Immortal Cell, The: One Scientist's Quest to Solve the Mystery of Human Aging
by: Michael D. West
Topics include: immortal renewal, immortal germ line, telomerase therapy, telomerase gene, immortality gene, mortal soma, telomere hypothesis, green essence, tissue culture lab, human telomerase, immortal cells, young cells, regenerative medicine, cellular aging, senescent cells, cell aging, laboratory dish, cell life span, nuclear transfer, human somatic cells, telomere length, preimplantation embryo, human embryo research, telomeric repeats, egg cell
Resources used by the author:
Carol Greider, San Francisco, Ian Wilmut, Sam Goldstein, Len Hayflick, Racing Against the Clock, Woody Wright, Jerry Shay, Leonard Hayflick, Cal Harley, Roslin Institute, August Weismann, Roger Pedersen, Little Rock, University of California, University of Wisconsin, Bob Lanza, Elizabeth Blackburn, Gregg Morin, James Watson, Karen Chapman, John Gearhart, Seventh-Day Adventist, Advanced Cell Technology, President Clinton
Amazon.com
Human beings have always hungered for immortality. But even in myths, those who find the secrets of eternal life often have to pay a high price. Michael West, CEO of Advanced Cell Technology, has spent most of his career as a biotechnologist seeking ways to make mammalian cells live forever. His successes put him at the center of political, moral, and religious firestorms. In The Immortal Cell, West offers not only a chronology of the emerging science of immortality, but a personal journal of his own path from strict creationist to ardent scientist seeking to shape human evolution. It was West and his cohorts who announced in 2001 that by inserting a person's own DNA into an unfertilized egg cell from a woman of reproductive age, they could create embryonic stem cells--cells that might be able to repair any number of problems for the DNA donor, including burns, cancer, degenerative disorders, and even normal aging. Accused of "playing God," West became one of the central figures in the debates on human cloning and was compared to Osama bin Laden by one histrionic news agent. In The Immortal Cell, West describes both the research and the furor that followed. Though the biology is a little tough for general readers, West does a fine job of using diagrams and step-by-step descriptions to explain his processes of cell culture and manipulation. The debate over therapeutic cloning of human cells is far from over, and readers seeking to better understand the debate will find West's book an unapologetic, one-sided argument in favor of human stem cell research.
--Therese Littleton
From Publishers Weekly
West was once asked by a journalist: "Just what does it mean to play God?" The author, whose controversial career in therapeutic cloning has been chronicled extensively by the media, seeks to respond in a brisk memoir that describes a boy who sought answers to mortality in his Protestant faith and eventually took matters into his own hands as a scientist-entrepreneur. He describes his founding of Geron, the first biotech firm to seek a "cure" for human aging, and his decision to leave for his current venture, Advanced Cell Technology. He continues with the media firestorm surrounding ACT's crafting of stem cells from cloned embryos, which plays out under the shadow of President Bush's decision to curb stem-cell research, and finishes with the argument that to ban potential therapies before they are tested is to abort progress in medical research. Along the way, he gives a primer on cell theory, genomics and the basics of aging, but it's all drowned in the thin gruel of a campaign book. West glosses over his embattled departure from Geron in about two pages, citing his messianic calling to deny death, and gives the ACT controversy, one of the most interesting parts of the story, relatively short shrift. To get the full story, one would do better to pick up Stephen S. Hall's Merchants of Immortality, which fills in the holes left by West. West writes like the Big Money science pitchman he is-but many will agree with his position on the necessity for stem-cell research.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The stem-cell debate was the hot science story of 2001, and West cut one of the higher media profiles among scientists conducting stem-cell research, work roundly condemned by Catholic and other churches for its manipulation of the human embryo. To West, this engineering is justified by the prospect that human tissue can be grown from stem cells, and his retort to ethical qualms is the standard argument that the embryo is not a human life. However one regards that assertion, the reader will obtain in this account of his career clear information about what West has done in the lab and in business to promote his biotechnology schemes. Passionately interested in finding the biological causes of aging, West reviews historical research on cell senescence; dramatizes his role in understanding telomeres, the tips of chromosomes believed to act as cellular "clocks"; and outlines the methods of introducing DNA into an embryo. Accessible to the lay reader, West's is a self-confident presentation from the pro-cloning side of the stem-cell controversy. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
The extraordinary story of the breakthrough discoveries in cell aging, stem cell research, and therapeutic cloning, and the tremendous promise they hold for dramatically extending human life.
Dr. Michael West has been consumed with the mystery of science since he was as an inquisitive child mixing chemicals in his attic-turned-laboratory. Today, he stands in the center of a controversy so great that the list of those lining up against him includes President George W. Bush.
Once a devoted creationist eager to dispel theories of human evolution, Dr. West was set on a quest to find a scientific solution to the devastating effects of disease and death after the death of his father. He became immersed in the study of cell aging and the discovery of the cellular clock telomerase the mechanism that controls cell aging. His work led him to found the biotechnology company Geron, a pioneer in the field of stem cell research. His new company, Advanced Cell Technology, is the only organization in the United States pursuing human therapeutic cloning research research in the field of regenerative medicine intended to repair damaged and diseased human organs and tissues.
Unlike reproductive cloning, the attempt to clone a human child, therapeutic cloning is a process of growing cells, using a patients own DNA that is inserted it into an unfertilized egg cell to create embryonic stem cells, cells that hold the promise of repairing the damage of age and disease in essence, making the cell young again. The potential for therapeutic cloning to treat afflictions caused by the loss of dysfunction of cells from spinal cord injury and skin burns to kidney failures and cancer is enormous.
Part memoir, part adventure story, The Immortal Cell chronicles the breakthroughs Dr. West and other scientists have made in biotechnology over the past decade and the astonishing potential they offer us to cure diseases and improve the quality of human life.
Book Info
Part memoir, part adventure, text chronicles the breakthroughs scientists have made in biotechnology and the potential they offer for curing diseases such as spinal cord injury, skin burns, kidney failures, and cancer. Discusses aspects of therapeutic cloning versus reproductive cloning. For consumers.
Inside Flap Copy
The extraordinary story of the breakthrough discoveries in cell aging, stem cell research, and therapeutic cloning, and the tremendous promise they hold for dramatically extending human life.
Dr. Michael West has been consumed with the mystery of science since he was as an inquisitive child mixing chemicals in his attic-turned-laboratory. Today, he stands in the center of a controversy so great that the list of those lining up against him includes President George W. Bush.
Once a devoted creationist eager to dispel theories of human evolution, Dr. West was set on a quest to find a scientific solution to the devastating effects of disease and death after the death of his father. He became immersed in the study of cell aging and the discovery of the cellular ?clock? telomerase ? the mechanism that controls cell aging. His work led him to found the biotechnology company Geron, a pioneer in the field of stem cell research. His new company, Advanced Cell Technology, is the only organization in the United States pursuing human therapeutic cloning research ? research in the field of ?regenerative medicine? intended to repair damaged and diseased human organs and tissues.
Unlike reproductive cloning, the attempt to clone a human child, therapeutic cloning is a process of growing cells, using a patient?s own DNA that is inserted it into an unfertilized egg cell to create embryonic stem cells, cells that hold the promise of repairing the damage of age and disease ? in essence, making the cell young again. The potential for therapeutic cloning to treat afflictions caused by the loss of dysfunction of cells ? from spinal cord injury and skin burns to kidney failures and cancer ? is enormous.
Part memoir, part adventure story, The Immortal Cell chronicles the breakthroughs Dr. West and other scientists have made in biotechnology over the past decade ? and the astonishing potential they offer us to cure diseases and improve the quality of human life.
About the Author
Dr. Michael West is the CEO of Advanced Cell Technology. From 1990 to 1998, he was the founder, director, and vice-president of Geron, the first prominent biotechnology company to focus on human aging. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
Reviews:
more self promotion than the discussion of the subject matter
fter reading so many positive reviews, I ordered the book, and expected to learn in-depth insight into the immortality of cells.
I was disappointed. This book is more of the author's personal story of pursuing the goal of revering aging rather than detailed look into the biological nature of aging. There are tidbits of gems here and there, but the density is low. If you are looking for amserious discussion of the subject matter, this book is not for you.
Nothing too special
This book is a narrative account of the author's attempts over the years to study aging. There was a lot of discussion about stem cells. I was hoping for more commentary on immortality, but he talked a lot about therapeutic uses of stem cells instead. The talk of immortality was mostly restricted to getting individual cells to reproduce indefinitely, rather than finding the fountain of youth. There were characters here and there who were introduced and faded away, but by and large the focus was on the author's character.
If you're looking for a dreamy, fountain of youth type of book, this is not really it. That is what I was looking for, so I was disappointed to see it was merely a recounting of events without a whole lot of future vision or insights. I think there are other books on immortality out there you may want to try.
A good and easy read which opens perspectives
In The Immortal Cell, Michael D. West tells about his lifelong search for solutions to aging and age-related illnesses.
West's quest starts with an ideal of compassion: if we can help it, why should we keep suffering from Alzheimer, Parkinson, macular degeneration, atherosclerosis, and so many illnesses associated with aging?
West first thought religion and the bible would provide him with answers to his questions about life and death. One is surprised that a bright young man with a scientific mind would have fallen for creationism for as long a period of time as ten years, but West finally recognized that creationism does not resist serious analysis and that at the end of the 20th century, it is just nonsense. Because of this however West has kept a certain understanding for the point of view of the more conservative religious parties.
West then tells of the scientific quest, amidst fierce competition between scientists and even corporations, to understand the mechanics of cellular aging: the discovery of the importance of telomeres, those chromosome ends that turn out to be associated with the cellular clock; the discovery of telomerase, the enzyme able to repair telomeres; the discovery of the tight relationship of such research with cancer research; the first experiments to rewind the cellular clock by implanting somatic cells DNA into egg cells; the cloning of the first mammals; and the experiments to produce embryonic stem sells in vitro, from somatic DNA and egg cells.
The most important result is the proof that cellular aging is not a fatality, as one could have thought initially: it is caused by a mechanism that we are now able to somewhat tweak. From there, there are two main therapeutic perspectives. First, the idea of fixing the aging cells of the body. A lot of research remains to be done in this area. So far, nobody has managed to find a mechanism to reliably deliver a fix to a significant number of cells, and the fix itself has yet to be developed. Second, the idea that any somatic cell can be used to produce embryonic stem cells. This opens the door to building tissues and even entire organs in vitro. Such tissues and organs could be then grafted to the donor without risk of rejection. The perspectives go from implanting skin and bone marrow cells to finding a cure for diabetes and atheroscleriosis. Ultimately, it may allow for entire organ replacement.
West is probably a better scientist than philosopher, but in the last chapter of the book, he makes a good case for therapeutic cloning, including addressing some religious questions regarding "life" with very sound arguments.
The Immortal Cell is a good and easy read. I had fairly high expectations about it because it was very well rated online, and I was a little disappointed by several aspects of the book. West could have communicated even better the excitement this research should generate. He neglects related developments such as the impact nanotechnology research could have.
He also fails to address exciting but disruptive perspectives. If in fact cellular therapy becomes one day mainstream, there is a clear possibility that humans could see their life expectancy increase dramatically, from about 80 years today in developed countries to... 100? 120? 150? 200? 1000? The social impact of such a change would be enormous. It is quite possible that West does not wish to speculate about such subjects so as not to disrupt current research. After all, his own work has put him in the middle of the controversy about research on human embryonic stem cells and human cloning.