Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new method of 3D-printing gels and other soft materials. Published in a new paper, it has the potential to create complex structures with nanometer-scale precision. Because many gels are compatible with living cells, the new method could jump-start the production of soft tiny medical devices such as drug delivery systems or flexible electrodes that can be inserted into the human body.

A standard 3D printer makes solid structures by creating sheets of material — typically plastic or rubber — and building them up layer by layer, like a lasagna, until the entire object is created.

Using a 3D printer to fabricate an object made of gel is a “bit more of a delicate cooking process,” said NIST researcher Andrei Kolmakov. In the standard method, the 3D printer chamber is filled with a soup of long-chain polymers — long groups of molecules bonded together — dissolved in water. Then “spices” are added — special molecules that are sensitive to light. When light from the 3D printer activates those special molecules, they stitch together the chains of polymers so that they form a fluffy weblike structure. This scaffolding, still surrounded by liquid water, is the gel.

TODAY (Oct 4th) the USTP is holding a special pre-RAADFest Enlightenment Salon at 7 a.m. PST / 10 am EST with Gabor Kiss, CEO of ENVIENTA, to discuss ways to empower contributors to open-source projects and accelerate development of practical transhumanist technologies.

Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador, interviews Dr. Alexandre Kalache, President of the International Longevity Centre-Brazil (ILC-Brazil).

Continue reading “WHO’s Decade of Healthy Aging: Country Spotlight” »

Researchers in Israel have been able to 3D Print an artificial heart. Within the 2020s decade, we may see working versions implanted in humans.

What do you think about a future where we can 3D Print body organs & parts?

#Iconickelx #Transhumanism #Future

In the coming 2020s, the world of medical science will make some significant breakthroughs. Through brain implants, we will have the capability to restore lost memories.

~ The 2020s will provide us with the computer power to make the first complete human brain simulation. Exponential growth in computation and data will make it possible to form accurate models of every part of the human brain and its 100 billion neurons.

~ The prototype of the human heart was 3D printed in 2019. By the mid- 2020s, customized 3D- printing of major human body organs will become possible. In the coming decades, more and more of the 78 organs in the human body will become printable.

Continue reading “The Road to Human 2.0” »

Every human being is home to trillions of microbes that are collectively known as the microbiota. Recent research into how these microbes affect the immune system may explain why older people are more vulnerable to disease and suggest ways to tackle that vulnerability.

Scientists at The University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, led by Professor Neil Mabbott, discovered that as mice get older they showed a marked decrease in the number of M cells found in the lining of the gut. These are specialised cells that look out for infections and trigger the early stages of the immune response. Fewer M cells means a weaker immune system. At the same time, the researchers found that the older mice had depleted microbiota compared to younger mice. The microbiota were less diverse and certain species known to decrease inflammation of the gut in humans were missing.

One of the key challenges in developing effective, targeted cancer treatments is the heterogeneity of the cancer cells themselves. This variation makes it difficult for the immune system to recognize, respond to and actively fight against tumors. Now, however, new advances in nanotechnology are making it possible to deliver targeted, personalized “vaccines” to treat cancer.

A new study, published on October 2, 2020 in Science Advances, demonstrates the use of charged nanoscale metal-organic frameworks for generating free radicals using X-rays within tumor tissue to kill cancer cells directly. Furthermore, the same frameworks can be used for delivering immune signaling molecules known as PAMPs to activate the immune response against tumor cells. By combining these two approaches into one easily administered “vaccine,” this new technology may provide the key to better local and systemic treatment of difficult-to-treat cancers.

In a collaboration between the Lin Group in the University of Chicago Department of Chemistry and the Weichselbaum Lab at University of Chicago Medicine, the research team combined expertise from inorganic chemistry and cancer biology to tackle the challenging problem of properly targeting and activating an innate immune response against cancer. This work leveraged the unique properties of nanoscale metal-organic frameworks, or nMOFs —nanoscale structures built of repeating units in a lattice formation that are capable of infiltrating tumors.

A new, rare genetic form of dementia has been discovered by a team of Penn Medicine researchers. This discovery also sheds light on a new pathway that leads to protein build up in the brain—which causes this newly discovered disease, as well as related neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease—that could be targeted for new therapies. The study was published today in Science.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by a buildup of proteins, called tau proteins, in certain parts of the brain. Following an examination of human brain tissue samples from a deceased donor with an unknown neurodegenerative disease, researchers discovered a novel mutation in the Valosin-containing protein (VCP) gene in the brain, a buildup of tau proteins in areas that were degenerating, and neurons with empty holes in them, called vacuoles. The team named the newly discovered disease Vacuolar Tauopathy (VT)—a neurodegenerative disease now characterized by the accumulation of neuronal vacuoles and tau protein aggregates.

“Within a cell, you have proteins coming together, and you need a process to also be able to pull them apart, because otherwise everything kind of gets gummed up and doesn’t work. VCP is often involved in those cases where it finds proteins in an aggregate and pulls them apart,” Edward Lee, MD, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “We think that the mutation impairs the proteins’ normal ability to break aggregates apart.”

Researchers at Rockefeller University have just released findings from a new study, done in mice, which identifies a gene that is critical for short-term memory but functions in a part of the brain not traditionally associated with memory. Classical models for short-term memory typically assume that all neuronal activity is contained within the prefrontal cortex (PFC), yet, data from this new study suggests that a G-protein coupled receptor in the thalamus may play a large role. Data from the study was published recently in Cell through an article titled “A Thalamic Orphan Receptor Drives Variability in Short Term Memory.”

Interestingly, in order to discover new genes and brain circuits that are important for short-term memory, the researchers turned to studying genetically diverse mice, rather than inbred mice commonly used in research.

“We needed a population that is diverse enough to be able to answer the question of what genetic differences might account for variation in short-term memory,” explained co-senior study investigator Praveen Sethupathy, PhD, an associate professor of biomedical sciences in Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine and director of the Cornell Center for Vertebrate Genomics.