The International Papillomavirus Society has announced that Australia could become the first country to eliminate cervical cancer entirely.
According to a new study, Australia’s efforts to distribute a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine for free in schools have been a resounding success.
The sexually transmitted infection causes 99.9 percent of cases of cervical cancer.
Some cancer cells express some of the same genes that senescent cells do, so it makes sense that drugs that destroy senescent cells may also destroy cancer cells. This was what the researchers in this new study set out to test.
However, in this experiment, the researchers discovered that the chosen senolytic drugs were not effective at destroying cancer cells with senescence-associated gene expression. While cancer cells and senescent cells do share some common properties, they are also quite different at an epigenetic level.
The researchers did, however, demonstrate that a so-called “suicide gene therapy” that causes both senescent cells and cancer cells to kill themselves worked by targeting senescence-associated p16Ink4a. This approach is similar to that of SENS spin-off company Oisin Biotechnologies, which is using a suicide gene therapy to eliminate senescent cells.
Two pivotal conferences on the topic of “death” coming up!!
First at the INSERM Liliane Bettencourt School on March 16–18 will be “Death: From Cells to Societies — Aging, Dying, and Beyond” -
Then, April 11–13 at Harvard Medical School, will be “Defining Death: Organ transplantation and the 50-year legacy of the Harvard report on brain death”
http://bioethics.hms.harvard.edu/annual-bioethics-conference-2018
An important inflection point for all!!
Posted in biotech/medical, cryonics, life extension
Frozen corpses could be brought back to life and made to look YOUNGER than when they died using stem cell injections, claims expert…
EXCLUSIVE: Dennis Kowalski, President of the Michigan-based Cryonics Institute, has claimed scientists could revive a frozen human corpse by using stem cells to help repair damaged cells.
On the run up to Undoing Aging 2018, Nicola Bagalà from LEAF did an interview to learn a bit more about our foundation and the story of our involvement in life extension.
As our readers probably already know, from March 15 to March 17 this year, the Undoing Aging 2018 Conference will be held at the Umspannwerk Alexanderplatz in Berlin, Germany. The event is intended to bring together scientists working on repair-based therapies for aging as well as to give life sciences students—and anyone else who may be interested, really—an occasion to deepen their understanding of the current state of rejuvenation research.
Organised by the Forever Healthy Foundation and the SENS Research Foundation, the conference will feature eminent researchers among its many speakers, such as the director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Dr. Anthony Atala; Dr. Kristen Fortney, who is an expert on computational drug discovery and aging biomarkers; Dr. Michael West, co-CEO of BioTime and founder of Geron Corporation; Dr. James Kirkland, a world-class expert on cellular senescence; and Dr. Vera Gorbunova, a pioneer of the comparative biology approach to the study of aging and co-director of the Rochester Aging Research Center. In addition to its scientific, educational, and networking value, UA2018 will no doubt greatly contribute to the popularisation of this area of research and help spread awareness, both about the problem represented by age-related diseases and the great opportunity we have to finally bring aging under comprehensive medical control within a relatively short time frame.
LEAF, naturally, will attend the event to keep you fully up to date, and our readers can expect extensive coverage during and following the event. Meanwhile, to whet your appetite, we caught up with Forever Healthy’s founder and CEO, Michael Greve, to learn a bit more about his foundation and the story of his involvement in life extension.
The Pentagon is hoping to tap into the incredible survival techniques of some of nature’s hardiest creatures to ‘slow biological time’ on the battlefield.
DARPA’s new program, dubbed Biostasis, aims to develop ways to buy extra time for wounded soldiers between the moment of injury and first medical treatment.
This window, known as the ‘golden hour,’ is a critical for survival – but in reality, it’s often far less than sixty minutes.
A research team composed of scientists from the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and IBM Research has produced a new synthetic molecule that can target and kill five multidrug-resistant bacteria. This synthetic polymer was found to be non-toxic and could enable entirely new classes of therapeutics to address the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
The synthetic molecules are called guanidinium-functionalized polycarbonates and were found to be both biodegradable and non-toxic to human cells. Essentially, the positively-charged synthetic polymer enters a living body and binds specifically to certain bacteria cells by homing in on a microbial membrane’s related negative charge. Once attached to the bacteria, the polymer crosses the cell membrane and triggers the solidification of proteins and DNA in the cell, killing the bacteria.
Eye-drops that can repair the corneas and can improve the short and long sightedness have been developed by a team of Ophthalmologists at Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Bar-Ilan University’s Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials. The solution of nanoparticles called the ‘nanodrops’ was successfully tested on a pig’s cornea. Clinical trials are expected to be carried out later this year. If the clinical trials on humans are successful, it is expected that the need of eyeglasses will be eliminated.
The leader of the research team, Dr. David Smadja, said that the eye-drops can bring a revolution in ophthalmological and optometry treatment of patients who are suffering from myopia, hyperopia and other refractory conditions. The revolutionary breakthrough in the field was revealed by Dr. Smadja at Shaare Zedek’s second biennial research day, which was held at Steinberg Auditorium in Jerusalem. He said that the nano drops can also be used to replace multifocal lenses and allow people to see objects from different distances. Smadja said, “This is a new concept for correcting refractory problems.” However, he didn’t mention the times of applications which will replace the need for the glasses completely.
Battlefield medics frequently only have a brief window of opportunity to treat an injury before it’s fatal or causes permanent disabilities, and it’s frequently so fleeting that there’s not much they can do. DARPA is exploring an unusual solution to that problem: slow the biological processes to give medics more room to breathe. Its new Biostasis research program aims to bring cell activity to a near halt by using biochemicals that control energetics at the protein level. If animals like tardigrades and wood frogs can stabilize their cells to survive freezing and dehydration, similar techniques might offer more time to medics who want to treat wounds before a victim’s vital systems break down.
DARPA knows this won’t be easy. The trick is to slow down every cellular process at roughly the same rate — you can’t just pause a few while others run at full speed. You’d also have to minimize any damage when the cells return to their normal function.
The Biostasis program is still very young (its first day for answering proposers’ questions is March 20th), and DARPA isn’t expecting too much even from complete projects: it’s initially focusing on “benchtop” proofs of concept and will focus on real-world uses as the program nears its 5-year end. If it has any success, though, the program could prove to be a breakthrough for the medical field as a whole, not just in combat. Paramedics could buy themselves enough time to get a patient to hospital, and doctors could focus less on basic survival and more on full recoveries.
