Three Blind Mice no more?
Here’s another promising development, although once again it’s been tested only in mice:
Researchers have restored vision in old mice and in mice with damaged retinal nerves by resetting some of the thousands of chemical marks that accumulate on DNA as cells age. The work, published on 2 December in Nature1, suggests a new approach to reversing age-related decline, by reprogramming some cells to a ‘younger’ state in which they are better able to repair or replace damaged tissue.
“It is a major landmark,” says Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a developmental biologist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, who was not involved in the study. “These results clearly show that tissue regeneration in mammals can be enhanced.”
But researchers also caution that the work has so far has been carried out only in mice, and it remains to be seen whether the approach will translate to people, or to other tissues and organs that are ravaged by time.
“It remains to be seen” – pun intended?
It does seem that a lot of work is being done on the aging front, doesn’t it?
Where could Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte be, except in California aka Mexifornia (with thanks to Victor Davis Hanson)?
He is flat wrong, exaggerating grossly, when Juan Carlos asserts “These results clearly show that tissue regeneration in mammals can be enhanced.”
What the results show is that regeneration of “some”, “visual” cells (not further specified (retinal rod or cone cells, visual neurons ?) was obtained in mice, not “mammals”.
I won’t go to the link because this is self-promoting blather. Sucker bait, Neo.
First step is to prove the results alleged are reproducible.
I have had some retinal problems. You find out how many figures of speech include some version of “to see”.
Richard Aubrey:
Too true, me too.
Visual field test, Amsler grid, IOP …
Were any of the mice named “Algernon?”
Why could this not have happened 15 years ago?