Word: samani
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...with differences in telomere length between individuals. What's more, the sequence was clustered near a gene called TERC, which is already known to play a role in the production of an enzyme called telomerase. Telomerase repairs telomeres when they shorten. "That was very exciting for us," says Nilesh Samani, a cardiologist at the University of Leicester who co-led the research, which was published last week in Nature Genetics. "It gave us great confidence that we identified genetic variants on a pathway we already know is associated with telomere length...
Spector and Samani say that understanding the components that determine telomere length may one day help researchers devise new treatments for age-related diseases, particularly heart disease (the study was partially funded by the British Heart Foundation). "I see in my practice 80-year-olds with healthy coronary arteries and 40-year-olds with heart disease. We may be on our way to explaining the genetic component in the explanation for why this is so, and so expanding our knowledge of the disease and how to treat it," Samani says. (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs...
...Samani also says the telomere research offered no quick fixes and that telomere-based treatments were still a long way off. The reason for this is that telomeres - while potentially lowering the risk of heart disease - play a role in the development of cancer cells. "We all probably develop cancer cells that don't get past a few replications because of the effect of normal telomere shortening. If you make cells immortal by allowing them to replenish their telomeres, you may raise the risk of many nasty cancers considerably...
...bottom line, Samani says, is that scientists remain a long way from developing an elixir of youth, however alluring that goal may be. Reporting on his research, Britain's Daily Mail announced that Samani had found the "Peter Pan gene" - a headline that Samani greeted with a weary smile. "Aging and death will remain central to our biology at least for as long as I can foresee," he says...
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