6/24/2011 PERMALINK
Biologists discover a gene that can be turned on late in life to reverse aging and double lifespan. MIT biologists have found a gene in yeast cells that they can turn on in aged yeast cells to double their usual lifespan. Like yeast cells, human cells also normally have a finite lifespan. They can only divide a certain number of times before they die. But just like yeast cells, human cells must also have a gene like the one MIT scientists just found in yeast. A gene that if switched on late in life is capable of restoring human cells to their youth. Such a gene is known to exist in humans, because lifespan is naturally reset when human reproductive cells are formed. Otherwise the children of a 80-year-old man would not have a similar life expectancy to those of an 20-year-old man. The gene responsible for resetting human cells is not yet known, but having now found that gene in yeast. Discovery of the human equivalent seems only a matter of time. And since when the yeast gene is switched on in ordinary yeast cells it doubles their lifespan. Presumably then, when the similar gene that human cells must carry is discovered, a genetic mod can be found to switch it on in all our cells. Just as it is natural switched on in human reproductive cells.