The APOE gene, or the “forgetting gene,” has been proven to influence Alzheimer’s risk. So a team of scientists is exploring the effect of gene therapy on people with the riskiest version of the gene.
If it works, the pay-off could be huge.
Gene therapy involves transplanting specific genetic material into human cells in order to correct genetic problems, and is typically attempted on diseases with a singular cause. Alzheimer’s doesn’t seem to have one singular cause — but since the risk of developing it is so strongly associated with the APOE gene, it’s certainly worth a try.
The state of the immune system is an important determinant of aging. With age, immune function both declines in effectiveness and becomes inflammatory. Chronic inflammation accelerates the progression of all of the common age-related diseases. It disrupts tissue maintenance and regeneration, to pick one of many examples. It is likely that a sizable component of variation in aging arises from the differences between individuals in the degree to which the immune system has become damaged and dysfunctional.
Some of this immune aging is a matter of the burden of exposure to more rather than fewer pathogens over a lifetime: persistent infections in particular, such as cytomegalovirus and other herpesviruses, appear to drive immune aging. Some immune aging stems from the atrophy of the thymus, the organ responsible for maturation of T cells. A lesser volume of active thymic tissue means fewer new T cells to take up an effective defense of the body. Some immune aging is due to failure of barriers in the gut, allowing gut bacteria to trigger inflammatory activity. Some immune aging arises from cellular senescence among immune cells, turning them into harmful centers of inflammatory signaling. All of these issues have potential solutions, but, as in all matters related to aging, far too little funding and attention are given to the relevant development programs.
Artificial intelligence (AI) aims to mimic human cognitive functions. It is bringing a paradigm shift to healthcare, powered by increasing availability of healthcare data and rapid progress of analytics techniques. We survey the current status of AI applications in healthcare and discuss its future. AI can be applied to various types of healthcare data (structured and unstructured). Popular AI techniques include machine learning methods for structured data, such as the classical support vector machine and neural network, and the modern deep learning, as well as natural language processing for unstructured data. Major disease areas that use AI tools include cancer, neurology and cardiology. We then review in more details the AI applications in stroke, in the three major areas of early detection and diagnosis, treatment, as well as outcome prediction and prognosis evaluation. We conclude with discussion about pioneer AI systems, such as IBM Watson, and hurdles for real-life deployment of AI.
The only patients to have taken the new drug so far are lab mice. But even when the mice had been exposed to lethal levels of the flu, 100 percent of the ones treated with the new treatment survived.
Promisingly, according to NPR, the new treatment was also effective at treating human lung cells grown in the lab — potentially paving the way to human trials.
“It’s a really interesting study,” Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who wasn’t involved with the research, told NPR. “We need more drugs in the fight against flu, and this approach could provide them.”
Dr. Alan Green’s patients travel from around the country to his tiny practice in Queens, N.Y., lured by the prospect of longer lives.
Over the past two years, more than 200 patients have flocked to see Green after learning that two drugs he prescribes could possibly stave off aging. One 95-year-old was so intent on keeping her appointment that she asked her son to drive her from Maryland after a snowstorm had closed the schools.
Green is among a small but growing number of doctors who prescribe drugs “off-label” for their possible anti-aging effects. Metformin is typically prescribed for diabetes, and rapamycin prevents organ rejection after a transplant, but doctors can prescribe drugs off-label for other purposes—in this case, for “aging.”
Each eukaryotic chromosome has a loop at its end that is known as a telomere. This loop is composed of highly repeated DNA sequences and specialized binding proteins that protect the end the chromosome. The loss of one or more telomeres can lead to senescence or anueploidy, so cells must carefully r…
Leading transhumanists from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives provide concise, powerful statements as to why they are transhuman. The Transhuman Era has arrived; some of us are aware of this already, whereas others are transhuman but do not know it yet. The #IAmTranshuman campaign helps illustrate how emerging technologies and the accompanying shifts in thinking are already transforming everyday life.
This video was compiled and formatted by Tom Ross, the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party’s Director of Media Production: http://tomross.com/
The following transhumanists are featured, in order of appearance:
- B.J. Murphy, Director of Social Media, U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party. - Ira Pastor, Regeneration Advisor, U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party. - Tom Ross, Director of Media Production, U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party. - José Luis Cordeiro, Technology Advisor and Ambassador to Spain, U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party. - Charlie Kam, Director of Networking, California Transhumanist Party. - Bill Andrews, Biotechnology Advisor, U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party. - Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party.
You can participate in the #IAmTranshuman campaign by submitting still images or video recordings of one minute or less (15 seconds or less for Instagram stories, one minute or less for Instagram-compatible videos). Use the hashtag #IAmTranshuman, and let us know if you would like your video included in a subsequent compilation!
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Ernest Quintana’s family knew he was dying of chronic lung disease when he was taken by ambulance to a hospital, unable to breathe.
But they were devastated when a robot machine rolled into his room in the intensive care unit that night and a doctor told the 78-year-old patient by video call he would likely die within days.
“If you’re coming to tell us normal news, that’s fine, but if you’re coming to tell us there’s no lung left and we want to put you on a morphine drip until you die, it should be done by a human being and not a machine,” his daughter Catherine Quintana said Friday.
In its most recent weekly US influenza surveillance report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that flu activity remains high across the nation. According to the agency, both the influenza A viruses H1N1 and H3N2, as well as influenza B viruses, are still making rounds through the population, with H3 viruses more frequently reported than H1N1.
