Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The clue to immortality: Brooke Greenberg's Syndrome X

Brooke Greenberg is a Baltimore girl born 13 years ago, but with the looks of a 6-month old baby.

Full story

Nobody knew of a similar case before. Genetic diseases sometimes are strange, but usually there are some cases in the medical literature that give some clue. This is not the case, and so far Syndrome X means that nothing is known about this case.

Reportedly all the biochemical and genetic tests have been normal for a 6-month old baby. There was no response to the administration of Growth Hormone.

This case demonstrates for the first time that there is one factor (gene) responsible for Child Development: growth and maturation of cells, tissues and organs. No one had ever envisioned the existance of such a gene. It was believed that there were multiple independent processes that regulated this.

Let me say that I am a Medicine PhD with research background and some genetic knowledge, which allows me to have a little speculation, although I am not the ideal specialist to conduct treatments or run the proper research studies.

This is most likely a genetic disease. The problem could lie in her mother, which, judging from the video, has a few asymmetric features in her face. She probably carries a single copy of the defective gene for this disease. The father looks normal, but he also might carry of copy of the defective gene. In the case of Brooke, but not in her 3 siblings, the sperm and the ovulus carried the defective genes, and the result was the full expression of this gene in the resulting baby.

There is also the possibility that the mutation (damage to a normal gene) took place during gametogenesis or early embryo development.

The mechanism so far is well known to Genetics specialists. However, we do not know which gene is affected, which is the protein coded by this defective gene, and how this protein regulates growth and development of a child.

How to identify this protein? This is a problem of tremendous importance, because it can be the clue of Aging and Anti-Aging.

If I was Brooke’s doctor, I would try a simple treatment: blood transfusions. After applying a weekly transfusion for a month or two, we could see if there was any growth. In this case, we both solved the girl’s problem and opened the way to identifying the missing protein.

Blood can be fractioned (plasma and cells) to see where the growing compound is. Fractioning can continue until we establish the size of the protein, which is the first step in the identification.

I would also try in vitro culture of Brooke blood cells and other biopsied tissues, to see if they behave as normal cells. Maybe they do not grow so well, and this behavior can be corrected adding human serum or serum fractions. It will also be interesting to see if she heals well the skin wounds.

Assuming we identified the gene that regulates Growth, we could try to block it. Anti-sense mRNA can be inserted in cells by carrier viruses, and block the normal gene. Also, many genes have regulators, that can be targeted by specially-designed molecules. Down-regulating the Growth gene could be useful to stop Ageing.

If any person at age 40 started the anti-ageing treatment, we might reach almost-immortality.

In any case, Brooke might carry the answer to many questions that scientists have had since the first man discovered the first gray hair in his temple.



forever-young 13 years old girl

Plastic surgeons now offer to redesign fingerprints

Plastic Surgery is now the fastest-growing medical field. Beauty is the main, but not the only public demand.

Rich criminals are used to undergo facial plastic surgery to change their faces. Doctors are also busy with celebrity-imitation faces, skin-color change, hair transplant, tatoo removals, piercings, split-tongues and a few other aggressive surgeries.

Now, the False News Agency invented the Redesigned Fingerprint Surgery. Is is very simple: the surgeon cuts slices of skin in your fingertips, mixes them around, and grafts them back in the fingers. The result is a natural-looking, scrambled fingerprint that police cannot track back to your criminal records.

It is also possible to erase or modify digital marks with laser.

Notorious gangster John Dillinger had his fingerprints removed with acid, but they grew back. That will not happen now. The new method comes with a 0% failure rate (so far) and a money-back guarranty.





Contrary to the expectations, law-evading patient candidates are minority. Many fashion-oriented youngsters demand hearts, initials and logos carved in their fingers by laser. The surgeon works looking at a mirror, because the stamp-like carvings must be negative for prints to be positive.

Some web marketers demanded their website addresses in their fingers, but that is not currently possible. Fingers have not enough room for anything longer than auch.com.

Instead, feet can be used. If your shoe size is 9, you can easily fit False-News.com. If you play in the NBA and wear 11s, you can fit Geocities.com/Something.

Just imagine the beach in summer, covered by WWW marks. Some marketers event pretend that is a cheap form of viral marketing, and demand surgery plus paid beach-side vacations.

We can provide ideas that are not necessarily better, but certainly cheaper and not surgical. Ask for a free Viral Marketing proposal.

PhonyNews.Blogspot.com, a Powerful Viral Marketing tool offered for sale

We use false news as a means to disseminate our products, services and proposals. It uses the same channels as true news, plus the curiosity coming from purposely weird subjects. Read more about our Viral Marketing tools and creativity.