4 replies to this topic

[Skötkonung]

I was reading how Michael Rose bred fruit flies for longevity and I was wondering if the same technique could be applied to short lived mammals like mice. Any thoughts on how such an experiment would be conducted? Is this experiment being conducted? 

 

One method might be only allowing groups of mice to reproduce late in life and gradually increasing that age by months / years over several generations.  

[PWAIN]

Is this just to see if it can be done or for use in experiments?

 

[Skötkonung]

Presumably the genes favored by natural selection could be used for novel longevity enhancing genetic therapies.

 

I was thinking of getting several mice pairs and letting them breed, then selecting future breeding pairs based on parental lifespan. It would probably take a lot of space and time to do such an experiment.  It could yield some interesting results? 

[YOLF]

I suppose it's possible, thought the genetics of the flies were said to be analagous to humans. You'd need to compare the analogues that we have with mice to the analogues that we have with flies to know what the quality of the information might look like. 

 

Oh the other hand, mice would be much more convincing to people than fruit flies, and the concept is somewhat proven. I can put you in touch with Mike Rose if you'd like to put together a study proposal. We can contract with the appropriate labs for running such a study once we've raised the funds for the study. 

 

I have some other technologies that friends are working on that could make this type of research cheaper and more viable as well. I think it's worth putting together.

 

[niner]

Think about the length of a fruitfly generation versus a mouse generation.  Then think of the number of flies you can raise per dollar versus the number of mice you can raise.  Are you prepared to spend millions of dollars and twenty years?