Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,604

Wilmington, DE, April 19, 2018 — Scientists at Christiana Care Health System’s Gene Editing Institute have developed a potentially breakthrough CRISPR gene-editing tool. It could allow researchers to take fragments of DNA extracted from human cells, put them into a test tube, and quickly and precisely engineer multiple changes to the genetic code, according to a new study published today in the CRISPR Journal.

Investigators at the Gene Editing Institute, which is part of the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute at Christiana Care, said their new “cell-free” CRISPR technology is the first CRISPR tool capable of making multiple edits to DNA samples “in vitro,” which means in a test tube or petri dish. The advance could have immediate value as a diagnostic tool, replicating the exact genetic mutations found in the tumors of individual cancer patients. Mutations that cause cancer to spread can differ from patient to patient, and being able to quickly identify the correct mutation affecting an individual patient can allow clinicians to implement a more targeted treatment strategy.

“With this new advance, we should be able to work with laboratory cultures and accomplish gene edits in less than a day, significantly reducing the time required for diagnostics compared to other CRISPR tools, and with much greater precision,” said Eric Kmiec, Ph.D., director of the Gene Editing Institute and principal author of the study. “This is particularly important for diagnostics linked to cancer care where time is critical.”

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Much mystery surrounds the physiological processes by which humans age, but scientists are learning more all the time. With this knowledge come new possibilities around how we can not only slow them down, but possibly even reverse them. A new breakthrough at the University of Colorado is the latest advance in the area, demonstrating how a chemically altered nutritional supplement may well reverse aging of the blood vessels, in turn giving cardiovascular health a vital boost.

The human body is pretty good at fending off oxidative stress when we’re young, protecting molecules from critical damage caused by rogue molecules known as free radicals. These are molecules that have found themselves with at least one unpaired electron, so they set off in search of a match, often robbing another molecule of theirs and setting off a chain reaction of irreversible molecular damage.

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An interview from the recent Ending Aging conference in Berlin with professor Brian Kennedy which we did in collaboration with Anna Dobryukha from Komsomolskaya Pravda.

The Undoing Aging conference, a collaboration between the SENS Research Foundation and Michael Greve’s Forever Healthy Foundation, took place on March 15–17 in Berlin, which saw many researchers, advocates, investors, and other important members of the longevity community gather together to learn about the latest progress in rejuvenation biotechnology.

LEAF arranged a travel grant for Anna Dobryukha, one of the best Russian journalists writing about aging, longevity, and rejuvenation research, to join us, so it made sense to collaborate with her on the most interesting interviews. Anna works for Komsomolskaya Pravda, one of the largest Russian publishing houses, which has a newspaper, a radio station, and a website with over 40 million readers. Anna has also published an article based on this and other interviews taken during the conference which you can find here.

Today, we have an interview that Anna did with professor Brian Kennedy during the conference. Professor Kennedy is an important figure in the aging research field, and he studies multiple mechanisms known to influence lifespan, such as sirtuins and the TOR pathway.

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Today we will be discussing new research published in nature where researchers modified a protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease into a more harmless form, allowing them to remove the damage caused by Alzheimer’s in human cells. This is especially important because the research was not conducted on mice but rather human cells, and shows a potential way to halt the formation of the plaques associated with Alzheimer’s in the first place.

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Today, we have a guest article from Dr. Marion Tible, a scientist, and author over at the aging research-focused blog Long Long Life. What follows is an introduction to the senescent cell-clearing therapies known as senolytics, these therapies are poised to enter human trials and if successful could revolutionize how we treat age-related diseases.

What are senolytics?

Discovered in 2015 by a team from Mayo Clinic and the Scripps Research Institute in the United States, senolytics are a growing trend in the anti-aging community. They are very promising drugs in the fight against cellular senescence, a hallmark of aging.

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During the recent Undoing Aging conference in Berlin, we worked with Anna Dobryukha from Komsomolskaya Pravda, one of the largest Russian publishing houses. We collaborated on a series of interviews, including this one with Dr. Jonathan Clark from the Babraham Institute.

The Undoing Aging conference, a collaboration between the SENS Research Foundation and Michael Greve’s Forever Healthy Foundation, took place on March 15–17 in Berlin, and it saw many researchers, advocates, investors, and other important members of the longevity community gather together to learn about the latest progress in rejuvenation biotechnology.

LEAF arranged a travel grant for Anna Dobryukha, one of the best Russian journalists writing about aging, longevity, and rejuvenation research, to join us, so it made sense to collaborate with her on the most interesting interviews. Anna works for Komsomolskaya Pravda, one of the largest Russian publishing houses, which has a newspaper, a radio station, and a website with over 40 million readers.

During the conference, we had the opportunity to interview Dr. Jonathan Clark, who has recently been focusing on skin aging and the interactions of collagen in this process. He is the head of the biological chemistry department at the Babraham Institute, where his group carries out aging research. Dr. Clark has some interesting research which he presented at the conference but which has yet to be published, this means that he could not tell us everything he had discovered in this interview, but don’t worry, we have agreed a follow-up interview with him once his data is published.

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Will they teach humanities?

Some experts have suggested that autonomous systems will replace us in jobs for which humans are unsuited anyway — those that are dull, dirty, and dangerous. That’s already happening. Robots clean nuclear disaster sites and work construction jobs. Desk jobs aren’t immune to the robot takeover, however — machines are replacing finance experts, outperforming doctors, and competing with advertising masterminds.

The unique demands placed on primary and secondary school teachers make this position different from many other jobs at risk of automation. Students all learn differently, and a good teacher must attempt to deliver lessons in a way that resonates with every child in the classroom. Some students may have behavioral or psychological problems that inhibit or complicate that process. Others may have parents who are too involved, or not involved enough, in their education. Effective teachers must be able to navigate these many hurdles while satisfying often-changing curriculum requirements.

In short, the job demands that teachers have nearly superhuman levels of empathy, grit, and organization. Creating robotic teachers that can meet all these demands might be challenging, but in the end, could these AI-enhanced entities solve our most pervasive and systemic issues in education?

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The mice helped the tiny organoids get nutrients, oxygen, and even start developing human neurons.

Getty Images

Scientists at the Salk Institute implanted lentil-sized human brain organoids into the heads of mice, then closed it with a transparent window. The mice looked and behaved like ordinary mice, while supplying blood and nutrients to keep human brains developing for months.

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