Partial cell reprogramming to cure aging

[overload1]

I just found this rather fascinating, and wanted to share to see what others think about this: http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(16)31664-6

 

Basically the study says that they have gotten successful results on reversing aging in human and mice cells

You can find more dry information in the link.

 

The way I understand is that they managed to partially reprogram the cells and in doing so they achieve result of not causing any tumors to form while reversing the cell aging, which as far as I know was the main issue with the whole idea

I personally think this is absolutely amazing. I thought we were tens of years away from any of this. Mind blown.

[Sauron]

Interesting, although it remains to be seen how effective it truly is with real patients.

[DocSwag]

So maybe I can live forever?

 

YA BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

[samcool55]

Well, imo it sounds funny that they "cure" aging.

Aging isn't a disease or something, it's just how things work.

 

[ThinkWithPortals]

God, I would hate to live forever. Knowing that everything is going to end someday and that I won't have to worry about life anymore is incredibly comforting. Infinite, peaceful oblivion.

[tlink]

aging is a part of evolution, take that away and we might really not like what is going to happen. on the other hand it might be completely fine who knows? 

 

keep in mind this video dates pretty far before this news, it already predicted that crispr was a pathway to longer youth.

[2FA]

I'm guessing this doesn't address the issue of cells only being able to divide so many times before they wear out.

[BuckGup]

2 hours ago, ThinkWithPortals said:

God, I would hate to live forever. Knowing that everything is going to end someday and that I won't have to worry about life anymore is incredibly comforting. Infinite, peaceful oblivion.

Nah I want to live forever.

[divito]

2 hours ago, ThinkWithPortals said:

God, I would hate to live forever. Knowing that everything is going to end someday and that I won't have to worry about life anymore is incredibly comforting. Infinite, peaceful oblivion.

No way. I'm legitimately afraid of dying and ceasing to exist and not be able to think anymore. Might be an irrational thought, but it's a terrible feeling.

[AresKrieger]

2 hours ago, ThinkWithPortals said:

God, I would hate to live forever. Knowing that everything is going to end someday and that I won't have to worry about life anymore is incredibly comforting. Infinite, peaceful oblivion.

Tbh if we were to live in a world where those being born were forever youthful and I was not I'd wish for the world to end, however if I was given the opportunity to live forever I'd take it, its not like we are talking about actual immortality rather just biological immortality.

[Centurius]

4 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

Tbh if we were to live in a world where those being born were forever youthful and I was not I'd wish for the world to end, however if I was given the opportunity to live forever I'd take it, its not like we are talking about actual immortality rather just biological immortality.

From what I've read the idea behind these kinds of experiments is not just stopping death by old age but actually reverse the process. So in theory you would go back to the way you were/will be at the best period in your life.

[AresKrieger]

1 minute ago, Centurius said:

So in theory you would go back to the way you were/will be at the best period in your life.

Well possibly, and hopefully however it is very likely that this technology would ultimately destroy the world one way or the other, if the treatment required a lot of money the technology would likely be fought over and ultimately lost in a blood bath, if the treatment was given to everyone overpopulation would become inevitable and resource wars would occur.

[MoonSpot]

36 minutes ago, divito said:

No way. I'm legitimately afraid of dying and ceasing to exist and not be able to think anymore. Might be an irrational thought, but it's a terrible feeling.

So what happens when you go to sleep for the night?  Are you sure your soul doesn't get formatted and recompiled during REM sleep, and some fake version of you wakes up every morning in your body, and creepishly starts moving about "believing" that it is the real you.

[divito]

1 minute ago, MoonSpot said:

So what happens when you go to sleep for the night?  Are you sure your soul doesn't get formatted and recompiled during REM sleep, and some fake version of you wakes up every morning in your body, and "believes" that is is the real you.

Not sure of the time for recompiling, but when you get 3-5 hours of sleep a night, I'm not sure it can complete. Perhaps I'm slowly losing memories or pieces of my identity the more I don't get full sleep. 

And akin to The 6th Day; maybe I wake up in a cab one day, but I'm really a clone.

[WereCat]

3 hours ago, DocSwag said:

So maybe I can live forever?

 

YA BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

unless someone kills you

[Centurius]

36 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

Well possibly, and hopefully however it is very likely that this technology would ultimately destroy the world one way or the other, if the treatment required a lot of money the technology would likely be fought over and ultimately lost in a blood bath, if the treatment was given to everyone overpopulation would become inevitable and resource wars would occur.

It depends, given current circumstances the UN already predicts the 12th billion human will never be born due to natural developments in demographics(basically even developing countries are approaching the final stages where the population increase isn't incredibly large anymore). Biological immortality would of course cause a population increase but on the flipside there is the fact that some of our greatest minds will also be immune from most forms of death. Not losing their knowledge could significantly boost our ability to move beyond the restraints of our own planet and address overpopulation by expanding to space.

[DarkBlade2117]

3 hours ago, ThinkWithPortals said:

God, I would hate to live forever. Knowing that everything is going to end someday and that I won't have to worry about life anymore is incredibly comforting. Infinite, peaceful oblivion.

Ya it would suck to live forever but tbh I wouldn't mind living 300-400 years.

[overload1]

2 hours ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

I'm guessing this doesn't address the issue of cells only being able to divide so many times before they wear out.

after reading through it a few times my understanding is that it reverts those cells or something like that. With this, in theory you should be able to revert some human to embryo even

1 hour ago, AresKrieger said:

Well possibly, and hopefully however it is very likely that this technology would ultimately destroy the world one way or the other, if the treatment required a lot of money the technology would likely be fought over and ultimately lost in a blood bath, if the treatment was given to everyone overpopulation would become inevitable and resource wars would occur.

As Centurius said we would have the best minds in the world alive for a lot longer and with the potential of human race becoming a multi-planetary species any and all worries of overpopulation should be rendered meaningless

[Doobeedoo]

Wouldn't say "cure aging" more like slowing it down.

[2FA]

3 minutes ago, overload1 said:

after reading through it a few times my understanding is that it reverts those cells or something like that. With this, in theory you should be able to revert some human to embryo even

I'll have to read through it then. If I remember exactly, it's the actual chromosomes that start to wear out and are unable to efficiently divide which results in cap on human lifespans of about 120 years. I think if we truly want to expand the human lifespan, the natural aging process needs to be slowed down as well as the cap extended. The biggest issue by far though is the deterioration of neurons since they divide as frequently as other cell types.

[ThinkWithPortals]

1 hour ago, MoonSpot said:

So what happens when you go to sleep for the night?  Are you sure your soul doesn't get formatted and recompiled during REM sleep, and some fake version of you wakes up every morning in your body, and creepishly starts moving about "believing" that it is the real you.

Thanks for the existential crisis.

[overload1]

17 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

I'll have to read through it then. If I remember exactly, it's the actual chromosomes that start to wear out and are unable to efficiently divide which results in cap on human lifespans of about 120 years. I think if we truly want to expand the human lifespan, the natural aging process needs to be slowed down as well as the cap extended. The biggest issue by far though is the deterioration of neurons since they divide as frequently as other cell types.

We'd need someone with proper science knowledge to tell us what would or wouldnt work from this but by the looks of things.. looks really promising

Just the fact that science has advanced this far is absolutely amazing for me

[Tech_Dreamer]

that site address tho, cell.com

[Dash Lambda]

6 hours ago, DocSwag said:

So maybe I can live forever?

Nope, entropy is a thing.

Then again, given trillions and trillions of years (if humans persist that long), we might find a way to fix that too.

6 hours ago, samcool55 said:

Well, IMO it sounds funny that they "cure" aging.

Aging isn't a disease or something, it's just how things work.

Just because it's the natural process doesn't mean it can't be thought of as a disease. It's detrimental to your health, so it makes sense to 'cure' it

5 hours ago, tlink said:

Aging is a part of evolution, take that away and we might really not like what is going to happen. On the other hand, it might be completely fine, who knows? 

Human technology kind of overpowered evolution at this point.

Sure, over time we will change due to biological evolution, but not the way have up to now. Rather than genetically adapting to our environment, we either behaviorally adapt or change the environment.

That's actually where the term "meme' came from, the information form of a gene.

So, basically: Memes are more powerful than evolution.

[Syntaxvgm]

6 hours ago, ThinkWithPortals said:

God, I would hate to live forever. Knowing that everything is going to end someday and that I won't have to worry about life anymore is incredibly comforting. Infinite, peaceful oblivion.

I would think that, but I think I would like the feeling of the pressure of time lifted, wasting 5 years of my life on something would not be wasting. It would just be an experience.  

8 minutes ago, Dash Lambda said:

Nope, entropy is a thing.

Then again, given trillions and trillions of years (if humans persist that long), we might find a way to fix that too.

Just because it's the natural process doesn't mean it can't be thought of as a disease. It's detrimental to your health, so it makes sense to 'cure' it

Human technology kind of overpowered evolution at this point.

Sure, over time we will change due to biological evolution, but not the way have up to now. Rather than genetically adapting to our environment, we either behaviorally adapt or change the environment.

That's actually where the term "meme' came from, the information form of a gene.

So, basically: Memes are more powerful than evolution.

I love you.