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Telomere-Lengthening Procedure Turns Clock Back Years In Human Cells

Posted by samzenpus on from the making-it-young dept.

Zothecula writes Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a new procedure to increase the length of human telomeres. This increases the number of times cells are able to divide, essentially making the cells many years younger. This not only has useful applications for laboratory work, but may point the way to treating various age-related disorders – or even muscular dystrophy.

2 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Re:cancer by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Informative

    You might be thinking of something different, reverting the cells to stem cells. These are the telomeres, which are the tail end of the DNA strand that gets chopped a little every time the cell splits. After many splits, there's none left and the cell dies.

    There are already ways to extend the telomeres, that is something telomerase accomplishes, but this is a new procedure.

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    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  2. some first hand insights by Doubting+Sapien · · Score: 4, Informative

    The first author of the paper did an impromptu AMA over at reddit. http://www.reddit.com/r/scienc...

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