A 115-year-old woman's body might help us know secrets to long life
During the study, the researchers focused on finding gene mutations in Andel-Schipper's blood and found that though she looked in good health Andel-Schipper actually had hundreds of mutations. The researchers found that her white blood cells were coming from her stem cells.
The researchers found something which was shocking. An average human is born with around 20,000 stem cells and only 1,300 of them remain active but in Andel-Schipper, only two stem cells were working when she died. "At first I could not believe that it was true. I thought it must be a technical error. It cannot be true that this person can still be alive with two stem cells," said lead researcher Dr. Henne Holstege.
When 115-Year-Old Hendrikje Van Andel-Schipper Died In 2005, She Was The Oldest Living Person On Earth. Andel-Schipper Was Famous For Her Health And Mental Alertness Even At Such An Advanced Age And After Death She Is Also Proving To Be Something Important By Helping Scientists Understand Aging.
Since Andel-Schipper decided to donate her body to science before her death, researchers at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam have been studyinthe chemistry and biology of her body. The team published their results in Genome Research on Wednesday. Though researchers failed to find any secret elixir of life by studying Andel-Schipper's body, it has definitely helped them get some insight into how our body grows at a molecular level and how we can delay this process.During the study, the researchers focused on finding gene mutations in Andel-Schipper's blood and found that though she looked in good health Andel-Schipper actually had hundreds of mutations. The researchers found that her white blood cells were coming from her stem cells.
The researchers found something which was shocking. An average human is born with around 20,000 stem cells and only 1,300 of them remain active but in Andel-Schipper, only two stem cells were working when she died. "At first I could not believe that it was true. I thought it must be a technical error. It cannot be true that this person can still be alive with two stem cells," said lead researcher Dr. Henne Holstege.