I think you are absolutely correct in you question - the hype over telomerase is rediculous IMHO. Telomerase has been known to be present in most tumors for a several years, and the enzyme is clearly essential for making cells imortal. As such, it has been considered "key" for tumor growth, etc. There are two important caveats to this.
First, this imortalization of cells is purely related to cells growing in tissue culture, and has nothing to do with cells in an organism. Second, and potentially more disturbing, are the results of mouse knock-out experiments. The gene for the RNA component of telomerase has been deleted from a strain of mice, such that these mice cannot regenerate their telomeres. A priori, one would expect these mice to rapidly die. Surprisingly, the mice have survived with no significant problems for at least 4 generations. Clearly, something is amiss with the telomerase story. (Note: It is still possible that the mice knock-out experiments are not relevant to humans because human and mice telomeres are quite different structurally, but I do not think that this is the case.)
Second, going from the simple cloning of a gene to developing an inhibitor of the enzyme and then converting that inhibitor into a drug is a multi-year process. In addition, one can presently screed for telomerase inhitors using cell extracts and/or purified enzyme. As far as I know, there are no significant finds in this area.
Finally, while telomerase is key for imortalization of tissue culture cells, there is no evidence that it is related to aging. For example, the knockout mice lacking functional telomerase become old and die quite nicely. In addition, while human telomeres become shorter as we age, there is still more than enough telomere left for us to live >200 years old based on current understanding of telomere function. Thus, I thinking the aging stuff is also greatly overblown.
Taking these observations together, I think that once people realize the relatively minor medical significance of this finding, the stock price will drop back down to its prior value. |
