Researchers Study Mystery of the Toddler Who Won't Grow 252
kkleiner writes "Twenty-year-old Brooke Greenberg hasn't grown since age five. For the last 15 years, mystified doctors have been unable to explain the cause for Brooke's disorder that has kept her aging in check. At age twenty, she maintains the physical and mental appearance of a toddler. The researchers are now are painstakingly analyzing Brooke’s entire genome in search of unique mutations. Needless to say, it is a formidable undertaking. 'Cracking the code on Brooke’s condition,' [Dr. Eric Shadt] wrote, 'is the proverbial searching for a needle in a haystack, since likely there is one or a small number of letters changed in Brooke’s genome that has caused her condition.' To find the mutation Shadt and his team are using the latest genome sequencing and analysis tools. The strategy is to compare Brooke’s genome to the genomes of her parents and three normal sisters, as well as to other available sequences from the general population, and identify gene mutations that only Brooke has."
4chan (Score:5, Funny)
4chan is going to love this one.
Re:4chan (Score:4, Funny)
Re:4chan (Score:5, Funny)
Re:4chan (Score:5, Funny)
However, it does mean she'll fit right in with the rest of the 4chan posters.
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Not sure what you are talking about exactly... ... so ToGTFO and Pics or it didn't happen.
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Erm, we might want to forego the usual procedure on this one
Re:4chan (Score:5, Funny)
4chan is going to love this one.
A 20-year-old with the mental makeup of a 5-year-old? I'm guessing she'd fit right in on 4chan.
think of the possible implications! (Score:5, Funny)
Perpetual kittens.
Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:5, Insightful)
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!growing != !aging
Sure, but the summary specifies that she doesn't age, so unless you know that's wrong, your point is kinda pointless.
Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:5, Informative)
It's not in the summary or article, but wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says her body is aging, with different parts aging at different rates. And that "her telomeres seem to be shortening at the normal rate."
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It's not in the summary or article, but wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says her body is aging, with different parts aging at different rates. And that "her telomeres seem to be shortening at the normal rate."
Wikipedia. To misquote the Simpsons, the source of - and solution to - all the internet debates.
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Sure, but the summary specifies that she doesn't age, so unless you know that's wrong, your point is kinda pointless.
Inferring that she doesn't age from "maintains the physical and mental appearance of a toddler" is a bit of a stretch.
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Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:5, Funny)
You're code must be awesome to look at.
It's easier to read than your prose ;)
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Some parts still grow. Cartilaginous structures like ears and noses are the main example. Fat cells also tend to stop growing in number, but can certainly grow in size.
Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be interested to see a telomere study. Physiologically she's four years old, but is she four at the cellular and genetic levels?
Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:5, Informative)
I'd be interested to see a telomere study. Physiologically she's four years old, but is she four at the cellular and genetic levels?
According to this [sciencedirect.com] study, her telomeres match her chronological age, so she appears to be aging in that sense.
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Good to know she merely the "fountain of youth" not the "fountain of immortality".
Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah we are nowhere near mature enough as a civilization for such a discovery. It would be like discovering nukes in the bronze age.
Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't you see the unholy hell that immortality would unleash on a civilization that is just starting to wake up to ideas of conservation and natural resource management? Or on a related note, how immortality would be handed out, managed and exploited under capitalism?
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Can't you see the unholy hell that immortality would unleash on a civilization that is just starting to wake up to ideas of conservation and natural resource management? Or on a related note, how immortality would be handed out, managed and exploited under fascism
ftfy
Capitalism left the building a while ago.
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One would hope that if we found a way to significantly extend the human lifespan, people would become much more interested in conservation and issues like Global Warming, because they would potentially be around long enough to see the effects of their actions.
Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought about that, but it assumes that an increase in lifespan would lead to an increase in long-term thinking. Many people already think too short-term for their immediate situation, never mind a currently-possible human lifespan.
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It would take a few generations of births without deaths before we came to understand this new-found sense of environmental responsibility.
We haven't figured out what we're doing after how many millennia, what makes you think the first generation to become immortal would instantly come to this realization.
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Can't you see the unholy hell that immortality would unleash on a civilization that is just starting to wake up to ideas of conservation and natural resource management? Or on a related note, how immortality would be handed out, managed and exploited under capitalism?
I guess that was supposed to be rhetorical since it's obvious such a thing would be only available to the 1% or some fraction of it like most high end medical care.
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We're also living in a veritable gilded age, inequality is worse than the first gilded age, possibly worse than ever before in history.
Many alternatives haven't been tried before, some aren't possible yet. Capitalism is the economic equivalent of savagery, it's just survival of the fittest. Advocate survival of the physically fittest and anyone will recognize it as savagery, advocate survival of the economically fittest and many see it as enlightened somehow. I think we can do better.
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I doubt it would be as hellish as you make it out to be. I for one would love the opportunity to enjoy a severely long life. Unfortunately I seem to be in the majority here. It's frustrating because so many people seem to think it's such a horrible thing I fear progress is going far too slow to achieve any kind of immortality in my life time.
There's emotional benefit to trying to think it would be a bad thing - because presently it's impossible.
See the number of stories which end with someone deciding they don't want the immortality cure and being happy about that, but then if you simply read about the events of the immortals over just long time spans they live interesting lives. Given that the mean time to a fatality by accident is something like 240 years, and it's not like it would be that big of a change - we have people who live to 100 pre
Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:5, Funny)
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Which means, whatever the apparent signs that she isn't aging, she is accruing genetic damage over time and will age at least in the cellular sense.
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Well... I guess we'll find out when she dies and the news makes it to Slashdot. Even then, I wouldn't bet on it amounting to much--the article said she had a stroke at an early age, and that's normally something that usually comes at a later age...
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Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:4, Funny)
Perpetual kittens.
Normally, I'm against screwing around too much with nature. But goddamn that would be worth it!
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What, exactly, do you mean by "screwing around with nature"? What do you see around you that is not "nature"?
Are you suggesting that we don't intervene and utilize the world around us to better ourselves and our lives?
Basically, I don't know what the fuck you are talking about when you use words like "nature" and "natural". Everything in the entire universe is natural. The word has no context when you say "we shouldn't mess with nature".
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As cats only live 10-20 years, locking them at age 5 would be more like perpetual middle-aged cats. :-)
Re:think of the possible implications! (Score:5, Funny)
Which would be better, I think.
As a kitten, my cat was entirely too curious/fearless and once spent about 30 seconds inside a dryer before I figured out that "thump-whump-meow" is not the normal operation of said dryer, and also that my cat was missing. (Fortunately, aside from a slightly warm bum, the faint scent of fabric softener, and an 8-month-long fear of large white appliances, he was fine).
Obligatory Star Trek reference (Score:3, Funny)
The Grups are studying her intensely.
BANG BANG
brain damage? (Score:5, Interesting)
obviously the scientists studying her have far better qualifications and information than i do, but i can't help but think damage to the brain due to the stroke, coma, and brain tumor she suffered at age 4 (right before she stopped developing) could be a more likely cause than her particular genetic makeup.
Wouldn't They See That in the Endocrine System? (Score:5, Insightful)
obviously the scientists studying her have far better qualifications and information than i do, but i can't help but think damage to the brain due to the stroke, coma, and brain tumor she suffered at age 4 (right before she stopped developing) could be a more likely cause than her particular genetic makeup.
Well from the article they said:
“has no apparent abnormalities in her endocrine system, no gross chromosomal abnormalities, or any of the other disruptions known to occur in humans that can cause developmental issues.”
I assume that the endocrine system would have to be affected in order to cause such stunted growth? If the stroke, coma or brain tumor led to this wouldn't they see that abnormality reflected in these growth regulating systems? Also from the article the researchers claimed:
“Cracking the code on Brooke’s condition,” Shadt wrote, “is the proverbial searching for a needle in a haystack, since likely there is one or a small number of letters changed in Brooke’s genome that has caused her condition.”
Some googling turned up older studies [wikipedia.org] that claim there are no known genetic disorders present or even chromosomal abnormalities and her telomeres seem to be shortening at the normal rate. Also, apparently her body parts are developing out of synchronization. I guess it's possible there is a hidden system that synchronizes development so that your body doesn't develop asymmetrically? And we just haven't found this yet.
... that Kurzweil Singularity bullshit should be left out of the discussion until we fully understand it.
Sort of offtopic but I'm a little disappointed that this unfortunate affliction for this person is being spun as a possible "fountain of eternal youth" in the article. Come on, people. We should be working to better understand this so we can help people
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Her condition may not be exactly "horrible". It's hard to know what she thinks of not being an adult.
When I was 5, I though girls were icky. Continuing to be able to think that might have saved me a lot of time and money.
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Sort of offtopic but I'm a little disappointed that this unfortunate affliction for this person is being spun as a possible "fountain of eternal youth" in the article. Come on, people. We should be working to better understand this so we can help people
I dunno, is there any indication that she's in any physical or psychological pain, or that her lifespan is going to be significantly reduced from normal? Besides, if the cause is directly genetic (that is, it's not a genetic disorder that then modifies, say, hormone levels, which cause the disorder) then it's not likely a treatment is even plausible.
Re:Wouldn't They See That in the Endocrine System? (Score:5, Informative)
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Oh, and we'll be sequencing her whole DNA (hopefully in a few months) now that there is enough funding for this.
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Re:brain damage? (Score:4, Insightful)
She is the key to life eternal.
No, she is the key to never developing past the physical or mental age of 5. Nobody said she'll never die. Five year olds can die, too.
And while she's got a lock on the physical age thing, many /. posters demonstrate the prior art that would prevent her from getting a patent on the mental part.
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damage to the brain due to the stroke, coma, and brain tumor she suffered at age 4 (right before she stopped developing) could be a more likely cause than her particular genetic makeup.
That sounds rather implausible. Many people have suffered brain damage in childhood, how many of them stopped aging because of that? That would have to be an extremely specific kind of damage. (Keep in mind that even for brain damage, it's often difficult to disable a part of brain's functionality to full extent since the brain has a capability of "routing around".)
Re:brain damage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since she seems to have a one of a kind problem, any answer (even the correct one) will be implausible from a statistical standpoint. Either of the "it never did that before" variety or the "That never happens" variety.
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of course it's implausible. she is completely unique amongst billions. EVERYONE has a relatively unique genetic makeup, and yet how many of us don't age? the answer seems to be "one."
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Except they say her endocrine system seems to be running normally, which would, so far as I can tell, mean the hypothalamus was unaffected by the stroke. I'm sure that the effects of the stroke was probably one of the first things they checked.
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Well, it is running normally for whatever apparent age she is. Obviously, if her endocrine system was working as expected, she'd have grown up, since that's what causes you to grow up.
There may well be another brain function involved which is a lot less obvious or doesn't even look like damage because we don't know what we are looking at.
However, yes, it's not going to be something that we are just going to be able to guess at here, but the brain is still a long way from being fully understood.
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Except that we have relatively crude ways of measuring hypothalamic (or for that matter, any endocrine) function. It may very well be a regulatory molecule that we don't know about and can't measure. Hundreds of thousands of proteins, peptides and RNAs running about that likely do something - we just don't know what.
Re:brain damage? (Score:4, Funny)
It may very well be a regulatory molecule that we don't know about and can't measure.
It may be due to molecules that are made up entirely of tachyons. Our normal aging is because there is a slight imbalance between our normal matter and tachyon physicality, leading to a slight shift towards what we view as "positive time".
Her condition comes from an almost exact balance between the two, thus a competition between normal matter aging in the normal direction and the FTL matter aging in reverse.
The Orkans (Mork and Mearth being the earthbound representatives) have the balance the other way, thus they age backwards.
It's all easy if you know science.
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Why would you think those injuries to the brain, which pretty much has no effect on the progress of development, would affect the progress of her development?
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From TFA:
Her bones are that of a 10-year-old, her teeth are 6-years-old, her brain is less than a year old, Walker said.
If her brain age is any indicator, it seems the aging anomaly began earlier than 4 years old and the stroke/coma/tumor is not the cause of the lack of aging. It also seems that aging stopped at different times for different areas, not all at the same time.
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What about a spacetime bubble that keeps her in stasis? It could dissolve when other people need to touch or communicate with her, but reform at other times to prevent her from aging. Unfortunately it would require an incredibly massive object to pull that off. It would have to be a black hole or a wormhole. And how it would dissolve, reform, or not destroy the planet Earth is a mystery.
Spacetime bubble that keeps her in stasis vs. complicated biological phenomena that we know a little about.
Yep, an Occam's Razor problem if there ever was one.
Bioshock? (Score:3, Funny)
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My first thought was the one episode of Highlander with the immortal who was stuck as a kid forever.
Re:Bioshock? (Score:4, Interesting)
Or Cowboy Bebop's "Sympathy for the Devil".
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Re:Bioshock? (Score:5, Informative)
I seem to remember reading an article about her a few years ago. IIRC, her telomeres are shortening at a normal rate -- which would suggest she *IS* aging at that level.
interesting. (Score:2)
Re:interesting. (Score:4, Informative)
Insufficient iodine levels cause Cretinism by causing the thyroid to not produce sufficient growth hormones. Since the article states her hormones are normal...
Human not freak show (Score:2)
Pretty sad that the focus of the article and medical attention seemed to be on using her genes for anti-ageing cosmetic treatments instead of curing her. I also found it at bit odd that she is shown in a pram (instead of say an adult wheelchair) and there is a baby cot in the background, these do not seem age appropriate, despite her lack of physical growth.
Re:Human not freak show (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. Some tight skinny jeans and a bottle of vodka ... well, I suppose they should wait till she turns 21 for the vodka.
In all seriousness, if she has the mental age of a 5 year old, she is probably quite content being treated as one, and it would be highly innappropriate to treat her as older than she "really" is.
Re:Human not freak show (Score:5, Funny)
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Since when do 5 year olds nap? Mine (apparently) runs on a fission generator in overdrive from 7:00 a.m. to about 10:00 p.m.
My 6yo still naps. I think everyone should nap if at all possible - it's quite healthy to take a siesta [1]. The problem is that the modern world makes you feel like you're not worth as much if you're not "aware and contributing" 16+ hours of the day. The question is, if you took 30-45m "off", would the remaining time be more productive?
[1] http://www.siestaawareness.org/pages/siesta-facts.php [siestaawareness.org]
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Curing how? Rewriting a person's genome is no trivial matter. It's tricky enough in a single cell, to do it in a complex multicellular organism is far beyond current ability.
If her genes contain the secret to prolonging life and defeating the curses of old age though, they must be used. She may not hold the secret to immortality, but she puts us all one step closer.
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Pretty sad that the focus of the article and medical attention seemed to be on using her genes for anti-ageing cosmetic treatments instead of curing her.
I think you're minimizing the research potential -- a way to slow or stop aging entirely, not just a mere cosmetic improvement.
The hard thing about developing a treatment for a disease that no one understands and only a single person has is that there's no real way to test the treatment except on the subject herself, and if you screw it up, that person suffers for no reason since the treatment isn't going to help the rest of the people with the disease. Is it worse to let her live out her life the way she w
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They mention, and I quote, potential therapy to "Alzheimer’s, heart disease or cancer". I barely noticed any focus on anti-ageing cosmetic treatments, but then again, I RTFA. So, stop shoving your narrow view of the world and science into everything.
Re:Human not freak show (Score:4, Insightful)
Those researchers can't exactly get funding to cure a single patient that's literally unique with a syndrome that most likely never happened or will happen again.
However, if you say she might have the key for the cure of cancer and to stop aging they sure will get funded fast. If by some miracle they find a possible cure in the process, there's a chance that she might get that cure where otherwise the chance is a fat zero.
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Well, adult wheelchairs are adult sized. If she's the size of a 4 or 5 year old, she definitely won't fit (and TFA shows her in a wheel chair, not what I'd call a pram).
As to your other point:
I think you can safely assume the doctors ar
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actually they are quite appropriate - the article indicates that she has the mental capacity of a five year old as well. So it's not unreasonable to think that her parents are simply keeping her surroundings the same to match her physical and emotional maturity level.
Epigenetics (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, just analyzing genes might not be enough. Gene expression and epigenetics are the other half of the puzzle, and a bit more difficult to discover. Even if you know the code, it's damn difficult to determine where in the body (if anywhere) the code is or isn't active without taking samples all over the place and testing each.
For the computer literate, think of it this way. The researches are disassembling the code of several people to see if there is a difference. But that doesn't tell them what the run time parameters were when a particular bit of code was run (or what inputs it may have had while running). And sampling a memory dump from one CPU in a massively parallel system doesn't give you the whole story either.
Needle meets haystack.
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Re:Epigenetics (Score:4, Funny)
It sounds like they have a small problem on their hands!
I'll bet you're real fun at parties.
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This keeps on getting repeated so as a biology grad student I feel the obligation to inform everyone: yes, epigenetics is very important and makes up much of the story, but while a lot about it is still unknown, we have just as many tools to tackle it as we do with genomic DNA. We can sequence the epigenome (both histone marks and DNA CpG methylation), the transcriptome, the translatome, and the proteome (by mass spec, though not de novo) - almost any "ome" that involves any combination of nucleic acids and
A caveat: (Score:2)
Just because someone isn't developing doesn't neccessarily mean they aren't aging.
She may be accumulating some of the various types of damage that we all undergo as part of aging, but just not progressing in maturing to an adult state.
When a child develops from the reproductive cells of the parents effectively all or nearly all of the changes of aging present in the parents are undone. Brooke's genetic makeup may only be blocking SOME of those aging related changes along with blocking maturation.
As time goe
Telomeres? (Score:2)
I wonder how gene damage and telomeres will play into the story of this person's aging.
Balok's Love-Child (Score:5, Funny)
The kid's the product of a tranya fueled dalliance by her mom after a night out with Balok on his spaceship.
Something must happen at that age (Score:2)
She is growing (Score:4, Interesting)
Wolverine? (Score:2)
Couric (Score:2)
Katie Couric is afflicted with soft focus syndrome. It also affects Diane Sawyer. She takes a personal interest in this since thye may be able to find a cure.
She's Deadpool (Score:2)
Her own decision? (Score:3)
She decided never to grow up when she heard her father declare that she would become a grocer.
Nyh
She's not toddler sized (Score:3)
She's infant sized.
Wikipedia says she's 30 inches tall, 16 pounds.
My almost nine month old daughter is 26 pounds, around 30 inches. That's like 99th percentile in size, but still infant sized.
An average 5 year old is 40 inches, 40 pounds.
Re:Mental appearance? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mental appearance? (Score:5, Funny)
opp opp OPPAN JUNGIAN STYLE
Re:Mental appearance? (Score:5, Funny)
Heeeeeeey psych. class ladies!
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Only in places that respect patents, you will be able to find businesses in other places claiming to do the same treatments for much less, and some of those places may not be scams.
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If given a real motive to extend patent life - you think there wouldn't be a massive push for it?
Re:Perpetual diaper changes (Score:5, Funny)
A normal five year old can use the toilet. Not everyone developed as slowly as you.
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I LOL'd pretty hard XD
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