Fly-by-Night Research

Several readers have written in complaining that we devote entirely too many column inches to reporting current research projects. They point out the irrelevancy of mice-cloning and mad-cow statistics to the day-to-day practice of dentistry. When we waste their time with these tedious reports, they assert, we risk obscuring or missing altogether the important work being done on maximizing profits from mass tooth-whitening techniques and the complications arising from reporting routine prophylaxis as four-quadrant scaling and root planing.

They are absolutely right, and we shall cease this expository flapdoodle except when it directly affects us in the wallet, a condition met by today’s report. But first, a little research on the research.

Picture this: Austria, 1827 -- Mrs. Shirley Mendel, mother of 5-year-old Gregor, is having the usual hassle mothers have with kids who won’t eat their peas but leave them in little rings under the edge of the plate, hoping they won’t be noticed.

"Gregor," she says, "if you won’t eat the damn things, at least do something useful with them."

So Gregor inserts them up his nasal passages. No, seriously, we all know how young Mendel experiments with pea plants and goes on to found the whole science of genetics by inventing the gene. He could have made a lot more money by inventing the Jolly Green Giant company, but that’s another story.

Interest in genetics and inherited characteristics catches on like wildfire, and soon whole teams of scientists are vying with one another to invent new names like zygote, gamete, cytoplasm, mitosis, migraine, chromosome and Kodachrome.

One thing leads to another, a phenomenon upon which the whole foundation of research is based, and interest shifts from plants to fruit flies. Fruit flies have one big thing going for them -- their life span is only 37 days, so even though they are harder to catch than peas, it is possible to observe a family’s span from great-great-grandkids through great-great-grandparents in just a few months. The fruit fly family motto is "So much fruit, so little time!"

Fast forward 100 years and we find researchers still inexplicably fascinated with fruit flies, an interest not reciprocated by the flies, who regard the scientists as Nosy Parkers and wish they would go back to bothering pea plants.

Enter Dr. Stephen L. Helfand, a whimsical chap and senior author of a new study that he says "offers a target for future drug therapies aimed at extending life." The Zero Population Growth people may not agree that extending life is such a good idea, citing statistics proving that the SRO sign will have to be put out before long, at least on this planet. This is not the concern of the researchers at the University of Connecticut Health Center who already have a place to stay. They find out that the life span of our old friend the fruit fly can be extended from an average of 37 days to 70 days when -- pay attention -- a gene is modified on a single chromosome.

Some flies who neither smoke nor drink, but exercise daily, live for 110 days. The fun folk there at the university name this mutation the "I’m not dead yet" gene, or INDY for short. Unless you are a Monty Python fan and recognize this line from an old Python movie, this makes no sense at all, but it does indicate that researchers are lightening up and may eventually wear funny hats, use hand buzzers and put whoopee cushions in each others chairs.

In human terms, impatient readers, if this INDY gene could be applied to us, we could double our life span to about 150 years. This means we take out 120-year mortgages and pay off a car in 30 years instead of five. Your great-grandkids come home to live with you, and you might live to see the day when national voting reform goes into effect.

In dental terms, what will a 120-year-old patient want? He will seek out a periodontist willing to fight for every millimeter of alveolar bone he’s got left. He will insist on a prosthodontist who makes house calls and distributes denture adhesive samples freely. He won’t want any more palaver about cosmetic dentistry, and your chances of selling him a $900 root canal treatment are going to be slim. If you happen to be an endodontist, chances of finding an open canal in a century-old tooth are going to be even slimmer. The fact that he may be in his second childhood is not going to benefit pedodontists at all. Most of all, he is going to want everything at a price no greater than the researchers are charging the fruit flies.

Speaking of which, researcher Helfand reveals that not only do the fruit flies live longer, but they seem to maintain a higher quality of life. A higher quality of life -- we’re talking flies here. You’ll have to use your imagination.

Fly One: Wow! They just doubled my life span!

Fly Two: Yeah, five more weeks! Man, this changes everything!

Helfand explains. "It prolongs active adult life," he says, "and I think it delays the onset of aging." Some fruit flies with the altered gene who normally would have been on assisted care in rest homes are seen out skateboarding, staying up all night, and chasing each other giddily around the fruit compote.

Since it took 134 years from 1866 when Mendel first published until now to achieve this level of knowledge, we hold little hope that this latest discovery is going to affect dentistry significantly in the coming months. However, rest assured, if an opening occurs for volunteers for gene altering at the Connecticut Health Center, we’ll let you know when applications are due. In the meantime, watch out for flies that seem to be enjoying themselves more than the occasion calls for.