Of particular interest, they saw notable changes on a gene called ERCC1. This gene is known to code for a molecular toolkit that can patch up small areas of damage to the genome. Given their size, bowhead whales should all develop cancer before they reach adulthood - yet they can live for two centuries Credit: Alamy.
The team also found changes to a gene called PCNA, which is involved in cell proliferation. It codes for a protein that acts as a kind of clamp, holding together the molecular machines that cause DNA to replicate. Bowheads have duplicated regions of the gene, and their mutations seem to help it interact with other parts of the toolkit involved in DNA repair. The team hypothesise that this single change could promote healthier cell growth without the damage that comes with age. If you can see that certain genes are particularly active, then you know that it too might be playing an important role in ageing.
The findings are attracting attention from some of the most important figures in medicine. Once over that threshold, there are many potential ways that these findings might improve treatments. Gladyshev suggests that we could see whether diet or exercise programmes could help to shift the body to match the longevity signature of the whale.
In this way, the bowhead whale could offer immediate guidance for the best ways to life longer. The ultimate goal is to program the body so that cancers cannot form in the first place Credit: Science Photo Library. Alternatively, these long-lived creatures could inspire some more radical treatments. After these initial tests, the next hurdle will be to find a way to create the same changes in the enormously complex human body, perhaps with drugs that mimic the effects of the genes. In some cases, you could genetically engineer organisms like yeast to churn out the relevant proteins in large vats that could then be purified for human use, or to find drugs that mimic the effects.
In the future, gene therapy could even allow us to tweak the DNA in living people; in an instant, we could benefit from the helpful mutations that took millions of years for the bowhead whale to evolve.
Clearly, there will be trials ahead. Although we are relatively closely related in evolutionary terms, what works in a whale, or naked mole rat, may have limited or no benefit in the human body.
Even so, he welcomes this new approach to looking to nature for answers to medical issues. De Magalhaes and Gladyshev are under no illusions about the arduous journey — but they remain hopeful. Back then life-threatening infections were just a fact of life. Today, antibiotics are taken for granted as the most basic healthcare.
The authors pointed to social factors that reflect the findings. But a long life span is not the same as a long health span, says S.
Jay Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who was not involved in the work. And the question is: Can we extend life without also extending the proportion of time that people go through a frail state?
Treating diseases in the long run is not going to have the effect that you might want it to have. These fundamental biological processes of aging are going to continue. The question of whether this will have any impact on the fundamental upper limits identified in the Nature Communications paper remains highly speculative.
But some studies are being launched—testing the diabetes drug metformin, for example—with the goal of attenuating hallmark indicators of aging. In this same vein, Fedichev and his team are not discouraged by their estimates of maximum human life span. We live in unprecedented times and the pace of change and innovation is explosive.
Unlike any other era, mankind has the means to destroy the world completely and in so many ways. If mankind does not succumb to man-made or natural disasters, and continues to progress exponentially, it becomes difficult to predict the next years, let alone peer darkly into the distant future. I believe that we stand on the threshold where this understanding can be translated into the most extraordinary and wonderful changes in the human condition. A few generations ago death was a familiar event.
Death was capricious, visiting the young as well as the old, the hale as well as the infirm, the rich as well as the poor. It was an accepted and everyday occurrence over which man had little influence. In a previous age I might not have survived this long, let alone enjoy an active physical and mental existence. Over the last years, improved nutrition, clean water, better sanitation and the application of medical science have been remarkably successful in tackling disease and allowing most people to reach their potential lifespan.
Because of these advances millions of people are alive today who would have died not so many years ago. In recent years the search for ways to achieve an extended lifespan has moved out of the realm of fantasy and science fiction to become a legitimate scientific pursuit. Death has moved from being inevitable, to a technical hitch amenable to intervention and prevention.
For most of recorded human history average life expectancy has been between 20 and 40 years. In Britain it was only in the mids that this figure consistently rose above 40 years. Today in the UK average life expectancy is about 80 years. The main reason for this extraordinary advance is the fall in infant mortality.
In one-third of British children died before their fifth birthday. Today that figure is less than one per cent. The big killers used to be infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, scarlet fever, smallpox, influenza, typhoid and cholera.
If progress at reducing mortality continues then many children born since the year will live to celebrate their th birthday. Biology Genetics Health Science. Ventana al Conocimiento Knowledge Window. Estimated reading time Time 2 to read. Related publications A Hidden Genetic Code? Do you want to stay up to date with our new publications?
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