Buyer beware of this $1 million gene therapy for aging
1 min read
It’s said that nothing is certain except death and taxes. But doubt has been cast over the former since the 1970s, when scientists picked at the seams of one of the fundamental mysteries of biology: the molecular reasons we get old and die.
The loose thread they pulled had to do with telomeres—molecular timepieces on the ends of chromosomes that shorten each time a cell divides, in effect giving it a fixed life span. Some tissues (such as the gut lining) renew almost constantly, and it was found that these have high levels of an enzyme called telomerase, which works to rebuild and extend the telomeres so cells can keep dividing. […]
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