In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.951220234456.20587H-100000 at Joyce-Perkins.tenet.edu> dashley at TENET.EDU (Don Ashley) writes:
>Geron Corp. in Menlo Park, Ca., founded by Mike West and Miller Quarles, is
>scientifically approaching the 'cure'. They are pioneers in telomerase
>manipulation. They started with $50k a few years ago, now sustaining a
>$60 million research team. Japan now involved financially.
>>They stand to experience windfall profits in the $billions with
>significant breakthroughs. Stock going public in '96.
I am interested in knowing how they wish to manipulate the telomerase of
the cells in the human body. Is their product going to be just a drug or
some other more complicated procedure with a certain risk factor involved?
In any case, I believe that ageing is more than loss of telomerase. Also,
there is a possibility that such manipulations can result in increased
incidennce of cancer, since telomerase shortening may serve as a fuse
to prevent the uncontrolled replication of potentially cancerous cells.
Shankar
>>On Wed, 20 Dec 1995, Brian wrote:
>>> Is there any serious science reviews about the potential for immortality. I
>> don't mean crackpot stuff or third grade journal articles. I saw the one in
>> LIFE magazine a few years ago, but that was just sort of a random description
>> of science projects that may be applied toward that goal. I mean physicists
>> talk theoretically about concepts and potentialities that may seem ridiculous
>> to contemplate now, but this has shown itself to be a great way to gain some
>> inspiration and imagination. Why can't biologists do this? They seem so afraid
>> to talk about it seriously.
>>>>