Unpublished draft

Why doesn’t liver age faster?

I.

Most of the intracellular wear and tear the cells accumulate over time can be naively mitigated by just having cells proliferate away the damage. Weak cells die out, unaffected cells out-proliferate and replace them, all is good again. The CTVT cell line has been continuously proliferating for thousands of years in this manner.

But having ability to proliferate is also very risky. Proliferative licensing is tightly rationed to specific cell types and contexts, because uncontrolled proliferation is the first step to cancer.

When I look at how multicellular organisms manage proliferation in somatic tissues, I see three broad