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DNA Sequenced of Woman Who Lived To 115
chrb writes "The DNA of W115 — an anonymous woman who lived to the age of 115 years and left her body to science — has been sequenced. Despite her old age, W115 showed no signs of dementia or heart disease, and tests at the age of 113 showed she had the mental abilities of a woman aged 60-75 years. Dr. Henne Holstege of the Department of Clinical Genetics at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam has suggested W115 had rare genetic changes in her DNA which protected against Alzheimer's and other late-life diseases."
Hopefully this leads to people being able to have their DNA modified so that we no longer have to deal with mental diseases like Alzheimer's.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
From the future. Just saying.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
People over the age of 90 are typically very healthy - people with bad health habits often die before 70, though a few last until their mid-80s. If you make it to 90, you've got a very good chance of making 100. In addition, healthy people usually have good intellects regardless of their age - I've met more than a few 90+ year olds who are quite sharp.
"Good news, everyone!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrikje_van_Andel-Schipper#Genome
This was a women in the Netherlands. Only one female ever made it to the age of 115 ever in the Netherlands. Even though the results are officially anonymous, there is only one person that could have been the donor. By stating the age she died, they effectively gave away her identity.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Don't get your hopes up. You're all going to die, most sooner than you wish. Make the most of what you got... you apes.
She's the oldest Dutch person ever:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrikje_van_Andel-Schipper
The retirement home where she lived until her death is just a couple hundred meters away from where I work.
She was my great aunt : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrikje_van_Andel-Schipper
She donated her body already at the age of 80-85. To be talking in /. terms, she open sourced her body. She gave it to science or in her words "Let students and doctors cut me into little pieces and let those youngsters find out why I became this old." She had yearly meetings with the doctor who told her the whole procedure of what would happen when she died.
That was also the reason some nurse was with her, so when the moment came, they would not loose any valuable time.
This is not disrespectful. This was her wish for more then 20 years.
The reason she is "anonymous" is because some idiots were claiming to be speaking of her behalf and said that a doctor could not bring out personal information regardless of the fact that this was the specific demand of the patient. Let the knowledge be spread. And knowing her, that would include her name as well.
As her closest family (my dad, born 1930 and still healthy) and myself are living in other countries, we did not know of this trouble. Otherwise at least I would have intervened.
I also like to donate my blood (or just DNA if it is a nice looking nurse) for the same research, but I am afraid it might end up with some sort of Monsanto. Scary that I am afraid of a company stealing my DNA when I want to give it to science.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Here in the Netherlands it was all over the news that Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, a lady who died at age 115 and left her body to science, had speciale genes.
Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrikje_van_Andel-Schipper and you would be right.
I know. my father is her nephew and he still has occasional contact with that doctor. We even knew about this news a month ago, but he asked us to keep it quiet till he presented it.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
She wasn't. She did not dislike alcohol. Many stories she told me where not always about events where everybody was sober. Being the first to walk the ice in winter so your name would be engraved in the local pub will be just one of those.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Barely on topic, but:
Anybody heard people say "old-timer's disease" instead of "Alzheimer's disease"?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
"Good news, everyone!"
"...I've fixed the poison slime pipes!"
TFS says "tests at the age of 113 showed she had the mental abilities of a woman aged 60-75 years."
But wiki article says she moved into a nursing home at 105. Why was that?
This may be modded as flamebait, but I dunno if I want to have Alzheimer's treated by DNA modification.
My paternal grandma lives with us, and she is suffering from alzheimer's. It's is very painful, among other things, she does not recognise her own son and daughter-in-law, and thinks they are her father and mother, since she sees us call them dad and mom. So I know what it feels like, it's absolutely horrible and terrifying, and I don't ever want to go through that when I grow old.
But I don't know if DNA modification is the answer. I would never submit to that, nor would I submit my grandmother or any other family member to such a treatment. I would rather suffer Alzheimer, rather suffer some unknown side effect that could prove to be even worse, and may ironically not even cure alzeheimer!
I will readily agree it's a rather conservative view of mine, but I would rather we not mess with DNA.
Just my two cents.
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
See this: http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/6700/Wetenschap/article/detail/2969042/2011/10/15/Oudste-Nederlandse-vrouw-had-bijzondere-genen.dhtml
And translate for yourself.
We currently have this with our schools. You don't get to the top if you didn't go to the "right" school.
Probably because her physical side degenerated faster? Fuck this "aging" shit, when are we, as a species, going to get serious about our lifespan? You don't expect mayflies to fly across the Atlantic, why do people think we'll colonize the universe with balding, farting, arthritic middle-aged people with guts and bifocals?
Knowledge of genetics is far from complete. Differences can lead to susceptibility/resistance to certain diseases, poisons, etc.. In some cases there's a tradeoff involved. There can be differences that might not qualify as an "error", that would nonetheless reduce the likelihood of living to extreme old age.
Yes, there's ignorance involved here, because knowledge of genetics is incomplete. But to imply that genetics does not strongly influence the odds of living to extreme age assumes facts not in evidence.
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You know, I'm going to consider changing my sig to something like "Put monkeys into Congress" or something similar. You just got friended.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Yep, changed it. May need some fine tuning.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
And tell all your cousins to get busy too. We need to replicate those genes regardless of weather we can figure out which ones caused it.
"sequence" is a noun and verb.
Biologist use that all the time when ordering grad students around. "You! Sequence those 500 tissue samples!"
Having her sequence information doesn't really help to identify any mutation that might affect aging. You need a lot of subjects with the same phenotype (and you don't really know what the phenotype is) before you can start to identify the gene(s) you are looking for.
I believe that the missing verb referred to is "is" or "has been". Still, to save space,that type of word is often left as implicitly understood in headlines rather than explicitly stated.
An 80 year old grandmother takes two of her grandchildren (ages 4 and 6) for a walk in the park. They are the only ones in the park. What is the average age of the people in the park? And is there anyone in the park within 20 years of that average age?
The low expected lifespans in previous years was due mostly to the fact that half of all children died before they reached 15 or so. The adults lived almost as long as we do on average. Very few people died in their 30's and 40's. Please re-think your conclusions in light of these facts.
T
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
Just so you know, everyone reading your post knows you're full of it.
Where?
rollmops and advocaat with cream?
It took me all of 5 minutes to figure out the identity of the woman. There are very, very few women who live to be 115, and Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of them. Since 2006, only three women have died at the age of 115. The BBC article says the women entered assisted living at the age of 105. I tried cross referencing that with their Wikipedia biographies, and bam - "She lived on her own until 1999 when she was 105 years old, and resided at the Western Convalescent Home in Jefferson Park, Los Angeles until her death." The identify of the woman is Gertrude Baines.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
If we can find out how to get this gene to appear in everybody, we could get to push the new age lifespan of humans to be 150....no?
Is there any science concerning her? All I saw in the BBC News story is speculation.