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"Cell Executioner" Gene
slantyyz writes: "A fascinating and possibly scary scientific discovery -- Toronto scientists have discovered a "chisel of life" gene that kills cells. Apparently this ancient gene, dubbed AIF [apoptosis (death) inducing factor] is found across all forms of life and acts as a cell executioner. While this could have uses in killing cancer cells, it could potentially open the discovery of a true fountain of youth." Nature has more, if you're a subscriber.
Biologically there is something quite right with it. There is a theory that old age death is very good for a species. It can't really be tested at this time, of corse. The closest you can do is take a genetic programming package, find a problem it can solve, and then change it to remove old age death. Then see if it can still solve it, and if it can if that takes more generations or not. My meager experiments with the "simplified ants looking for food" problem shows a huge increase in the number of generations needed to find the solution. But don't take my word for it, it's a pretty easy experiment, go try it. (note you still kill off the bad performers, you only let the "old" ones live if they are in the top few percent)
Socially it looks like old age death is a good idea. Most mathmations (for example) make their good discoveries early, and then don't do a whole lot. Or so I have been told. Plus think of the divorce rate if we don't have the death escape hatch 50% of marriages use :-)
All kidding aside, for social effects the only place I have seen them investigated is science fiction, and the results vary quite a bit. Many of those societies I wouldn't enjoy as much as this one, except of corse, I would have far more time to enjoy them....
Economically losing old age death would be a disaster if we didn't also lose old age (forget our current social security problems, if the avg. age shot up to 150 we would be sunk!). If we lost old age as well things wouldn't be as bad, but the increasing population would make jobs a bit scarce (unless birth rates dropped dramatically).
Personally, I would love to live forever (assuming I get to do it in fairly good health, and in a more or less normal mental state). It only causes a problem when we all get to do it :-)
This is not the fountain of youth. Your cells must die to remain healthy. The fountain of youth would be increasing the number of generations your cells can go through before they run out of steam. That's the fountain of youth problem - replacing dead cells indefinitely, not preventing the death of the cells you have now.
Ok, for starters: I really recommend that anyone interested in this stuff pick up a (modern) book on biology and genetics, there's a lot of stuff been discovered in the past 10 years, and we're only just scratching the surface. (Someone will make a lot of money selling computers to process all that info :).
This gene has been predicted (if not known about) for some time. It's needed, because your cells die all the time, they're supposed to. Over time, you get problems - errors - in DNA, and this is one of the problems with making cells that duplicate forever, eventually, they won't do the same things anymore (IIRC, brewing companies need to change the yeast they use periodically, because mutations that occur over time change the taste of the beer). The cells in yeast aren't all that different from the cells in your own body! (Actually, anyone who has problems with evoloution would be shocked at how much your cellular processes are (identical) to any other furry mammal).
The biggest application of this kind of technology is the real limit on human lifespan - brain cells. We can eventually replace almost everything else, somehow, but your brain is what and who you are. Once it deteriorates, you're not the same person anymore. Figuring out how to prevent brain cells from dying - brain cells are unique, in that they do not reproduce, ever - just the supporting (gidal?) cells do.
Nobody will be living forever until nanotech becomes rampant - no other mechanism to repair nerve and cellular damage is possible (and even then, it might not be enough). I wouldn't mind retaining my mental facilities until I reach the end of my lifespan, though. If you figure you'll probably live to 80, but will be signifigantly handicapped after 60 or 65, that's a 15 year productive increase.
..don't panic
The rest is also quite interesting. Read it!
Ron Obvious
What the article is describing is the discovery of a factor that leads to apoptosis apart from the previously elucidated mechanism, which involves a protein (cytochrome c) leaking out from the mitochodria into the cytosol of the cell, where it shouldn't be. Essentially, if the cell detects that, it knows that the there is something terribly wrong, and it should suicide - which is essentially what apoptosis is.
Now, it had been arleady known that there was another mechanism, because if they knocked out the genes responsible for the known mechanism, they could still get apoptosis, though not as readily. This lead to the search of what was causing it. This article describes that discovery, which is AIF.
Interesting work. The reason that this is a more likely candidate that the previous method for fighting cancer is that cytochrome c is a very large, complex protein. Injecting it into cancer cells to initiate apoptosis would be difficult, to say the least. I didn't see enough of the article to see how large AIF is, but I bet it is smaller, and may be easier to get into cells that cystochrome c.
The thing that has me curious is if they could knock out the gene temporarily. They showed that cells were less likely to induce apoptosis under conditions of serum deprivation (starvation). Starving cells is one of the steps toward prepping the nucleus for use in cloning. If they keep more of the cells alive during that process, they might have a better success rate in cloning.
Chew on that one for a while.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.