A message from the Motley Fool board that I wrote:
I read the paper (and some related stuff) on the Web, and here's my two bits:
First, I am not a doctor or a scientist, but I read many science digest magazines. An avid amateur,then.
Second, I bought 100 shares today at 12.75 for a long position (for me, this is a pretty large,though not huge postition...:) . "for your grandchildren" is when this will be profitable on a business case alone. I am "unfoolishly" counting on PR bounces from announcements, as well as the potential for a major pharm company to scoop these guys up. But definitely _not_ expecting them to make money any time soon.
After reading the paper, here is my assessment:
GERON has found something truly fundamental in biology. This WILL be important, and change all of our lives at some point. It probably won't cure cancer, but it doesn't need to. However, it probably _won't_ make any money any time soon.
Many specialized cells in the body have telomerase - the spermatogonia, the crypt cells in the intestine, and the stem cells in the bone marrow (that produce our blood cells) (this info from the article), and these cells can reproduce indefinitely without any problems. In this sense, telomerase is a very natural and important component of our cells. Most cells in the body do not have telomerase, and will only reproduce ~100 times - then they die - ALWAYS! (the mechanics are described clearly, and are very simple). That's why we all get old and die evenentually - our cells stop reproducing. This hypothesis is about 10 years old, and Geron's latest test is simply the latest result in a long string of results (from many different institutions) that confirm this hypothesis - it is proven, IMHO. Thus the "immortal" cells have only reproduced about 150 times or so - but that is enough to show that they have broken the cell lifespan barrier (one time, in a petri dish).
GERON holds some interesting patents on assay and diagnostic tests for telomerase. Since I believe that this will become a _very_ active area of research, I think that this may become a small but profitable business (or royalty stream), if they choose to go that way.
One very significant (and seemingly near term) application of this technology is in cancer diagnosis and prognosis. Tumors which do not have telomerase will almost always go into remission (their wild replication "ages" the cells quickly, and they reach the 100-division life span, and die). Those that have telomerase will not - they will reproduce for ever. In other words, telomerase gets turned on in some cancers, but doesn't seem to be, in itself, cancerous (as far as they know). The results published are somewhat sketchy, but remarkably consistent - I think this is a home run. The assays that GERON has can be used for to distinguish this, and have the potential to be very widespread quickly (or perhaps not - I'm not an oncologist, so I don't know how useful this would be - it _sounds_ useful...;).
I _don't_ think this will be very practical for cancer treatment - there are some smart drugs that are in trial out there that are going to dramatically improve treatment long before telomerase becomes a commercial product. They haven't even figured out how to modify the genes in vitro, never mind in vivo. It will take time to figure this (the 6year time frame I saw quoted seems reasonable. But biotech is too crazy to count on that...)
As far as human aging - we're a _looong_ way away from understanding the ramifications on the whole living organism of simply preventing cells from dying. This hasn't been attempted even in animals (yet), and I haven't seen anyone propose this study. Almost all the literature about telomerase focuses on the cancer side, not the aging side.
Investing aside - I believe that perhaps in 20 - 50 years our children may pity our frail health and wrinkled skin, knowing they will not age until they are 200. And their children may live forever. It may not be GERON that "patents" it, but this is the beginning...
CW |
