An Open Access Journal Special Issue on Telomerase Activity in Human Cells

If you have an interest in telomerase research, and anyone following developments in the science of aging really should pay attention to telomerase research, then you might find a recent special issue of Genes to be worth reading. It collects a dozen or so papers on the subject, adding to a growing number of reviews, calls to action, and discoveries published in the last couple of years in the field of telomere and telomerase biology. You might look at a very readable review from Maria Blasco's lab, published earlier this year, for example. The researchers there are leaders in telomerase gene therapy, and have demonstrated benefits and a slowing of aging in mice via this path. It remains to be seen how well it will translate to humans, though there are certainly people out there willing to try. It is possible to describe cancer and aging as two sides of the same coin; the evolved systems that act to suppress cancer also suppress tissue maintenance, and the decline in stem cell activity with age that causes a slow decay of tissue function is a trade-off, balancing death by cancer against death by frailty and organ failure. Cellular replication and growth is the commonality in cancer and maintenance: one is uncontrolled growth, the other controlled growth. One of the most important mechanisms in our cellular biochemistry is the Hayflick limit, and telomeres are a part of the system that creates that limit. Telomeres are lengths of repeated DNA that cap the ends of chromo...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs