Telomerase helps maintain telomere length in our cells, influences how our bodies age, and why we develop diseases like cancer. If cells had enough telomerase, telomeres might not shorten at all. But in most somatic cells, it’s present in very low amounts — only enough to slow the telomere shortening down.

This is part of a short series of videos where we explore telomeres, telomere length and telomerase, as well as the impacts they have on our health.

Chapters:
00:00 What is telomerase?
00:25 What happens when telomeres are too short?
00:38 How does telomerase work?
01:23 How does telomerase affect cancer risk and aging?

Watch the next video explaining Telomere Biology Disorders: https://youtu.be/sVTd0ZkTH3k.

Missed the previous video on the end replication problem, and how telomere shortening affects aging? https://youtu.be/pluI6SOd-_I

RepeatDx is a leading clinical laboratory for telomere length testing. You can find out more on our website: https://repeatdx.com/

“Preserve health, prevent disease, prolong healthspan,” begins the mission statement of the Kitalys Institute. Lofty goals indeed from the not-for-profit organisation behind the annual Targeting Metabesity conference and a range of initiatives to translate longevity science into genuine public health gains.

Longevity. Technology: The vast majority of companies developing therapeutics in the longevity field are adopting strategies that involve targeting specific indications rather than aging itself. And well they might, because there is currently no precedent for drugs targeting aging at regulatory bodies like the FDA. Kitalys wants to change that, and we caught up with the institute’s founder Dr Alexander “Zan” Fleming to find out more.

An endocrinologist by training, Fleming is well qualified to take on the regulators. He spent more than a decade at the FDA, where he led the medical reviews that resulted in approval of drugs including metformin, as well as the first statin, insulin analogue and PPAR agonist.

A research team headed by Professor Jacob Hanna at the Weizmann Institute of Science has created complete models of human embryos from stem cells cultured in the lab – and managed to grow them outside the uterus up to day 14. As reported today in Nature, these synthetic embryo models had all the structures and compartments characteristic of this stage, including the placenta, yolk sac, chorionic sac and other external tissues that ensure the models’ dynamic and adequate growth.

Longevity. Technology: Cellular aggregates derived from human stem cells in previous studies could not be considered genuinely accurate human embryo models, because they lacked nearly all the defining hallmarks of a post-implantation embryo. In particular, they failed to contain several cell types that are essential to the embryo’s development, such as those that form the placenta and the chorionic sac. In addition, they did not have the structural organization characteristic of the embryo and revealed no dynamic ability to progress to the next developmental stage.

Given their authentic complexity, the human embryo models obtained by Hanna’s group may not only provide an unprecedented opportunity to shed new light on the embryo’s mysterious beginnings, but open the door to new technologies for growing transplant tissues and organs.

Weathered or unhealthy skin is emerging as a major risk factor for almost every single age-related disease, from Parkinson’s to type 2 diabetes.