Lifeboat Foundation

A more aggressive and drug-resistant HIV subtype is behind skyrocketing HIV infection rates in the Philippines. Epidemiologist Edsel Salvana tells DW that the new strain is threatening to spark a new epidemic.

But designer babies, micro-pigs and fluorescent carrots get the thumbs-down, Royal Society survey finds.

Ian Sample Science editor.

The idea of placing humans in stasis is one that has been explored in exhaustive detail through science fiction. Simply put it is the ability to quite literally press pause on our bodies and then wake up at an undefined time in the future.

While many (mostly millionaires) have tried and failed to perfect the technology it’s something that the US Military is now taking very seriously.

Its top secret research division known as DARPA has confirmed that it is now launching a Biostasis program where it will try to find a way of slowing the human body to an almost complete standstill.

Continue reading “DARPA’s Human ‘Stasis’ Program Sounds Like Science Fiction But It Could Save Lives” »

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dr-jeanette-gallagher/2018/03/0…sformation

People without hepatitis C did not contract the disease after receiving successful transplants of infected kidneys along with newer antiviral drugs.

Space travel is dangerous for a lot of very obvious reasons — traveling off of Earth on a rocket has its risks, after all — but even when everything goes well it seems that a brief stay in space has the potential to alter a person’s very DNA. That’s the takeaway from a long-term NASA study that used astronaut Scott Kelly and his twin brother Mark as guinea pigs to see how living in space can affect the most basic building blocks of life.

Scott Kelly has spent over 500 days in space overall, but a huge chunk of that came with a single mission which had him stay aboard the International Space Station for 342 days. His brother Mark, who is a retired astronaut, is his identical twin and has the same DNA. This provided a never-before-possible opportunity for NASA to study how long-term space travel affects the human body and the genes that make us who we are. As it turns out, space really does change us, and upon Scott’s return to Earth it was discovered that his DNA has significantly changed.

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While the idea of using an army of mosquitos to administer vaccines has been considered, we would first need to find a vaccine for malaria.

Researchers at Harvard have described a new cancer vaccine approach that uses an injectable biomaterial scaffold to deliver a payload of tumor-specific peptides that stimulate the immune system to respond rapidly to cancer cells.

Abstract

Existing strategies to enhance peptide immunogenicity for cancer vaccination generally require direct peptide alteration, which, beyond practical issues, may impact peptide presentation and result in vaccine variability. Here, we report a simple adsorption approach using polyethyleneimine (PEI) in a mesoporous silica microrod (MSR) vaccine to enhance antigen immunogenicity. The MSR–PEI vaccine significantly enhanced host dendritic cell activation and T-cell response over the existing MSR vaccine and bolus vaccine formulations. Impressively, a single injection of the MSR–PEI vaccine using an E7 peptide completely eradicated large, established TC-1 tumours in about 80% of mice and generated immunological memory. When immunized with a pool of B16F10 or CT26 neoantigens, the MSR–PEI vaccine eradicated established lung metastases, controlled tumour growth and synergized with anti-CTLA4 therapy.