pseudorandom

In my blog entry on resveratrol yesterday, I mentioned a forthcoming study of its effectiveness on mice. It's being done at the Harvard Medical School by David Sinclair, associate professor of pathology and co-founder of Sirtris Pharmaceuticals.

In an interview on NewsHour in January 2005, Dr. Sinclair discussed his approach to the mouse study:

DAVID SINCLAIR: Right, so we're at the point where we need to test this first of all in mice and those studies are just beginning now. And then if that works, we really want to go either into humans if it's safe, or to try it in primates as well. But we're at the point where we are in mammals and we'll know within a year or two if we're right about this.

TOM BEARDEN: That soon?

DAVID SINCLAIR: Sure, I mean a mouse's lifespan is about two years. We're going to be feeding our molecules out, so-called calorie restriction, the medic molecules that we call them, we're feeding these to elderly mice that are halfway through their life and we'll know within a year or less if we're having an effect.

Presuming the study started at about the time of the interview, the control mice should be dying right about now. As for the mice on resveratrol, we'll just have to wait for the research to be published. We could know sometime this year.