Word: werners
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Instead of using the L.A. County coroners, the plaintiffs put Dr. Werner Spitz, a respected pathologist, on the stand. His testimony that the cuts on Simpson's left hand were caused by the struggle with Ron Goldman, who gouged Simpson with his fingernails, riveted jurors. (Spitz even offered to rake his nails across defense lawyer Robert Baker's skin to demonstrate. "We're not going to have any gouging of flesh out in my courtroom," Judge Fujisaki said.) Even without that dramatic flare-up, the cuts--or rather the assorted stories he has told about them--may prove problematic...
Meanwhile, more and more genes involved in the aging process are giving up their secrets. At the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Seattle, a group led by molecular geneticist Gerard Schellenberg has identified the human gene responsible for the disorder known as Werner's syndrome. People suffering from Werner's start life normally, but by the time they reach their 20s begin a process of eerily accelerated aging, exhibiting such ailments as heart disease, osteoporosis and atherosclerosis. Typically they die by their late...
...mystery indeed is solved, the benefits could be enormous. Schellenberg suspects that the same helicase deficit that accelerates senescence in Werner's sufferers might, in a more measured form, cause aging in others. To prove this, he will create a strain of mouse that carries a mutant helicase gene so that he can learn how the enzyme works, and more important, how it can be manipulated. Depending upon what Schellenberg learns from these mice, it might be possible to sidestep genetics and simply use helicase boosters to slow aging in both Werner's patients and healthy people...
Running parallel to Schellenberg's work is research being conducted at the New York State Institute for Basic Research into the more devastating Werner's-like disorder known as progeria. People suffering from progeria grow old precociously too, but at a much faster rate; they are claimed by the infirmities of age in their 20s or teens. W. Ted Brown, chairman of the Institute's Department of Human Genetics, believes that progeria, like Werner's, is triggered by a single mutated gene. That genetic miswiring, however, may stimulate activity in the countless other genes that play a role in aging...
...problem facing any scientist trying to find a genetic lever on the aging process is the sheer number of genes involved. Geneticist George Martin at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was involved in the discovery of the Werner's gene, believes that even if only a few master-clock genes directly guide aging in humans, up to 7,000 more might be peripherally involved. Re-engineering even one of these is an exquisitely complex process. Re-engineering all 7,000 would be impossible...