| |
Philanthropy For Basic Science:
Telomeres TELOMERES ARE SPECIALIZED SECTIONS OF DNA at the ends of chromosomes that stabilize the chromosomes. Interest in telomeres as agents involved in cellular aging has risen rapidly in the last two decades with the discovery that telomeres are often shorter in old organisms than in young organisms. In the mid 1960s, Dr. Leonard Hayflick demonstrated with cells in culture that some cell populations have a limited replicative lifespan — that is, the cells in culture could divide a finite number of times (50 in the case of skin fibroblasts) and then would senesce and cease division. The mystery was how the cells in culture "knew" how many divisions had occurred. The observation that telomeres in cell culture grow shorter with age (as measured by number of divisions) and that telomeres are shorter in older individuals suggested a clock or counter function in cells that was at least plausible. Intense research has focused on the questions of whether telomere shortening actually helps cause aging in whole organisms or represents only a cell culture phenomenon and, if it is a cause, by what mechanisms this shortening induces cell senescence.At the same time, researchers seeking new approaches to cancer have been looking at telomerase, the enzyme that keeps telomeres elongated. Telomerase is seen in many cancers, even though it is not active in most adult human cells. One hypothesis is that telomerase immortalizes cells that should have senesced, allowing them to proliferate and form tumors. This theory would suggest that inhibiting telomerase might have therapeutic potential. With research rapidly evolving in this field, The Ellison Medical Foundation has funded scholars who are centrally involved in trying to uncover the secrets of these tiny structures.
| "If it were not for The Ellison Medical Foundation, I would never have started on the hTERT studies. This is because in the first meeting of the Ellison Scholars I spoke with Arnie Levine [Arnold J. Levine, PhD, a member of the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board], who kept asking this simple question, "Why, if it only takes one gene, hTERT, to immortalize primary human diploid fibroblasts, is it so difficult to immortalize them spontaneously?" That got me thinking that hTERT must be under strong repression and that we needed to know the identity of those repressors. Thus, this stimulated me to enter into the telomerase regulation field. The financial support allowed me to follow these lines of research and has been extremely useful for my research. I wish I could become an Ellison Scholar all over again." - Stephen J. Elledge | | | |
Articles related to Telomeres Making Sense of Molecular Machinery
In 1999 Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholars Titia de Lange and Jack Griffith made a major structural discovery, showing that loops exist at the ends of normal telomeres.
Related Projects Stephen J. Elledge, PhD
Baylor College of Medicine
Senior Scholar in Aging 1998
Connections Between Telomere Sensing and DNA Damage Accumulation | Judith Campisi, PhD
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, then Buck Institute for Age Research
Senior Scholar in Aging 1998
Telomeres, Cell Phenotype and Aging | Jerry W. Shay, PhD
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
Senior Scholar in Aging 1998
Role of Telomeres and Telomerase in Human Aging | Carol W. Greider, PhD
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Senior Scholar in Aging 1998
The Roles of Recombination and Telomerase in Telomere Maintenance | Dominique Broccoli, PhD
Fox Chase Cancer Center
New Scholar in Aging 1999
Molecular Mechanisms of Telomere Dependent Senescence | Titia de Lange, MD, PhD
The Rockefeller University
Senior Scholar in Aging 1999
The Role of T-Loops in Aging of Human Cells | Jack D. Griffith, PhD
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Senior Scholar in Aging 2000
Telomere Looping and Control of Cell Aging | Victoria Lundblad, PhD
Baylor College of Medicine, then Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Senior Scholar in Aging 2001
Translating Yeast Telomere Biology to Human Cells: Identification of Activities that Regulate Human Telomere Maintenance and Cellular Proliferation | Woodring E. Wright, MD, PhD
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
Senior Scholar in Aging 2002
Functional Tests of Replicative Aging in Organotypic Skin Equivalents | Stanley N. Cohen, MD
Stanford University School of Medicine
Senior Scholar in Aging 2002
Genetic Mechanisms Regulating Replicative Aging in Differentiated Human Cell Populations | |
|
|
