Jaw-dropping patient videos and miraculous testimonials ignited a frenzy in China over a technique that aims to improve drainage from the brain. Now it is entering trials worldwide.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 19
Humans Could Live for Centuries | Aubrey de Grey
Aubrey de Grey believes ageing is accumulated damage in a biological machine and argues that medicine may eventually become capable of repairing that damage faster than it appears. He gives humanity a 50/50 chance of reaching what he calls “longevity escape velocity” within the next 12–15 years.
Peter and Aubrey discuss why the body ages, the seven categories of damage that must be repaired, stem-cell and gene therapies, the mouse experiment that could transform the field and why Aubrey believes rejuvenation treatment will ultimately be available to everyone rather than reserved for the wealthy.
They also explore what happens to population, work, fertility, relationships, religion and the meaning of life if people stop getting sick from ageing. Aubrey explains why AI cannot replace the missing biological experiments, why longevity research remains so difficult to fund, and why he is driven by the 110,000 people he says die from ageing-related causes every day.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 — Trailer.
00:00:48 — Can We Cure Ageing?
00:04:24 — The 12–15 Year Prediction.
00:06:17 — The Body Is a Machine.
00:15:21 — How Aubrey Entered Longevity.
00:18:45 — Would You Want to Live Forever?
00:20:15 — Does Longevity Change Risk?
00:21:53 — Will Population Explode?
00:24:22 — Can You Choose Your Age?
00:30:19 — The Seven Types of Ageing Damage.
00:36:54 — What Rejuvenation Treatment Looks Like.
00:45:35 — Will It Be Expensive?
00:48:39 — Who Would Refuse It?
00:53:00 — Why Longevity Research Lacks Funding.
00:56:02 — The Mouse Experiment.
01:00:18 — The Breakthrough That Changes Everything.
01:01:35 — Does Death Give Life Meaning?
01:05:22 — Bryan Johnson and AI
01:12:32 — AlphaFold, AGI and AI Risk.
01:15:13 — Why Funding Is So Hard.
CONTACT PETE:
› Website – https://www.petermccormack.com/
› Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact.
› Email – [email protected].
› Instagram – / mccormack555
› X/Twitter – https://twitter.com/petermccormack/
CONNECT WITH AUBREY DE GREY:
A New Era of Precision Neuromodulation in Psychiatry
Over the past century, advances in neuroimaging and cognitive neuroscience reshaped how we understand psychiatric disorders, expanding the portfolio of evidence-based treatments while routine clinical practice has mostly relied on trial and error. Precision medicine has steadily extended to psychiatry, and today we can target specific cortical or subcortical brain regions within defined pathological circuits to individualize treatments to particular symptoms. Neuromodulation sits at the frontier of this shift in psychiatry, with extensive ongoing research to identify optimal treatment targets and protocols personalized to individuals’ neural circuitry.
Neuromodulation using neuronavigation achieves precise clinical target identification through computer-assisted integration of multimodal brain imaging. Neuron avigated approaches have been central to deep brain stimulation (DBS) for decades. More recent advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) extended this framework from isolated gray matter nuclei toward pathological neural circuits through resting-state functional connectivity analysis and tractography, which enabled the identification of connectomic fingerprints associated with specific symptom clusters, or circuitopathies, a concept particularly relevant to psychiatric disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression.
New findings overturn 100-year-old assumption about common bacteria in the lungs
The human body is teeming with more than 35 trillion bacteria, coexisting in microbiomes inside the gut, mouth, lungs, skin and urogenital tract. While it’s now clear these microbes are associated with health and disease, scientists have only begun to uncover the full scale of their biology and functions.
In a striking example of just how much is still unknown, a new University of Michigan study overturns a 100-year-old assumption about one common bacterial resident of the lungs, Prevotella melaninogenica. The research is published in the Journal of Bacteriology.
The lab led by Ariangela Kozik, Ph.D., assistant professor of internal medicine at U-M Medical School and assistant professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at U-M, is interested in Prevotella because the bacteria are commonly found in the respiratory tract and reportedly associated with all manner of chronic conditions, yet are also found in healthy people. The genus is also widely thought to be an obligate anaerobe, incapable of surviving in the presence of oxygen.
Deep brain stimulation strengthens reward signals after one 20-minute session, study finds
A study from Emory University School of Medicine suggests that a single 20-minute session of noninvasive deep brain stimulation, paired with mindful breathing, may strengthen the brain’s response to reward and reduce anxiety. Changes in reward-related brain activity remained detectable for approximately one week after the session.
3Dprinted devices could streamline the production of drugdelivery microparticles
MIT researchers have demonstrated a low-cost design of specialized electronic nozzles, called triaxial electrospray emitters, that could be used to manufacture time-release drug-delivery particles or self-healing materials efficiently and at scale.
Triaxial electrospray emitters use electricity to precisely dispense three liquids from microscopic nozzles to generate a steady stream with three distinct fluid layers. The liquid forms multilayered droplets, which can solidify into layered microparticles.
For instance, an array of triaxial electrospray emitters can be used to make three-layer drug-delivery nanoparticles. The outer layer might slowly erode in the stomach, revealing a second material that controls the release of a core material, which delivers medicine to a specific area of the intestines.
Curiosity has its own neural signal: Brain separates valuable information from water rewards in mice
Often, humans and other animals seek information that can help them complete tasks and attain desired rewards. In some cases, however, they seek information driven simply by curiosity and a desire to obtain knowledge for its own sake, even if it does not lead to external rewards.
Researchers at Columbia University, Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins University recently created a new experimental paradigm for studying the neural processes associated with curiosity and the desire for knowledge in mice. This paradigm, outlined in a paper in Nature Neuroscience, allowed them to gain new insights into how the brain represents the value of information regardless of physical rewards.
“We wanted to understand the neural basis of our desire for knowledge—why we read books, explore, and have such a strong drive to find things out,” Jennifer J. Bussell, first author of the paper, told Medical Xpress. “Earlier experiments had suggested that the brain responds to information as if it is a reward, to such an extent that even the exact same neurons in the brain’s reward centers respond to predictions of juice and information.”
Cell biochemistry beyond membranes: Condensate physics reveals general rules for chemical responses
Basic biology courses teach that cells contain organelles—such as the nucleus, mitochondria and Golgi apparatus—set apart by lipid membranes to get things done. Recent cell biology research has revealed another organizational principle at work in cells across all orders of biology.
“Proteins and nucleic acids spontaneously organize themselves into blobs called condensates,” said Eric Dufresne, professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences and of materials science and engineering at Cornell Duffield College of Engineering, who is working to understand how condensates work.
Droplet-like condensates form and dissolve as cells need them, bringing selected proteins, RNA and other molecules together to coordinate biochemical reactions, said Takumi Matsuzawa, a postdoctoral researcher in physics. “Their timely formation and dissolution are essential for normal cellular function, and disruptions to this process have been linked to neurodegenerative diseases,” including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
