversal — not just delay — in a high-level organism.

The work represents an “unprecedented reversal of age-related decline in the central nervous system and other organs vital to adult mammalian health,” wrote the team led by Ronald DePinho, a cancer geneticist at Harvard Medical School.

The researchers genetically engineered mice to lack telomerase, the key enzyme ingredient in structures called telomeres that cap the tips of chromosomes and prevent them from fraying. In healthy mammals, telomeres shorten slightly with each round of cell division and such shortening is linked to a variety of age-related disorders.

DePinho’s telomerase-less mice tended to be prematurely aged and infertile with small brains, damaged intestines and poor senses of smell. Four weeks after the researchers gave them a drug designed to stimulate telomerase production, however, these visible signs of aging had reversed.

In a press release, DePinho described the transformation as “akin to a Ponce de León effect,” referring to the 16th century conquistador’s search for a fountain of youth.

It may be a premature choice of phrase. Before speculation on human applications can even begin, the researchers need to determine whether telomerase activation works for “normal” mice, and not just a single strain genetically engineered to age prematurely.


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HUMAN BLOOD Can now Be Created out of Skin Cells?

 This is really exciting!.Canadian scientists have transformed bits of human skin into human blood  - a major medical breakthrough that could yield new sources of blood for transfusions according to the article below. They even generated multiple different blood-cell types — oxygen-ferrying red blood cells, infection-fighting white blood cells, cells that make platelets needed for healing and more. Wow!
    . . . June

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Canadian scientists transform human skin into blood
By Sharon Kirkey, Postmedia News November 7, 2010

"Canadian scientists have transformed pinches of human skin into petri dishes of human blood — a major medical breakthrough that could yield new sources of blood for transfusions after cancer treatments or surgery.

The discovery, by researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., could one day potentially allow anyone needing blood after multiple rounds of surgery or chemotherapy, or for blood disorders such as anemia, to have a backup supply of blood created from a tiny patch of their own skin — eliminating the risk of their body’s immune system rejecting blood from a donor.

Researchers predict the lab-grown blood could be ready for testing in humans within two years.
The achievement, published Sunday in the journal Nature, raises the possibility of personalizing blood production for patients for the first time.

"This is a very important discovery. I think it represents a seminal contribution" to the rapidly evolving field of stem-cell research, said Michael Rudnicki, scientific director of the Canadian Stem Cell Network and director of the Regenerative Medicine Program at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.

"That one can play with the fate of a cell and force it sideways into something that it doesn’t at all resemble, and then being able to use it, is tremendously exciting."

The procedure is also relatively simple. It involves taking a small piece of skin just centimetres in size, which would require only a stitch to close, extracting fibroblasts — abundant cells in the skin that make up the connective tissue and give skin its flexibility — and bathing them in growth factors in a petri dish. Next, by adding a single protein that binds to DNA and acts as an on/off switch, the researchers turned on or off some 2,000 genes and reprogrammed the skin cells to differentiate or morph into millions of blood progenitors — the cells the produce blood.

They generated multiple different blood-cell types — oxygen-ferrying red blood cells, infection-fighting white blood cells, cells that make platelets needed for healing, and macrophages, the garbage trucks of the blood system that swallow and break down foreign material.

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Creating human blood from skin reads more like a futuristic comic book - but it's actually happening. Maybe we won't need to have these ethical battles about stem cells after all. What do you think the next medical discovery will be?  Leave a comment.


June


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