AFIAK the live mice were GMOs with a progeria-like disease, which made them age rapidly. That obviously makes it easier to do anti-aging experiments but also adds a big footnote to the results. We don't know if these results are transferable to healthy mice or if this is "just" a promising treatment for progeria.
Has this been done on 100% healthy wild type mice? I guess such a study would take longer to perform. Probably is being done now if it hasn't been done already.
Also it's important to point out that not all results from mice or from disembodied human cell lines have transferred well to humans. Cells outside the body (which are often forked from cancer lines like HeLa to boot) often behave differently from cells in the body, and there's enough metabolic differences from mouse to human to matter a lot in some cases.
Finally... there does seem to be a trade-off between some aging mechanisms and cancer to the point that one hypothesis about aging itself is that it's a side effect of anti-cancer adaptations. So there's always a risk that turning on any clock-reversing things in a live human would boost cancer rates by allowing cancerous cell lines to slip past built-in safeguards against runaway division. This can result the exact opposite of life extension. We'll have to wait and see for results in larger and more genetically normal (wild type) animals to fine out.
Still... very exciting to see any result where aging seems to be actually reversible. If this isn't "it" it still at least suggests the basic biological feasibility of age reversal.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 12.0 ms ] threadAFIAK the live mice were GMOs with a progeria-like disease, which made them age rapidly. That obviously makes it easier to do anti-aging experiments but also adds a big footnote to the results. We don't know if these results are transferable to healthy mice or if this is "just" a promising treatment for progeria.
Has this been done on 100% healthy wild type mice? I guess such a study would take longer to perform. Probably is being done now if it hasn't been done already.
Also it's important to point out that not all results from mice or from disembodied human cell lines have transferred well to humans. Cells outside the body (which are often forked from cancer lines like HeLa to boot) often behave differently from cells in the body, and there's enough metabolic differences from mouse to human to matter a lot in some cases.
Finally... there does seem to be a trade-off between some aging mechanisms and cancer to the point that one hypothesis about aging itself is that it's a side effect of anti-cancer adaptations. So there's always a risk that turning on any clock-reversing things in a live human would boost cancer rates by allowing cancerous cell lines to slip past built-in safeguards against runaway division. This can result the exact opposite of life extension. We'll have to wait and see for results in larger and more genetically normal (wild type) animals to fine out.
Still... very exciting to see any result where aging seems to be actually reversible. If this isn't "it" it still at least suggests the basic biological feasibility of age reversal.