Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,542

Petr Sramek: Now is the right time to invest in longevity

The last few years have exceeded all expectations in terms of investment activity in longevity, but much more is needed to push the field forward. With more than 40 investments in the longevity field over the past three years, LongevityTech.fund is one of the world’s most active longevity investment funds. The fund’s wide-ranging investment portfolio includes companies like BrainKey, Gerostate Alpha and Occuity.

LongevityTech.fund is now accepting new investors for its second fund, with a target fund size of $50 million up to a maximum of $100 million USD.

Longevity. Technology: LongevityTech.fund has built an impressive company portfolio that has seen no failures to date, with one IPO (longevity biotech Genflow Biosciences) and one company (longevity risk management firm Vesttoo) recently becoming the fund’s first unicorn (valued at more than $1 billion). To learn more about his views on the longevity market, we spoke to serial entrepreneur and investor Petr Sramek, LongevityTech.fund’s co-founder and managing partner.

Care costs more in consolidated health systems, reveals new research

Health care integration has long been touted as a panacea for reining in health care costs and boosting quality of care.

But integrated health systems appear to be failing on both fronts, according to the results of a new nationwide study led by researchers at Harvard and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Instead, the analysis finds marginally better care at significantly higher costs for patients seen in health systems, compared to those at independent practices or hospitals.

Cancer cells may shrink or super-size to survive

Cancer cells can shrink or super-size themselves to survive drug treatment or other challenges within their environment, researchers have discovered.

Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, combined biochemical profiling technologies with to reveal how lead to differences in the size of cancer cells—and how these changes could be exploited by new treatments.

The researchers believe smaller cells could be more vulnerable to DNA-damaging agents like chemotherapy combined with targeted drugs, while larger cancer cells might respond better to immunotherapy.

Hypertension Drug Shown to Extend Lifespan And Slow Aging in Animals

The hypertension drug rilmenidine has been shown to slow down aging in worms, an effect that in humans could hypothetically help us live longer and keep us healthier in our latter years.

Rilmenidine was picked for this latest study because past research has shown it mimics the effects of caloric restriction on a cellular level. Reducing available energy while maintaining nutrition within the body has been shown to extend lifespans in several animal models.

Whether this translates to human biology, or is a potential risk to our health, is a topic of ongoing debate. Finding ways to achieve the same benefits without the costs of extreme calorie cutting could lead to new ways to improve health in old age.

Neuroimaging study offers new insight into brain activity patterns linked to PTSD

A new neuroimaging study showed that people suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) exhibited increased activation in the amygdala region of the brain when shown surprised and neutral facial expressions. The same phenomenon was observed in identical twins of these individuals who did not suffer from PTSD.

The study, which was published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, sheds new light on the neural mechanisms underlying the development of PTSD.

PTSD is a condition that develops in approximately 20% of individuals exposed to psychological trauma in their lifetime. It is defined by wide clusters of symptoms that include intrusive memories, negative alterations in mood, heightened levels of arousal, and other symptoms. Currently, there are many treatment options available for PTSD; however, for some patients, the treatments offered do not provide clinical relief.

Twelve-hour rhythms in transcript expression within the human dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are altered in schizophrenia

Twelve-hour (12 h) ultradian rhythms are a well-known phenomenon in coastal marine organisms. While 12 h cycles are observed in human behavior and physiology, no study has measured 12 h rhythms in the human brain. Here, we identify 12 h rhythms in transcripts that either peak at sleep/wake transitions (approximately 9 AM/PM) or static times (approximately 3 PM/AM) in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region involved in cognition. Subjects with schizophrenia (SZ) lose 12 h rhythms in genes associated with the unfolded protein response and neuronal structural maintenance. Moreover, genes involved in mitochondrial function and protein translation, which normally peak at sleep/wake transitions, peak instead at static times in SZ, suggesting suboptimal timing of these essential processes.

How the brain finds meaning in metaphor

You can grasp a hand. You can also grasp a concept. One is literal. One is metaphorical. Our brains know the difference, but would we be able to understand the latter without the former?

Previous studies have suggested that our understanding of metaphors may be rooted in our bodily experience. Some functional MRI, o fMRI, brain imaging studies have indicated, for example, that when you hear a metaphor such as “she had a rough day,” regions of the brain associated with tactile experience are activated. If you hear, “he’s so sweet,” areas associated with taste are activated. And when you hear action verbs used in a metaphorical context, like “grasp a concept,” regions involved in motor perception and planning are activated.

A study by University of Arizona researcher Vicky Lai, published in the journal Brain Research, builds on this research by looking at when, exactly, different regions of the brain are activated in metaphor comprehension and what that tells us about the way we understand .

Single drop of blood can be used to measure thousands of molecules

Researchers at Stanford Medicine have shown they can measure thousands of molecules — some of which are signals of health — from a single drop of blood.

The new approach combines a microsampling device — a tool used to self-administer a finger prick — with “multi-omics” technologies, which simultaneously analyze a vast array of proteins, fats, by-products of metabolism and inflammatory markers.

“Even more importantly, we’ve shown you can collect the blood drop at home and mail it into the lab,” said Michael Snyder, PhD, director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine and senior author on the research, which was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering on Jan. 19.

Rapid identification of microorganisms from positive blood cultures

Year 2014 Essentially this could scan blood very quickly compared to older outdated methods with mass spectrometry.

Rapid identification of the causative microorganism is important for appropriate antimicrobial therapy of bloodstream infections. Bacteria from positive blood culture (BC) bottles are not readily available for identification by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization—time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). Lysis and centrifugation procedures suggested for direct MALDI-TOF MS from positive BCs without previous culture are associated with additional hands-on processing time and costs. Here, we describe an alternative approach applying MALDI-TOF MS from bacterial cultures incubated very briefly on solid medium. After plating of positive BC broth on Columbia blood agar (n = 165), MALDI-TOF MS was performed after 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12 and (for control) 24 h of incubation until reliable identification to the species level was achieved (score ≥2.0). Mean incubation time needed to achieve species-level identification was 5.9 and 2.0 h for Gram-positive aerobic cocci (GPC, n = 86) and Gram-negative aerobic rods (GNR, n = 42), respectively. Short agar cultures with incubation times ≤2, ≤4, ≤6, ≤8 and ≤12 h yielded species identification in 1.2%, 18.6%, 64.0%, 96.5%, 98.8% of GPC, and in 76.2%, 95.2%, 97.6%, 97.6%, 97.6% of GNR, respectively. Control species identification at 24 h was achieved in 100% of GPC and 97.6% of GNR. Ethanol/formic acid protein extraction performed for an additional 34 GPC isolates cultivated from positive BCs showed further reduction in time to species identification (3.1 h). MALDI-TOF MS using biomass subsequent to very short-term incubation on solid medium allows very early and reliable bacterial identification from positive BCs without additional time and cost expenditure.

/* */