Molecular biologists Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn first discovered telomerase in a single-celled pond organism in 1984. By 1994, Calvin Harley and colleagues had identified telomerase in 90 percent of 101 human tumor samples and in none of 50 normal tissue samples. Harley is now working for a California biotechnology firm that aims to create an antitelomerase anticancer drug. Some have even grander schemes for putting telomerase to practical use. Michael Fossel, a neurobiologist, claims in his 1996 book Reversing Human Aging that telomeres are the regulators of aging we've been looking for, and that within 20 years we'll be able to manipulate them enough to end aging.
Most researchers are highly skeptical, though.
She also warns against presuming so soon that an antitelomerase drug would be an anticancer drug. The answer is not yet known. Scientists and hucksters of antiaging nostrums also share, not comfortably, an intense interest in oxygen free radicals. To those who believe that aging is an accumulation of damage and errors, these free radicals are the chief culprits. In the past 10 years, free radicals have been implicated in hypertension, atherosclerosis, cataracts, and some cancers, and may also be involved in degenerative neurological diseases, including Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's.