Aging Discovery Yields Nobel Prize

An anonymous reader writes This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to three scientists who have solved a major problem in biology: how the chromosomes can be copied in a complete way during cell divisions and how they are protected against degradation. The Nobel Laureates have shown that the solution is to be found in the ends of the chromosomes, called the telomeres, and in an enzyme that forms them."

Comments

Good find

[MistrX]

It's great news however how are we going to solve the population crisis when the Earth gets too small?

I always knew I was going to be 512 years old before I die. :]

Re:Good find

[Dunbal]

Well of course the wealthy elite will be allowed to breed and live longer, while the serfs will be culled at regular intervals, through war, etc.

Business as usual, really. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Re:Good find

[corbettw]

If that number were anywhere close to accurate, we would have massive amounts of starvation across the globe, considering the current population is more than 12,000 times the number you provided for the theoretical max population.

Re:Good find

[DrLang21]

It's also worth pointing out that the starvation we do have is not for lack of food production.

Re:Good find

[Yvan256]

More importantly; as people get wealthier the amount of children they have drops down, for example I am an only child and so is my cousin.

And some people never have any children, such as my parents.

OK

[Rik Sweeney]

So they've changed the chromosome code to encode data using a lossless codec instead of a lossy one. Terrific, now we have to put up with people moaning about the lack of FLAC encoding in their music AND genes.

Thanks a bunch, stupid scientists.

Re:Sooo

[cashman73]

Yes, you can be immortal if you want. But part of the problem is that, in order to achieve immortality, you have to keep adding guanines to your telomeres. The problem with that, is that it gives you cancer,... ;-)

Re:Sooo

[MyLongNickName]

Better than being dead.

You really think so? I tend to think that there are certain fates that are worse than death.

I would settle for...

[Vanderhoth]

I would settle for being put to death at 85 to keep population under control, if it meant my bones, mussels and organs didn't age. One of the worst thing about watching someone get old is to see their self reliance taken away and needing someone to help them into and out of the bath, change their diaper, feed them and put them to bed. THE worst thing is realizing someday it could and probably will happen to you.

It's sad but you start off with needing someone to look after you and that's how it ends, if you live that long.

Re:I would settle for...

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the worst thing about watching someone get old is to see their self reliance taken away and needing someone to help them into and out of the bath, change their diaper, feed them and put them to bed.

Speak for yourself.

I had to change my kids' diapers. Turnabout is fair play.

I, for one, look forward to being a burden to my family and making them change my diaper.

old news

[Tim4444]

The summary makes this sound like a recent discovery but this has been known for some time. Also, it has more to do with cell aging than human aging. It's very important in cancer research since abnormal telomere activity is one of the factors in making cancer cells immortal (so to speak). They mention this in TFA. BTW, senescence is (naturally) programmed cell death:

Most normal cells do not divide frequently, therefore their chromosomes are not at risk of shortening and they do not require high telomerase activity. In contrast, cancer cells have the ability to divide infinitely and yet preserve their telomeres. How do they escape cellular senescence? One explanation became apparent with the finding that cancer cells often have increased telomerase activity. It was therefore proposed that cancer might be treated by eradicating telomerase. Several studies are underway in this area, including clinical trials evaluating vaccines directed against cells with elevated telomerase activity.

Re:old news

[KraftDinner]

I'm not sure where you are seeing that the summary sounds like it's a recent discovery. The only thing would be that the scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize this year, which is true. And yes, you're right, this discovery is not recent. Of course, it sometimes takes decades for people to be awarded a Nobel Prize for work they did decades ago.

Re:old news

[herring0]

From what I recall of genetics, the cellular aging is (partially) what leads to shorter life spans and increased age related problems in clones. If you are cloning an animal it is kind of like making a copy of a copy since the telomeres are actually a part of the chromosomes they are transferred into the new host.

This leads to the telomeres being extended far beyond their 'normal' lifespan and you end up with all kinds of abnormalities that usually wouldn't be present until the subject is much older even though they still look young.

If nothing else, this discovery should help in the research of cloned animals and livestock, etc. But take all this with a grain of salt...I've not been involved with genetics for the better part of 12 years.

Re:old news

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Anyone who pays attention to how science Nobels are awarded knows that they're generally given for older work which has shown to be important over time. So anyone who thinks the story is calling it a new discovery, and criticizes it on that basis, is pretty much making an ass of himself.

Speak for yourself

[arcite]

There was a story out the other day saying that 50% of the people being born now in developed countries will reach age 100.

So Speak for yourself if you want to jump off a bridge at 85. I work with several incredibly bright people who are in their mid 70's who still travel the world. With the advent of information technology we can even do our work without being physically active, just a computer and internet access.

By the time I turn 85 in the 2050's, it will be the new 55! I'll race you to the top of the mountain.

Re:Sooo

[MyLongNickName]

Sorry for the reply to myself. If you have never read "I have no mouth, and I must scream", it is very applicable. It is a classic of the science fiction genre, and a well written dystopian story.

This is the only link I could find. I know I have seen it in others...
http://web.archive.org/web/20070227202043/http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/ellison/ellison1.html

Re:Sooo

[dkleinsc]

For instance, being immortal but still aging.

Re:Bio 101

[TheRaven64]

Nobel prizes are never awarded for new work, they are awarded for work you did sufficiently far in the past that it has been extensively peer reviewed and tested and is now accepted as being one of the bits of scientific knowledge that everyone in the field knows. This one is being awarded for work originally published around 1980 (as it says in TFA). Others have now tested this the published results in sufficient detail that it is now something that almost everyone with any awareness of biology knows.

A Nobel Prize is not like a 'best paper in conference' award. You don't get it for new and exciting theories, you get it for theories that have withstood careful examination and testing. If the LHC finds a Higgs Boson then Peter Higgs will almost certainly get a Nobel, for the work that he did predicting it back in 1964.