On 18 Aug 1998 02:53:38 GMT, sbharris at ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
wrote:
> Obviously it's achievable. There are immortal plants (aspens) and
>animals (corals, maybe even lobsters). Their mitochondria obviously
>don't give them any problems, and they don't get new ones from Mars.
>Whether old mitochondria are repaired, or just produced anew and free
>of defect at a sufficient pace, is immaterial. For the cell, it's
>repair either way. Any process that makes new fresh cell organelles
>counts as "cell repair" in my book.
Well, it seems to me that an experiment needs to be done, if one has
not already been done already, to determine the exact ways that
mitochondrial damage is repaired and then compare the rates of
mitochondrial repair in dividing verses non-dividing cells.
Once we figure out what damage is being done in each type of cell and
how the damage is being repared then we can start working toward
finding a way to make both dividing and non-dividing cells repair ALL
mitochondrial damage.
Of course it does seem like non-dividing cells do accumilate
mitochondrial damage much more than dividing cells so perhaps research
should be started on them.
Too bad one of us did not win the few hundred million powerball
lottery so we could buy a fully equiped lab and all go to work
together trying to figure this out.
Take care and have a great day everyone!
Best Regards,
William
