Critiquing WILT
Randall Parker notes one possible critique of WILT, Whole-body Interdiction of Lengthening of Telomeres as a strategy to eliminate cancer: "with a new report about telomerase enzyme [that] proposal seems problematic. According to this new result telomerase does not just lengthen the caps on the ends of chromosomes. ... If telomerase is keeping chromosomes stable then taking away telomerase could cause more things to go wrong sooner. I've never been enthusiastic about WILT because we need a cure for cancer for all our cells that do not already have telomerase knocked out in them. We have lots of cells all over our bodies that are getting older and at greater risk of becoming cancerous. Short of replacing our entire bodies WILT will not eliminate the risk of death from cancer. Fortunately, I expect cancers will become very curable. We'll develop immuno-therapies, gene therapies, cell therapies, and even nanobots that will seek out and selectively kill cancer cells." WILT is probably the least favorite part of present day SENS amongst those who support SENS; this is not an uncommon opinion. That is surprising in many ways, as WILT is no more ambitious than other SENS projects like allotopic expression of mitochondrial DNA.