Telomeres Talk.. Enough is enough, how do we acheive immortality?

[witchhaven12]

I know you guys is smart enough to know the answers and I know how generalized this sounds. But my girl is dying from cancer rapidly. Her hair is gone and it's spreading and she doesn't have time left. I know it's a longshot and I know she might die or we might die before it even happens if it happens but I want to know how can we acheive immortality or at least reversing the aging process. Telomeres I heard is the key. If our cells keep destroying themselves then there has to be a fucking way to stop them from destroying themselves. Have no one tried testing this shit on rats or mice and tried to do a DNA reversal. I don't understand why nothing is happening but we're supposed to be smarter species on earth and we still can't figure out how to have flying cars without everyone killing each other and getting this immortality/telomeres solved.. I need answers now. I'm sorry if I sound aggressive. But my girl is going to fucking die and I'm not playing around..I need answers

[Bufofrog]

I am very sorry that your daughter and family are going through this.  I unfortunately do understand your pain and anger.  There simply is no immortality with telomeres or anything else, there just isn't.   

[Phi for All]

9 hours ago, witchhaven12 said:

I'm sorry if I sound aggressive.

In a quest for scientific knowledge, this behavior actually works against you. We understand how emotional the subject is without the aggressive language. Any support we could give is only harmed by anger and denial, and I think you're smart enough to see that. That said, we can handle a bit of foul language as long as you stay civil overall.

Our cells don't destroy each other really. The process you refer to is more like the maid who cleans up the house is getting old and sloppy, and he doesn't do as good a job as he used to. Telomerase is being looked into as a way to limit this sloppiness, and also keep bad cells from continued replication.   

Of course there are lots of folks working hard on prolonging life in our species, but there will always be a lot we don't know that hampers the explanations we have about various phenomena. Here's the abstract for one such study: https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article-abstract/87/12/884/958360

Quote

A current hypothesis gaining prominence proposes that activation of the enzyme telomerase is necessary for cells to become immortal, or capable of proliferating indefinitely. The theory suggests that almost all cancer cells must attain immortality for progression to malignant states and, hence, require activation of telomerase. This article reviews the function and formation of telomeres as background to evaluating the “telomere hypothesis.” Experiments in support of and experiments that challenge the hypothesis are examined. Possible approaches to telomerase inhibition are discussed. [J Natl Cancer Inst 87: 884–894, 1995]

We don't have immortality yet (and may never, considering we have no clear examples of it in nature), but we've greatly increased life expectancy with the knowledge we've gained in the last couple of centuries. We can't make flying cars yet, but we're getting closer to regular cars that can drive themselves without everyone killing each other. 

I know this doesn't help much with your girl, but there will ALWAYS be a need for technology we don't have. The steam engine was discovered long before we had the matching technology to turn its efforts into usable work. Very sorry about your girl, and that science isn't more adaptive to our deepest needs, and especially yours.