Twenty-year-old Brooke Greenberg hasn’t grown since age five. Mystified doctors haven’t been able to explain the cause for Brooke’s disorder that has kept her from ageing. The condition has been referred to as Syndrome X, as no one knows what it is, and what might be the cause. Many believe that Brooke’s condition could reveal valuable insights on how our bodies age and grow.

Brooke was born in January 1993, and is believed to be the only living person in the world with the age defying condition. Mutations in her DNA might be the force behind her apparent eternal youth, and if her genome is fully explored it could result in a method to fight, or perhaps even reverse ageing!

Some research conducted not long ago has shown that altering a few genes can lead to large increases in life expectancy. This makes it possible for Brooke’s condition to be a result of a few mutations in key genes in her DNA. By sequencing her genome, and finding some of the variations, if they’re there that is, the condition could be replicated.

The idea of immortality has sure lost a lot of its appeal with everything that is going on around the world lately. It seems that if we don’t go through a radical change in lifestyle, priorities, and how we live together as a “people”, there won’t be a planet to live forever in.

If scientists eventually used Brooke’s condition to develop an “immortality pill”, would you take it? Why?