Announcing MitoSENS Research
Last year the Methuselah Foundation commenced modest donor-funded biotechnology research applicable to the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence - making a start on learning how to repair age-related damage so as to extend the healthy human life span. That LysoSENS research has been moving on apace. Now, the Foundation has announced the second line of research - MitoSENS. "Mutations to the [mitochondrial (mtDNA)] inevitably accumulate leading to dysfunction of mitochondria, and contributing to aging of the organism. The goal of MitoSENS is to obviate mtDNA mutations by expressing the mtDNA genes from the nucleus. Fortunately, we would be completing a process that evolution has already started. The mitochondrial genome originally had thousands of genes, but evolution has reduced it to a mere 13 (protein encoding) genes in humans. By studying how nature transfered expression of other genes from the mitochondria to the nucleus, we can identify the necessary steps to transfer the remaining 13 genes."
Link: http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=mitosens