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Vampires live longer: official

unheimlich manoeuvre

23:45 / 19.02.05

The Register 17th February 2005
According to science journal Nature, via Wired, the Nosferatu-inspired boffins found that blood from young mice introduced into their older counterparts "activated stem cells in the old muscles that allowed them to recover from injury". The research team reckons the discovery will have implications for work on stems cells, tissue regeneration, elderly care and spinal cord injuries.

However, we should warn readers now hungrily eyeing their fellow workers' necks that it's not quite a simple matter of donning a black cape and draining the office trainee's delicious plasma - the mice in question were genetically identical, thereby avoiding the kind of immune system anarchy which would result if you connected two humans' blood supplies together.

...

Think of the possibilities.

Triplets

01:13 / 20.02.05

The mice in question were genetically identical, thereby avoiding the kind of immune system anarchy which would result if you connected two humans' blood supplies together.

I would've gotten around to my family eventually...

Mistoffelees

09:13 / 20.02.05

Hm, I´m the "end of the family line", there´s nobody left.

Sooo, should I do a Lord Byron? In the Vampire novel by Tom Holland he sired children, so he could drink their blood and gain eternal youth.

Tom Coates

10:06 / 20.02.05

It's really interesting though, because we might not be that far away from being able to clone and grow marrow cells that make 'younger' blood that is genetically identical. This could be a natural form of therapy in forty years time - or more likely a niche lifestyle treatment alongside plastic surgery to help the rich recover from injury faster and maintain their youthful looks...

Mistoffelees

10:36 / 20.02.05

The way science accelerates these days, make that forty months...

Loomis

08:04 / 21.02.05

What about getting blood taken out while you're young and storing it up for re-injection later on? Does blood "age" if it's outside the body?

Tom Coates

06:49 / 23.02.05

That's an interesting question - I believe blood can be frozen, although I shouldn't think it can be frozen in perpetuity. I would imagine the main question (other than the cost of storage) would be whether or not it's practical to have enough blood removed to give you this therapeutic effect later in life, to which I would imagine the answer is probably no as well.

Cheap. Easy. Cruel.

18:19 / 23.02.05

IIRC, current techniques allow blood to be frozen for about three months. After that, ice crystals begin to encroach on the cell walls, rupturing them and causing the cells to die. Plasma can be kept for longer, but it still is subject to the same relatively short lifespan.

It's really interesting though, because we might not be that far away from being able to clone and grow marrow cells that make 'younger' blood that is genetically identical.

If we can find a way around the shorter telomerase problem, this should be possible.

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