Utilising cells from the older patient with which to engineer tissues to replace dysfunctional ones poses a special problem: the replicative lifespan of cells from such patients is severly limited and thus cannot be used to synthesize replacement tissues. One way around this is to utilize cells donated from a younger person but then we encounter the problem of histocompatibility. There is another way involving the use of telomerase to increase the replicative potential of cells derived from very old patients. A recent study reported that by inserting a genetic construct that encoded the telomerase gene, cells from 85 year old patients that would normally only be able to undergo 15 population doublings before entering senescence were able to slingshot to 100 population doublings! In comparison similar cells from 17 year old patients untreated with telomerase could only achieve 41 population doublings before entering senescence. Most exciting of all, was that in this study the cells which were made to express telomerase for increased replicative lifespan the incidence of carcinogenicity did not increase over the control cells. In fact, is some cases the incidence of carcinogenicity decreased as compared to the controls.
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Advocacy & Research for Unlimited Lifespans