Set the clock back to ZERO !

I attend one of the most wonderful classes in all my years as a student. It's called Current Cell Biology and it doesn't get more current than this. Its also taught by one of the most eccentric professors I know (but also one of the best I've ever learnt from), Dr. William Moyle. Anyway..the course entails us to present an article from the latest (or very nearly the latest) issues of Science and Nature. These are two of the most prestigious journals to get an article in. But it's not that straightforward. We're not allowed to use horrible powerpoint, or any graphs or even look at the paper. We're to read the article, understand it and it's impacts and implications and then just talk about it to the rest of the class. Ah, let me mention the biggest point..we HAVE to have some idea about how to use the technique/research/etc in a new and innovative way. That's what the "best and wonderful courses" I'm talking about.

So what does this have to do with clocks. Most of this semester we seemed to focus on papers regarding stem cells. Yes..for all of us in the USA, this topic keeps coming up in the news all the time, especially regarding embryonic stem cells. But before I start something on that, I want to tell you the exciting thing that just has happened in our world.

We now have the ability to make our age to ZERO ! Yup, that's right. What scientists have basically done is taken a normal adult cell and have managed to make it look just like the day when you were conceived (Yu et al, Science Nov 2007) ! THIS IS HUGE !! And I'll now start to tell you why.

I want to have a Dr. attached to my name in the field of aging. That's what I study. I want to make humans not only live long, but live healthy. Noone wants to live to be 300 and be stuck with wearing adult diapers for 200 years. I'm concentrating on muscles. How they age and deteriorate and how I can make them better and stronger as we grow old. What do stem cells have to do with this ? Well..let me give you some background on stem cells.

Stem cells are a group of cells which can self-renew. This is the property of most of the cells in our body. They can divide and make exact copies of themselves. However, what is very special and amazing about stem cells, is that they can also generate many different types of cells in the body. If you think about it, this must logically be true and we must expect something like this. How in the world do you go from an egg and a sperm to someone typing this when they should be worried about a Ph.D. So stem cells are self-renewing but also can give rise to other cell types. They come in two main flavors (yuck). The pluripotent stem cells which can give rise to very many different types of cells in the body but cannot by themselves generate a whole organism. This quality is left to the totipotent stem cells. The embryo, formed when the sperm fuses with the egg (fertilization), is totipotent. Those stem cells can give rise to a whole new organism. These are the embryonic stem cells which we hear so much about. But as the embryo grows and the cells are dividing, the cells lose this totipotency and a small group of cells now become the pluripotent stem cells..meaning they give rise to all the different tissues of the body. As we grow older, we keep only a few specialized stem cell populations (in the gut, hair, blood, etc) but none which can give rise to other tissue types. Furthermore, we have differentiated cells which can no longer become anything but what they are . e.g. skin cells, brain cells, etc. That's about it for the background. In summary, we had cells which can become anything (skin, brain, liver, kidney, gonads) but then once we're all grown up, we are stuck with the cells that we have and some of these cannot be replenished (yes, you beer drinkers, your brains !)

What if, suddenly, you start to lose all your neurons which produce a chemical called dopamine. What happens is that you now have Parkinson's disease. Neurons don't divide and there aren't any known stem cells in our body which make more neurons. So basically you get Parkinson's and live a fairly terrible life. What happens if you have a sickle celled anemia? Your red blood cells are messed up and they'll continue to be messed up because your stem cells which make blood are messed up? What can we do about it? Well, the answer to that question was for a long time thought to be just to add more stem cells of your own. But wait ? Where do we get more stem cells if we didn't have any when we're all grown up? Scientists can now do it..and without going into the details about how, they basically take some skin cells and make it into potentially ANY CELL IN YOUR BODY ! The beauty of this technique is that they're your own cells, you don't need any "ethically gray-area" embryos and you don't have to worry about rejecting the tissue! Voila !!! We can use the same technique to generate potentially all the cells in your body.

I'm going to talk very briefly about whats done to your skin cells to make them into embryonic stem cells. We have genes (duh!!) and our genes dictate what type of cells we have, i.e. some genes on = skin cells, others on / off = liver cells. However, if all the cells have the same genes (yes they do, with the rare exception of immune cells..that's another cool story), then there must only be a difference of which genes are turned off and on in different cells that makes those cells different. So the trick that scientists used was to figure out which genes are differently on/off (expressed) in stem cells versus skin cells for example. Astonishingly, they discovered that its only 4 genes !! 4 genes control whether our cells have unlimited potential or our boring but necessary skin cells. So they use viruses or other genetic engineering to get those four genes on..and you have them stem cells. Sounds oversimplified and it is !

Ok..so we have all these stem cells potentially that can be made from any cell in our body and like I mentioned above, they have therapeutic potential. But what about the topic of this writeup and my field of aging...well. What we've now been able to do is essentially reverse the clock back to zero !! Isn't that wonderful. Humans ALWAYS want to live forever and anyone who says otherwise is either suicidal or is a liar. Now we've taken the giant leap - BACKWARDS to square one. We've gone from adult to embryo..the trick (and a very difficult one) is now to be able to control some of this. I'm sure in our lifetime (which is definitely going to be more than what it was 10 years ago!) we'll be answering some of these questions. I hope I can contribute ! :)

P.S. I didn't talk about the ethics of stem cells and in particular embryonic stem cells. This methods basically makes nonsense of it all, because we no longer require embryos to get the said cells. However, there is a possibility to generate entire organisms from this method i.e. cloning. The Island anyone ? (If you ignore Scarlett Johannsen..yeah right..then it actually raises some nice issues)

A Simple Life (Is there one?)

I've always been an avid reader of all sorts of books with a particular interest in Science Fiction novels. But from all the different worlds and times and dimensions that I've visited (and enjoyed) in all these years, I've always had this feeling at the back of my mind that all this is just too fantastic. Noone talks like that in real life (even in the books which are supposedly based on and in an average "normal" world).

I've always wanted to write a book on my life .. which I think has been as normal as anyone elses (with it's own unique, wondrous as well as some downright depressing moments). I cannot write as well as I'd like so a novel is out of the question with the added complication that a novel actually ends. This one will too but there are no page limitations. Also, I'd never be able to read someone else's thoughts on what's happening to me. Certainly I don't care much about strangers but friends and family are a different special and elite group. They matter and what they say and think matters more. So a blog seemed to work out.

More than anything else it gives me a chance to keep or make up memories for myself and for others...and in the end, atleast for me, that's what it's all about !