X-Message-Number: 8996
From:  (Randy Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Aging/Geron/Quarles-->Cryonicist?
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 05:49:32 GMT
Message-ID: <>

A articles from yahoo about a telomerase-cell aging breakthrough by a
company named "Geron." Here a snippet from Extropian Mitch's website
about Geron being backed by someone named Miller Quarles. Now, someone
else told me he's a cryonicist....

> Geron Corp. in Menlo Park, Ca., founded by Mike West and Miller Quarles, is 
scientifically

The article itself....

>U.S. Scientists Discover Key to Aging
>
>By Maggie Fox 
>

>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. scientists say they've been able to make human 
cells live longer by tinkering with their genetic material, providing a 
"fountain of youth" for aging cells. 
>

>The findings, published in the journal Science, offered hope of new ways to 
treat diseases such as cancer. 
>

>"This research raises the possibility that we could take a patient's own cells,
rejuvenate them, then modify the cells as needed and give them back to the 
patient to treat a variety of genetic and other diseases," Dr. Woodring Wright, 
a professor of cell biology at the University of Texas in Dallas, said in a 
statement. 
>

>"This is a monumental advance in the understanding of the molecular genetics of
aging," Leonard Hayflick, professor of anatomy at the University of California 
San Francisco and the discoverer of human cellular aging, said in a statement. 
"The telomerase gene will likely have many important applications in the future 
of medicine and cell engineering." 
>

>News of the technology sent shares in California-based biotechnology group 
Geron Corp. up four points on the NASDAQ stock exchange. 
>

>"We believe that the extension and perhaps immortalization of human cells will 
have many important applications for the treatment of age-related diseases," 
said Calvin Harley, chief scientific officer at Geron. 
>

>Wright and colleagues at the university's Southwestern Medical Center, who 
worked with Geron, used an enzyme known as telomerase. Produced by germ cells 
such as eggs and sperm, it affects the ends, or telomeres, of the chromosomes 
which carry the genes. 
>

>Normal cells do not produce telomerase. Every time a cell divides it loses a 
little bit of the telomere on either end of the chromosome. Wright's team found 
a way to make the telomeres grow back using the enzyme. 
>

>"Each time a cell divides its telomeres get shorter and shorter and shorter," 
Wright said in a telephone interview. His team proved last year this loss was 
associated with aging. 
>

>Now, they said, they proved you can stop the aging process, at least on a 
cellular level. 
>

>"Unequivocally I would say this would not allow you to live forever," Wright 
said. "This is not going to be a pill that allows you to live longer any time 
soon." 
>

>He said the the natural process that kills off cells was just one component of 
aging. "It's possible that just like when you have a car and at 80,000 miles you
replace the engine -- you haven't made that car immortal. On average the car is
going to run longer but then the transmission is going to go out or the brakes 
or something else." 
>

>But the finding could help individual cells live much longer. "Over time we 
hope this will have significant effects on the health span and eventually on 
life span," Wright said. 
>

>Wright's team used skin cells, cells from the retina in the eye and skins from 
inside arteries. All were able to grow back their telomeres and did not, as 
normal cells do, eventually stop dividing and die. 
>

>"They are still dividing," Wright said. They were also normal, showing no sign 
of becoming cancerous. 
>

>"I think the medical implications of this work are really profound," said Dr. 
Jerry Shay, who worked with Wright. "It will allow us now to take a person's own
cells, manipulate and rejuvenate them without using up their own life span, and
then re-inject them." 
>

>In other words, it could be the break that gene therapists have been looking 
for. 
>

>Gene therapy involves taking the cells of a person with a genetic disease such 
as cystic fibrosis, inserting the healthy gene and then putting the cells back 
in the patient in the hope that the manipulated cells will take over. 
>

>But the engineered cells are old by the time the scientists are through with 
them and often die off before they can do much good. Wright hopes the telomerase
process can make the cells immortal and make them work better.
Randy Smith
Cryonics: Gateway to the Future?
http://members.wbs.net/homepages/c/r/y/cryofan1.html
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