Imagine doctors being able to predict how a disease might progress in your body based on your genetic makeup, or which treatments would be most effective for you.
This research could bring us one step closer to that reality.
To sum it all up, this new research is shaking up how we think about evolution. Instead of seeing it as a series of random events, the study suggests there’s a level of predictability influenced by gene families and genetic history.
My output on my personal blog has been low lately. That’s largely because I’m pushing hard to finish a complete draft of my book on biostasis. If I can keep up the pace, I expect to finish a draft around the end of the year or in January 2025. The blog entries I have written have been on our group blog for Biostasis Technologies. Subscribers will probably enjoy my October 29 entry:
I look at the origins of effective accelerationism (e/acc) and its unacknowledged roots in extropian transhumanism as well as in several Singularitarian writers. Noah Smith has noted the “extropian enthusiasm” of e/acc. The original essays by the e/acc founders can be difficult to distill down so I outline the basics of e/acc and then survey the many flavors of accelerationism. I point out errors in e/acc’s contrast with transhumanism. That is followed by a critique of the injunction to “follow the will of the universe.” Despite errors and shortcomings I conclude that e/acc is more right than wrong. From the perspective of the central important of life extension, I outline what might be called long/acc or longevity accelerationism.
Researchers connecting pieces of the massive Alzheimer’s puzzle are closer to slotting the next one in place, with yet another link between our guts and brain.
Animal studies have demonstrated Alzheimer’s can be passed on to young mice through a transfer of gut microbes, confirming a link between the digestive system and the health of the brain.
A 2023 study adds further support to the theory that inflammation could be the mechanism through which this occurs.
Richard Scolyer was fully engaged in the business of living when he suddenly received a death sentence. A person more alive would be hard to find. As an endurance athlete competing across the globe, he was in peak physical condition. As one of the world’s leading pathologists on melanoma whose pioneering research has saved thousands of lives, he was in demand. At 56, Prof Richard Scolyer was flying along. His life, he says, was “rich”. And then, on the morning of 20 May 2023, he found himself losing consciousness and convulsing on the floor in a hotel room in Poland, panicking and scared.
After this grand mal seizure, he went for an MRI scan at University hospital in Krakow. It found a mass in his temporal lobe. Scolyer knew immediately it had delivered very bad news.
A team of materials scientists, medical researchers and engineers affiliated with a large number of institutions across Australia has developed a new way to conduct digital light manufacturing that overcomes problems with current methods. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes their new technique, how it works and ways it might be used.
Summary: Neural crest stem cells, a rare type found in skin and other tissues, are uniquely capable of reprogramming into different cell types, challenging the prevailing belief that any mature cell can be reprogrammed. The study reveals that cellular reprogramming is likely limited to these specialized stem cells rather than all mature cells.
Neural crest stem cells are present in skin, bone, and connective tissue, with a natural predisposition for transformation due to their origin in embryonic development. This finding could reshape strategies for stem cell therapies, emphasizing the role of neural crest cells in treating neurodegenerative diseases. The team hopes their work will refine cell reprogramming approaches and inspire further research into the specific potentials of stem cell types.
This has to do with E5, but last I checked they were only doing skin rejuvenation treatments in people.
In Aging Cell, researchers have published their findings that exosomes, which we have previously reported to extend the lives of mice, also extend the lives of rats.
Known to be effective
Exosomes, a subset of extracellular vesicles (EVs), can be visualized as messages and packages that cells send to one another. Along with lifespan studies, EVs have been investigated for their ability to treat liver fibrosis, and they have been identified as potential biomarkers of disease [1].
Cirrhosis, hepatitis infection and other causes can trigger liver fibrosis—a potentially lethal stiffening of tissue that, once begun, is irreversible. For many patients, a liver transplant is their only hope. However, research at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles may offer patients a glimmer of hope. Scientists there say they’ve successfully reversed liver fibrosis in mice.
Reporting in the journal Nature Communications, the team say they’ve discovered a genetic pathway that, if blocked, might bring fibrosis to a halt.
The three genes involved in this fibrotic process are called FOXM1, MAT2A and MAT2B.