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Increased understanding and control of the immune system will be just as important to enhanced human health and longevity as advances in stem cell science. The decline of the immune system with age has many detrimental effects, some direct, some indirect. But with greater control our immune systems - even just a little more control than we presently have - many of these age-related problems can be done away with. An immune system that remains efficient and active for many more years will bring increased healthy longevity.
One measure of progress in immune system engineering is the degree to which inroads are made in repairing autoimmune diseases. This is a direct application of new knowledge, run through the existing medical regulatory system. One less subtle approach presently in the works involves destroying and recreating the entire immune system to remove the configuration issue at the root of the disease - it seems to work. A wide variety of other research and development is taking place, such as this recent example:
Hope for arthritis vaccine 'cure':
A single injection of modified cells could halt the advance of rheumatoid arthritis, [one] of a family of "autoimmune" diseases, in which the body's defence systems launch attacks on its own tissues.
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The precise trigger for these attacks is not known, but the latest technique, so far tested only on cells in the laboratory, aims to "reset" the immune system back to its pre-disease state.
A sample of the body's white blood cells is taken and treated with a cocktail of steroids and vitamins which transforms a particular type of immune cell called a dendritic cell into a "tolerant" state. These cells are then injected back into the joint of the patient.
Professor John Isaacs, who is leading the research, said: "Based on previous laboratory research we would expect that this will specifically suppress or down regulate the auto-immune response."
Just as with stem cell science, a great breadth of work in immunological engineering produces a body of knowledge and research community that can be turned to the repair of aging in years ahead. If today researchers are attempting to repair broken immune systems, tomorrow they will be adding new immune system capabilities - such as a resistance to poor configurations brought on by aging, enhanced cancer and senescent cell destruction, or removing certain damaging biochemicals that build up with age.
The immune systems of the future will be a merging of the natural and the engineered, and will be extremely efficient and long-lasting compared to our present version. Keep an eye on present day immunological research, as it is one of the foundations of tomorrow's enhanced longevity.
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Posted by Reason
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