Elixir of Life: biomolecules targeted for anti-ageing

Among the winners are green tea extracts, milks, butters and oils, all of which have their origins going far back beyond the records of ancient Egypt and back to the ancient peoples living in India and China. This long history of safe use almost guarantees efficacy. Why would people insist on using something that does not work? Among the losers we find dangerous materials such as radium 226 and 228 isotopes, which were in a well-known patent tonic sold between 1918 and 1928 or unpleasant materials such as urine. There is an entry in Samuel Pepys diary for Tuesday 8 March 1663 mentions one 17th century approach to beauty that did not stand up to the test of time. He wrote: “Up with some little discontent with my wife upon her saying that she had got and used some puppydog water, being put upon it by a desire of my aunt Wight to get some for her, who hath a mind, unknown to her husband, to get some for her ugly face.” When it comes to immortality, Harry Potter fans might be pleased to know that Nicolas Flamel, a key character in the first novel in the series, is based on one of the most famous real life alchemists, Nicolas Flamel (1330-1418), who was reputed to have actually achieved immortality. He and his wife Perenelle are said to have discovered the formula for the ‘Elixir of Life’. Nicolas Flamel’s secret was not widely shared and so lost and cannot therefore be ‘tested’. His self-designed and strangely decorated empty tomb, however, can still be seen, at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. Perhaps its strange decoration holds the clues to their alchemy. Some people have suggested that the tomb’s emptiness bears witness to the couple having actually achieved immortality. This argument is hard to seriously uphold, as, after such a long time there are many more plausible explanations as to how the tomb could have become empty. On the other hand, by mentioning Flamel in this article, written nearly 600 years after his lifetime, his reputation lives-on and he gains a type of immortality. References to Nicolas Flamel flow back through time in a chain of published literature that includes the journals of some of the greatest scientists, including Sir Isaac Newton. Nicolas Flamel’s many achievements were made in far less enlightened times. What would he have achieved if he were working today in a modern laboratory? Then again, of course he just might.

Cell immortality

Sir Isaac Newton famously wrote: “If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants.” Today’s researchers studying anti-ageing skin care actives are also standing on the shoulders of fellow scientist who are working in a range of different scientific fields. Each discipline offers them a wealth of knowledge that can be applied to skin care. For example, it seems from the work of evolutionists and cell biologists, that ageing may be the price we have to pay for being among the most complex organisms on Earth. Simpler life forms, such as amoeba, a single cell (protozoa), divide into daughter cells and so, as each daughter cells go on to divide again and their daughter cells divide, these simple organisms have achieved a type of immortality. Cancer cells exhibit similar behaviour by going on and on growing and dividing. Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, tells the remarkable story of the people, the cells, the errors and the achievements that led to the immortal human cell line, known as HeLa cells. HeLa cells are used today by cell biologists throughout the world to study cell division and other aspects of cell function. This remarkably durable and prolific cell line was derived from cervical cancer cells taken on February 8, 1951 from Henrietta Lacks, a patient who eventually died of her cancer on October 4, 1951. Over 60 years later, this cell line is still growing and still going strong.