Lifeboat Foundation

Detection of rare cells in blood and other bodily fluids has numerous important applications including diagnostics, monitoring disease progression and evaluating immune response. For example, detecting and collecting circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in blood can help cancer diagnostics, study their role in the metastatic cascade and predict patient outcomes. However, because each millilitre of whole blood contains billions of blood cells, the rare cells (such as CTCs) that occur at extremely low concentrations (typically lower than 100‑1000 cells per millilitre) are very difficult to detect. Although various solutions have been developed to address this challenge, existing techniques in general are limited by high cost and low throughput.

Researchers at UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering have developed a new cytometry platform to detect rare cells in blood with high throughput and low cost. Published in Light: Science and Applications, this novel cytometry technique, termed magnetically modulated lensless speckle imaging, first uses magnetic bead labelling to enrich the target cells. Then the enriched liquid sample containing magnetic bead-labelled target cells is placed under an alternating magnetic field, which causes the target cells to oscillate laterally at a fixed frequency. At the same time, a laser diode illuminates the sample from above and an image sensor positioned below the sample captures a high-frame-rate lensless video of the time-varying optical pattern generated by the sample. The recorded spatiotemporal pattern contains the information needed to detect the oscillating target cells.

The researchers built a compact and low-cost prototype of this computational lensless cytometer using off-the-shelf image sensors, laser diodes and electromagnets, and used a custom-built translation stage to allow the imager unit to scan liquid sample loaded in a glass tube. The prototype can screen the equivalent of ~1.2 mL of whole blood sample in ~7 min, while costing only ~$750 and weighing ~2.1 kg. Multiple parallel imaging channels can also be easily added to the system to further increase sample throughput.

Israeli researchers discover specific type of white blood cells that can be engineered to attack solid tumors, with fewer side effects than chemotherapy.

This purpose of this video is to GET DR. BILL ANDREWS ON THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE. You can help make this reality in many ways. Please start by joining the Facebook group: GET DR. BILL ANDREWS ON THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Get-Dr-Bill-Andrews-on-The-Joe-R…e_internal

I believe we can get closer to reversing human aging by finding stronger human telomerase activators if Dr. Bill Andrews/Sierra Sciences receives more funding ($50 million USD would probably be enough for Dr. Andrews and his team to discover stronger human telomerase activators within a year).

Continue reading “Get Dr. Bill Andrews on The Joe Rogan Experience” »

What if the future of cancer treatment lies not with stronger drugs and larger doses of radiation that kill cells indiscriminately, but instead harnesses the power of our immune system to destroy cancer cells in our own body? Dr. Michael Jensen shares details of an FDA approved cancer treatment with a 91% cure-rate.

Dr. Michael Jensen is a leader in the field of cancer immunotherapy research. As the founding director of the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Dr. Jensen and his team are pioneering translational research with striking results that just might change the way we think of disease treatment.

Continue reading “Immune to Cancer | Michael Jensen | TEDxStMarksSchool” »

Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University have created a new layered superconducting material with a conducting layer made of bismuth, silver, tin, sulfur and selenium. The conducting layer features four distinct sublayers; by introducing more elements, they were able to achieve unparalleled customizability and a higher “critical temperature” below which superconductivity is observed, a key objective of superconductor research. Their design strategy may be applied to engineer new and improved superconducting materials.

Once an academic curiosity, superconductors are now at the cutting edge of real technological innovations. Superconducting magnets are seen in everyday MRI machines, particle accelerators for medical treatments, not to mention the new Chuo Shinkansen maglev train connecting Tokyo to Nagoya currently being built. Recently, a whole new class of “layered” superconducting structures have been studied, consisting of alternate layers of superconducting and insulating two-dimensional crystalline layers. In particular, the customizability of the system has garnered particular interest in light of its potential to create ultra-efficient thermoelectric devices and a whole new class of “high temperature” superconducting materials.

A team led by Associate Professor Yoshikazu Mizuguchi from Tokyo Metropolitan University recently created a bismuth sulfide based layered superconductor; their work has already revealed novel thermoelectric properties and an elevated “critical temperature” below which superconductivity is observed. Now, working with a team from the University of Yamanashi, they have taken a multi-layered version of the system, where the conducting layer consists of four atomic layers, and begun swapping out small proportions of different atomic species to probe how the material changes.

Existing compound produces pain-relieving effects and relieves anxiety. Past pain research typically has focused upon the spinal cord or the peripheral areas of the nervous system located outside the spinal cord and brain. However, a research team headed by Volker E. Neugebauer, M.D., Ph.D., at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) School of Medicine recently investigated how some mechanisms in the brain contribute to pain. His study, “Amygdala group II mGluRs Mediate the Inhibitory Effects of Systemic Group II mGluR Activation on Behavior and Spinal Neurons in a Rat Model of Arthritis Pain,” was published recently by the journal Neuropharmacology. Mariacristina Mazzitelli, a TTUHSC research assistant and Ph.D. candidate, is the study’s lead author.

“Our group has been interested in understanding pain mechanisms, and our unique area of expertise is really understanding that changes in the brain contribute to the persistence, intensity and other side effects of pain,” Neugebauer said. “It is not just a sensation that let’s you know where it hurts and how intense the pain feels. It also causes anxiety, impairs quality of life and causes depression. We’re studying the brain because all of those things reside there.”

To better understand what pain-related changes may occur in the brain, and how to normalize those changes, Neugebauer’s study applied an arthritis pain model and focused on the amygdala, which are almond-shaped clusters located deep inside each of the brain’s temporal lobes. The amygdala is part of what is known as the limbic brain, a complex arrangement of nerve cells and networks that control basic survival functions, motivations and emotions like fear and play a central role in disorders like anxiety, addiction and pain.

Individuals of the same age may not age at the same rate. Quantitative biomarkers of aging are valuable tools to measure physiological age, assess the extent of ‘healthy aging’, and potentially predict health span and life span for an individual. Given the complex nature of the aging process, the biomarkers of aging are multilayered and multifaceted. Here, we review the phenotypic and molecular biomarkers of aging. Identifying and using biomarkers of aging to improve human health, prevent age-associated diseases, and extend healthy life span are now facilitated by the fast-growing capacity of multilevel cross-sectional and longitudinal data acquisition, storage, and analysis, particularly for data related to general human populations. Combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, reliable panels of biomarkers of aging will have tremendous potential to improve human health in aging societies.

Keywords: physiological age, phenotypic, molecular, age-associated diseases, aging process.

Aging is the time-dependent physiological functional decline that affects most living organisms, which is underpinned by alterations within molecular pathways, and is also the most profound risk factor for many non-communicable diseases. To identify biomarkers of aging would, on one hand, facilitate differentiation of people who are of the same chronological age yet have variant aging rates. Quantitative biomarkers of aging could also define a panel of measurements for ‘healthy aging’ and, even further, predict life span. On the other hand, biomarkers of aging could also assist researchers to narrow their research scope to a specific biological facet in their attempts to explain the biological process behind aging or aging-related diseases. Here, we review the phenotypic and molecular biomarkers of aging. Phenotypic biomarkers can be non-invasive, panoramic, and easy to obtain, whereas molecular biomarkers can reflect some of the molecular mechanisms underlying age status.

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Recently, an 82-year-old woman who suffered from dementia, who couldn’t recognize her own son has miraculously got her memory back after changing her diet.

When his mother’s condition became so severe that for her own safety she had to be kept in the hospital, Mark Hatzer almost came to terms with losing another parent.

Researchers have developed a new treatment method capable of detecting Lyme disease in just 15 minutes.

Caused by Borrelia burgdorferi and transmitted by the bite of infected Ixodes ticks, Lyme disease if left untreated can cause serious neurologic, cardiac, and/or rheumatologic complications.

“Our findings are the first to demonstrate that Lyme disease diagnosis can be carried out in a microfluidic format that can provide rapid quantitative results,” said Sam Sia, professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia Engineering.