A really interesting essay! One of my University lecturers once told me tht what defines a great scientist is their ability to imagine what is possible, and I think this essay stands as a shining example of that. Looking forward to your future releases too!
Just feels like the solution would need to involve all the elements of a cell -- which is probably its own strange symbiotic system, where mitochondria and cell bodies and the nucleus are each complex systems of their own. Even within the nucleus - epigenetic reprogramming and telomere extension or repair are distinct processes. Outside the nucleus, the energy provided by mitchondria is essential and mitochondrial maintenance and repair is another process. And our understanding of all the interactions of elements in a cell is still developing but for shorthand is probably best captured as a complex web of allostery which we have only begun to understand because we are trapped in machine metaphors and the idea of pathways.
So yes - epigenetic reprogramming is a fascinating thing -- and it looks like we can do it. But when we do that we just do that we make iPSC's with short telomeres and which don't have many replications left because we didn't give them a telomerase bath. Epigenetic programming is amazing - but it's just one of the tools we are likely to need to address aging -- not the only tool we need.
wonderfull stuff and a new approaching of moplecular biology in human cells..
A really interesting essay! One of my University lecturers once told me tht what defines a great scientist is their ability to imagine what is possible, and I think this essay stands as a shining example of that. Looking forward to your future releases too!
Wonderful stuff. I molecular biologist I once spoke to said that only the rate can be slowed but the inevitability of death cannot be avoided.
Just feels like the solution would need to involve all the elements of a cell -- which is probably its own strange symbiotic system, where mitochondria and cell bodies and the nucleus are each complex systems of their own. Even within the nucleus - epigenetic reprogramming and telomere extension or repair are distinct processes. Outside the nucleus, the energy provided by mitchondria is essential and mitochondrial maintenance and repair is another process. And our understanding of all the interactions of elements in a cell is still developing but for shorthand is probably best captured as a complex web of allostery which we have only begun to understand because we are trapped in machine metaphors and the idea of pathways.
So yes - epigenetic reprogramming is a fascinating thing -- and it looks like we can do it. But when we do that we just do that we make iPSC's with short telomeres and which don't have many replications left because we didn't give them a telomerase bath. Epigenetic programming is amazing - but it's just one of the tools we are likely to need to address aging -- not the only tool we need.