Re: [DIYbio] Re: Pseudonyms in DIYbio, was: Antioxidant hype

The problem with SENS is not that they're fighting aging. Absolutely, that is a worthwhile goal.

The problem is that aging research has always suffered from a bit of fraud, because almost anyone will pay no matter what amount of money if it gives them more life. The SENS program, and the related Kurzweil effort, are peddling snake oil.

Koeng, I agree with your assessment that finding the genes responsible for aging is a great project. So do most gerontologists.

However, SENS has, more or less, written this approach off, and has decided that the search is over, telomerase is the key. Telomerase may be a factor, but it's not a key. Keys don't tend to act paradoxically, and the evidence for telomere length as the Hayflick clock is sparse, with terrible correlation scores. Furthermore, they argue that telomerase should just be switched off- this is counterintuitive, since telomerase is supposed to lengthen telomeres.

Furthermore, they claim if you could just complete the seven (?) SENS projects, that people would suffer negligible additional senescence and live forever. 

Another big part of SENS is the role of oxidative damage. MitoSENS proposes moving the key genes of mitochondria Into the germline. 'Nuff said.

But my original point is that there is no evidence that antioxidants of any form contribute meaningfully and in a dose dependent way. At best, there is an "optimum" where certain levels help, and then more reverses and harms. This is not clinically relevant yet, because we don't have a good idea of how to measure the body's optimal antioxidant level, in the way that we "know" about 80mg/dl is "optimum" for blood glucose, and when it goes wonky there is benefit to bringing it in line. But we don't even know what drives healthy blood sugars: we just know how to accelerate and brake with sugar and insulin (and other drugs), not steer.

I guess I'm getting frustrated with the uncritical reporting of every bit of news here, and was trying to give some perspective based on my experience, when Reason basically told me to fuck off because I was criticizing (his) pet theory.

I don't want to spoil people's excitement-there's a lot of reason to be excited, but I also think it should be reserved for the few epic achievements or the leveling up, and not every little barely relevant paper. And we have to be cautious of frauds (intentional or unintentional), because there are so many. The recent tell spec and noninvasive glucose meter crowdfunds are a prime example.

Matt Harbowy -hberg...@gmail.com

650 243 8467 - @hbergeronx on Twitter

On Apr 24, 2014, at 11:18 AM, Koeng <koen...@gmail.com> wrote:

It looks like a flame war has started xD and gone off topic

A lotta people on here use fake names, I am using one because its my internet name and I am too lazy to change it. You shouldn't base arguments against that.

My 2 cents on the topic is I agree mostly with Matt, but even if people don't work in your field specifically, their voice should be heard (like playing devil's advocate when planning experiments). On the topic of SENS, yea I'd think that with genetic engineering it would be possible to reduce aging. Since with genetic engineering pretty much anything is possible, it would be helpful to continue experimentation on it. Even just for public appeal, lets take a look at golden rice. The vitamin A degrades in a couple days (excuse me for not citing link, if you'd like it I would be more then happy to provide it, but it took me a while to find the original paper in the first place). However, even though the technology doesn't work to its full potential, it actually shows that SOME good can come out of that research allowing for the public's opinion to be more open to the subject of GMOs, which is a good thing.

First of all, its very possible aging can be reduced through genetic engineering. Lets first look at if a single protein is needed to be mutated (which yes, I KNOW there is probably hundreds). They've done this with HIV

http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/06/26/nar.gkt571.long

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3080757/

To the point where they can (pretty much) make a point mutation in a single protein using an adenovirus (I believe the second paper uses adenovirus, perhaps adeno-associated virus, didn't look this up that closly) packaged with a zinc finger endonuclease. Now days with CRISPR we can probably make these mutation with the repeats, giving up to 20 or so mutations at a single time. (It is well known that CRISPR can do that, just look it up on like addgene they give very good overviews).

If we assume that 10 proteins are required to be mutated to slow aging in a certain cell line (such as bone marrow, but note I am a bacterial synthetic biologist, I know mostly about how to manipulate DNA so potentially a different cell line could be used, this is just for the sake of argument) Lets say when injected it infects 5% of cells. Within 10 injects, a good amount of the population will be mutated to the point of where this treatment could become hypothetically useful

Not saying this will happen (I engineer bacteria genomes, not eukaryotic genomes) but there is always a possibility for discovering genes that are associated with aging, and if mutations are found to extend it then genome engineering might be able to do this. Anywho I don't know that much about the other topics, so I'll leave that alone

-Koeng

On Thursday, April 24, 2014 1:03:36 AM UTC-7, Cathal Garvey wrote:

I don't like this:

> Because whether you are deluded enough or not to believe Reason is
> your real name, or went to the insane length of changing it legally,
>  your so called "privacy" is a smokescreen

..If people on the list disagree, let them disagree. But attacking
people because of their pseudonym or name is inane bullshit.

> I'm also averse to people hiding behind a pseudonym meant to convey
> how much smarter or more logical they are.

You'll notice that a staple of this list goes by the 'nym "Mega": is he
to be denounced, then?

Frankly I don't give a crap what name people go by, and I've never
understood the venom directed at Reason for his name, irrespective of
whether or not it's real. I simply don't give a toss, and I'm boggled
that anyone does.

Please keep discussions on the topics and the science; if one or the
other presents no compelling evidence, then they'll be ignored. Simples.
But do remember that's a luxury;

> no one with common sense believes someone who says "I have all the
> facts, but they are private and I won't share, trust me".

..actually, the level of sense that prevents people believing secret,
unsourced BS is fairly rare.

On 24/04/14 00:26, Some People wrote:
> Bickering

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