Wednesday, November 29, 2023

The Ethical Decision to Add Zombie Cells to Improve Old Age

 Over these past few months, there has been a topic in the scientist field, known as zombie cells. However, what exactly are those zombie cells? Zombie cells are cells that are damaged and refuse to die, therefore as we age the damaged cells start to accumulate them that can cause aging and conditions like Alzheimer’s disease (Barbour 2023). The correct term of the zombie cells are senescent cells, that have been the talk of improving health in old age. The meaning behind the name “zombie” cells is due  to the chemicals that spit out and cause damage to nearby cells, this turns them into zombie cells. Zombie cells affect the function of some organs and tissues in the body. 

    This organ damage is more susceptible in older aged individuals, since the damaged cells accumulate, and go through a irreversible removal in the cell cycle called apoptosis or lose the ability to grow that stimulate the immune system to clear those cells, and so the older you get the harder it gets for the those damage cells to get cleared more effectively.Therefore, because of those zombies cells researchers have been able to come up with how to clear these cells, as they are creating drugs to remove the senescent cells, so that humans can inject these drugs to live a longer healthier life (Shubin, 2017). It questions whether this ethical to the idea of naturalization of life and what effect does it have on the economy? How ethical is it to have this drug? 



    In late 2016, there has been research done on mice and rats, and it has been seen that the drugs that have been created kill the senescent cell, so they have started up companies to develop this drug for humans (Shubin, 2017). As they been put to work and  the need to stop old age, there is a controversy in this drug that is coming out as the removal of the senescent cells help get rid of all the cardiovascular disease that comes with aging. As this drug has been a help to improve conditions such as cataracts, diabetes, heart failure, and kidney problems (London, 2023). The removal of these zombie cells can lead to improved cardiomyocyte survival and cell cycle activity, and the ability to form new blood vessels. However, there is controversy as it can trigger DNA damage and shorten our telomeres, and having a drug that does this present a huge economy standpoint on older people taking this drug to have a longer life will double the population and amount of carbon footprint that will be created if people who are 65 years old can live up longer than what they are suppose to because of this drug. There's a lot of controversy on DNA damage of the zombie cells because of the unpredictable effects on the future genome (Ungar 2022). 

    Even though there's a lot more information on the ethics of how well this drug will work, it leads to disagreement within the society of whether it is ethically correct to do that, and what are the cons and pros that come with doing such thing, especially in the human body that can bring further advancements on research.

Work Cited:

Dominick Burton,Research Fellow. (2023, June 8). Killing “zombie” cells to improve health in old age. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/killing-zombie-cells-to-improve-health-in-old-age-74557 hubba177. (2019, November 1). Defining “zombie cells.” Medical School. https://med.umn.edu/news/defining-zombie-cells

King’s College London. (2023, April 25). New Group of drugs found to eliminate “zombie” cells associated with cardiovascular disease. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/new-group-of-drugs-found-to-eliminate-zombie-cells-causing-cardiovascular-disease#:~:text=’Senescence’%20is%20the%20term%20given,cell%20survival%20and%20reparative%20potential.

Ungar, L. (2022, September 1). Zombie cells central to the quest for active, vital old age. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/zombie-cells-central-quest-active-vital-old-age-e52713983444185dcd6ed116305d0764

X, S. (2023, April 20). New Group of drugs found to eliminate “zombie” cells associated with cardiovascular disease. Medical Xpress - medical research advances and health news. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-group-drugs-zombie-cells-cardiovascular.html

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