X-Message-Number: 22645
From: 
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 10:50:02 EDT
Subject: Bill Warner

>3.) This shortening of the telomere is the basis of aging 

It is one type of aging. Mice have telomerase on in every cell, but still age 
from other causes (mitochondrial DNA damage, etc.) Bowhead whales, on the 
other hand, allow somatic cell telomeres to shorten (you won't find this on 
Pubmed yet, I haven't written it up), but still live 200 years.

>4.) The shortening of the telomere uncovers additional genes that code
for aging and eventually death.

No one has found "telomere position effect" in human cells with natural 
genes. (Dr. Joe Baur wasted his whole grad student stint trying, though).

As far as lengthening telomeres goes, there's already a program for a nanobot 
in every cell for not only lengthening telomeres, but selectively lengthening 
the shortest ones first. It's called telomerase... the trick is to turn it on 
when it's needed. -Bill



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