Question from Mind: Telomere ResearchI have asked this question before. Does anyone know of any studies showing that telomerase or artificially reproduced cells with non-degrading telomere chains are prone to developing cancer? This question goes along with yours John. It seems the research community is paranoid of using telomerase. Every article I read regarding telomerase or anything to do with non-degrading telomere chains ends with "but there is the threat of cancer" or "what about the cancer threat". Yet I have never seen any paper reference any study that shows any cancer link. The only reasoning I can see is that researchers know that cancer cells are immortal, and they seem to just assume (WITHOUT RESEARCHING THAT FACTS OF THE MATTER) that messing with the telomeres will cause cancer. I know this topic was covered in another forum here at bjklein. Admin...do you remember the name of the company that was conducting trials with telomerase?
Geron has over 100 patents in telomere technology. They're the ones to look to for this kind of research.
From Geron's site: Our collaborators have used mouse models to show that this type of cellular aging can cause numerous age-related degenerative changes in mammals. We believe that this cellular aging process, which occurs in numerous tissues throughout the human body, causes or contributes to chronic degenerative diseases and conditions including chronic liver disease, AIDS, macular degeneration, atherosclerosis and impaired wound healing.
Telomeres serve as a molecular “clock” for cellular aging. We and our collaborators have demonstrated that the enzyme telomerase, when introduced into normal cells, is capable of restoring telomere length or resetting the “clock” thereby increasing the lifespan of cells without altering their normal function or causing them to become cancerous. Human telomerase, a complex enzyme, is composed of a ribonucleic acid component (RNA), known as hTR, and a protein component, known as hTERT. In collaboration with other scientists, we cloned the gene for hTR in 1994 and the gene for hTERT in 1997.
On the question of cancer and telomere research: Research suggests that for most cancerous tumors to attain life-threatening characteristics, or for cancer to metastasize throughout the body, some cancer cells must become immortal through an alteration which prevents their telomeres from shortening. The activation of telomerase is almost always the means by which cancer cells become immortal. If the activation of telomerase by cancer cells could be inhibited effectively, the normal process of telomere shortening and resulting cell senescence or death would dispose of most cancer cells before they became life-threatening.
We are working to discover and develop anti-cancer therapies based on telomerase inhibitors, oncolytic viruses and telomerase vaccines. In addition, we intend to continue to develop and commercialize products using telomerase as a marker for cancer diagnosis, prognosis, patient monitoring and screening.
I agree with your assessment though, seem like the excitement about telomeres has quieted down recently... not sure exactly why.. but I don't believe it's a fear of cancer, maybe just lack of advancement or a general lack of published reports and/or media hype.
