Lifeboat Foundation

A look at the tech modifying and enhancing the human body and possibly leading us to a cyborg future.

Within days of each other back in 1998, two teams published the results of the first real-world quantum computations. But the first quantum computers weren’t computers at all. They were biochemistry equipment, relying on the same science as MRI machines.

You might think of quantum computing as a hyped-up race between computer companies to build a powerful processing device that will make more lifelike AI, revolutionize medicine, and crack the encryption that protects our data. And indeed, the prototype quantum computers of the late 1990s indirectly led to the quantum computers built by Google and IBM. But that’s not how it all began—it started with physicists tinkering with mathematics and biochemistry equipment for curiosity’s sake.

The growing understanding of the link between the gut and brain inflammation is perhaps one of the most exciting new avenues in modern medical research. An incredible new study from researchers at the University of Toronto and UC San Francisco has provided a novel insight into the gut-brain connection, revealing the intestine may be the source of immune cells found to reduce brain inflammation in multiple sclerosis (MS) sufferers.

Brain stimulation, also known as neural modulation, is emerging as a promising treatment for a wide range of diseases from depression to chronic pain to epilepsy.

Popular spit-in-a-tube genetics-testing companies like Ancestry and 23andMe can — and frequently do — sell your data to drugmakers. But on Wednesday, one of those partnerships became much more explicit, when the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline announced it was acquiring a $300 million stake in 23andMe.

As part of a four-year deal between the two companies, GlaxoSmithKline will comb 23andMe’s genetic data to look for new drugs to develop, also referred to as drug targets. It will also use the genetic data to inform how patients are selected for clinical trials.

If that news has you thinking about how your own genetic material is being used for research, know that though the DNA you submit to these services is ostensibly anonymized, leaks can happen, and privacy advocates say that such incidents could allow your data to find its way elsewhere, perhaps without your knowledge.

Continue reading “DNA-testing company 23andMe has signed a $300 million deal with a drug giant. Here’s how to delete your data if that freaks you out” »

In this interview, Dr. Leonid Peshkin offers insights on aging, the pitfalls of excessive optimism, and the role of machine learning in studying age-related disease.

Determined but not complacent, grounded but hopeful, Dr. Leonid Peshkin is one of the scientists working on understanding aging so that it may one day be treated like we treat any other ailment.

As he revealed in an interview with the Boston Globe in mid-2018, the idea of having to lose oneself and one’s loved ones to aging never made any sense to him, and ever since he was a child, he has been preoccupied with aging and the fear that it might take away his father, who was almost 60 when Leon was 10 and, sadly, passed away in July 2018 at the age of 96.

Continue reading “An Interview with Dr. Leonid Peshkin” »

We had no shortage of blood pressure medication recalls in 2018, with multiple companies issuing warnings over drug impurities that could cause cancer. It looks like that trend will continue in 2019 as yet another company has issued a recall of blood pressure tablets after detecting an impurity that may be cancer-causing.

This time around it’s Aurobindo Pharma USA Inc, which is recalling prescriptions of the drug Valsartan, you may remember, has been the subject of recalls due to such impurities in the past. The drug is sold by several manufacturers, and in July of 2018 almost a half-dozen companies were forced to recall their products due to the discovery of human carcinogens in the tablets.

A clinical trial is launching in the UK to test a new Breath Biopsy technology with the goal of finding molecular biomarkers in breath samples that can be used to diagnose a variety of different cancers.

Drive an hour north of Google’s headquarters up to Oyster Point, south San Francisco, and you will find the office of Calico Labs. The steel and glass building has none of the showmanship of its sister company, with its colourful, attention-grabbing Googleplex campus.

Its name is an acronym for “California Life Company” but its lifeless exterior makes it easy to imagine it being named after another Calico – an abandoned mining town further down the Pacific Coast. The company, a division of Google’s parent company Alphabet, is now five years old, but its operations remain highly secretive.