X-Message-Number: 5616
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 23:27:03 -0500
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <>
Subject: Re: PATNEWS: Want to live forever?

> However, there is another aspect of this link that is little talked
> about, even in its general implications, that of manipulating the
> telomeres of healthy cells so that they don't shorten, but without
> causing the cells to become cancerous.

My understanding is that it's not that not shortening *causes*
cancer, but rather that shortening is a *defense* against cancer.
The great majority of potentially cancerous cells do not also have
the immortalizing mutation.  It's only those few that do that can
give rise to true cancer.  If all cells were to be immortalized,
cancer rates would probably increase by many thousandfold.

See Science News, Vol 148 pp 362-364 (11/25/95).
--
Keith Lynch, 
http://www.access.digex.net/~kfl/


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