The tick-borne illness, which is on the rise, can have chronic side-effects. So why hasn’t more effort been put into a cure?
Category: biotech/medical – Page 2073
At this year’s meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the temperature was scorching and the physics was exceptional.
In this podcast, Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D., and the Chief Science Officer/Co-founder of SENS Research Foundation discusses his fascination with aging and his ongoing efforts to change the way we think about, and treat, age-related conditions. Dr. de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist and the innovative developer of the SENS platform. He is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the American Aging Association. He received a Ph.D. in Biology from the prestigious University of Cambridge. Dr. de Grey states that aging is the greatest medical problem we face as it causes the most suffering. He discusses the various excuses that are given as reason to simply disregard aging as a field in need of greater research, from the standard, ‘everything ages, just accept it,’ to the more philosophical—‘death, by its existence, gives meaning to life,’ and the social excuse—‘treating aging in a new way would only create new problems that could be much worse.’ But according to Dr. de Gray, not a single excuse holds up, all fall to the slightest scrutiny when really considered. Dr. de Grey explains that in order to design and implement therapies that will prevent the health problems of an aging population, we need to learn from what has already been proven and acknowledged in the past. SENS Research Foundation seeks to develop and promote access to innovative new therapies that can cure or possibly even prevent the diseases and difficult, troubling disabilities of aging by repairing built-up damage in our bodies. Wrapping up, Dr. de Grey explains cell therapy and damage, loss of cells, and the processes needed to bring about the repair. And the doctor goes into detail regarding the injection of stem cells to repair the damage, replace lost cells, etc.
Urolithin A, a metabolite of biomolecules found in pomegranates and other fruits, could help slow certain aging processes. EPFL spin-off Amazentis, in conjunction with EPFL and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, has published a paper Metabolism outlining the results of their clinical trial.
It is a fact of life that skeletal muscles begin to lose strength and mass once a person reaches the age of 50. A recent clinical trial involving two EPFL entities — spin-off Amazentis and the Laboratory of Integrative Systems Physiology (LISP) — showed that urolithin A, a compound derived from biomolecules found in fruits such as pomegranates, could slow down this process by improving the functioning of mitochondria — the cells’ powerhouses. A joint paper presenting the results of the trial also demonstrates that ingesting the compound poses no risk to human health.
Slowing mitochondrial aging.
Many people are using DNA testing to pass brick walls in their family trees. When you’ve reached a dead end, DNA testing may help you research further.
Liz Parrish, BioViva Sciences Inc CEO, chats with James Strole, Director of the Coalition for Radical Life Extension, about what she’s bringing to RAADfest 2019: gene therapies as regenerative treatments on human patients.
Hear what she has to share, and meet her at RAADfest 2019, October 3–6, Las Vegas, NV.
For more info and to register: http://www.raadfest.com/
Hallucinations are spooky and, fortunately, fairly rare. But, a new study suggests, the real question isn’t so much why some people occasionally experience them. It’s why all of us aren’t hallucinating all the time.
In the study, Stanford University School of Medicine neuroscientists stimulated nerve cells in the visual cortex of mice to induce an illusory image in the animals’ minds. The scientists needed to stimulate a surprisingly small number of nerve cells, or neurons, in order to generate the perception, which caused the mice to behave in a particular way.
“Back in 2012, we had described the ability to control the activity of individually selected neurons in an awake, alert animal,” said Karl Deisseroth, MD, Ph.D., professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. “Now, for the first time, we’ve been able to advance this capability to control multiple individually specified cells at once, and make an animal perceive something specific that in fact is not really there—and behave accordingly.”
https://www.prweb.com/releases/regenerage_international_iime…449142.htm
In a recent study, a group of researchers from Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Feinberg School of Medicine, and Tel Aviv University examined astrocytes in mice and found that these cells exhibited a senescent phenotype that led to neurodegeneration and neurotoxicity [1].
Age-dependent increase in senescent astrocytes adjacent to Aβ plaques
Cellular senescence, discovered in 1961 by Leonard Hayflick and Paul Moorhead, is a state in which cells no longer perform their functions, instead emitting harmful chemicals that turn other cells senescent… These cells are caused primarily by telomere shortening and DNA damage, they are known to contribute to many diseases, and this is not the first study that links them to neurodegeneration.
The rules about what makes a good magnet may not be as rigid as scientists thought. Using a mixture containing magnetic nanoparticles, researchers have now created liquid droplets that behave like tiny bar magnets.
Magnets that generate persistent magnetic fields typically are composed of solids like iron, where the magnetic poles of densely packed atoms are all locked in the same direction (SN: 2/17/18, p. 18). While some liquids containing magnetic particles can become magnetized when placed in a magnetic field, the magnetic orientations of those free-floating particles tend to get jumbled when the field goes away — causing the liquid to lose its magnetism.
Now, adding certain polymers to their recipe has allowed researchers to concoct permanently magnetized liquid droplets. These tiny, moldable magnets, described in the July 19 Science, could be used to build soft robots or capsules that can be magnetically steered through the body to deliver drugs to specific cells.