This year's Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to...

Agreed. Since most of us aren't scientists, care to share why this is important?
 
Due to the way linear molecules of DNA are replicated, you can never completely duplicate a DNA molecule (like our chromosomes). Best you can do is loose bits off the end. If you want to know why that is in greater detail feed me beer at a fly-in and prepare to listen for awhile.

Since you can't replicate linear DNA molecules, and all of our chromosomes are linear, something has to be done. If you delete a bit of your chromosome every time you duplicate the genome you're going to start loosing important bits sooner or later. The answer most organisms have realized are these bits of DNA at the ends of chromosomes called telomeres. These are just repeated bits of basically nonsense DNA, but they are hugely important, because as DNA is replicated you loose telomere sequences, but not genomic DNA. The telomeres in you old farts are smaller than they are in us younger men, and are even longer in all those whippersnappers.

This is hugely important in terms of health and medicine because of the implications, especially in cancer. Human cells do not express telomerase, the enzyme that synthesizes telomeres. Tumor cells replicate sufficiently to use up their telomere sequences, and thus would be subject to genetic loss without a new supply. Hence most tumor cells increase the expression of the telomerase biosynthetic apparatus, to avoid wholesale genetic deletions. Indeed, if you express telomerase, as well as a couple other genes, you can turn most cells into tumor cells.

There are tons of other implications, but again fodder for a future fly-in.
 
Agreed. Since most of us aren't scientists, care to share why this is important?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091005/ap_on_re_eu/eu_nobel_medicine

STOCKHOLM – Americans Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak won the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer.
It was the first time two women have been among the winners of the medicine prize.
The trio solved the mystery of how chromosomes, the rod-like structures that carry DNA, protect themselves from degrading when cells divide.

Pretty interesting stuff.
 
Due to the way linear molecules of DNA are replicated, you can never completely duplicate a DNA molecule (like our chromosomes). Best you can do is loose bits off the end. If you want to know why that is in greater detail feed me beer at a fly-in and prepare to listen for awhile.

Since you can't replicate linear DNA molecules, and all of our chromosomes are linear, something has to be done. If you delete a bit of your chromosome every time you duplicate the genome you're going to start loosing important bits sooner or later. The answer most organisms have realized are these bits of DNA at the ends of chromosomes called telomeres. These are just repeated bits of basically nonsense DNA, but they are hugely important, because as DNA is replicated you loose telomere sequences, but not genomic DNA. The telomeres in you old farts are smaller than they are in us younger men, and are even longer in all those whippersnappers.

This is hugely important in terms of health and medicine because of the implications, especially in cancer. Human cells do not express telomerase, the enzyme that synthesizes telomeres. Tumor cells replicate sufficiently to use up their telomere sequences, and thus would be subject to genetic loss without a new supply. Hence most tumor cells increase the expression of the telomerase biosynthetic apparatus, to avoid wholesale genetic deletions. Indeed, if you express telomerase, as well as a couple other genes, you can turn most cells into tumor cells.

There are tons of other implications, but again fodder for a future fly-in.
Sounds like organic check bits.
 
Sounds like organic check bits.

No, that would imply that telomeres are used to validate actual DNA...think of it more like the handshake when a modem (ok...I'm old enough to know that sound) connects, if you started throwing data right away before the connection is properly established, important stuff is going to get lost.
 
i apparently didnt purchase enough 5 dollar words in college. laymans terms, please?
 
i apparently didnt purchase enough 5 dollar words in college. laymans terms, please?

Parts of the DNA chain fall off during replication. These smart people are finding a way around it.

Personally, I find it to be a bad thing. We are already over populated on this rock, and sorry to say it, we need people to die off.
 
i apparently didnt purchase enough 5 dollar words in college. laymans terms, please?
We're all gonna die because our cells can't reproduce forever, so eventually damage to the organism accumulates. Or because our cells become cancerous.
 
We're all gonna die because our cells can't reproduce forever, so eventually damage to the organism accumulates. Or because our cells become cancerous.

ah so nothing new then. except that they seem to have found the mechanism.
 
So, let me get this straight. If we can replenish the telomere sequences, then the important bits of DNA won't get used up during replication, and we can avoid health issues associated with aging?
 
So, let me get this straight. If we can replenish the telomere sequences, then the important bits of DNA won't get used up during replication, and we can avoid health issues associated with aging?

Hard to say. Aging is a very built-in thing with us mammals, and it is very unlikely that telomere length is read out as age by the body. There are plenty of other things that contribute to aging, like the loss of stem cell populations, and these are not telomere based. Indeed, mice show effects of aging that are very similar to humans, but have long telomeres and continually express telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomeres.
 
So, let me get this straight. If we can replenish the telomere sequences, then the important bits of DNA won't get used up during replication, and we can avoid health issues associated with aging?

Solutions may be the opposite of this actually...

The DNA damage is a built-in limit on cell division, and the amount of telomeraze (sp?) functions as a speed-limit on cell division by limitting the rate that telomeres regenerate. In cancer cells, one of the things that happes is the amount of telomeraze goes way up, regenerating the telomeres, and permitting rapid and uncontrolled growth of cancerous tissues.
 
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