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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,121

Longevity biotech: ‘This is still just the beginning’

Powered by data produced by its AI-driven discovery platform, clinical-stage biotech BioAge Labs is rapidly developing a pipeline of therapies to extend healthy lifespan by targeting the molecular causes of aging. Having raised more than $120 million in funding, and with multiple clinical trials already under its belt, the company is focused on building a broad pipeline of potential longevity therapies in three main areas: muscle, immune, and brain aging.

Longevity. Technology: There are few companies in the longevity biotech field that appear to be executing on their vision as quickly and consistently as BioAge. When the company wowed the sector with a $90 million funding round in 2020, talk of multiple imminent clinical trials may have sounded optimistic to some, but BioAge has delivered on its promise time and again. Beyond the trials already underway, the company’s much-vaunted AI discovery platform also appears to be churning out the data, this year spawning a new programme exploring the potential of NLRP3 inhibitors in brain aging. To learn more, we caught up with BioAge co-founder and CEO Kristen Fortney.

Looking back at 2022, Fortney says it has been “immensely gratifying” to see so many new companies and investors coming into the longevity field.

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Targeting the mitochondria-proteostasis connection in ageing and disease | Dr Vincenzo Sorrentino

In this #webinar, Dr Vincenzo Sorrentino from the Department of Biochemistry and Healthy Longevity Translational Research Programme at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, shared about his research on the relationship between metabolism, nutrition and proteostasis and their impact on health and ageing, and engaged in discussion about the role of mitochondrial proteostasis in ageing and related diseases.

Register for upcoming #HealthyLongevity #webinar sessions at https://nus-sg.zoom.us/webinar/register/7916395807744/WN__sypkX6ZSomc7cGAkK3LbA

#NUSMedicine #webinarseries.

References:
Closing video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sycgL3Qg_Ak.

Disclaimer: The opinions and advice expressed in this webinar are those of the speakers and do not represent the views and opinions of the organizers and National University of Singapore or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. The information provided in this webinar is for general information purposes only as part of a general discussion on public health. The information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnoses or treatment; and cannot be relied on in place of consultation with your licensed healthcare provider. All Rights Reserved.

All of the proceedings of this webinar, including the presentation of scientific papers, are intended for limited publication only, and all property rights in the material presented, including common-law copyright, are expressly reserved to the speaker or NUS. No statement or presentation made is to be regarded as dedicated to the public domain.

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Puzzling Biochemists for Decades: Reconstruction of Two-Billion-Year-Old Enzyme Solves a Long-Standing Mystery

The research team reconstructed an ancestral enzyme by searching databases for corresponding modern enzymes, using the obtained sequences to calculate the original sequence, and introducing the corresponding gene sequence into lab bacteria to produce the desired protein. The enzyme was then studied in detail and compared to modern enzymes.

The research team, led by Professors Mario Mörl and Sonja Prohaska, focused on enzymes called tRNA nucleotidyltransferases, which attach three nucleotide building blocks in the sequence C-C-A to small RNAs (transfer RNAs) in cells. These RNAs are subsequently used to supply amino acids.

<div class=””> <div class=””><br />Amino acids are a set of organic compounds used to build proteins. There are about 500 naturally occurring known amino acids, though only 20 appear in the genetic code. Proteins consist of one or more chains of amino acids called polypeptides. The sequence of the amino acid chain causes the polypeptide to fold into a shape that is biologically active. The amino acid sequences of proteins are encoded in the genes. Nine proteinogenic amino acids are called “essential” for humans because they cannot be produced from other compounds by the human body and so must be taken in as food.<br /></div> </div>

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Marine Disaster: Ships May Be Fueling a Coral-Killing Epidemic

According to a recent study conducted by scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, ships may be contributing to the spread of a deadly coral disease called stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) throughout Florida and the Caribbean.

This disease, which was first detected near Miami in 2014, has now impacted coral reefs in Jamaica, St. Maarten, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Belize, among other locations. The findings of this study may help researchers to develop testing and treatment methods that can reduce the risk of further disease transmission.

Researchers suggest that transport through ship hulls, where the vessel takes on ballast water in one region to keep it stable and releases it at a different port, may have contributed to disease spread.

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Microsoft Unveils VALL-E, A Voice DALL-E

VALL-E can generate various outputs with the same input text while maintaining the speaker’s emotion and the acoustical prompt. VALL-E can synthesise natural speech with high speaker accuracy by prompting in the zero-shot scenario. According to evaluation results, VALL-E performs much better on LibriSpeech and VCTK than the most advanced zero-shot TTS system. VALL-E even achieved new state-of-the-art zero-shot TTS results on LibriSpeech and VCTK.

It is interesting to note that people who have lost their voice can ‘talk’ again through this text-to-speech method if they have previous voice recordings of themselves. Two years ago, a Stanford University Professor, Maneesh Agarwala, also told AIM that they were working on something similar, where they had planned to record a patient’s voice before the surgery and then use that pre-surgery recording to convert their electrolarynx voice back into their pre-surgery voice.

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David Sacks: The tech reset has only just begun

UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers meets PayPal Co founder David Sacks.

Read the accompanying article:
https://unherd.com/thepost/david-sacks-the-tech-purge/

Follow UnHerd on social media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/unherd.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unherd/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unherd/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@unherdtv.

// TIMECODES //

00:00 — 01:18 — Introduction.
01:18 — 05:51 — What’s the mood at Twitter HQ?
05:51 — 12:21 — How many people do you need to keep the lights on in Silicon Valley?
12:21 — 17:03 — What’s going on in the Oil and Gas industry?
17:03 — 21:16 — ‘The Musk era’
21:16 — 28:18 — What’s going on with the vaccine debate?
28:18 — 31:20 — What will happen to the world of finance?
31:20 — 39:05 — When will people leave?
39:05 — 42:36 — Who will be Twitter’s next CEO?
42:36 — Concluding thoughts.

#UnHerd #DavidSacks

Continue reading “David Sacks: The tech reset has only just begun” | >

The future of Ageing with Aubrey De Grey

Interesting interview about the future of Ageing with leading expert with Aubrey De Grey.

This week we interview the phenomenal Aubrey De Grey, the world’s foremost authority on longevity and developing strategies to slow or eliminate aging altogether. The author of The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging (1999) and Ending Aging (2007), De Grey is probably best known for the concept of Longevity Escape Velocity, a view that soon medical technology will enable human beings to prevent age-related deterioration, and eventually eliminated aging entirely.

The future of Ageing with Aubrey De Grey.

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New Study Uncovers Potential Target for Stopping 90% of Cancer Deaths

An international research team has discovered a potential new target for a drug that could prevent the deadly metastases responsible for 90% of cancer deaths.

According to a study published in Nature, an international team of researchers has identified a mechanism that allows cancer cells to spread throughout the body. They found that cancer cells move faster when they are surrounded by thicker fluids, a change that occurs when lymph drainage is disrupted by a primary tumor.

These findings provide a potential new target for stopping metastasis, which is responsible for 90% of cancer deaths.

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Breakthrough research finds new targets to help fight the costliest disease in the world

Sepsis affects 750,000 people in the U.S. and nearly 50 million people globally.

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition arising from the body’s overreactive response against an infection, leading it to injure its own tissues and organs. The first known reference to “sepsis” dates back more than 2,700 years, when the Greek poet Homer used it as a derivative of the word “sepo,” meaning “I rot.”

Despite dramatic improvements in understanding the immunological mechanisms behind sepsis, it still remains a major medical concern, affecting 750,000 people in the U.S. and nearly 50 million people globally each year.

Dr_Microbe/Stock.

We are researchers who study how certain types of bacteria interact with cells during infections. We wanted to understand exactly how an overreactive immune response can result in detrimental and even lethal effects like sepsis. In our newly published research, we discovered the cells and molecules that potentially trigger death from sepsis.

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