Sometimes the shortest distance to new knowledge is a lot of repetitious work – like analyzing 500,000 genetic variations across the entire human genome. Researchers at King’s College London (UK), Leicester University (UK), and the University of Groningen (Netherlands) were on the trail of locating genes associated with aging. This is part of the (perhaps) surprisingly active effort to find out how and why we get old (and maybe do something about it). What they were after are genes that might be related to people having longer or shorter telomeres. More
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New method: Creating stem cells from fat cells
Creating stem cells from adult cells – rather than using controversial embryonic material – is near the top of the list for stem cell research. So creating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS – cells that can become almost any other kind of cell) from fat cells (yes, human fat cells, of which there is no short supply) would seem to be a good ticket. In fact, one of the researchers involved, Mark Kay of Stanford University School of Medicine (California, USA), was heard to say, “Why didn’t we think of this sooner?” More »