Lifeboat Foundation

A potent anti-cancer therapy has been created using Nobel prize-winning “click chemistry,” where molecules click together like LEGO bricks, in a new study by UCL and Stanford University researchers.

The study, published in Nature Chemistry, opens up new possibilities for how cutting-edge cancer immunotherapies might be built in future.

The research team created an anti-cancer therapy with three components: one targeting the cancer cell, another recruiting a white blood cell called a T cell to attack the cancer cell, and a third knocking out part of the cancer cell’s defenses.

The weaponization of the scientific and technological breakthroughs stemming from human genome research presents a serious global security challenge. Gene-editing pioneer and Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna often tells a story of a nightmare she once had. A colleague asked her to teach someone how her technology works. She went to meet the student and “was shocked to see Adolf Hitler, in the flesh.”

Doudna is not alone in being haunted by the power of science. Famously, having just returned home from Los Alamos in early 1945, John von Neumann awakened in panic. “What we are creating now is a monster whose influence is going to change history, provided there is any history left,” he stammered while straining to speak to his wife. He surmised, however, that “it would be impossible not to see it through, not only for military reasons, but it would also be unethical from the point of view of the scientists not to do what they knew is feasible, no matter what terrible consequences it may have.”

According to biographer Ananyo Bhattacharya, von Neumann saw what was happening in Nazi Germany and the USSR and believed that “the best he could do is allow politicians to make those [ethical and security] decisions: to put his brain in their hands.” Living through a devastating world war, the Manhattan Project polymath “had no trust left in human nature.”

Many diseases can be successfully treated in the simple environment of a cell culture dish, but to successfully treat real people, the drug agent has to take a journey through the infinitely more complex environment within our bodies and arrive, intact, inside the affected cells. This process, called drug delivery, is one of the most significant barriers in medicine.

A collaboration between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, is working to break through some of the drug delivery bottlenecks by designing the most effective lipid nanoparticles (LNPs)—tiny spherical pouches made of fatty molecules that encapsulate therapeutic agents until they dock with cell membranes and release their contents. The first drug to use LNPs was approved in 2018, but the delivery method rose to global prominence with the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID vaccines.

“It’s quite a smart system, because if you just deliver the RNA itself to the human body, the RNA is degraded by nucleases and cannot easily cross the cell membrane due to its size and charge, but the LNPs deliver it safely into the cell,” explained co-lead author Chun-Wan Yen, a senior Principal Scientist in Genentech’s Small Molecule Pharmaceutical Sciences group.

Silicon Valley tech bro Bryan Johnson claims he’s shaved five years off his biological age. Longevity mastermind David Sinclair, Ph.D., says tests show his biological age is a full decade younger than the 53 candles on his birthday cake. Sixty-three-year-old functional medicine doctor Mark Hyman, M.D., say tests clock his biological age at a young 43. But can aging really be cured? Maybe not—but adopting or eschewing certain lifestyle habits to add years to your life.

When it comes to understanding how to reverse aging, there are tests on the market that claim to be able to help you do that. They calculate your ‘biological age’ to see how your body could be aging across various cell-level metrics versus the number of candles on your birthday cake.

But are these tests accurate?

Microscopic materials made of clay, designed by researchers at the University of Missouri, could be key to the future of synthetic materials chemistry. By enabling scientists to produce chemical layers tailor-made to deliver specific tasks based on the goals of the individual researcher, these materials, called nanoclays, can be used in a wide variety of applications, including the medical field or environmental science.

A paper describing this research is published in the journal ACS Applied Engineering Materials.

A fundamental part of the material is its electrically charged surface, said Gary Baker, co-principal investigator on the project and an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry.

Maintenance of mRNA and protein localization in motor neurons is a potential therapeutic avenue for Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), report researchers from The Francis Crick Institute and the University College London (UCL). A new study shows how the extensive changes in mRNA and protein in ALS motor neurons are linked to mutations in an ATPase called VCP. These mutations may contribute to the mislocalization of RNA binding proteins (RBPs) that tend to clump together and the redistribution of the mRNAs they are bound to. Inhibition of VCP partly restored mRNA and protein localization and other ALS phenotypes. These results show how RBP mislocalization and mRNA redistribution in motor neurons are linked to ALS and how VCP inhibition could be used as a treatment.

The study “Nucleocytoplasmic mRNA redistribution accompanies RNA binding protein mislocalization in ALS motor neurons and is restored by VCP ATPase inhibition” was published today in Neuron.

“For the patients I see, it’s devastating that there aren’t yet impactful treatments available for ALS,” said Rickie Patani, PhD, senior group leader of the Human Stem Cells and Neurodegeneration Laboratory at the Crick, professor at UCL, and consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology. “This research represents a shift in our thinking about what causes ALS—it doesn’t involve abnormal movement of just a few proteins, but the abnormal localization of hundreds of proteins and mRNAs. This opens new avenues for research and potential therapies.

I expect this to double over at least 2 maybe 3 times between now and 2030. AND, we here need to back it at every step if we really want indefinite life extension. Time to pick a side is right now.

The arrival of artificial intelligence into healthcare means everyone could one day have a doctor in their pocket, but Google’s chief health officer has urged caution about what AI can do and what its limits should be.

“There’s going to be an opportunity for people to have even better access to services, [and] to great quality services,” Dr Karen DeSalvo told Guardian Australia in an interview last week.

Continue reading “Dr Google? AI could be doctor in the pocket, but company’s health officer urges caution about its limits” »

It’s said the way to one’s heart is through the stomach, but it looks like the way to a healthy brain is by dropping a deuce regularly. According to new research presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Amsterdam this week, chronic constipation appears to be linked to worsening cognitive abilities, likely due to an imbalance of gut bacteria causing inflammation.

While the study has yet to be peer-reviewed, it emphasizes a link between cognition and the microbiome — microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, and fungi living rent-free in and on our bodies — that hasn’t gone unnoticed. There’s still a whole lot we don’t know about the microbiome, but what we do know suggests these microscopic houseguests can be manipulated to improve our own health.

To offset cognitive decline, it could be as simple as a daily probiotic, says Mashael Aljumaah, a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and North Carolina State University. In findings presented Monday at the American Society for Nutrition in Boston, Aljumaah and her colleagues at UNC and Kent State University in Ohio found that for older adults, a daily probiotic containing gut-friendly Lactobacillus rhamnosus helped improve mild cognitive impairment by resetting the imbalance in gut bacteria.

Researchers have transplanted cells capable of forming specialized brain support cells into mice brains and found that they not only competed with and replaced unhealthy cells but aged ones, too. The findings open the door to developing an effective treatment for a range of conditions like multiple sclerosis, ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, autism and schizophrenia.

‘Glial cells’ is an umbrella term for the cells that are a support system to nerve cells (neurons). Progenitor cells are descendants of stem cells that can differentiate into specific cell types, and, in the case of glial cells, human glial progenitor cells (hGPCs) differentiate into subtypes, including astrocytes and oligodendrocytes, specialized for particular functions.

Astrocytes comprise most of our central nervous system cells, providing support and protection for neurons, transporting nutrients and removing waste. Oligodendrocytes lay down and maintain the lipid-rich, insulating wrapping called myelin around some axons, the part of the neuron that connects with another neuron and allows the transmission of nerve impulses.