The magazine Science picked two runner-ups for the Breakthrough of the Year award: genetic engineering and a novel longevity drug

Do you read Science, the magazine? You really should. It’s one of the best sources for breakthroughs in research. This month they have a special section, where they tried to pick the Breakthrough of the Year. They probably had to do quite a lot of thinking, but eventually they settles on the discovery of Ardi - the missing link between our ancient ape-like ancestor and ourselves. The runner-ups, however, are just as interesting as the news about Ardi, and two in particular captured my eye: a longevity drug and the renewal of genetic engineering.

The longevity ‘drug’ is all about a substance called rapamycin, distilled from the secretions of a certain dirt-dwelling bacterium. The lifespan of mice fed with rapamycin was longer by 9 – 14%, even though the mice were 600 days old – approximately the same as a human being in his or her sixties. The puzzling aspect of the life extension is that it was not due to the elimination of old-age diseases like heart diseases and strokes. So how does rapamycin hold back aging, and can we use the material to the same effect on human beings? That would certainly be one tedious clinical trial – waiting for all the patients to die of old age, before concluding the research!

The second runner-up for the breakthrough research of the year award is the entire field of gene therapy. There’ve been some major advancements in the field this year in genetic engineering of human beings. In one research, a genetic blindness was partially cured by injecting a virus containing the enzyme needed for the sensing of light. In another, X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (ADL) – a brain disorder in young children – was halted by the genetic engineering of blood cells in two 7-yeard old boys. The engineered blood cells migrated to the brain and supplied the neuron bundles with the protein they were missing. Last but not least, the results came in this year from a trial held for the past eight years for the treatment of SCID (severe combined immunodefficiency) in ten children. Out of the ten, eight were cured of the disorder without any serious side effects. These news are especially reassuring in light of the fact that the previous treatment for the related disorder X-SCID caused leukemia in five infants out of the nineteen cured by it. This time – no cancer. Now that’s good news!

I wonder when (and if) a biomed company will pick up the glove and start doing a serious research on genetic engineering for providing the cure for some of the more common disorders, like sickle-cell anemia. As always - the future is going to be very interesting.

The source from Science

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