Summary: A new study on aging reveals a surprising discovery about the connection between protein shape and mitochondrial health.
Source: Buck Institute.
Every cell in the body goes through thousands of chemical reactions each day, and each reaction involves tiny protein molecules folded into precise shapes to perform their functions. Misfolded proteins underlie some of the most common and devastating diseases of aging, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. A major focus of aging research is discovering ways to maintain protein shape and prevent misfolded proteins from wreaking havoc on cellular function.
New photo-oxygenation catalyst targets amyloid structure, recruits brain immune system cells.
A small, light-activated molecule recently tested in mice represents a new approach to eliminating clumps of amyloid protein found in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients. If perfected in humans, the technique could be used as an alternative approach to immunotherapy and used to treat other diseases caused by similar amyloids.
Researchers injected the molecule directly into the brains of live mice with Alzheimer’s disease and then used a specialized probe to shine light into their brains for 30 minutes each day for one week. Chemical analysis of the mouse brain tissue showed that the treatment significantly reduced amyloid protein. Results from additional experiments using human brain samples donated by Alzheimer’s disease patients supported the possibility of future use in humans.
Isaac Newton’s groundbreaking scientific productivity while isolated from the spread of bubonic plague is legendary. University of California San Diego physicists can now claim a stake in the annals of pandemic-driven science.
A team of UC San Diego researchers and colleagues at Purdue University have now simulated the foundation of new types of artificial intelligence computing devices that mimic brain functions, an achievement that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. By combining new supercomputing materials with specialized oxides, the researchers successfully demonstrated the backbone of networks of circuits and devices that mirror the connectivity of neurons and synapses in biologically based neural networks.
The simulations are described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Wageningen is one of a clutch of research institutions globally that hold patents on CRISPR, a technique that enables precise changes to be made to genomes, at specific locations. Other institutions — including the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the University of California, Berkeley, which have some of the largest portfolios of patents on the subject — also provide CRISPR tools and some intellectual property (IP) for free for non-profit use. But universities could do better to facilitate access to CRISPR technologies for research.
Universities hold the majority of CRISPR patents. They are in a strong position to ensure that the technology is widely shared for education and research.
A cancer treatment that uses messenger RNA to launch an immune attack on cancer cells can completely shrink tumours in mice and is now being tested in people.
Messenger RNAs – or mRNAs – are molecules that instruct cells to make proteins. They have risen to fame with the roll out of mRNA covid-19 vaccines.
Dr. Ezcurra received her PhD from the Karolinska Institute in 2011. Her PhD research was a collaborative project between Karolinska and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge, where she studied neural circuits and behavior using C. elegans in the lab of Dr. Bill Schafer.
During her PhD, Dr. Ezcurra identified extra-synaptic mechanisms by which nutritional status modulates nociception, involving neuro-peptidergic and dopaminergic signaling. She went on to do a postdoc working on aging with Dr. David Gems at University College London.
During her postdoc, Dr. Ezcurra developed methods to monitor the development of multiple age-related diseases in-vivo in C. elegans, leading to the discovery of a previously unknown process, Intestinal Biomass Conversion. This mechanism enables the C. elegans intestine to be broken down to produce vast amounts of yolk, resulting in poly-morbidity and mortality in aging nematodes. This work illustrates how aging and age-related diseases can be the result of run-on of wild-type gene function, rather than stochastic molecular damage.
People with rare disorders that cause shortened telomeres—protective caps that sit at the end of chromosomes—may be more likely to have blood cancers such as leukemia or myelodyplastic syndrome. Now, Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists have discovered several “self-correcting” genetic mutations in bone marrow that may protect such patients from these cancers.
In a study published online August 3 2021, in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the researchers also suggest these mutations can serve as biomarkers that may indicate if patients with short telomere syndromes are likely to develop blood cancers.
“These are the most common cancers we see in patients with short telomere syndromes,” says Mary Armanios, M.D., director of the Telomere Center and professor of oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. “We know that at a certain point, the cells of patients with shortened telomeres either become cancerous or stay healthy.”
Summary: Researchers have identified 2,000 genes in humans linked to longevity. The genes are associated with biological mechanisms that drive the prolongation of life in mammals, including DNA repair, coagulation, and immune response.
Source: UPF Barcelona.
What determines the life expectancy of each species? This is a fundamental and highly complex question that has intrigued the field of research throughout history. From the evolutionary point of view, the major cause of these differences between species lies in their ecological adaptations. For example, life expectancy is longer in species adapted to living in trees, underground, or with large body mass, since all these adaptations reduce mortality by predation.
I recently set sail on Sunwater Marine’s Ramblin’ Rose, a 40-foot sailing yacht powered by solar panels and electric propulsion.
While we at Electrek often tend to focus on electric vehicles taking over roads, it’s important to remember that our inevitable abandonment of fossil fuels stems to all modes of transportation, whether it’s by land, air, or even the sea. I recently had the opportunity to set sail on Sunwater Marine’s Ramblin’ Rose, a 40-foot sailing yacht powered by solar panels and electric propulsion. It’s one of the only vessels of its kind on the West Coast.
It was founded by president James Richmond in 2,020 amid the global pandemic. Richmond had a little more free time to search for a boat for blue water cruising to which he could add solar.
