| STUDY |
In January 1998, researchers, reported that human cells lacking the ability to make telomerase were made capable of dividing forever when they were genetically engineered to express telomerase. The findings were considered unusually significant because they suggested a means for creating long-lived in vitro human cell lines. Telomerase-immortalized cells were considered to have a potentially greater chance of becoming cancerous, but subsequent experiments have for the most part not shown that to be the case. "G" CSO one of the principal coauthors of the 1998 study, claims that there are methodological problems with the new study. And he notes that "G" strategy for therapeutic use of telomerase involves activating it only transiently, which would tend to mitigate potential oncogenic effects
|