Teenage girl trapped in toddler's body 'could unlock secrets of ageing process'
By Daily Mail Reporter
10th May 2010
A teenage girl who is trapped in the body of a toddler could hold the key to stopping the ageing process, scientists claim.
Brooke Greenberg was born in 1993 but is unable to talk, still has her baby teeth and has to be wheeled everywhere in a push chair.
She is thought to be the only sufferer of Syndrome X - a condition which means she is permanently trapped as an infant.
Scientists believe her unique genetic code could provide a fresh insight into the process of ageing and lead to the development of new treatments for diseases related to old age, such as Parkinson's.
Brooke is 30 inches tall and weighs 16lbs and requires 24-hour care from her parents.
She is fed through a tube inserted into her stomach, because her oesophagus is so small that swallowed food could back up into her lungs and cause pneumonia.
Tests have shown that Brooke, who is from Baltimore in the U.S., may suffer from a gene mutation that switches off her ability to mature.
Professor Richard Walker, of the University of South Florida School of Medicine, who has been leading a study into Brooke's DNA, said her unique case could unlock the secrets of age.
'We think that Brooke’s condition presents us with a unique opportunity to understand the process of ageing,' he said.
'We think that she has a mutation in the genes that control her ageing and development so that she appears to have been frozen in time.
'If we can compare her genome to the normal version then we might be able to find those genes and see exactly what they do and how to control them.'
Some of the world's leading age researchers will discuss the findings from Brooke's case at a conference in London this week.
Professor Walker said: 'Our hypothesis is that she is suffering from damage in the gene or genes that co-ordinate the way the body develops and ages.
'If we can use her DNA to find that mutant gene then we can test it in laboratory animals to see if we can switch if off and slow down the ageing process at will.
'Just possibly it could give us an opportunity to answer the question of why we are mortal.'
Her father Howard Greenberg, who has three other daughters with wife Melanie, described Brooke as a 'wonderful child' and hope the research might help others.
'She still babbles just like a 6 month old baby but she still communicates and we always know just what she means.'
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