shtmlRonald Bailey comments on the Methuselah Mouse Prize for anti-aging research over at Reason Online.
Given the important recent research on the topic, you may find the article "What Can Progeroid Syndromes Tell Us About Human Aging? Let's try to figure out why these mice aren't getting the disease. Adult stem cells fuse with heart cells, promoting limited growth and regeneration in ways that are not yet fully understood. He linked each of these genes together in an impressive graphic according to how they influence each other . "I said to myself, everybody is trying to kill neurons in mice to create the Alzheimer's pathology. How close are we to cures for age-related conditions and working regenerative medicine based on this research?
How close are we to cures for age-related conditions and working regenerative medicine based on this research?
" This work is apparently in the context of Alzheimer's treatment and early drug trials at Voyager Pharmaceuticals - we shall see where it all goes in due course. "The problem is that our bodies deteriorate with age. " At least some types of cancer appear to have identifiable stem cells, and trials are underway for leukemia patients at the University of Kentucky.
" Aging and related processes in the body are far from uniform across the animal kingdom - there are even animals that age too slowly for researchers to make a good estimate of life span.
"The solution would lie in stamping out the highly specialized cells, known as cancer stem cells, that appear to give rise to the cancer in the first place.
MITOCHONDRIA, METABOLISM, CALORIE RESTRICTIONMitochondria, our cellular power generators, are a hot topic in aging research circles at the moment.
Controlling the amount of body fat should also greatly reduce the risk of suffering other age-related conditions.
Legislative restrictions, existing and threatened, have already scared away funding and cost years of potential progress.