Longevity - the very real quest for a longer, healthier life through molecular biology

In my last article, I expressed relief at the thought that if consciousness was indeed a quantum phenomenon, there might be a chance that quantum entanglement would let me actually transfer my consciousness from one "matrix" (e.g., body) to another.

I'm pretty sure now that I was wrong.

A good friend of mine (cough cough Rob Perry cough cough) pointed out that quantum entanglement is simple a matter of a state property linkage between two specific particles.  It won't magically let me create an entanglement between my current brain and a chosen destination, no matter how much I want it to.

That means that if we did have a way of downloading consciousness to a new matrix - be it a computer or organic brain - there's nothing to transport; I'm effectively just making a copy that I can then talk to.  I imagine most of the discussion will revolve around which of us is the real original, and will ultimately devolve into a deadly game of survivor.

So it appears that my best hope for immortality, after all, is then to keep my existing biological matrix functional as long as possible.

The good news is that we don't need to find a magical Fountain of Youth - there are many proven biological phenomenon that we could use to extend our lifespans.

To understand the how, first we need to know the why.

As the body ages, bad things happen.  Our cells stop dividing, or they replicate with errors.  Why do these things happen?  The first process may be a function of the second, or it may be a result of something called apoptosis - basically programmed cell death.  Many cells know that they can divide so many times, no more.  Cell division itself is vitally important to control - for example, once you're fully grown, you don't want to keep growing - so your cells need to slow down the rate of division and only divide to replace cells that are lost.  And even then the cells need to only divide to replace - if they forget how to be good neighbors and start replicating at will, well, that's cancer.

So what we want to do is to convince the cells to keep dividing in replacement mode, as existing cells die, but without do so in an uncontrolled fashion (cancer).  How do we do that?

The ends of a chromosome are
called telomeres - from med.standford.edu

We already know several things that are involved in cellular aging.  One of which is the length of the telomere, the cap on the end of the chromosome.  Because of the way cells replicate, the telomeres are necessary to keep the ends from fraying (not an exact description of the biological problem, but a good analogy to work with).  As cells age, telomeres shorten - and this may be one thing that ultimately stops cells from dividing in replacement mode.

So - we need to keep those telomeres at a good healthy length.  And we can - with an enzyme called telomerase.  This enzyme's sole job is to slap extra bits onto the existing telomeres, lengthening them so that the chromosomes don't fray too quickly.  Lots of studies suggest that increasing telomerase activity can extend lifespan - including recent studies in Mus musculus (the common mouse), which biologically is quite similar to us - mutant mice with increase telomerase activity showed a 50% increase in lifespan.  Some evidence even suggests that the antioxidant resveratrol (found in red wine and in pills sold at Trader Joe's and other such stores) stimulates telomerase activity - but the jury's out on that.  But while we're talking about them, antioxidants in general are considered to be good for cellular health and longevity, reducing the cellular damage caused by free radicals.  

In addition to telomerase and antioxidants, protecting mitochondria from oxidative damage has been shown to increase life span - by up to 30%.  And the Methuselah gene (a G-protein coupled receptor in Drosophila) has also shown a 35% increase in longevity - in Drosophila.

So there is hope that there are genetic ways we can use to extend our lifespan.  So far none of them has been demonstrated (more importantly, tested) in humans.  More importantly, none of them really address rejuvenation, or regeneration - growing new cells (not just maintaining the existing ones) to replace our elderly tissues.  After all, that's the real end goal here - not just living longer, but being youthful longer!

Regeneration has been shown in many different organisms.  Newts and axolotls can regenerate tails, even complete limbs.  Starfish can regenerate arms.  One mutant strain of mouse (Murphy Roths Large) can regenerate portions of their heart, digits, and ears is damage.  And even humans have shown limited regeneration - in fact every time you heal from a wound you're regenerating those tissues; the problem is that humans can't regenerate from more severe trauma, like newts can.  There's no reason to think that we won't be able to enhance these capabilities - after all, they're just the same cellular growth processes that our bodies already go through during maturity rom childhood - we just have to find the right genes to switch back on at the right time, convincing cells to begin dividing again.

The problem here is that not all cells can divide to produce all cell types - that's where stem cells come in.  Stem cells are essentially the progenitor cells from which all of our other cells are derived.  The ones you get from an embryo (embryonic stem cells) tend to be totipotent - they can literally give rise to any other cell.  Since there are ethical concerns with harvesting stem cells, we instead tend to use induced stem cells - cells from adult tissues which have been "converted" back into stem cells using several molecular biology tricks.  This induced stem cells tend to be pleuripotent, however - they can be differentiated into many, but not all, of the cell types found in the donor.  But that's just a technical problem - eventually we'll have the ability to use these stem cells to regrow, well, anything.  We're already using them to make whole organs and even new teeth.

And we could even move beyond biology and into the realm of nanotechnology for an aid to longevity - although Eric Drexler, in his seminal "Engines of Creation", pointed out that the first assemblers would most likely be biologically derived.  So our first steps are still likely to involve molecular biology (and we'll talk about that in more detail in a future article on CRISPR/CAS9).

For now, I'm taking my resveratrol and omega-3's and trying to stay out of trouble - you should do the same.