THE Stem-Cell Breakthrough & Aging

I call it the breakthrough, because a team of Canadian Researchers are the first to successfully create embryonic stem cells without any of the technical or moral drawbacks from previous studies.  From the article:

Canadian researchers have discovered a new way to turn skin cells into stem cells with fewer potential risks to patients.

“We hope these stem cells will form the basis for treatment of many diseases and conditions that are currently considered incurable,” says Andras Nagy, of Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital. He is the lead author of a groundbreaking paper published online Sunday by the journal Nature.

Dr. Nagy and his colleagues are the first to reprogram human skin cells to an embryonic state without using a virus, collaborating on the new technique with Keisuke Kaji from the Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh.

Viruses can damage healthy DNA. Some of the genes that orchestrated the transformation back to an embryonic state can also cause cancer.

Dr. Nagy and his colleagues have developed a technique to make stem cells without either of these drawbacks.

Without using a virus, they were able to slip four genes into skin cells that reprogrammed them to an embryonic-like state. They were also able to then get rid of the genes with the potential to cause cancer.

How did they do it? The team used a jumping gene, a mobile piece of DNA also known as a transposon. In moths, corn and other species, these genes hop from chromosome to chromosome, inserting themselves randomly into the genome. They give rise to the kind of genetic variability that can help species adapt to changing conditions.

Many scientists believe that the flexibility and regenerative power of stem cells hold great promise in the treatment of many diseases, including Alzheimer's, and that one day they may be used to repair damaged hearts, kidneys, livers or other tissue, or even to grow new organs for transplant.

One day, the work could allow patients to be treated with their own reprogrammed stem cells.

What makes the prospect of stem-cell technology so promising is one day you will be able to replace any organ that fails on you.  If you're heart, kidney, lung or pancreas go, they'll simply grow you a new one.  If you get brain damage, Alzheimer's or dementia, or become paralyzed from spinal cord injury, they'll simply regrow and replace the neural tissue that's been damaged.

Although this is not a direct cure for aging itself, it will extend healthy life as long as you end up living.  Aging will be cured once we are able to repair the systemic damage that occurs at the cellular level.  There are many researchers around the world working on that right now.

Via Sentient Developments.