MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google Life Sciences, the Silicon Valley giant’s new foray into health and medicine, announced a new name Monday that slips easily off the tongue but might sound antiquated to a high-tech, life-sciences ear: Verily.
“Verily, I swear,” as Shakespeare wrote in Henry VIII.
The word means “truly” or “certainly.” It dates back to 13th century Middle English and fell out of common use … well, a while ago. It often pops up, however, in the still very popular King James Bible.
Exciting news as another group proposes to explore telomerase therapy for the Cardio Vascular system. This no doubt follows on from DePhino et al work on the P53-telomerase-PCG-1 aging axis work which showed the effects of short telomeres on vascular aging (and other organs) and its direct link to Mitochondrial function and Stem cell Decline via the P53-telomerase-PCG-1 aging axis.
After recent good news regarding the accuracy of famed CRISPR-Cas9, a new form has been engineered that’s even more accurate than the original.
A string of positive developments
If you’ve been reading the news lately, you may know recent analysis of the gene editing system CRISPR-Cas9 has had a string of positive updates. We found out it’s surprisingly more accurate than we first believed, which bodes well as scientists across the world start thinking about the move into human models.
WATCH: Google has recently filed a patent for a blood drawing system that is completely needle-free. It could be used to test blood glucose levels for diabetics. Jenny Sung explains.
To most of the scientific community, “anti-aging” is a dirty word.
A medical field historically associated with charlatans and quacks, scientists have strictly restricted the quest for a “longevity pill” to basic research. The paradigm is simple and one-toned: working on model organisms by manipulating different genes and proteins, scientists slowly tease out the molecular mechanisms that lead to — and reverse — signs of aging, with no guarantee that they’ll work in humans.
But it’s been a fruitful search: multiple drug candidates, many already on the market for immune or psychiatric disorders, have consistently delayed age-associated diseases and stretched the lifespan of fruit flies, roundworms and mice. Yet human trials have been far beyond reach — without the FDA acknowledging “aging” as a legitimate target for drug development, researchers have had no way of pitching clinical trials to the regulatory agency.
In a breakthrough that could lead to printable organs and an enhanced understanding of human physiology, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Labs have 3D-printed functional blood vessels that look and function like the real thing.
3D bioprinters are similar to conventional 3D printers, but instead of using inert materials, they use “bio-ink:” basic structural building blocks that are compatible with the human body.
Human trials of Crispr editing are being proposed by Massachusetts-based start-up Editas Medicine to treat a rare form of blindness knwon as Leber congenital amaurosis.
A informative article by Vice Motherboard:
The biggest debate at the International Summit on Human Genome Editing is where to draw the line between “medical treatment” and “body enhancement.”
Gene editing research can move forward, but not for reproductive purposes, international summit committee says.
The prescription antidepressant escitalopram (trademarked as Lexapro) shows promise as a deterrent to dementia.
