Re: BIOMED: postponing aging [was MISREGULATION OF MITOSIS ...]

From: hal@finney.org
Date: Tue Jun 13 2000 - 11:02:44 MDT


Joao writes:

> On the same line of reasoning -- and I think I've posted a message about
> this before --, I'm still to ear a good explanation to the animal cloning
> experiments on the basis of the DNA damage theory of aging (I actually
> asked a few scientists working on the subject last month in Spa's Congress
> but I didn't get any attractive answer).

Maybe it is the reason so many hundreds of attempts are needed before
a success. You have to get lucky to find a cell without too much damage.

> As for mitotic misregulation as the basis of aging, that's a speculatory
> conclusion. You can always argue that some upstream mechanism is regulating
> the genetic machinery and creating the mitotic imbalances.

Yes, every few months someone notices that old cells are worse in terms
of characteristic X than young cells, and immediately proposes this as
a basis for aging. Correlation is not causation.

Hal



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