Would this work?
Nick
jelly fish with the ability to return to a polyp stage after reaching
sexually mature allowing it to bypass death. This theoretically makes
it biologically immortal. Google the name to find more info. My
question is, would it be possible to isolate the genes that allow it
to do this and splice them into the genes of another organism? Would
the organism be "immortal"? Could this eventually be applied to humans?
efer...@gmail.com
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-----Original Message-----
From: Nick <ysi...@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 10:09:00
To: DIYbio<diy...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Would this work?
Bryan Bishop
Nick, I've copied some information from the Gerontology Research Group
mailing list below, which has had many discussions on Turritopsis.
On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Kingsley G. Morse Jr. <cha...@nas.com> wrote:
> Induction of reverse development in two marine Hydrozoans
> Int. J. Dev. Biol. 51: 45-56 (2007)
> Schmich et all.
>
> Cnidarians are unique organisms in the animal
> kingdom because of their unequalled potential to
> undergo reverse development (RD). The life cycle
> of some species can temporarily shift ordinary,
> downstream development from zygote to adult into
> the opposite ontogenetic direction by
> back-transformation of some life stages. The
> potential for RD in cnidarians offers the
> possibility to investigate how integrative
> signalling networks operate to control
> directionality of ontogeny (reverse vs. normal
> development). Striking examples are found in some
> hydrozoans, where RD of medusa bud or liberated
> medusa stages leads to rejuvenation of the
> post-larval polyp stage. Artificial stress may
> determine ontogeny reversal. We describe here the
> results of experimental assays on artificial
> induction of RD by different chemical and physical
> inducers on two marine hydrozoans, Turritopsis
> dohrnii and Hydractinia carnea, showing a
> different potential for RD. A cascade of
> morphogenetic events occurs during RD by molecular
> mechanisms and cellular patterns recalling larval
> metamorphosis. For the first time, we show here
> that exposure to cesium chloride (CsCl), an
> inducer of larval metamorphosis, may also induce
> RD, highlighting similarities and differences
> between these two master ontogenetic processes in
> cnidarians
>
> The full text is at http://www.ijdb.ehu.es/web/paper.php?doi=062152js&a=f
>
>
>
>
> Reversing the Life Cycle: Medusae Transforming into Polyps and Cell Transdifferentiation in Turritopsis nutricula (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa)
> The Biological Bulletin, Vol 190, Issue 3 302-312, 1996
> Piraino et all.
>
> Organisms develop through a series of stages
> leading to sexually mature adults. In a few cases
> ontogeny reversal is possible, but it does not
> occur typically after the onset of sexual
> reproduction. All stages of the medusa Turritopsis
> nutricula, from newly liberated to fully mature
> individuals, can transform back into colonial
> hydroids, either directly or through a resting
> period, thus escaping death and achieving
> potential immortality. This is the first metazoan
> known to revert to a colonial, juvenile morph
> after having achieved sexual maturity in a
> solitary stage. Selective excision experiments
> show that the transformation of medusae into
> polyps occurs only if differentiated cells of the
> exumbrellar epidermis and part of the
> gastrovascular system are present, revealing a
> transformation potential unparalleled in the
> animal kingdom.
>
> The full text is at http://www.biolbull.org/cgi/reprint/190/3/302
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 4:44 AM, Robert Bradbury
<robert....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Kingsley, please refer to a property by what it *really* is (and not what
> the press may make it out to be). The ability to dedifferentiate is *not*
> the same as "immortality". Until you have actual statistics with respect to
> what fraction of differentiated organisms are able to dedifferentiate and
> then subsequently redifferentiate you have know idea as to the quality level
> of the genome (and therefore the subsequent potential) for "immortality".
> If only 1% of the differentiated cells of this organism can dedifferentiate
> it is hardly immortal! Do you want to be regenerated using only 1% of the
> cells in your current brain?
>
> The bottom line is that genomes decay over time. If you have enough of them
> one can regenerate a functional organism from those which remain relatively
> undamaged. That does little good for those of us who would prefer the
> contents or information state of those currently existing genomes which in
> our brains may be in a semi-damaged state [1].
>
> Robert
>
> 1. Though it is doubtful whether it is the "information state" of the genome
> which is critical relative to the structural content of the neurons and
> their relationships. Lose the cell (e.g. lose the cell structure and its
> relationships to other cells) and lose the information content it may
> contain. The information state of the genome within each cell may be
> secondary with regard to the physical structure of the cell itself except
> in-so-far as you have to preserve the genome in order to preserve the cell.
On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 9:56 AM, Robert Bradbury
<robert....@gmail.com> wrote:
> It largely means that it can control its own dedifferentiation. But without
> knowing what its losses (from the population as a group) are during that
> process (or looking at its radiation resistance or knowing whether it has
> undergone atypical genome duplications and evolution) that doesn't tell you
> whether it has "better" mechanisms to resist aging. You might consider what
> would happen to an adult human if we tried this dedifferentiation strategy.
>
> The only organism that I am aware of that has a significantly unusual DNA
> repair strategy is Deinococcus (radiodurans and related species). I believe
> the DOE only has on its list ~5 bacterial species (out of probably thousands
> they may have tested) which demonstrate some radiation resistance. All are
> less resistant than Deinococcus. Radiation resistance and the preservation
> of DNA is *hard* and many species go for survival and replication rather
> than solving the hard problems.
>
> Robert
>
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:19 PM, Kingsley G. Morse Jr. <cha...@nas.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> FYI:
>>
>> "Turritopsis nutricula is the first case in which
>> a metazoan is capable of reverting completely to a
>> sexually immature, colonial, stage"
>>
>> "Thus, it appears that it has cheated death"
>>
>> http://zygote.swarthmore.edu/intro6.html
>>
>> It seems to me that studying Turritopsis nutricula
>> might show us how to live longer.
>>
>> Happy holidays,
>> Kingsley
Bryan Bishop
From: Robert Bradbury <robert....@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 1:30 PM
Subject: Re: [GRG] Fwd: Would this work?
To: Gerontology Research Group <g...@lists.ucla.edu>
Cc: kan...@gmail.com
On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Bryan Bishop forwarded:
> This theoretically makes it biologically immortal.
Potentially "genetically" immortal.
> would it be possible to isolate the genes that allow it to do this
These would be "dedifferentiation genes" and yes it would be possible
to isolate them. Whether they would work in all organisms depends
upon how the organisms enforce differentiation upon cell types.
> and splice them into the genes of another organism?
Yes, you can splice them in, whether they would work would depend upon
the organism.
> Would the organism be "immortal"? Could this eventually be applied to humans?
It depends whether what you mean is "able to continue forever" (that
is not too hard -- most bacteria and fungi are able to do that) or
"able to continue with some awareness of what one once was and /or
could be". That is harder. It is highly questionable whether the
"Turritopsis nutricula" remembers anything across its transition
stages. Each development into a mature organismal state is probably
"fresh". So one retains no memories, no learning, etc.
You may be able to be immortal biologically but you are not immortal
from a knowledge base perspective.
Robert
Nick Taylor
> is not too hard -- most bacteria and fungi are able to do that) or
> "able to continue with some awareness of what one once was and /or
> could be". That is harder. It is highly questionable whether the
> "Turritopsis nutricula" remembers anything across its transition
> stages. Each development into a mature organismal state is probably
> "fresh". So one retains no memories, no learning, etc.
>
> You may be able to be immortal biologically but you are not immortal
> from a knowledge base perspective.
It concerns teleportation... if you transferred all of your molecules right down to the quantum state from A to B, then B could theoretically "remember" the entire previous life of A, and would think it was A... but really, A would be dead, and neither would ever know.
What I find slightly bothersome is that this could be happening anyway. The entity that you experience as being "you" could actually "reboot/stop" quite frequently (every time you sneeze? Sleep?) and the rebooted version would never know any different because it's inherited all the memories.
All highly theoretical etc, but it's not impossible to predict bio technologies where these questions of identity become pertinent.
Darth Mencken
than identifying the gene sequences the jellyfish uses for this, and
figuring where to splice them into the Human genome where they'll do
the same job for us w/o interferring with anything else - The
lattermost concern, "w/o interferring with anything else," being the
most significant and recurrent one in almost anything having to do
with gengineering).
Forgive me for stating the obvious, but jellyfish are a lot more
anatomically simple than you or I. How great is the difference (in
size, and internal structure) between a polyp here, and the mature
stage? And could it really exist indefinitely here? And would it be
possible to achieve similar "immortality" w/o reverting physically to
a crying infant for all practical purposes? Most of us would just like
to not grow old physically, not have our bodies gradually wear-out on
us, and still be able to do all the things we like as adults.
This phenomenon with the jellyfish sounds similar to the "dauer" state
entered into by C. elegans, in response to caloric restriction. Their
reproductive and other processes not essential to individual survival
shut down, or enter extreme low gear, while others also downshift. It
amounts to physiological belt-tightening, for C. elegans anyway.
Under what circumstances does the mature jellyfish revert to polyp
stage?
>
> - Show quoted text -
Mike Barnkob
There's a guy, Aubrey de Grey, who's trying to figure out the genetics
and lifestyle that would make you a 1000 years (or something like
that). I don't know if he's actually found anything out though. You
can hear an interview with him here: http://twit.tv/fib30 (from a
podcast called Futures in Biotech which is pretty good).
But I can't help wonder if anybody would want to live forever... maybe
I'm getting old.
Mike
Guido D. Núñez-Mujica
when you want to.
Daniel C.
<noalaig...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It is not about living forever. It is about ending your life exactly
> when you want to.
For some people, that effectively means living forever.
Bryan Bishop
> There's a guy, Aubrey de Grey, who's trying to figure out the genetics
His main work is in SENS, or engineered negligible senesence, mostly
the idea that we could be replenishing our stem cells every 10 years
so that we don't lose them to natural causes, and hopefully keeping
that up until you hit "longevity escape velocity" and new technologies
are developed quickly enough that you don't, i.e., die beforehand.
Aubrey has been all over the web-
http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/aubrey_de_grey.html
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/09/1845200
The "Do you want to live forever?" article was where I first learned of Aubrey:
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/issue/feature_aging.asp
Here's an archive of his papers (~25 MB):
http://heybryan.org/transhuman/Aubrey.zip
I had the opportunity to discuss with him on the Immortality Institute
Sunday Evening Update stream, so the day before, I did a full running
commentary and annotations and notes on all of his papers-
http://heybryan.org/transhuman/kanzure_questions.html
Hope this helps.
Daniel C.
> His main work is in SENS, or engineered negligible senesence, mostly
> the idea that we could be replenishing our stem cells every 10 years
> so that we don't lose them to natural causes, and hopefully keeping
> that up until you hit "longevity escape velocity" and new technologies
> are developed quickly enough that you don't, i.e., die beforehand.
My initial response to this is "The guy is a quack." But I don't know
enough about gerontology (or biology in general) to know for sure.
Can anyone offer an informed opinion?
-Dan
Bryan Bishop
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:08 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote:
>> His main work is in SENS, or engineered negligible senesence, mostly
>> the idea that we could be replenishing our stem cells every 10 years
>> so that we don't lose them to natural causes, and hopefully keeping
>> that up until you hit "longevity escape velocity" and new technologies
>> are developed quickly enough that you don't, i.e., die beforehand.
>
> My initial response to this is "The guy is a quack." But I don't know
> enough about gerontology (or biology in general) to know for sure.
> Can anyone offer an informed opinion?
Aubrey's publications (bias much?)-
http://www.mfoundation.org/research/adgpubs
The famous corruption in the Technology Review debates-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Grey_Technology_Review_controversy
"... responding, when de Grey's defenders protested that these
articles contained no detailed, scientific criticism of SENS and
amounted to little more than ad hominem attacks, that he would find "a
working biogerontologist" who would thoroughly criticize de Grey's
ideas."
"Pontin later commented that the de Grey article was one of the most
read and most-discussed articles that appeared in Technology Review in
2005. The April 2005 issue of Technology Review contained a reply by
Aubrey de Grey, [4] and numerous comments from readers. [5]
Pontin acknowledged that neither the article by Nuland nor his own
column attempted to disprove de Grey's ideas. He defended his approach
by noting that he "commissioned what I called a 'profile in the style
of The New Yorker'". He argued that his own column was never intended
to address SENS, but was concerned with the more general subject of
science and religion.
As of January 2009, Pontin had failed to find one "working
biogerontologist" to take the time to publicly debunk SENS."
("Prove Aubrey de Grey is a nut, win $20000")
So there's a few things that need to be separated- what exactly is
quack? Stem cell research? Treating aging as a disease
(biogerontology)? Longevity escape velocity? Anyway, I'll forward your
request to the Gerontology Research Group, where I'm sure you can get
an informed opinion from both his opponents, himself and those who
don't care either way (something hard to find, I might point out).
Btw, some of the research for mprize.org and mfoundation.org is
centered around mice, but also some genetics, so I don't know if
raising mice is in the interest of any of the diybioers here :-). Just
an opportunity.
Nick Taylor
> that). I don't know if he's actually found anything out though. You
> can hear an interview with him here: http://twit.tv/fib30 (from a
> podcast called Futures in Biotech which is pretty good).
>
> But I can't help wonder if anybody would want to live forever... maybe
> I'm getting old.
Immortality (for want of a better word) is/will be one of the most powerful drivers there is. Think of it in terms of people trying to save the lives of people they love. It's something people will kill for.
And part of the reason that I think it's absolutely critical that biotech isn't owned by big corporations. If we live that long/survive it will be an interesting period. The massive social changes brought about by the contraceptive pill will be nothing compared to the sort of longevity talked about here.
Mike Barnkob
philosophy behind is intriguing.
It's funny you should mention 90 year olds. A couple of years ago I
took care of seniors, three of them over 90 (all women by the way -
why do they tend to live longer?) and I always thought it strange
that every one of them talked about dieing and how they looked forward
to it. They weren't weak as such, all living at home still, but
apparently something changed in them. Of course this is just a story
and doesn't apply to anybody but them. But it change how I thought
about dieing. I think it would be interesting for anybody wanting to
live forever, or maybe just till their 100th year, to talk to somebody
actually that old.
Again, sorry for the off-topic talk here, I getting really bad at this
it seems.
Mike
On Feb 2, 7:16 am, Nick Taylor <nick1...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > There's a guy, Aubrey de Grey, who's trying to figure out the genetics
> > and lifestyle that would make you a 1000 years (or something like
> > that). I don't know if he's actually found anything out though. You
Andrew Hessel
Most biotech drugs target our basic physiological needs. Once we're assured that our immediate survival is assured, we tend to focus on what makes us feel better or gets us more sex -- hence the shift to pain relievers, antidepressants, Viagra, and anything else that would make us appear cool. (Tails, anyone?) Usually, this reduces to just getting rich. Go beyond this and we begin to consider more long-term issues, like our persistence. I think Nick is right that it will be a powerful economic and intellectual driver in the coming years. Remember the importance of Melange in Frank Herbert's Dune? :)
Andrew