Since antiquity, the quest for immortality has been one of the most enduring missions of man. Unfortunately, every time man has tried to defeat nature, they have lost the race because the desired immortality has already been achieved by nature. Unlike humans, a particular species of jellyfish, called Turritopsis Nutricula has accomplished what no other biological being on our planet has ever been known to do: reverse it’s aging.
After becoming sexually mature, this species returns to its polyp state thanks to a biological process called transdifferentiation, in which a cell (without being a stem cell) can become a completely different cell. This process allows an organ tissue to regenerate after suffering an injury, and this ability is triggered in jellyfish when they are threatened. This unique characteristic of the Turritopsis nutricula would be breathtaking to behold, like watching a butterfly become caterpillar again.
The existence of this unique creature has been known for over a decade, and its method of transdifferentiation has inspired scientists to find a way to make stem cells use this process for renewing damaged or dead tissue in humans. Understanding and translating this process into human genes would be helpful to the many aging-related ailments we face, but there lies an obstacle as well: jellyfish are one of the world’s simplest creatures. As a consequence, transdifferentiation may be possible only because jellyfish don’t have a brain or a body with more than one or two organs. However, we know that it is quite different with humans, a much more complex and delicate species. For instance, would a person with a regenerated brain be the same as the person we knew before? Or someone else entirely? Is the Turritopsis a guide to where we’re going, or just a mirage in the desert, showing us immortality but never letting us achieve it?
Now I invite to hear this excellent video about Turritopsis
Here you can read a research paper on this amazing jellyfish
This is really interesting and it kept me thinking for a while. I think it's a great possibility to regenerate tissue, for instance, soldiers would have the chance to get their tissue or even limbs back, maybe not his own tissue, but maybe a better and stronger one. Also, this could help all those people with no arms, legs, or even important and vital organs, but how would they know that their body would successfuly respond to this? I remember watching The Amazing Spiderman, and the doctor (the villain) lost part of his arm during an experiment, and he developed a "medicine" that would help him grow a new arm, using the characteristic of reptils, that can regenerate their own skin, or tails, as lizards. What if people start using the jellyfish properties just for vanity?
ReplyDeleteLoreto I found your comment really interesting, since you deeply reflect about what I wrote. None of the work done by marine biologists and geneticists has found any sort of way to bring the cell recreation ability of the Turritopsis nutricula to the human race. Nevertheless, science and technology are growing faster and they amaze us every day with new discoveries, and I’m sure that someday this anti-aging process will be applicable for most of the human body. When that day arrives we will probably face some ethical problems. As you mentioned here, people might use those properties to regenerate their bodies just to be superior, but as we have talked about in class and have discussed in our blog posts, technology and science constantly bring new discoveries to improve our quality of life, and it is in our hands to use them the right way, to make the world, and our lives, better, not worse. With every breakthrough we will always run the risks that human greed will win over altruism. We are right to be afraid of the awesome power and the possibility of misuse, but we must remain hopeful, that the good will outweigh the bad, as it has done for hundreds of years.
ReplyDeleteI am really concerned about those scientist who are finding out a way of being inmortal. Life is a process itself, but science is trying to interfier in that holy system of life. I think in a way is positive for the ones who want to regenerate a leg or an arm. but is going to harmful if scientist want to have a step forward looking for inmortality.
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