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Modern scientists succeed in the quest for immortality - 01/17/2005 17:59

Wild nature can give numerous examples of immortality and programmed death

 A wise man said that the art of living was about being able to die 
young but to live as many years as possible. Almost every human being 
living on planet Earth is interested in the question of immortality. One 
may say that all world religions and arts sprang from the wish to 
preserve the passion of youth and deceive death. Generations of 
alchemists were racking their brains over the renowned youth elixir. 
Contemporary scientists are still trying to unveil the mystery of 
immortality: they are working with mitochondria v so-called power plant 
of a cell, which generates power owing to the adenosine triphosphoric 
acid synthesis. The works in this direction are being conducted most 
actively in several countries of the globe, in Russia and England first 
and foremost.

 Russian academician, Vladimir Skulachev, from the Institute of the 
Physicochemical Biology of the Moscow State University has made the 
biggest progress on the way to realize the biggest dream of the mankind. 
?Old age is virtually an illness. It must be cured like cancer. If I 
cure a person of his old age, I will cure him of cancer too, age 
diseases. I am not talking about immortality, there are accidents and 
catastrophes. The death rate on this index was higher than the natural 
death rate a hundred years ago. Now we have an opposite situation,¦ the 
academician said.

 Oxygen is a strongest oxidant, which allows to burn food and produce 
energy in cells. Toxic forms of oxygen, however, are capable of 
penetrating through the cellular membrane and causing instant damage to 
genes. A cell has protection mechanisms, although it may give up its own 
defense sometimes. There is a scheme of voluntary death in nature, or 
programmed cell death, the apoptosis. The scheme works when a cell has 
to be removed from the reproduction process. World science has studied 
the apoptosis of one separate cell. When Skulachev says that the 
apoptosis rules the life of a whole organism, very few specialists agree 
with him. The academician, however, is certain that senescence and death 
is a program that nature ?downloaded¦ in the genes. It is difficult to 
hack this program and destroy the program, which makes human life so short.

 Vladimir Skulachev has been winning more and more proponents recently. 
In 2003 the scientist received the grant of $120 thousand from Russian 
aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska. The scientist tried to test his 
?immortality elixir¦ on mice in 2004. A mouse lives for two or three 
years, so one will have to wait for the results of the experiment. In 
2005, Skulachev plans to test the miraculous substance on aquarium fish, 
worms and flies, whose life span lasts for 1.5 months. ?I can only 
imagine what the press would write about academician Skulachev, if I 
became successful in extending the life of a fly first,¦ academician 
Skulachev ironically said.

 The medicine that the scientist used in the experiment was developed 
by Russian chemists. It is a very strong antioxidant, which stops oxygen 
from getting inside a cell. Antioxidant possesses a positive charge, on 
account of which a mitochondria accumulates a much stronger negative 
charge. It is a mitochondrion that ruins people's attempts to extend 
their lives. Now it is possible to accumulate excessive charges in 
mitochondria and save the cell from oxygen radicals.

 Experiments on mice and insects will be followed with trials on apes 
and humans. If scientists manage to prove the hypothesis, a human being 
will be able to live up to 800 years.

 English geneticist from the University of Cambridge, Dr. Aubrey de 
Grey, works with mitochondria too. The scientist believes that the life 
span of a human being will reach a thousand and even more years. De 
Greay chairs the SENS project at Cambridge (Strategies for Engineered 
Negligible Senescence), which studies all possibilities to solve the 
epoch-making problem. The project's first priority is connected with the 
restoration of seven major types of molecular and cellular damage. De 
Grey said that he would need ten years to develop a solution for mice 
and another ten years to bring the technology into the world of humans.

 ¦When we get these therapies, we will no longer all get frail and 
decrepit and dependent as we get older, and eventually succumb to the 
innumerable ghastly progressive diseases of old age. We will still die, 
of course - from crossing the road carelessly, being bitten by snakes, 
catching a new flu variant etcetera - but not in the drawn-out way in 
which most of us die at present,¦ the English researcher said.

 Needless to say that there are a lot of scientists, who do nothing but 
laugh at the idea of working on the issue of immortality. Professor Jay 
Olshansky from the University of Illinois at Chicago said sarcastically 
that the temptation of immortality would live a lot longer than those 
who follow it.

 Professor Bogomolets promised to conquer senescence during the Soviet 
era. The government of the USSR assigned huge finds to the professor, 
but he died in his sixties. Nobel Prize winner Ilya Mechnikov continued 
the quest, but he passed away too.

 Wild nature can give numerous examples of immortality and programmed 
death without any visible reasons. Bacteria can live forever in 
laboratory conditions. Cancer cell lines, which were made 100 years ago, 
are still alive. Cloning plants are immortal too. There are certain bird 
species that die without any indications of senescence, when they lose 
the reproductive capacity.


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