December 9th 2014 @ 11am
Stem cell researchers meeting in San Antonio say they are just a few decades away from the ultimate prize…coming up with a ‘universal pill’ to rejuvenate human tissue and extend our functional lives indefinitely, News Radio 1200 WOAI's Stephanie Narvaez reports.
Aubrey DeGrey, who is the Chief Science Officer of the California-based SENS Research Foundation, told researchers at the Global Stem Cell Summit here that stem cell scientists from around the world are working on a ‘pill that would prevent humans from getting sick.’
“It should prevent us from getting sick, ever,” he said. “Basically, I'm saying that we won't get anything any more. People will get chronologically older, but they won't get physiologically older.”
The so called ‘God pill’ has been a goal of stem cell researchers ever since the isolation of the human genome and DNA research made that research possible.
DeGrey, who is a professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, says science is ‘twenty to thirty years away’ from coming up with stem cell treatments which can trigger the human body to essentially automatically rejuvenate itself.
“The therapies that have a good chance of being developed in the coming 25 years will deliver significant rejuvenation to the point where we may get an extra thirty years of life on top of what we normally get,” he said.
And DeGrey says that extra life would be without many of the hazards of growing older today. Researchers say stem cells have the potential of countering the brain deterioration that leads to Alzheimer's Disease, as well as cancer, heart disease, and other chronic conditions of aging.
Read more: http://www.woai.com/articles/woai-local-news-sponsored-by-five-119078/stem-cell-researchers-long-life-pill-13046234/#ixzz3LVIVcB8d
