211 replies to this topic

[John Schloendorn]

All sorts of cells are routinely stored in liquid nitrogen. The cost to do this commercially is not ridiculously high, and it can be done in the basement at a great deal lower cost (if you know how to maintain a decent level of sterility). I think your idea is not totally unreasonable for those who like to scatter their personal risks.

[caston]

I think you can do this through groups like Alcor and CI. Would love to know what options I have in Australia though.

Storing the cells at home in IMO would be like hosting a website at home on your adsl compared to buying some commodity web hosting. Of course you can do both or even have samples at a number of different facilities if you want greater fault tollerance.

[maestro949]

All sorts of cells are routinely stored in liquid nitrogen. The cost to do this commercially is not ridiculously high, and it can be done in the basement at a great deal lower cost (if you know how to maintain a decent level of sterility). I think your idea is not totally unreasonable for those who like to scatter their personal risks.

Thanks John. Liquid nitrogen is cheap though I'd be worried about hurting myself [:o] . The sterility is a good point. Probably the most difficult part would be finding a doctor willing to take a biopsy of all my organs!

[John Schloendorn]

There is probably no point in using cells from every organ. If one wants to make more cells of any kind, de-differentiation and re-differentiation seems the way to go.

[eternaltraveler]

Thanks John. Liquid nitrogen is cheap though I'd be worried about hurting myself ohmy.gif . The sterility is a good point. Probably the most difficult part would be finding a doctor willing to take a biopsy of all my organs!

You can pour liquid nitrogen over your hand and nothing happens other than feeling a little cool. The gas instantly vaporizes and forms a layer of nitrogen vapor between your skin and the liquid. I had a professor who gargled with liquid nitrogen.

[aikikai]

Why does nerve cells live longer than normal cells? They seem to live up to over 100 years and never go thorugh mitosis (is this really true??). Is there anything in this which could be used for immortality research?

[olaf.larsson]

Why does nerve cells live longer than normal cells?

I wonder if it could have something to do with the fact that they live on glucose only as I have understood it.

[John Schloendorn]

Cells of several types in the human body can live that long. There are two ways to make a tissue long-lived. Either make its cells long lived, or give it a stable turnover (i.e. limited life-span of the individual cell, but continuous replacemennt). Organisms with little turnover, e.g. roundworms, fruit flies, tend to be short-lived. Organisms with a lot of turnover (hydra, reptiles) tend to be long-lived. We humans have both types of extremes and any intermediate degree, realized in different tissues (e.g. neurons, heart long-lived cells; intestine, blood, skin rapid turnover; liver, pancreas medium turnover).
The balance between increasing cell life-span and stabilizing cell turnover, in each tissue's particular context, is probably going to be very important in future life-extension research.

[olaf.larsson]

Either make its cells long lived..

Mr. aikikai is poiting out the paradox that neurons do not divide yet last for so long.
We dont really know how cells are made to live so long, right? My speculation is that neurons live so long becouse they only get energy from glucose. By doing this it is possible for them to minimise damage by optimising only the the glucose pathway. While cells that live on all sorts of junk do not have this capability. I dont have any sort of evidence for my claim though.

[John Schloendorn]

Wolfram, I do not know evidence for your speculation either.

It seems that long-lived cells occur only in long-lived organisms that also have several tissues with high turnover. This might suggest that the short-lived cells could be taking care of the long-lived ones, not just by making glucose for them, but also by removing their junk, protecting them from pathogens and mechanical injury, and so on. For neurons, part of this job is done by the glia.

[olaf.larsson]

This might suggest that the short-lived cells could be taking care of the long-lived ones, not just by making glucose for them

Yes this is what I mean. The less complex dividing structure maintains a complex non dividing structure. One way of doing this is by producing exclusive food for the complex stucture.

[Karomesis]

does late stage reproduction in humans lead to substantial degration of offspring?

i.e. doess the quality of reproduction decline with advancing age due at least in part to genome integrity?

I have been thinking for a while now, that the women especially in my state of MA who are having kids when they're 40+ are evolutionary anomolies. we could never have even dreamed of having kids at 40+ until just a short while ago, and the genetic defects of childreen born to women of advanced age have indicated that all is not well and even when reproduction is possible it may not be advisable.

[marcus]

All,

What do you think of the work being done by this company?

theravitae.com

They haven't published much since 2004, but their APC treatment looks to be one of the leading cell therapy treatments that is moving ahead with clinical trials. I am always cautious when evaluating research generated in non US/Western Europe institutions, but one of their first patients treated was an elderly man who lives a few minutes from me and after emailing him I am convinced that these guys are legitamite. Does anyone know of any information published on the details of the protocol? TIA

Marcus

[John Schloendorn]

Marcus, at first glance this does not seem to be very different from stem cell therapies for heart disease currently used in the USA, except for the therapeutic cell type used. These therapies have also shown that the adult stem cell type used does not seem to matter much, e.g. the effects are quite similar with hematopoietic, mesenchymal and possibly neural stem cells. The reason for this promiscuity could be that the therapeutic cells do not permanently engraft, but seem promote endogenous regeneration by paracrine signalling.

[Ghostrider]

Hi Tenaya, great to have you here. No worries at all about asking questions, that's what we're here for. It's young students like you who may one day save the butts of everyone here when our own brains get to demented to finish the research, so we're really keen on helping you in whatever way is needed. The archives at imminst can be a bit large and confusing, so allow me save you some time on the searches. We have had one reference career counseling here, and also a few smaller ones here and here. If you've read that, you will have more questions, so by all means come back and ask ;-)

Hi guys, I posted a similar question (my background is different) here: http://www.imminst.o...f=89&t=12567&s=

I really want to contribute to a cure of aging and cancer in the most efficient way possible. The problem is that I don't know enough about biology and I need the advice of more knowledgeable people on this forum. Today, I just picked up Albert's Molecular Biology of the Cell text and I plan to read it by next week to better understand biology. I only have bad stereotypes from my high school bio class. So far, from my own research and the suggestions of others, Systems Biology looks interesting. I really like that link prometheus posted here: http://www.imminst.o...biochemistry&s=. Anyway, any advice is appreciated. I do not mean to double post, but I figure there are some people who do not read the FAQ forum...I did not until a few days ago. Please help me help you...hopefully.

[maestro949]

Today, I just picked up Albert's Molecular Biology of the Cell text and I plan to read it by next week to better understand biology.

The Cell is a great start. All 25 chapters in a week though? The material in several of the chapters is fairly dense. You might want to give yourself a bit more time to absorb it. I spent about 10 hours per week for roughly 2+ months digesting it and I still have several sections flagged to go back to for a 2nd and even 3rd pass. The most important thing I learned from reading it was that the complexity of aging is quite daunting. I would literally put the book down and and think "WTF?"

Are you considering a career change from Engineering to Microbiology, Biochem, Biogerontology or some related field? If so, you might want to look into relevent coursework and degree programs. Online or otherwise. The cutting edge in many of these fields are quite advanced and require post graduate work for most career and grant considerations.

Edited by maestro949, 30 September 2006 - 08:56 PM.

[Ghostrider]

Maestro, yes, I have started reading and it looks like this will take me longer than a week to get through. Reading most of today I am about 8% through. It is pretty long and dense.

By the way, I like your signature.

[caston]

Today while I was trying to serve a customer my immune system went bezerk in response to one or more pollens that were rampant on their property.

Could pollen be used to help trigger an immune system response to a virus (such as HPV) or even cancer?

[123456]

Can't find the post; I'm sure John Schloendorn said somewhere about viruses are not suitable for carrying DNA or significant amount of DNA to use for genetical engineering, not an appropriate delivery system, due to them being too small. Correct me if I am wrong, is it not possible to engineer the viruses to make larger, protein shells, capsids, therefore increasing its carrying capacity?

[John Schloendorn]

Genetic engineering as in single gene replacement is ok in terms of size (the problems are elsewhere), but I remember someone was dreaming about whole chromosome replacement there, and that's up in the clouds. The limit for the "best" viral vectors (in terms of the other problems) is not much more than single genes. There are herpes viruses that can carry up to 150 kbp (a dozen or so of average human genes), and they have been used for experimental gene delivery, but not in the clinic. For comparison, the smallest human chromosome has 35 Mbp. There is no evidence that viruses can be made large enough to do this, and I do not know any evidence that they can be made any larger than they already are. The uptake mechanism that viruses typically use (clathrin, raft-mediated endocytosis) are too small to fit something of the size of a chromosome (they can take things in the low 100s of nanometers diameter, and compacted chromosomes can be a micron wide or more). Some viruses might use macropinocytosis to get into cells, which might in theory accomodate the required size in some cell types.

[Edit: Sorry, typo, hsv capacity now says 150 kbp]

Edited by John Schloendorn, 21 October 2006 - 01:34 AM.

[John Schloendorn]

Could pollen be used to help trigger an immune system response to a virus (such as HPV) or even cancer?

Normally "frustrated" immune activity (which doesn't help to solve the problem that caused it) is a bad thing, and can worsen age-related conditions. Not sure if this is true for allergies.

[123456]

Oh I see, thanks for the insight.

[caston]

Thanks guys

Normally "frustrated" immune activity (which doesn't help to solve the problem that caused it) is a bad thing, and can worsen age-related conditions. Not sure if this is true for allergies.

I seem to rarely get sick but often have hay fever. I hoped this just meant I have a strong immune system but the immune system response I get could be increasing age related stress to my body?



Prometheus:

I assume pollen would be meausured in hundreds of micrometeres while viruses measured in tens of nanometeres. Is that right?

Of course what John said about a "frustrated immune response" sounds like we would need to ensure that the immune response is a helpful one.

[John Schloendorn]

I hoped this just meant I have a strong immune system but the immune system response I get could be increasing age related stress to my body?

I can advise on how biological systems "tend" to behave, but not on your individual medical situation. There is a huge knowledge gap between textbook biology and personalized medicine, which usually prevents successful extrapolation from one to the other. If you are seriouslyl interested in the details of your own situation, the state-of-the-art way to find out about this type of thing is probably the Kronos biomarker program.

[Karomesis]

you have the ability and money to reverse only one of SENS deadly seven in one year, which one would it be? and why do you think the data suggests that it's the best battle to fight first?

[kent23]

Not sure if this is a "genie" question, or a practical, what-should-we-be-focused-on question. If the latter, I think that the current SENS projects are the answer to that question- junk (in or out of cells), cross-links, and mito-mutations.

If this is a fantasy "genie" question, i.e. we automatically and magically are able completely to reverse one of the sins and then only have six to deal with, then by all means, nuclear mutations! Completely eradicating cancer- and only after a year of research!- would gain us leverage to initiate a global, money-no-object War on Aging.

[Karomesis]

If this is a fantasy "genie" question, i.e. we automatically and magically are able completely to reverse one of the sins and then only have six to deal with, then by all means, nuclear mutations! Completely eradicating cancer- and only after a year of research!- would gain us leverage to initiate a global, money-no-object War on Aging.

nuclear mutations are the only cause of cancer? [huh]

[kent23]

nuclear mutations are the only cause of cancer?

A zillion things cause cancer, but they all do it by causing nuclear mutations (or epimutations). If a genie could make every chromosome in my body completely stable and unmutatable, I would be impervious to cancer.

[John Schloendorn]

would gain us leverage to initiate a global, money-no-object War on Aging.

Not if we did it with a genie who refuses to do anything else ;-)