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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1907

Grey hair seems to be driven by stem cell exhaustion, one of the suggested reasons we age. One researcher believes we can turn back the clock on greying hair.

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Melissa Harris’s research points to a new paradigm for hair graying. “We thought that once you go gray the stem cells are all lost — there’s no going back,” Harris said. “But presumably they can be reactivated.”

Molecular biology is not usually the kind of science you can do with the naked eye. Sure enough, Melissa Harris, Ph.D., runs a lab that leans into CRISPR gene-editing tools, single-cell sequencing studies and network-analysis algorithms. But all she needs is a glance to diagnose the state of your melanocyte stem cells.

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The mitochondria are well known as being the powerhouses of the cell, as they convert nutrients into the energy that our cells need in order to function and remain alive. Until recently, it was believed that they remain within our cells all their lives, but a new discovery by researchers at the Montpellier Cancer Research Institute has turned our understanding on its head.

Introducing the mitochondria

Mitochondria, which are often called the powerhouses of cells, act like miniature factories, converting the food we eat into usable energy in the form of a chemical called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP provides energy to fuel a myriad of cellular processes, such as muscle contraction, nerve impulse propagation, and protein synthesis. ATP is common to all forms of life and is often referred to as the “molecular unit of currency” of intracellular energy transfer.

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Drug development is an extremely arduous and costly process, and failure rates in clinical trials that test new drugs for their safety and efficacy in humans remain very high. According to current estimates, only 13.8% of all tested drugs demonstrate ultimate clinical success and obtain approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There are also increasing ethical concerns relating to the use of animal studies. As a result, there has been a world-wide search to find replacements for animal models.

To help address this bottleneck in drug development, Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., and his team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, developed the first human “Organ-on-a-Chip” (Organ Chip) model of the lung that recapitulates human organ level physiology and pathophysiology with high fidelity, which was reported in Science in 2010. Organ Chips are microfluidic culture devices composed of a clear flexible polymer the size of a computer memory stick, which contains two parallel hollow channels that are separated by a porous membrane. Organ-specific cells are cultured on one side of the membrane in one of the channels, and vascular endothelial cells recapitulating a blood vessel line the other, while each channel is independently perfused with cell type-specific medium.

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If you are interested in superlongevity, I have a spectacular book for you: Lifespan — Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To, by David Sinclair PhD.

Sinclair has written a book about all the various ways in which humans can extend their lifespan and their healthspan.

One of the best aspects of this book is that Sinclair has a way of writing that is clear and insightful. It is so rare for me to read a book about scientific experiments in which it is easy to follow the methodology, but it is unique to also have an explanation of the application of the results that is crystal clear. Sinclair does both simply and easily.

Sinclair writes about all of the avenues that I’ve heard of for life extension. Metformin. NAD+. NMN. NR. Diet. Exercise. Resveratrol. Senolytics.

However, the most gripping aspect of this book is Sinclair’s Information Theory of Aging. Here is one excerpt from the book:

Continue reading “Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To” | >

The Pennsylvania-based biotechnology company said early Thursday that it was awarded a grant of up to $9 million by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to develop a vaccine for the new strain of coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, which originated in Wuhan, China, and has killed no less than 17 people.

Kim said after the DNA sequence of the new coronavirus strain was made publicly available on Jan. 11, Inovio was able to design and construct a potential vaccine in “a matter of hours,” and the animal-testing process has already begun.

As the coronavirus out of China spreads and gets deadlierof health care companies that announce plans to take part in finding a vaccine, or identifying patients with the new strain, have rallied sharply in very active trading.

On Thursday, among the bigger coronavirus gainers was Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s stock INO +10.42%, which ran up 12% to the highest close since May 9. Trading volume swelled to 12.3 million shares, compared with the full-day average over the past 30 days of about 1.4 million shares, according to FactSet.

Continue reading “Inovio’s stock soars after receiving grant to develop coronavirus vaccine” | >

The first person diagnosed with the Wuhan coronavirus in the United States is being treated by a few medical workers and a robot.

The robot, equipped with a stethoscope, is helping doctors take the man’s vitals and communicate with him through a large screen, said Dr. George Diaz, chief of the infectious disease division at the Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington.

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An #Israeli startup is hoping to help stop the spread of the deadly #coronavirus by shipping meters of anti-pathogen fabric to produce face masks or other protective clothing to #China.

“We see an epidemic,” said Liat Goldhammer-Steinberg, CTO of Sonovia Ltd., an Israeli company whose technology is based on a lab scale sonochemical process that was developed at Bar-Ilan University. “We have the ability to help prevent the virus from spreading.”

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From January 23

Gilead Sciences Inc said on Thursday it was assessing whether its experimental Ebola treatment could be used against the new coronavirus that has sickened hundreds of people in China and led to at least 18 deaths. “Gilead is in active discussions with researchers and clinicians in the United States and China regarding the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus outbreak and the potential use of remdesivir as an investigational treatment,” a company spokesman said in an emailed statement.

(Reuters) — Gilead Sciences Inc said on Thursday it was assessing whether its experimental Ebola treatment could be used against the new coronavirus that has sickened hundreds of people in China and led to at least 18 deaths.

“Gilead is in active discussions with researchers and clinicians in the United States and China regarding the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus outbreak and the potential use of remdesivir as an investigational treatment,” a company spokesman said in an emailed statement.

Continue reading “Gilead assessing potential use of Ebola drug as China virus treatment” | >