• Question: Do you think science will find a way for someone to become immortal?

    Asked by welcometohell to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 20 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Hi welcometohell

      I think the more we study cancer cells – the more we find out about how cells can become immortal. Cancer is group of diseases where the cancer cells have gained so many mutations that will allow it to keep on growing and not die (immortal) until the person with the cancer dies so the food and oxygen supply (they get from the body) is no long available for the cancer cells.
      So the more we find out about what are the causes behind how cancerous cells can keep replicating…and not die.. maybe we can look into it and find a clever way to make normal cells do the same without ending up being a big walking cancer.

      Could be by continuous production of growth signals, not responding to death signals (evading death hence immortality) and having the end bits of their chromosomes (DNA packaged in an ordered way.. looks like the letter ‘X’) protected with telomeres. If telomeres are not present then the DNA will degrade hence the cell will die!

      I personally think being immortal will eventually mean being lonely because if I lived forever.. my family and friends will be gone and it’s not much fun without them!

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Possibly!

      There are animal species already in existence that are practically immortal: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A49887995

      Humans are much more complicated than these immortal jellyfish but it is possible we could learn some new things about how we age by studying them.

      There are certainly animals which are of a similar complexity to humans that live for much longer than us – why they do this is unknown, but there is a good chance that with increases in medicine and technology we could potentially live for much longer than we do now. A good article about this is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/12733853

      However, would this be a good thing? If we all lived much longer how would we deal with all the overcrowding that would then result?

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Hi welcome to hell!

      I think being in immortal would be a hellish, lonely existence! 😐 Then again, the elves in Lord of the Rings seemed to have a good time of it. But they had each other! Maybe I’d be immortal if I got to hang out with Legolas…

      ANYWAY, in answer to your question…. I think science will continue to find ways of prolonging our life. In the 17th Century, the life expectancy in England was only about 35 years old! Now it’s in the late 70s (graph here: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=168 ) and continuing to get higher.

      With new drug developments and improvements in medical care and nutrition, we will definitely live longer and longer…. but I have doubts about anyone becoming truly immortal – although, like Edd said, there are already other animals that are immortal. And, like Jess mentioned, if we keep studying cancer cells (which don’t die) then that may offer some clues too.

      There’s a list of the oldest humans here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_people#Chronological_list_of_the_verified_oldest_living_man_since_1961 Looks like the record is 122 years, 164 days!

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