Acellerated Aging in Space Solved
Added: (Sat Jan 15 2022)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
Recently there has been much media attention around the serious issue facing many space agencies such as Elon Musk’s Space X and NASA.
An award winning microbiologist has held the answer since the early 2000’s. Could a collaboration make space travel a reality again?
Put simply the problem is this: when humans leave the protective embrace of earth's atmosphere, we are subjected to far more radiation than on earth, this is true even as you get farther away from the Sun such as is the case with Mars. The Mayo clinic among other notable institutions have speculated that this will cause cells to age faster and senesce (die) earlier. It is also far more likely to lead to an elevated incidence of cell mutations and cancer for our first intrepid space colonists.
Dr William Andrews PHD, President of Sierra Sciences claims to have the solution. Dr Andrews has been a medical researcher in biotech since 1981, focusing on cancer, heart disease, and inflammation research, though his passion has always been aging. In the early-to-mid 1990s, while at Geron Corporation, Bill led the research team that discovered both the RNA and protein components of the human enzyme called telomerase. This enzyme is responsible for preventing telomeres from shortening. Inducing this enzyme to lengthen telomeres in all our cells to reverse aging and declining health due to aging, is the principal goal of Sierra Sciences. Dr Andrews believes that using this method will also work to prevent all the problems associated with premature aging, high incidence of cancer and high mutation rates in space; this is how he explains it.
“Telomeres are structures found at the tips of our chromosomes which shorten every time our cells divide until they become so short that the cell can no longer divide and it dies of old age. You can think of telomeres as something like ride tickets at an amusement park. Every time a cell divides a ticket is used and once the tickets are all used up your cells die.”
The problem with radiation: it's constantly destroying cells forcing your body to make new ones. But every time you make a new cell you use up a ride ticket and your telomeres shorten causing you to age faster, weakening your immune system and increasing your risk of cancer.
Over the past 20 years Dr Andrews has spent more than $43 million US dollars on the research and development of a drug that when ingested would be able to, at the very least, slow the aging process to the point where our early space colonists would actually live longer rather than shorter lives, would have lower incidences of cancer, better survival rates and lower mutation rates due the protective properties that long telomeres have on the chromosomes. The best part is that this drug can be ready to go by the time the first colonists arrive on Mars but to do that Dr Andrews must accelerate his research now. BioTech companies like Dr Andrew’s Sierra Sciences do not have income streams like pharmaceutical companies nor do they receive government money like universities so in order to achieve his lifelong goal and to help companies like Space X achieve theirs Dr Andrews is hoping for a collaborative effort. “They have the solution to my problem (funding), I have the solution to theirs''. Other companies could attempt the same techniques as Dr Andrews and begin from first principles, but according to Dr Andrews they would take a decade to catch up to the point where he is now with several drug candidates and probably only end up in breach of his extensive patent portfolio anyway.
Dr Andrews, a scientific pioneer who has been featured in the Oscar nominated documentary ‘The Immortalists’, The BBC, NBC and Popular Science magazine to name just a few, is known to be ahead of his time. In the early 2000’s he was aware of the problems space travel would cause to the human body and filed several grant applications to various agencies like NASA citing all the same issues that ARE BEING RAISED NOW.
Once developed, this new Anti-aging drug could of course be used even more effectively on earth as well so there is reason for us all to be hopeful that a collaboration like the one described by Dr Andrews comes to fruition and who knows maybe one day we’ll be jetting off to Mars to celebrate our 200th birthday.