Can Brooke Greenberg help scientists unlock the secrets to the fountain of youth? Brooke was born in January of 1993 and is a 17 year-old girl from Reisterstown, Maryland, who has remained similar to a toddler in every way, both physically and mentally.
Her parents have always cared for her the same way as they did when she was a toddler and though once considered what is dubbed a “medical oddity” in an AP story, scientists now want to see what they can learn from Brooke.
“We think that Brooke’s condition presents us with a unique opportunity to understand the process of ageing,” said Richard Walker, a professor at the University of South Florida School of Medicine, who is leading the research team, reports the Times Online.
“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.
See photos from the UK Times online.
“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.”
A wiki entry reveals Brooke “is about 30 inches tall, weighs about 16 pounds and has an estimated mental age of 9 months to 1 year. Brooke’s doctors have termed her condition Syndrome X.”
According to Fox News, Howard Greenberg, Brooke’s father, said he wanted the genome research carried out in the hope it might help others.