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First Successful Gene Therapy Against Human Aging? (geekwire.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
For the first time data may show that a human being has been successfully rejuvenated by gene therapy, claims Bioviva USA. "In September 2015, then 44 year-old CEO of Bioviva USA Inc. Elizabeth Parrish received two of her own company's experimental gene therapies: one to protect against loss of muscle mass with age, another to battle stem cell depletion responsible for diverse age-related diseases and infirmities." Bypassing America's FDA, the controversial therapies were described by the MIT Technology Review as "do-it-yourself medicine," saying it "raises ethical questions about how quickly such treatments should be tested in people and whether they ought to be developed outside the scrutiny of regulators."
"The treatment was originally intended to demonstrate the safety of the latest generation of the therapies," reports Bioviva's web site. "But if early data is accurate, it is already the world's first successful example of telomere lengthening via gene therapy in a human individual."
The issue is the length of the telomeres in her DNA. Not the length of her eyelashes or whether wrinkles have suddenly disappeared.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Elizabeth Moon wrote several novel series that indirectly touched upon this issue, where "rejuvenation" kept older people living longer in key positions of business and government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familias_Regnant_universe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatta's_War
How much could we really know about it's efficacy in such a short period?
We now know that this treatment isn't 100% fatal on a 7 month timescale.
They are claiming that they have data showing the therapy lengthened her telomeres. That wouldn't make her look 20, but it would help stave off many of the health effects of getting old.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The Immortal, by Jorge Luis Borges.
Teleomere shortening is one of the body's defenses against cancer...and she's apparently turned that off.
The articles are sadly lacking in detail as usual but my impression is that they have performed a one-off lengthening, not turned off shortening. Also, it seems it was only done to her leukocytes not every cell.
there are other findings that suggest that senescent cells are the ones most likely to turn cancerous.
There was a recent result in mice where they managed to eliminate all senescent cells. So do that first, then lengthen the telomeres periodically and who knows how long you might last.