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this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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Venter is one of the many quacks who promised that he'd find the "aging gene" and switch it off. People threw a lot of money at him about twenty years ago.
Haven't we known about the aging part of genes (telomeres) for like 80 years
Hmm, I have no expertise in this field. I recently read that aging happens, because when cells replicate their DNA a gazillion times, then sometimes they introduce slight inaccuracies or mistakes, which I guess, means tons of tiny chunks of our body will have slightly different DNA from what we got born with...?
From the little I've just read about telomeres, it sounds like they help to prevent some of these mistakes. Is that you mean?
IIRC, telomeres are essentially the self-destruct button for DNA. They get shorter everytime DNA replicates and when they are all used up, DNA stops replicating and the cell destroys itself. The telomeres help prevent too many mutations from building up or cancer from forming.
They was some research on animals that indicates that resetting the telomeres can extend the lifespan of the animal. But, without the telomeres, cancer and mutations eventually kill the organism.
Interesting. Yeah, it sounds like the only real way to prevent aging, would be to create a clone of yourself, let that clone grow up until their body is fully developed and then organ-harvest them to replace all of your organs one-by-one, until you've eventually ship-of-theseus-ed yourself. Well, and repeat that process every thirty years or so.
Certainly not quite as sexy of a process as some skincare lotions promise...
You would never be able transplant the brain, and it's still subject to the mutations and telomeres. The only way would be to transplant the personality Altered Carbon style or completely cure brain cancer.
Yeah, that's true. Maybe you could pull off two or three cycles without hotswapping the brain, but eventually you'd have to rejuvenate yourself by just teach everything you know to one of your clones.
...which sounds an awful lot like just having children. ๐
I wonder if it would be possible to transplant to transplant the brain in pieces over several cycles? That way the brain could eventually be replaced by dupli-babies. Memory might become problematic though.