From: Damien Broderick (damienb@unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Jun 06 2003 - 22:54:55 MDT
At 12:25 PM 6/6/03 -0700, Jeff Davis wrote:
>VERY interesting article. Use the link and read the
>whole thing.
>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/06/030606080223.htm
Yes indeed. I was especially charmed by this (which I *knew* I was going to
see, knew it in my poor aching bones):
< The researchers did not detect any signs of unwanted cellular
proliferation in their bioengineered arteries, although Counter did
emphasize that before these arteries can be implanted into humans, the
researchers must "turn off " hTERT. It is expected that the implanted
arteries would then "age" as would native arteries. >
Yep, we don't want any of those damned new fangled immortal cells in *our*
bodies, no way sirree. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just going out to smash
the headlights on my new car.
No, I'm sure that's not the researchers' motive; they're worried that any
pre-immortalized bioengineered arterial cells that chance to become mutated
in the nastiest ways will become cancerous even faster than usual, because
their telomerase gene is already activated. But hey, how about finding
something *else* that's specific to tumor cells and damaging *that*, and
leaving the immortality fix alone?
Damien Broderick
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