 The finding I'm going to talk about today comes from a research article that is titled Talaamuris gene therapy in adult and old mice delays aging and increases longevity without increasing cancer. This article was published by Maria Blasco's group in 2012 in Ambomolecular Medicine. To start off talking about this finding, we're going to talk about our DNA. Our DNA defines who we are, how our cells behave, how we behave, and to a certain extent what happens to us. Our DNA is organized in chromosomes, which we have 46 of. A chromosome is simply a linear piece of DNA, but one interesting part about chromosomes is that they get shorter as we age. They behave kind of like a clock, and they are responsible for many aging symptoms that we develop, such as decreased renewal of organs such as the intestines and the skin. From these facts, one could assume that if we could prevent chromosomes from getting too short, we could prevent aging and maybe increase lifespan. This is exactly what this group at the Spanish National Cancer Center has done. What they did exactly is they took adults and old mice and added more of a protein called Talaamuris. This protein is known to extend chromosomes, and they hypothesized that adding back more Talaamuris in old mice could delay aging. So they looked at the lifespan as well as some aging and health parameters in mice with or without added Talaamuris. And what they found was extremely interesting. They found that adding Talaamuris in mice for a duration of 2 to 6 months makes the mice live 20% longer than mice without Talaamuris. The average lifespan increased as well as the age of the oldest mice. Instead of the oldest mouse living for 2 and a half years, they now lived more than 3 years. But that's not all. Not only were the mice living longer, but they also had fewer age-related complications such as osteoporosis and insulin resistance, which is the basis of type 2 diabetes. They had better coordination, balance, and neuromuscular coordination. Essentially, 2-year-old mice that were given Talaamuris for 6 months now looked almost identical to 1-year-old mice for the parameters that were tested. To figure out how Talaamuris was doing this, the scientists wanted to make sure that Talaamuris treatment was extending the length of the chromosomes. In fact, they found that adding Talaamuris prevented chromosomes from getting short over time, and that this was the reason for the increased lifespan and increased health of these mice with added Talaamuris. What was also very novel about this study is that the mice that lived longer due to Talaamuris treatment did not have an increased risk of developing cancer, contrary to what had been seen previously in other conditions. So why did the researchers think that giving mice more Talaamuris may cause them to develop cancer? As you now know, Talaamuris treatment prevents chromosomes from getting too short. This prevents cells from aging, and therefore the cells can live longer. This can be good under certain circumstances, such as Alzheimer's disease, but can be very detrimental in others. Why is that? Well, if cells are living longer, they divide more, and are in turn more likely to undergo uncontrolled growth and become cancerous. As humans, we are trying to live longer, but if all of our cells also try to live longer, we get cancer. So it was very much possible that adding Talaamuris could allow cells to continue dividing beyond their normal lifespan and become cancerous. So what this study was able to do is make a whole organism, in this case the mouse, live longer without increasing the likelihood of developing cancer. So overall, what did this study show? It showed that adding Talaamuris in old mice does the following. Number one, it makes the mice live longer. Number two, these mice have fewer aging symptoms. Number three, these mice do not develop an increased risk of developing cancer. Number four, this is all because Talaamuris can prevent chromosomes from getting shorter as we age. So this is a very interesting study that provides the proof of principle that we can increase lifespan without increasing cancer. So all of this hopefully seems exciting to you, and it certainly is, but this definitely does not mean that we should all start taking any measure possible to increase our levels of Talaamuris. Why not, you may ask? Well, because this may be more complicated than we think. Adding Talaamuris in young mice actually increased cancer, so the age at which Talaamuris therapy is effective may be critical. Also, and more obviously, this study was only done in mice, and mice are not humans. In fact, mice have Talaamuris already all over their bodies, but humans do not. But it is not necessarily the case that adding Talaamuris in humans would not increase cancer risk or would extend lifespan at all. It is also important to find a good way to introduce Talaamuris in humans, because the system that was used in mice, a viral infection, may not be safe for humans. So as you can see, scientists are making progress to understand what happens when we age and how we can prevent or even reverse it. But we still have a lot of work to do to understand how this can be applied to humans, but this study is definitely a milestone in the field of aging, and a proof of principle that Talaamuris is an important target for aging research or premature aging-related diseases.