Limitless Learning

Molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn shared a Nobel Prize for her research on telomeres — structures at the tips of chromosomes that play a key role in cellular aging. But she was frustrated that important health implications of her work weren’t reaching beyond academia.

Parents pass genes along to their offspring traits that equip them for life. In recent years, research has shown that the reality is much more complex and that parents endow much more than just genes. A new study in Cell by the laboratory of Asifa Akhtar at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics reveals that active epigenetic modifications are also passed from one generation to the next.

The human peptide GHK (glycyl-l-histidyl-l-lysine) has multiple biological actions, all of which, according to our current knowledge, appear to be health positive. It stimulates blood vessel and nerve outgrowth, increases collagen, elastin, and glycosaminoglycan synthesis, as well as supports the function of dermal fibroblasts. GHK’s ability to improve tissue repair has been demonstrated for skin, lung connective tissue, boney tissue, liver, and stomach lining. GHK has also been found to possess powerful cell protective actions, such as multiple anti-cancer activities and anti-inflammatory actions, lung protection and restoration of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) fibroblasts, suppression of molecules thought to accelerate the diseases of aging such as NFκB, anti-anxiety, anti-pain and anti-aggression activities, DNA repair, and activation of cell cleansing via the proteasome system. Recent genetic data may explain such diverse protective and healing actions of one molecule, revealing multiple biochemical pathways regulated by GHK.