Life expectancy advancements raise health and safety concerns

BY KRISTIE WISEMAN ASST. B&T EDITOR

The race to increase life expectancy gained momentum with a recent study. Genetic reprogramming was used to increase the life of mice by 7%, according to Rejuvenate Bio, a biotech company in San Diego. The mice were 124 weeks old, comparable in age to a 77-yearold human.

The control group lived for roughly nine weeks after the study began. The genetically-reprogrammed mice lived for about 18.5 weeks. The life expectancy for mice is 129 weeks, meaning the reprogrammed mice lived 7% longer than expected, the equivalent of five years for humans.

Dr. Melissa Antonio, associate professor of biology, explained that genetic reprogramming is able to slow down the aging process due to its ability to “reset” di erentiated cells to a stem-cell-like state.

“The process of genetic reprogramming involves epigenetics, where methyl groups are added to specific gene loci along the DNA, causing those genes to not be expressed, while other genes that are not methylated remain expressed,” Antonio said.

Epigenetics is a branch of genetics that analyzes how our environment a ects our genes. Scientists study these e ects with methylation, the addition of a methyl group to our DNA. When a methyl group is added, it condenses our DNA preventing the gene from being expressed. The genes without methyl groups are more easily expressed.

This process can be applied to genes related to aging, creating the potential for increased life expectancy. However, the dedi erentiation of cells leaves them vulnerable to unwanted changes that could lead to cancer.

“Introducing cells that have lost their di erentiated fate for anti-aging purposes in animals can lead the cells’ genome to becoming more vulnerable to changes that would cause them to grow uncontrollably,” Antonio said.

When cells are genetically altered, there is an increased risk of cancer. At the cellular level, cancer is caused by unregulated growth due to genetic mutations.

It is unclear what side effects, if any, were present in the reprogrammed mice. The study conducted by Rejuvenate Bio has yet to be peer-reviewed and contained limited documentation on the cells that were reprogrammed.

Genetic reprogramming continues to draw attention from the scientific community despite its risks. Antonio explained that extending life expectancy has consequences, whether prolonged existing diseases or the development of additional health-related issues.

“It’s a beautiful intellectual exercise, but I would shy away from doing anything remotely similar to a person,” said Vittorio Sebastiano, professor at Stanford University, in an interview with Technology Review.

Aging is a natural process characterized by chronic disregulation of cellular mechanisms. This in turn leads to tissue and organ deterioration. Messing with our body’s natural development can have unforseen consequences.

“We should not be pursuing any method to increase life expectancy because it can cause major problems that are more catastrophic than helpful,” said Valeria Molina, senior biomedical science major. “Who are we to increase life expectancy?”

Looking beyond the medical ramifications, Antonio turns to her faith when examining the consequences of an extended life expectancy.

“Spiritually speaking, we must keep in mind that this is a fallen world we live in, full of su ering and increasing life expectancy is just going to prolong the su ering we bear in this world,” Antonio said. “There is a reason God has limited our time here and I am against the idea of ‘playing God’ and changing our DNA, for example, in order to live longer. I prefer to leave our life in his hands.”

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Chat GPT, while not sentient, still gives permission to use some of its writing in essays or articles as long as it follows OpenAI’s terms of service and is done in a “legal and ethical manner.”

“Using ChatGPT to write essays may be viewed as a form of academic dishonesty and may result in consequences if the work is found to be plagiarized or of poor quality,” ChatGPT said. “Additionally, the use of language models like ChatGPT may perpetuate biases and inaccuracies present in the data used to train the model.”

Dr. Laura Veltman, professor of American literature and associate dean of arts and letters, said she believes the technology could e ectively be used as a supplement instead of a replacement.

“There are some ways I think it could be used e ectively, like perhaps you want to just brainstorm ideas,” Veltman said. “(You tell it), ‘I want to write a paper on Ophelia in ‘Hamlet.’ What are some common thesis statements that people have used?’ So maybe it generates a list or maybe you don’t even ask what people have used but ‘generate a list of Hamlet thesis statements about Ophelia.’ So it gives you some ideas and you’re like ‘Oh, this is interesting. Now I’m going to go research this one.’” Tronti said she is considering implementing this technology in her classes to help students learn how to use it properly.

“I feel like I need to create an exercise in class to have my students do (something with it),” Tronti said. “Maybe we’ll do it for one of my composition classes later in the semester, so that way we can play with it. But to me, one of those challenges is that I think — and maybe English teachers are responsible a little bit — but there’s this misconception that a research paper is just ‘here’s my list of facts’ as opposed to ‘here’s the relationship between these facts; here’s the argument that I am building based on this data.’”

Jacob Brook, senior history major and employee at CBU’s Writing Center, said the Writing Center recommends that if students use Chat GPT at all, they should use it like a source, and be sure to cite it properly.

“The first thing I would say the AI is lacking is trustability, and the second is clarity. The AI is not always clear. The last thing is that it could hinder your development (in writing and learning).”

Veltman said she is concerned about the possible direction technology like this can go but is interested in seeing where it leads.

“We could lose the kinds of conversations that come from discussing a novel or a poem or a short story or whatever,” Veltman said. “Those grow out of human interactions. If I just tell you to tell me some interesting ideas from a novel, you can do that, but it doesn’t actually make it interesting. There’s no magic in that and I think we’re being less than the creative selves that we were meant to be. I don’t think we were designed to just find information or to pass along information. We’re designed to grow in community with each other.”