Biogerontology Research Foundation Funds WILT Study
News from a UK research charity supportive of the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS): "The Biogerontology Research Foundation in collaboration with the Institute for Biology of Aging funds research in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in telomerase-knockout mice. Mammals must finely balance stimulation and suppression of cell division: over-permissive cellular proliferation promotes cancer, whereas over-restrictive cell division promotes degeneration. This is especially true in tissues with a high cell turnover, such as the blood. Genetic manipulation of the machinery that maintains the ends of our chromosomes, combined with cell therapy, is potentially a very powerful way to alleviate this problem. However, such an approach is highly complex; as a result, researchers have been reluctant to investigate its components. In this new project, the blood will be used as an example to demonstrate the feasibility of such a manipulation. ... This project will be the first ever test of whether intrinsically mortal stem cells can maintain a proliferating tissue indefinitely if periodically replenished. If the answer is yes, this will motivate exploring such treatments as part of an exceptionally robust cancer-prevention therapy." You will recognize this as an early test of WILT, the SENS strategy for eliminating cancer by destroying its most fundamental required mechanism.