Quotes About Telomerase

What I found out on Christmas Day 1984, through biochemical evidence, was that telomeres could be lengthened by the enzyme we called telomerase, which keeps the telomeres from wearing down. After I found that out, I went home and put on Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA,' which was just out, and I danced and danced and danced.

When you bring telomerase RNA levels down by using a mechanism that targets the RNA for destruction, the cells which were running on very high telomerase levels are now running on a lean diet of telomerase.

This enzyme, called telomerase, slows the rate at which telomeres degrade, and research indicates that healthy people with longer telomeres have less risk of developing the common illnesses of aging - like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, which are three big killers today.

For me, arguably the story of telomeres and telomerase began thousands of years ago, in the cornfields of the Maya highlands of Central America.

Work by Maria Blasco, Calvin Harley, Michael Fossel, Woodring Wright and Shay and Ronald Depinho in particular are of interest but there are literally thousands of articles relating to telomerase, telomeres and the biology behind it.

We believe that such a significant increase in longevity is due to the protective effect against cancer produced by caloric restriction - incidences fall by 40 percent if we compare them with the mice that produce more telomerase and have a normal diet - and, added to the presence of longer telomeres, this makes the mice live longer and better.

I agree Maria Blasco has achieved amazing things with telomerase induction and we are hopeful this will translate to the human model.

In 1978, Elizabeth Blackburn, working with Joe Gall, identified the DNA sequence of telomeres. Every time a cell divides, it gets shorter. But telomeres usually don't. So there must be something happening to the telomeres to keep their length in equilibrium.

When bathed in telomerase, skin cells divide indefinitely, far beyond the Hayflick limit. ..... But it should be pointed out that telomerase has to be regulated very carefully, because cancer cells are also immortal and they use telomerase to attain that immortality.

We think there are lifestyle factors that boost telomerase naturally.

Our science and advisory board think that nuclear lamin dysfunction is a side-effect of DNA damage and mutations, rather than the cause. We are currently trying to mend nuclear dysfunction using Human Telomerase reverse transcriptase.

Cancer cells have had so many other things go wrong with them, genetic, non-genetic changes, that those cells, one of the things they then get selected for is that they have lots of telomerase because now the telomeres in those cells get maintained.

For example, research has shown that the more present we are in life, the higher the level of the enzyme telomerase in our bodies, which maintains and repairs the life-preserving ends of our chromosomes, called telomere caps.

teamed up with Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery of telomerase. In a study funded in part by the U.S. Department of Defense, they found that three months of whole-food, plant-based nutrition and other healthy changes could significantly boost telomerase activity, the only intervention ever shown to do so.69 The study was published in one of the most prestigious medical

concern that boosting telomerase activity could theoretically increase cancer risk, since tumors have been known to hijack the telomerase enzyme and use it to ensure their own immortality.75 But as we'll see in chapter 13, Dr. Ornish and his colleagues have used the same diet and lifestyle changes to halt and apparently reverse the progression of cancer in certain circumstances. We will also see how the same diet can reverse heart disease too.