Since the rise of Biotech, the possibility of eternal life and an easy cure for cancer have been widely discussed and speculated about.
Now, however, it looks like the cancercells themselves are teaching scientists how to stop the agingprocess and bringing us closer to eternal life. Millions living now will never die!!!http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4947
Secret of eternal life may give cancer cure
A new system that helps cells stave off the ravages of time has been discovered by scientists. The find may help explain how some cancer cells live forever - and provide a new route of attack for up to one in 10 tumours, they say.
The system keeps cells youthful by adding thimble-like caps to the ends of chromosomes to protect them from damage and ageing, says the international team led by scientists at Cancer Research UK.
They estimate that up to 10 per cent of cancer cells may rely on this capping system to grow and divide well past their natural life expectancy.
The system is based on a molecule called RAD51D, which the team show protects DNA from damage. But the molecule also stops the protective ends of chromosomes from wearing away naturally, the process that normally allows a cell to grow old and die gracefully.
"Cancer has an amazing ability to shake off the shackles of ageing and death, which is one of the reasons why it can be so hard to treat, " says Madalena Tarsounas, who led the study at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute
"Understanding how cancer cells remain eternally young has been a key focus of research for more than a decade, so it's particularly exciting to have made such a striking discovery," she says. "We think as many as 10 per cent of tumours may be heavily reliant on the new mechanism to keep their cells alive and these may also be highly susceptible to drugs targeted against it."
Structure and stability
The ends of chromosomes are capped by repetitive sequences of DNA called telomeres. They are important in maintaining the structure and stability of chromosomes as they divide and replicate during cell growth.
As cells grow and divide many times, these telomeres shorten until they are so short they trigger the cell ageing process, and the cell dies. But in tumours, this natural ageing mechanism is somehow blocked, and cells grow and divide uncontrollably.
Tarsounas and her colleagues used immunofluorescence to light up various molecules in cancer cells. They consistently found RD51D near the chromosomes' telomeres.
And when they used a technique called RNA interference to block the action of this molecule, the cancer cells suffered substantial damage. Most of those treated with a blocker died within seven days, but cells treated with a "placebo" were unaffected. Blocking the action of RD51D also caused the ends of different chromosomes to fuse together more often when cells divided.
Blocking this crucial molecule also increased the number of chromosomes with short telomeres, less than 6 kilobases in length, and decreased the number of long telomeres, over 20 kilobases in length.
"Cancer cells are adept at slipping the constraints of the ageing process, but this highly significant study points to ways of making them mortal, and vulnerable, once more," says Robert Souhami, Cancer Research UK's Director of Clinical and External Affairs.
Journal reference: Cell (vol 117, p 337)
[speculation] So what if, say in 50 years, a simple technology is available that would stop the aging process in humans? It would mean that millions of children living now will never die! (at least, you would still have "accidents" in which people die ofcourse but in theory there could be people around right now that could grow older than the 6000 years some biblethumbing fanatics are saying is the age of the universe. [/speculation]
Bas