Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,221

First heart surgery performed using iPS cells

A Japanese group of researchers says it has conducted heart surgery using sheets of heart muscle cells made from iPS cells.

Induced pluripotent stem cells are created from reprogrammed human cells and can develop into various kinds of body tissue.

The Osaka University team, led by Professor Yoshiki Sawa, aims to establish a treatment for patients with serious heart disease by restoring the organ’s function. The team’s surgery involves putting sheets of heart muscle cells derived from iPS in a patient’s heart.

DNA sleuths read the coronavirus genome, tracing its origins

Analyses of the viral genome are already providing clues to the origins of the outbreak and even possible ways to treat the infection, a need that is becoming more urgent by the day: Early on Saturday in China, health officials reported 15 new fatalities in a single day, bringing the death toll to 41. There are now nearly 1,100 confirmed cases there.

Reading the genome (which is made of RNA, not DNA) also allows researchers to monitor how 2019-nCoV is changing and provides a roadmap for developing a diagnostic test and a vaccine.

“The genetics can tell us the true timing of the first cases” and whether they occurred earlier than officials realized, said molecular biologist Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research, an expert on viral genomes. “It can also tell us how the outbreak started — from a single event of a virus jumping from an infected animal to a person or from a lot of animals being infected. And the genetics can tell us what’s sustaining the outbreak — new introductions from animals or human-to-human transmission.”

Coronavirus — A Matter of Life and Death?

The coronavirus currently sweeping across China has all these characteristics. It can pass directly from one human to another. It takes up to 14 days to fully incubate. And, according to Chinese authorities, long before an individual becomes symptomatic, he or she is contagious.

There are also other facts concerning this virus that should give us pause. The only bio lab in China at which work can be done on viruses of this type is located just outside the city of Wuhan – the epicenter of the growing epidemic. The coronavirus is also known to be of interest to Chinese bio-researchers, and, in fact, last year Chinese intelligence personnel were implicated in the theft of coronavirus from a Canadian lab and the transport of the organism to China.

None of that is conclusive. None of that tells us definitively that the virus is manmade or even that humans had any part in its release. The leading theory is that the virus entered the human population from a market in Wuhan where animals known to carry the coronavirus are sold as food. That remains, as of this writing, the most likely explanation for what is now happening.

Going gray isn’t a one-way trip? UAB researcher exploring ways to ‘rejuvenate’ gray hairs

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.

rep melissa harris 550px

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.

Mitochondria Found Independently Living in Blood

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.

Human Body-on-Chip platform enables in vitro prediction of drug behaviors in humans

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.

Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To

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:

“…epigenetic noise causes the same kind of chaos. It is driven in large part by highly disruptive insults to the cell such as broken DNA…And this, according to the Information Theory of Aging is why we age. It’s why our hair grays. It’s why our skin wrinkles. It’s why our joints begin to ache. Moreover, it’s why each one of the hallmarks of aging occurs, from stem cell exhaustion and cellular senescence to mitochondrial dysfunction and rapid telomere shortening.”

Now, I have to admit that I know absolutely nothing about epigenetics. But if it could be this crucial to superlongevity, you better believe I’m going to start learning about epigenetics! And Sinclair does a good job of explaining how epigenetics is crucial in the aging process.

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

Inovio’s stock soars after receiving grant to develop coronavirus vaccine

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.