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Cell Division Reversed for the First Time
SubtleGuest writes "Gary J. Gorbsky, Ph.D., a scientist with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, has found a way to reverse the process of cell division.
The discovery could have important implications for the treatment of cancer, birth defects and numerous other diseases and disorders. Gorbsky's findings appear in the April 13 issue of the journal Nature.
"No one has gotten the cell cycle to go backwards before now," said Gorbsky. "This shows that certain events in the cell cycle that have long been assumed irreversible may, in fact, be reversible."
In the lab, Gorbsky and his OMRF colleagues were able to control the protein responsible for the division process, interrupt and reverse the event, sending duplicate chromosomes back to the center of the original cell, an event once thought impossible.
Here is a video of it happening."
And here is the video of cell division. only its played in reverse.
WhatsAPro.com
Mark
It might not be too late to 'take back' that decision you made to have children 10 years ago?
I've always assumed that most smokers are people with untreated ADHD. Has anyone read anything to indicate whether or not this is the case?
The positive effects of smoking (feeling calmed down and more focused) are the same effects of ADHD medication except, obviously, the medication won't cause cancer, it is given in a dose that is consistent through the entire day, and it is not addictive.
I'd be curious to find out if giving a smoker medication for ADHD would make it easier for them to quit.
Cow Cube
In Canada (I'm sure the USA is similar), the overall cancer rate is now 1 in 2 ... that's right 50% of the population will contract cancer at some point in their life (most of those will eventually die from it). Here's the real shocker. The Government response... (snip rant about carcinogens)
You're the victim of a very fundamental misunderstanding. The overall cancer death rate is actually 1 in 1. If you live long enough, you will eventually die of cancer. It's a perfectly-normal consequence of telomere loss due to aging.
As we get better at preventing and treating heart disease and other vascular problems like stroke, it's only reasonable to expect cancer death rates to rise. It is not reasonable to start leaping to wild-assed conclusions about carcinogens, cell phones, and conspiracies. None of those are the problem. The problem is that most of the low-hanging fruit in the health-care business has been picked, and only the hard problems like cancer (which, as others have noted, refers to a great variety of different diseases) remain.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
"a scientist with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, has found a way to reverse the process of cell division."
Eeewww!! Grosss!!
Anybody else also reminded of those "see me eat my hamburger in reverse" videos?
It's easy to lower the cancer death rate; make sure people die of something else first!
Males will all eventually get prostate cancer; the rates are rising because they aren't dieing of the things we traditionally died of in the past - communicable diseases, war, accident and heart disease.
If we got out and started a good war, fewer people would die of cancer! Think of Iraq as a big anti-cancer crusade.
I believe it's called a "micro-scope" Microscope
Popular Mechanics hasn't covered this one yet as it's only been around for about 400 years
I just found the box to change my sig. Um.... [timeless witticism].
The article doesn't say if the chromosomes merge back into one or not. I can't imagine that this would be possible, given the complexity of DNA. So does the cell just sit there with two sets of chromosomes. Also, would this be a way to build some kind of super muscle, with twice as many mitochondria?
Not only that, but many cancers are now curable if caught early enough. Especially cancers that are most common in children and young adults, because typically the tissues and cells that are in overdrive in the developing stages (and most susceptible to becoming cancerous) are less active in adulthood.
Good examples of cancers with excellent cure rates are Wilm's tumor, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), neuroblastoma,retinoblastoma, and Hodgkin's lymphoma.
And this is just breaking the tip of the iceberg. Most of that NIH money actually goes to good use, unlike a lot of government spending.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
From the article "Time-lapse phasecontrast and fluorescence images were collected from cells grown on glass coverslips using a Zeiss Axiovert 200M microscope equipped with a Hamamatsu ORCA camera." They use a fancy (and expensive) inverted light microscope with a digital camera attached to it to take the images. The section on the right part of the movie is made using with a fluorescence stain as the cell proceeds through mitosis. There is a light source attached to the microscope that emits light at a certain wavelength to excite the fluorescence stain that can be bound to a variety of things - mitochondria, DNA, etc. In this case the fluorescence is bound to alpha-tubulin-GFP. Alpha-tubulin is a protein found in microtubules which are involved with cell shape and cell structure. GFP merely means "Green Fluorescent Protein" - that it will fluoresce in the green wavelength. http://microscope.olympus.com/contentsDB/01world/0 1reseach/a_appli/12/contents.html
Use of fluorescence in biochem is really fascinating, and fortunately I have a good amount of experience as a student using fluorescence as a tool. You can bind several fluorescence probes to a cell and get some really cool images:
http://probes.invitrogen.com/servlets/photo?fileid =g002761&company=probes
I can use this cell undevision (fusion?) technique to revert myself to a giant sperm. And I'll be smart enough to choose the best genes before finding myself an equally oversized egg to start over. Who wouldn't want in-home eugenics?
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I can't say whether or not you have ADHD, but I'd just like to correct a misconception that ADHD just implies a lack of attention. The name is a misnomer. ADHD is really about a lack of ability to control attention. An ADHD person will sometimes hyper focus to the exclusion of everything and sometimes have no ability to feel comfortable continuing to do anything for very long. Obviously, everyone falls somewhere on that sort of scale. It's just when someone hits those extremes too often that it is a problem.
Cow Cube
In Canada (I'm sure the USA is similar), the overall cancer rate is now 1 in 2 ... that's right 50% of the population will contract cancer at some point in their life (most of those will eventually die from it).
More people die of cancer because fewer people die of other things. Most (certainly not all) cancer is related to age. We are getting very good at living a very long time compared to what is "natural". The result is that old age disease take a heavier portion of our deaths. We have dramatically slashed the number of deaths to viruses and infection in first world nations.
Even cancer is less of a killer then it used to be. More people get cancer because they live longer, but more people survive cancer then ever. As far as sucking air goes, there has not been a better time to be alive (in terms of life span) so long as you are in a first world nation. It is entirely possible that most kids born in 2000 will live to see 2100. Hell, it is very likely that a large portion of the people who are just now leaving college will live to see 2100.
People who don't smoke, drink or do drugs, who eat properly, exercise regularly, watch their fat intake, get plenty of fiber, and do everything else right do NOT, in fact, live longer.
It just SEEMS like it's taking them forever to die.
The ability to return a cell to metaphase upon the removal of a chemical (Flavopiridol) which causes the mitotic exit of cells which are expressing non-degredatable Cyclin B is interesting, but it definetly tells us nothing about how to reverse this process in non-transformed human cells. The press release is a bit too effusive about the potential of this finding to radically transform the treatment of cancer, etc. as the finding primarily recomfirms the hypothesis that the degredation of cyclin B is what gives directionality to the cell process, and by blocking the degredation of Cyclin B, you can reverse the cell cycle.
And just in case you're confused like the submitter, there's way more than one protein involved in the cell division process in any eukaryotic cell; Cyclins like Cyclin B are very important, but it's a whole host of proteins that are involved in ushering the cell from G1 to S to G2 to M; assuring alignment, proper exit, arrest upon damage, etc. [One could even argue that the whole point of most cells is to divide, and so every bit of the cell is important and/or participates in some way in the process...]
http://www.donarmstrong.com
It's not a cure for old age, its no longer possible after a certain point so you can't reverse an entire lineage back to one cell.
It's not going to reverse cancer either, for the same reason. What it *might* do, if you can determine on a cellular level which cells are cancerous, is halt the growth (assuming it doesn't just start dividing again. It doesn't even say if the DNA recombines, which I doubt it would do.
The real value is that old scientific standby, knowledge. Greater knowledge of what makes a cell tick, what factors trigger when its ready to divide will result in new cures, safer cures, and, of course, new understanding. If we can figure out why a cell divides, we can perhaps block those triggers and stop the division of cells like cancer. Greatly slowing or even stopping cell metabolism and division will be an important part of imposing a long term stasis or hibernation in humans experiencing long space travels to mars and the like. Understanding how to trigger cell reproduction could be one of the most important steps in reviving persons who have cyrogenically frozen themselves, too.
Demented But Determined.
ADHD medication? No. Depression medication? Yes.
Zyban, a fanfrickin'tastic smoking cessation pill, is simply remarketed Welbutrin. Welbutrin is an anti-depressant.
It seems that they discovered many of the smokers taking Welbutrin reported a marked decrease in cigarette cravings. Now you can buy the *exact* same drug with a different colour coating and a different name to help you quit smoking.
I have taken it. I was doing well, until a death in the family (non-cancer or smoking-related) buggered me up. Pathetic excuse, I know.
But while I was on Zyban I would literally go hours (unheard of any other time) without even thinking about a cigarette. It's really something else.