In the future, we'll stay 24

[Pseudonym]

From the NZ Herald:

 

Forever young - the scientific way

Dr Bill Andrews isn't joking when he says he doesn't plan on dying.

The United States biologist, who visits New Zealand next month, is at the forefront in the field of life-extension science - with the goal that he and others may live far longer than anyone has before.

Dr Andrews told the Herald his ambition doesn't stop there. He also thinks science could be able to reverse the ageing process.

While this might seem limited to far-fetched fiction such as the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, tests on engineered mice have convinced Dr Andrews it is possible to bring us back to the ripe age of 24.

His research focuses on the telomere - a structure at the end of chromosomes that protects the chromosome - and telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the telomere.

In 2009, US scientists Dr Carol Greider, Professor Jack Szostak and Professor Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering telomerase.

...

In 2010, US researchers demonstrated that by engineering mice with a controllable telomerase gene, age-related degeneration could be reversed to the point that the mice developed new growth of the brain and testes, improved fertility and a lost cognitive function returned.

"When we are first born, we start to develop and we age at the same time. A lot of scientists believe that development ends at about 24 years old, so after that you essentially are fully developed, and then you just age," he said.

"We think we will reverse people to 24 years old, so part of my focus is how to be 24 again."

I don't know how realistic that confidence actually is, and how much of it's a bid for new funding grants. But whatever... It's pretty cool!

[FellowshipOfTheRon]

sceptical but if not in our life time then some time in one of the future generations it is bound to happen. i wonder of the consequences more than the advantages.. we are such a destructive race

[Pseudonym]

We'd certainly have to change our breeding habits, that's for sure. There's already too many of us on this little planet - death can't control our population growth as it is!