I don't even know where to start with this?

Question

Some gerontologists (biologists who study aging) argue that the ultimate lifespan of a human is
limited by telomere copy number. Adult human cells have the gene for telomerase, but it is inactive in
all but the cells which give rise to sperm. Loss of just one telomere in a cell—the cell dies (generally).
Some feel that if the gene for telomerase could be “turned on” so that it expresses the active enzyme,
then we could become “immortal” (will not die from natural age-related afflictions). Dr. Struldbrug has
invented such a drug that can be taken once and one has active telomerase for the rest of one's life.
People are buying it in droves.


A) What are telomeres and what role to they play in cell division? Why are they necessary?
B) What will happen to the takers of Dr. Struldbrug's Immortal Elixir? From what afflictions will they
suffer (and die?) from more often than mere mortals?
C) What type of drug would you invent to combat those afflictions? How would it work?

Answer 1

a) its a pretty standard answer that you can find on wikipedia when you search for telomerase.

b) well, what happenes when a cell becomes immortal and genrally when does it ? in normal mortal people when it happens they get malignant tumors ..meaning cancer. So whe n you have a genetic defect and the cell senses the defect and wants to die, the telomerase thing might not let it die and you'll have instant cancer in the person taking those medicine and that cancer will not just be located at one place, it will happen whereever a genetic damage has occured and that happenes so much that the person's death will be inevitable and maybe instant in some cases.

C) well, when we find a cure for cancer or repairing genetic damage with pills we will have found cure. the role of telomerase is to not have genetic loss of dna at the ends of chromosomes when the replication takes place. but what about mutations in between the ends, it can not take care of that and when it assists in cell life elongation despite the damage, you'll just have to find a way that DNA damage does not occur and that is if not impossible but is a holy grail in biological sciences.

hope this helps !!

Answer 2

Telomeres, at the ends of each linear chromosome, prevent loss of terminal coding sequences. Where DNApol can not extend the replication telomerase continues and prevents telomere loss. Telomerases are active only in cells with very active cell division like stem cells and some white blood cells. In other cell types the telomeres shrink a bit with every cell division. This means telomeres act as a clock timing ut after the given number of replications and allowing chromosomal fraying and translocation.

Cancerous tumors become immortal by over-expressing telomerase about 90% of the time in mammalian cancers. This implies there is an evolutionary trade-off between cancer prevention and damage repair.

Answer 3

A) What garden said
B) from cancerlike growths - "runaway" cell division
C) telomerase inhibitor - it would inhibit the action of the telomerase.