X-Message-Number: 7556 Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 19:34:12 -0800 (PST) From: Doug Skrecky <> Subject: DNA/RNA/Chloroform letter Here's a letter I wrote to Roy Walford that might prove to be interesting. Dear Roy Walford: I would like to thank you for alerting me to the unpublished work of Greg Fahy. Certainly the quality of the report that Odens wrote was less than entirely satisfactory. However after talking with Mr. Fahy I found that he had fed DNA & RNA to rodents, rather than injected it with chloroform as Odens did. Odens' amazing experiment still seems never to have been replicated, even after 34 years. The way I see it there are three main possibilities. 1. The results were fraudulent. 2. The rejuvenation effect observed was due to the chloroform injections increasing the apoptosis rates of senescent cells in tissue, similar to the effect hypothesized for caloric restriction. (Journal of Gerontology 50A(3): B107-B109 1995) 3. The rejuvenation effect was due to the injection of high molecular weight fractions (eg telemeres?) of DNA and/or RNA. Since these are destroyed by the process of digestion the lack of effect of oral DNA & RNA is not surprising. Professor Byung Pal Yu is skeptical that high molecular weight fractions could enter cells even if injected. However the chloroform here may have acted to temporarily increase membrane permeability so that these fractions could enter cells. I have come to the conclusion that the only way to either confirm or deny the validity of Odens' incredible results is to repeat his experiment. Information regarding how the hypothesized rejuvenation came about would be expensive to obtain, since this would require numerous animals being injected with a variety of DNA & RNA subfractions, with and without chloroform. However initially the most important fact to be established is whether the results reportedly obtained are fraudulent. Impressive results require impressive proof. I do not expect that Odens made an unintentional mistake since the results obtained were far too exceptional. Quote: "After twelve weeks the difference in appearance, weight and alertness was remarkable. The 5 untreated rats died before 900 days. Of the treated rats, 4 died at ages of 1600-1900 days and 1 at 2250 days." If these incredible results are bogus then an expensive experiment investigating Odens' results would be a waste of time and money. At this point it appears the most important fact to be ascertained is the exclusion of fraud as an explanation. For this a small experiment injecting a small number of old animals (eg 3?) with a DNA/RNA/chloroform mixture weekly for 12 weeks should be enough to establish this since the rejuvenation effects Odens reportedly obtained were unmistakable over this time period. Only if the results were positive, could further expenditures be justified. If the Odens experiment is genuine it would constitute the largest advance in the field of gerontology this century. Yours sincerely Doug Skrecky Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7556