The Transhumanists into life-longevity will be watching closely...
---------------
The Independent
They called Brooke Greenberg the real-life Peter Pan – the little girl who never grew up.
By the age of four she had stopped growing and remained, physically and mentally, frozen as a child all her life. Two weeks ago, she died, aged 20, after becoming ill in the summer. For much of her short life, she was studied by scientists striving to understand her condition. It is known only as Syndrome X – and no one knows what causes it.
The media-friendly Peter Pan label belies a life which had more than its fair share of pain and hardship. Brooke, born in Baltimore, Maryland, in January 1993, suffered from medical problems – including hip dislocation, breathing difficulties, seizures and strokes – which began early and persisted throughout her life. But, scientists believe, if the genetic cause of her agelessness can be isolated, then Brooke Greenberg might just hold the key to one of the oldest endeavours in the history of science – slowing, or even stopping, ageing.
Brooke's DNA is now being studied, along with a handful of other children who have all the signs of Syndrome X, in the hope that understanding the condition could still yield an astonishing breakthrough in medical science.
Dr Eric Schadt, the director of the Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, has been entrusted by Brooke's family with their daughter's DNA and blood samples to create stem cells with which he can investigate the genetic basis of her condition. "Understanding the causes of Brooke's condition could provide insights into key development and ageing processes, which could lead to novel ways to increase longevity, and reduce age-related disorders," he said.
He has already sequenced Brooke's genome, and that of her parents and three siblings – all of whom grew up completely normally. "From this we have a number of mutations identified that are specific to Brooke that explain her condition," Dr Schadt said. "However, the function of the candidate genes we've identified are not fully known, nor how they relate to development and/or ageing."
Read more
---------------
The Independent
They called Brooke Greenberg the real-life Peter Pan – the little girl who never grew up.
By the age of four she had stopped growing and remained, physically and mentally, frozen as a child all her life. Two weeks ago, she died, aged 20, after becoming ill in the summer. For much of her short life, she was studied by scientists striving to understand her condition. It is known only as Syndrome X – and no one knows what causes it.
The media-friendly Peter Pan label belies a life which had more than its fair share of pain and hardship. Brooke, born in Baltimore, Maryland, in January 1993, suffered from medical problems – including hip dislocation, breathing difficulties, seizures and strokes – which began early and persisted throughout her life. But, scientists believe, if the genetic cause of her agelessness can be isolated, then Brooke Greenberg might just hold the key to one of the oldest endeavours in the history of science – slowing, or even stopping, ageing.
Brooke's DNA is now being studied, along with a handful of other children who have all the signs of Syndrome X, in the hope that understanding the condition could still yield an astonishing breakthrough in medical science.
Dr Eric Schadt, the director of the Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, has been entrusted by Brooke's family with their daughter's DNA and blood samples to create stem cells with which he can investigate the genetic basis of her condition. "Understanding the causes of Brooke's condition could provide insights into key development and ageing processes, which could lead to novel ways to increase longevity, and reduce age-related disorders," he said.
He has already sequenced Brooke's genome, and that of her parents and three siblings – all of whom grew up completely normally. "From this we have a number of mutations identified that are specific to Brooke that explain her condition," Dr Schadt said. "However, the function of the candidate genes we've identified are not fully known, nor how they relate to development and/or ageing."
Read more
No comments:
Post a Comment