TA Science announced that it will use Geron's license to develop and market non-therapeutic products using Geron's small molecule telomerase activators.
The compound is derived from a Chinese herb(Astragalus), and activates telomerase genes in human cells. Human studies have been underway since 2005.

http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?N...6&Section=AGING


Here is the full report of the 2005 study (I believe that I read somewhere that there is additional information that will be revealed from the study on the 30th of April).
http://www.tasciences.com/ta/blum2.html



Here is a paper with evidence saying telomerase is not an oncogene:
http://www.nature.com/onc/journal/v21/n4/f...l/1205076a.html

There is a thread on this topic in supplements, but where as it is particularly relevant to conversations occurring here in SENS, I thought that I would open this up for discussion.

Here is the letter I received today, hey ... anyone have an extra $25000 sitting around? Maybe if we bought 1000 shares of GERN at $7.50 and and sold it at 40 in May, maybe we could make a good investment in our health and bank account.
Thank you for your recent inquiry and your interest in TA Sciences. The 12
month PATTON PROTOCOL TM is the first and only program in the exciting
field of Telomere Biology designed to help optimize our individual health
as we age, and to help prolong our "Healthspan". Here is how it works:

Clients need to visit the TA Center in New York and have extensive blood
work and other biomarkers of aging done prior to starting the PATTON
PROTOCOL. This will establish your baseline condition. About two weeks
later, when the test results are in, you will have an in-depth
consultation with our associated Anti-Aging physician to discuss your
results and assess your individual health situation. If you live outside
of the New York area, it is possible to have your consultation over the
phone.

The price for this baseline program, which would normally cost close to
$5000.00, is $2430 (our actual third party, discounted out-of-pocket
costs). This baseline evaluation is very valuable on its own as a health
and aging tool. After your initial biomarkers and consultation, you then
decide if you actually want to start the 12 month PATTON PROTOCOL.

The PATTON PROTOCOL consists of:

- A year's supply of Telomerase Activator TA-65 TM (Patents Pending). This
is a pulsed program taken daily for 3 months, then off for 3 months, and
then taken again for the next 3 months, then off again for the final 3
months.

- A repeat of the baseline blood work and biomarkers of aging at 3 months,
6 months, 9 months and 12 months, and follow-up consultations with the
Anti-Aging physician at each of those time points to track your personal
progress.

-A year's supply of our proprietary packets of other nutritional
supplements, vitamins, minerals, and herbs specially formulated for TA
Sciences. These packets, taken 2 times a day, offer a comprehensive
assortment of the most effective vitamins, minerals and herbs, available
anywhere.

- A series of monthly consultations with TA Sciences' expert Lifestyle
Counselor is also available and included, to help you optimize your
personal health and aging goals.

The price for the 12 month Protocol is $22,570.00, payable in two 6 month
installments of $11,285.00 each. We expect the benefits of Telomerase
Activation to last well beyond the initial 12 month period, but this is
leading edge technology and individual results will vary. We suggest that
clients come back one year after finishing the Protocol to have their
biomarkers re-tested and evaluated, and to discuss whether a TA
Maintenance Program at a significantly lower cost would be beneficial.

Please call me if you have any questions or would like to schedule your
biomarkers.

With Best Regards,

Greta Blackburn,
Marketing Director
TA Sciences Inc.
Phone: 212-588-8805
E-mail: gretabfit@aol.com

Wow...
We all knew molecular therapies like this one would be expensive, but 25k!

Though I suppose they're trying to reduce the brunt of the possibility that the therapy isn't going to be very successful, and if it it then they can safely market it on a much larger scale.

It's a test of an anti-aging hypothesis that I've wondered about for some time: "If you make it, they will come."

I would love to know what these biomarkers are!



Uhhh, this makes this sound like a major scam. Why would you introduce additional variables into a trial?

I'm not sure if that counts as the addition of variables.

It makes sense to me that even in a trial, they're going to want to get people in as good of functional shape as they can get them, and biologically this means supplements and nutrition. By exposing the sample size to this constant set of positive supplements, they can measure the effect of telomere elongation/maintanence induced by the drug.

In order for it to be a true 'test' of the like you are mentioning, they would need a double blind with a placebo, but that's definately not what they're looking for here. They want to show that their product can perform the task it was designed for, and that its function does not overlap with currently available supplements.

PS: 25 grand for a placebo would suck!

Not if it makes you live longer ;-)

looks like a deception

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.life-ex...020fce84318ff2d
http://groups.google.com.ar/group/sci.life...0eaeb100a092bc2
http://www.altbaldspot.com/forums/viewtopi...pic.php?p=96671

no scientific evidence

Hmm....
This definately does deserve an eye of skepticism.
This TA-65 enzyme they are touting is a telomerase activating protein, apparently originally found by Geron (I assume, since they seem to have the patents on the molecule and the patent has been 'leased' to TASciences).

TA-65 is a purified extract from a plant that has been used safely as a Traditional Chinese herb for thousands of years. This powerful ingredient is the only substance commercially available that activates (turns on) telomerase.

The herb is called Astragalus.

I gave a fake phone number and real email address to the TA website so that I could poke around in it.

http://www.tasciences.com/ta/blum.html

I don't know if there are barriers to entry if you haven't registered but I encourage you to take a look.

The problem I see is a lack of in vitro and biochemical assays. However, they were legitimate enough to do double blind palcebo experiments.

I don't immediately dismiss it, but the product begs a few important questions.

Concentration to be effective?
Quantitative elongation of telomeres?
How much is naturally present in the herb?
BIOCHEMICAL ASSAYS?

The p-values of the expiriment were huge: some as high as .75
The big thing is that they haven't tested for telomere lengthening or telomerase activation directly in any study that I have read...

Well, they were pretty up-front about labeling the high p-value stuff as "trends" or some such. I didn't feel misled by it. The data wasn't all high p-value. Somebody must have actually looked at telomere lengthening / telomerase activation. If no one had looked at it, why would these guys have (as someone said) licensed the patent from Geron? IMHO, one of the key experiments in humans will be to look not just at telomere lengthening, but tissue distribution of the effects. It sure sucks that something with such seeming promise would wind up in the hands of people who at least give the appearance of acting like clueless shysters. Is this appearance problem simply a function of them trying to make tons of money off of a genuinely revolutionary therapy? Or are they just crooks? At this point my hopeful nature leans toward the former, but the cynic in me doesn't yet rule out the latter.

Can anyone answer my following questions on telomerase:

1. By activating the telomerase in the senesecent cells which has undergone damage in Mitochondria, has lipofuscin, etc...the new cell formed by multiplication has all the damages reversed or removed to form young cells?
2. I have seen literature of Prof.Shay and Wright on extending the telomerase in animals..Do they live longer? Link to Shay and Wright lab is given below:

http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/cellbio/sha...ight/index.html

Links to the patents of Astragalus activation on Telomerase (thanks to the link presented in google groups on life extension by jc101)

http://tinyurl.com/2yypov
http://tinyurl.com/3db889

Those links produce PDF files that appear to have only the title page.

Here is a link to the first document on the WIPO site. The second seems to have been withdrawn:

http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?wo=2005000245

The answer to question one is absolutely not. They will pass on their accumulated genetic damage to their daughter cells. Damaged materials not encoding information, ie proteins and lipids, will be diluted or replaced, depending on their turnover rate in mitotic cells.

That is not absolutely true. While all of the complicated functions of telomerase are not fully understood. There are studies showing that telomerase induces apoptosis, additionally, (I don't have a study to back this claim up, it is more of an observation) the body normally cleanses it's soma by destroying damaged cells and replacing them with healthy cells. When cells become senescent and lose their reproductive capacity, that is also when the soma stops cleansing and will leave behind damaged cells. It is possible that by reintroducing telomerase, lots of the damaged cells could die off leaving more healthy cells behind.

No, my answer is correct. Go back and re-read his question. You missed his point. He asked specifically, if a cell with damaged DNA is taken out of senescence and begins replicating, will the DNA be restored to its original state. The answer still is no.

To address your other points, terminally differentiated tissues are not as a rule destroyed when they become damaged, unless that damage is quite severe. This is because the threshold for their becoming cancerous is much higher than that of actively mitotic cells. Horeover, most of these cells are irreplaceable or not efficiently replaceable, and destroying them will cause serious deleterious effects, like brain damage or heart failure. If all the damaged, senescent cells in your brain suddenly underwent apoptosis, you'd be seriously screwed, and they would not be replaced.

The use of resveratrol to activate NOS to produce more mitochondrial biogenesis even in old mice (David sinclair's work) thus leading to life span extension prove the possibility of generating more functional mitochondrias even in old mice. If just activating telomerase does not lead to more functional mitochondrias, does the combo with compounds like resveratrol would reverse the damage and improve the longevity of the cell?

What astonishes me is that this research was announced 4 months ago and has not yet reached the mainstream media. I have followed longevity research for 25 years and this is waaay bigger news than Growth Hormone or Glycation Bond Breakers (ALT-711), Resveratrol/sir2P gene activation, or farnesyl transferase inhibitors or anything else that has been discovered in the past quarter century. If you read the patents and realize what is actually being claimed... well it boggles the mind. This could really be it. A naturally occuring, non-patentable substance that kicks the Hayflick Limit into the next century. Will I take this stuff? Absofuckinglutely. Already do as a matter of fact. 1500 mg a day of standardized Astragalus exract standardized to 0.4% (20mg) of 4hydroxy 3 methoxyisoflavone. Cost is about 50 cents a day...LOL Now does this extract contain the proper astrogaloside or whatever TA-65 is? No way of knowing without obtaining a sample of TA-65 and running a comparison to the readily available Astragalus extracts. I am willing to bet it does however based on my read of the patent. It's just a simple ethanolic extraction and hey if I get other compounds so much the better. There is NOTHING in the literature to indicate any untoward effects from Astragalus extract. Been used for several THOUSAND years by the Chinese.

The principle compound, astragaloside IV, is typically found at 0.15 mg/g in astragalus root. A typical dose of TA-65 is 5 mg, equivilant to 5mg/0.15mg/g = 33.33 grams of Astragalus root if it is astragaloside IV, while the typical maximum dose of Astragalus root used in treatment is 30 grams. However, since Geron prescribes astragaloside IV at 50 mg to 100 mg and cycloastragenol at 5 mg, it is far more likely that TA-65 is cycloastragenol. [See Links/Astragaloside IV, Source Chengdu Cogon Biotech, Chinese sources, Books/Astragaloside IV.] A Geron patent cites astragaloside IV as one embodiment of a formula for a telomerase activator. Geron's European patent describes other telomerase activators from astragalus root extract including cycloastragenol, astragenol, and astragaloside IV 16-one.

Another basic question, I have, what makes a cell to divide? Does it require enough mitochondrial mutation, lipofuscin to happen or even younger cells which has less or negligible mutations or lipofuscin also divide (i would assume, that is the case, since, during the initial stages of growth of a baby, the cells divide pretty fast). If my hypothesis is correct, then increasing telomerase should definitely minimize the lipofuscin since, it is now getting distributed to higher number of cells (due to replication), so that senescence can be delayed? Any counter explanations is welcome?

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