Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,580

Research led by The University of Western Australia has discovered a new, simple and less expensive way of growing human stem cells.

Using hydrogel, a gel with a gradient that can be used to mimic the of human body tissues, the researchers were able to generate positive outcomes for the growth of stem cells.

Dr Yu Suk Choi from UWA’s School of Human Sciences at The University of Western Australia led the international collaboration which also included researchers from the University of California, San Diego (USA) and Max Planck Institute for Medical Research (Germany).

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The secret to a long life? A protein that acts as a cellular ‘time machine’ is found to extend the lifespan of fruit flies by 20%.

Biologists have turned back the clock on ageing in the cells of fruit flies, by increasing levels of a protein called Drp1.

This cellular time machine was found to lengthen the life-span of the insects by between 10 and 20 per cent.

Experts hope to develop drugs to mimic this effect in humans with age-related diseases including Alzheimer’s, extending people’s life expectancy and giving them more healthy years towards the end of their lives.

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Oxford scientists are collaborating with artificial Intelligence company Insilico Medicine to prevent unnecessary animal sacrifice and derive more data from experiments in age related research.

The MouseAge.org initiative is being managed by UK charity; Biogerontology Research Foundation and will also include researchers from Harvard and Youth Laboratories in the development of tools for cross-species analysis and novel biomarkers of ageing and various diseases in mice.

Insilico Medicine which provides advanced machine learning services to skin care companies, is using the field of ‘omics’ to introduce a broad range of deep-learned biomarkers of ageing and age-related diseases.

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By treating one of the root causes of aging – senescent cells – a new class of drugs, known as senolytics, has the potential to treat a wide range of age-related diseases rather than the traditional approach of dealing with them one at a time. We all age, but the research suggests that we may not have to suffer from age-related ill health.

So what are senescent cells?

As we age, increasing amounts of our cells enter into a state known as senescence. Normally, these cells destroy themselves by a self-destruct process known as apoptosis and are disposed of by the immune system. Unfortunately, as we age, increasing numbers of these cells evade apoptosis and linger in the body.

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Unable to accept his own end, he decides to freeze his body. Sixty years later, in the year 2084, he becomes the first cryogenically frozen man to be revived in history. Marc discovers a startling future, but the biggest surprise is that his past has accompanied him in unexpected ways.

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How can we tell if a drink is beer or wine? Machine learning, of course! In this episode of Cloud AI Adventures, Yufeng walks through the 7 steps involved in applied machine learning…

The world is filled with data. Lots and lots of data. Everything from pictures, music, words, spreadsheets, videos and more. It doesn’t look like it’s going to to slow down anytime soon. Machine learning brings the promise of deriving meaning from all of that data.

From detecting skin cancer, to sorting cucumbers, to detecting escalators in need of repairs, machine learning has granted computer systems entirely new abilities.

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What will 3D printers ultimately evolve into? No one has a functioning crystal ball in front of them I assume, but a good guess would be a machine which can practically build anything its user desire, all on the molecular, and eventually atomic levels. Sure we are likely multiple decades away from widespread molecular manufacturing, but a group of chemists led by medical doctor Martin D. Burke at the University of Illinois may have already taken a major step in that direction.

Burke, who joined the Department of Chemistry at the university in 2005, heads up Burke Laboratories where he studies and synthesizes small molecules with protein-like structures. For those of you who are not chemists, small molecules are organic compounds with very low molecular weight of less than 900 daltons. They usually help regulate biological processes and make up most of the drugs we put into our bodies, along with pesticides used by farmers and electronic components like LEDs and solar cells.

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About two-thirds of Americans support the use of gene editing to treat diseases, according to a new survey. But opinions vary a lot based on people’s religious beliefs and how much they know about gene editing in general.

The research, published earlier this month in Science, shows that across the board, people want to be involved in a public discussion about editing the human genome. And that conversation with scientists and public officials needs to happen now, as the technology is still developing, says study co-author Dietram Scheufele, a science communication scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The results are based on a survey of 1,600 US adults conducted in December 2016 and January 2017.

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