A Brief History of the Mortality and Immortality of Cultured Cells.

Abstract excerpt

During the first half of this century it was believed that because cultured normal cells were immortal, aging must be caused by extracellular events. Thirty-five years ago we overthrough this dogma when we discovered that normal cells do have a limited capacity to divide and that aging occurs intracellularly. We also observed that only cancer cells are immortal. Normal cells are mortal because telomeres shorten...