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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,780

Boosting Autophagy to treat heart disease

Increasing autophagy in macrophages is a promising avenue of research aiming at heart disease and other age-related diseaeses.

Today we thought it was a good time to take a look at a new study that demonstrates that increasing autophagy is a good approach to slowing aging and could be the foundation for a variety of therapies to treat age-related diseases.

What is Autophagy?

Autophagy is an intracellular degradation system that delivers unwanted cell components to a type of cellular garbage disposal system, known as the lysosome. The lysosome uses powerful enzymes that break down the unwanted material for recycling. However, as we age the lysosomes become clogged up with materials that are so fused together not even the potent enzymes can destroy them and this causes the lysosomes to become dysfunctional and eventually the cell dies. This is a particular problem for long lived cells with a very low rate of replacement such as the heart, the back of the eye, nerve cells and other cells that rarely divide if at all. Ultimately as more and more cells become dysfunctional over time due to lysosome dysfunction, tissue function become impaired and age-related disease sets in.

Your DNA Changes With the Seasons, Just Like the Weather

Ah, my sweet summer child. What do you know of inflammation? Inflammation is for the winter, when genes uncoil in your blood and messengers send codes containing the blueprints for proteins to protect you from the harsh diseases of the cold. Inflammation is for those long nights, when the sun hides its face, or rain clouds block the sky, and trillions of little T-cells are born to fight the diseases of cold and flu season.

At least, that’s the news from a new study showing that DNA reacts to the seasons, changing your body’s chemistry depending on the time of year.

The findings, published today in Nature Communications ^1^, show that as many as one-fifth of all genes in blood cells undergo seasonal changes in expression. Genes often are seen as immutable, but a lot of our body’s workings depend upon which genes are translated when. In the winter, the study found, your blood contains a denser blend of immune responders, while summer veins swim with fat-burning, body-building, water-retaining hormones. These seasonal changes could provide insight into inflammatory diseases like hypertension, and autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabetes.

What Happens When Cyborg Tech Goes Beyond Medicine?

The age of the cyborg may be closer than we think. Rapidly improving medical robotics, wearables, and implants means many humans are already part machine, and this trend is only likely to continue.

It is most noticeable in the field of medical prosthetics where high-performance titanium and carbon fiber replacements for limbs have become commonplace. The use of “blades” by Paralympians has even raised questions over whether they actually offer an advantage over biological limbs.

For decades, myoelectric prosthetics—powered artificial limbs that read electrical signals from the muscles to allow the user to control the device—have provided patients with mechanical replacements for lost hands.

Top Companies in Genomics

From portable genome sequencers until genetic tests revealing distant relations with Thomas Jefferson, genomics represents a fascinatingly innovative area of healthcare. As the price of genome sequencing has been in free fall for years, the start-up scene is bursting from transformative power. Let’s look at some of the most amazing ventures in genomics!

Extracting Insight from the Data Deluge is a Hard-to-Do Must-Do

A mantra of these data-rife times is that within the vast and growing volumes of diverse data types, such as sensor feeds, economic indicators, and scientific and environmental measurements, are dots of significance that can tell important stories, if only those dots could be identified and connected in authentically meaningful ways. Getting good at that exercise of data synthesis and interpretation ought to open new, quicker routes to identifying threats, tracking disease outbreaks, and otherwise answering questions and solving problems that previously were intractable.

Now for a reality check. “Today’s hardware is ill-suited to handle such data challenges, and these challenges are only going to get harder as the amount of data continues to grow exponentially,” said Trung Tran, a program manager in DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office (MTO). To take on that technology shortfall, MTO last summer unveiled its Hierarchical Identify Verify Exploit (HIVE) program, which has now signed on five performers to carry out HIVE’s mandate: to develop a powerful new data-handling and computing platform specialized for analyzing and interpreting huge amounts of data with unprecedented deftness. “It will be a privilege to work with this innovative team of performers to develop a new category of server processors specifically designed to handle the data workloads of today and tomorrow,” said Tran, who is overseeing HIVE.

The quintet of performers includes a mix of large commercial electronics firms, a national laboratory, a university, and a veteran defense-industry company: Intel Corporation (Santa Clara, California), Qualcomm Intelligent Solutions (San Diego, California), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Richland, Washington), Georgia Tech (Atlanta, Georgia), and Northrop Grumman (Falls Church, Virginia).

Gene identified that may explain why some people live beyond 100

Japanese researchers have identified specific features of a gene that could hold the key to living beyond 100 and lead to the development of medicine for extra longevity.

Scientists at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Keio University and other institutes said that centenarians and those close to that age share specific features of a gene that helps stem the spread of cancer and form bones.

“The gene we identified recently is not the sole actor determining longevity,” said Masashi Tanaka, chief of the Department of Clinical Laboratory at the institute. “But we believe that it plays a role in anti-aging in one way or another.”

US company to start trials ‘reawakening the dead’ in Latin America

The first attempts to bring people back from the dead are slated to start this year.

Bioquark, a Philadelphia-based company, announced in late 2016 that they believe brain death is not ‘irreversible’.

And now, CEO Ira Pastor has revealed they will soon be testing an unprecedented stem cell method on patients in an unidentified country in Latin America, confirming the details in the next few months.

Dr. Rodolfo Goya – Could Yamanaka Factors Delay Human Aging?

LEAF attended the first Longevity and Cryopreservation Summit in Madrid recently. Here is another report from Elena Milova from the conference.

Elena Milova brings us another interesting interview from the recent International Longevity and Cryopreservation Summit where she caught up with Senior Scientist at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) of Argentina Dr. Rodolfo Gustavo Goya.

Dr. Goya admits he used to be a rebel from a young age. At 17 he decided he was not happy about aging and that he wanted to make a difference. He became a biochemist in the hope he could do something about age-related health deterioration and he continues to rebel against mother nature to this day. Dr. Goya has lead a number of studies on cellular reprogramming and restoration of function in important organs like the thymus and brain. He is also daring to challenge death itself by studying different aspects of cryopreservation and openly supports cryonics as a logical extension of medicine.

Dr. Goya explains his interest and motivation in aging research, as well as his views on the potential of Yamanaka factors and their limitations in relation to human rejuvenation, in this short interview.