X-Message-Number: 8142 Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 09:42:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Skrecky <> Subject: CRYONICS fly talk In Message #8137 wrote: > > Thanks for Doug Skrecky's work with the flies. > > If his work would be speeded by financial help for facilities/labor, some of > us would be glad to help, with minimal red tape. > Thanks for the offer. At present I am well able to finance my own fly experiments. However there is at least one other person who intends to start his own fly experiments later this year, who being a student is not so well endowed. I will talk to him and get back to you on this matter. In Message #8140, Pedro <> wrote: > Hi! > I'm new to this mailing list and I was wondering, exacly what are you > doing Mr. or Dr. Doug Skrecky? > Goodbye and thank you for your attention... > It's just plain Mr. I'm trying to do my little bit to help kick start the life extension movement. As things stand now we all stand a good chance of missing out on the future medical advances which will dramatically extend human life span. These breakthroughs will likely occur too late to help us much if at all. It doesn't need to be this way. I'm going to prove it by doubling fly life span for starters. Traditionally mice and rats have been used to test various anti-aging supplements. The assumption made is that what helps rodents live longer might help humans live longer. However experiments with mice and rats are very expensive. A cheap screening procedure to narrow down the thousands of supplements available to a few dozen of the most promising ones would be helpful. For example when my fly experiments find some supplements that can double fly life span, these could then all be tested in rodents. If even ONE of these is then found to double rodent life span as well, this would be to quote Spock, "fascinating". Speculation: There's at least a slim chance that melatonin might be one of these. Melatonin has modestly extended life span in the 6 strains of rodents it has been tested in. However only small doses were used and no dose/response data is available. In the May 1997 issue of Life extension magasine it was reported that Dr. Roman Rozencwaig doubled the life span of rotifiers using melatonin. This is by far the most extreme extension even obtained with rotifiers. In my next (third) run I will be testing various dosages of melatonin in my flies. I will have more to say on this later. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8142