X-Message-Number: 8468
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8464 - #8465
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 22:52:46 -0700 (PDT)

Hi!

The nematode experiments don't have much clear bearing on human beings because
we are not only much more complex but also farther away from nematodes in
evolution (though they ARE animals, and do belong to one of the same large
branches to which we belong).

I've noted another series of experiments, just begun, to do the same thing
in mammals. PERIASTRON readers will find it in the issue I just mailed out.

Unlike the GERON people, who've bought the ideas of Hayflick completely,
a more general genetic experiment would not of itself commit the experimenters
to any particular theory of just how aging occurs. Even though the role of
telomerases, and drugs to properly inhibit them, will likely help deal with
various cancers, there are several problems with the notion that they give
us a major key to aging. Which is not to say that cures for a wide range
of cancers wouldn't be a GOOD THING. But that's hardly the whole of the 
problem, is it.

			Long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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