Because identical twins develop from a single fertilized egg, they have the same genome, the entire set of genetic material found in an organism. So, any differences between them, even in traits with a significant genetic component – say one develops heart disease and the other doesn’t – are due to their environments. This is known as epigenetics.
Genes in DNA are ‘expressed’ when they’re read and transcribed into RNA, which is then translated into proteins. It’s proteins that determine many of a cell’s characteristics and functions. Epigenetic changes can boost or silence the transcription of specific genes, ramping up or inhibiting associated protein production, but they don’t change the genome. These changes, which are reversible, can affect a person for their entire life and mediate a lifelong dialogue between genes and the environment.
Professor Nadeem Sarwar is Corporate Vice President, Co-Founder and Head, Transformational Prevention Unit, Novo Nordisk (https://www.novonordisk.com/partnerin…), Co-Chair UK Dementia Mission (a UK Government Ministerial appointment) and Honorary Professor, University of Edinburgh Medical School.
Professor Sarwar joined Novo Nordisk in June 2023 as Corporate Vice President, Co-Founder and Head of Novo Nordisk’s new Transformational Prevention Unit (TPU) whose mission is to increase obesity-free life years, so people live healthier and longer lives. To achieve this, the TPU is establishing an integrated ecosystem that will deliver science-first, empowering, and scalable commercial solutions that predict and pre-empt obesity and its consequences through innovative partnerships, with solutions intending to push the boundaries of what is possible with drugs, genomics, microbiome, digital health, and behavioral science.
Professor Sarwar’s expertise stems from scientific and business models at the intersection of genomics, data sciences and digital technologies for therapeutic and health innovation and he utilizes this expertise to steer the strategy and implementation of the predictive and pre-emptive obesity solutions being developed by the TPU, spanning both R\&D and commercial strategy.
Professor Sarwar joins Novo Nordisk with extensive executive experience in academia (Cambridge, Edinburgh), pharma (Pfizer, Eisai, Novo Nordisk), biotech (Genetics Guided Demantia Discovery — G2D2), company incubation (Eisai Innovation Biolabs), and government (UK Dementia Mission). He has successfully built and led organizations across the UK, US, Japan, and Denmark; and contributed to delivery of therapeutics into clinical trials for cardiometabolic diseases, oncology, SLE, COVID-19 and neurodegeneration.
Professor Sarwar’s research has been published in leading medical journals (eg, NEJM, Lancet, JAMA), presented at international meetings (eg, American Diabetes Association; World Dementia Council), and profiled by international media (eg, BBC, Forbes). He has provided expert insights for the UK Department of Health, the World Economic Forum, and the US National Academies of Sciences.
Apart from his current position at Novo Nordisk, Professor Sarwar holds the position of Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. He also currently serves on the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) Neuroscience and Mental Health Board, the UK MRC Prevention Task and Finish Group, the Health Data Industry Expert Sub-Group, and the UK Life Sciences Council.
Proteins are nature’s polymers, governing biological processes at every level. A new study presents artificial proteins made using modern, precision polymers to intervene and alter natural processes towards a new way of developing therapeutics.
Researchers led by Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have introduced a pioneering approach aimed at combating neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
In a new study, researchers discovered a new way to enhance the body’s antioxidant response, which is crucial for cellular protection against the oxidative stress implicated in many neurodegenerative diseases.
New findings reveal that the body undergoes significant, systematic changes across multiple organs during prolonged periods of fasting. The results demonstrate evidence of health benefits beyond weight loss, but also show that any potentially health-altering changes appear to occur only after three days without food.
The study, published in Nature Metabolism, advances our understanding of what’s happening across the body after prolonged periods without food.
By identifying the potential health benefits from fasting and their underlying molecular basis, researchers from Queen Mary University of London’s Precision Healthcare University Research Institute (PHURI) and the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences provide a road map for future research that could lead to therapeutic interventions—including for people that may benefit from fasting but cannot undergo prolonged fasting or fasting-mimicking diets, such as ketogenic diets.
The Rejuvenation Startup Summit (Berlin, May 10–11, 2024) is a vibrant networking event that brings together startups and members of the longevity venture capital/investor ecosystem – all aiming to create therapies to vastly extend the healthy human lifespan. Rejuvenation and longevity biotech is a new, emerging field of medicine. It aims to prevent and reverse the diseases of aging by addressing their common root cause, the aging process itself.
In addition to an exciting range of presentations from CEOs of startups in the fields of rejuvenation & longevity, the summit features an all-day startup forum for networking, panel discussions, and keynote presentations. Starting midday on Friday and finishing off on Saturday night with a party for all attendees, the summit offers ample opportunity to connect with some of the most promising leaders in the field, including:
A University of Cincinnati Cancer Center study has found that real-time navigation is a useful tool for surgeons performing ablation procedures to destroy tumors in the liver.
The research, led by David A. Gerber, MD, is published in the journal JAMA Network Open.
Ablation, Gerber said, uses focused energy to kill tumor cells in a similar way that focused energy in a microwave heats up food.
In a new study, scientists have been able to leverage a machine learning algorithm to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing cancer researchers — predicting when cancer will resist chemotherapy.
But in what could be a game-changer, scientists at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine revealed today in a study that a high-tech machine learning tool might just figure out when cancer is going to give the cold shoulder to chemotherapy.
Teaming up against cancer
When cells divide, even the cancer ones, they rely on complex molecular machinery that helps them copy their DNA. Chemotherapy drugs usually put a stop to this DNA-copying mechanism, especially in fast-growing tumor cells.
Researchers from Australia and a private biotechnology firm in the US have successfully demonstrated the use of high-frequency radio waves to temporarily open up bacterial cell walls to introduce new genetic material into them.
High frequency radio waves are a far efficient method to add DNA to bacterial cells than conventional approaches such as heat shock.
Of the 38 million Americans who have diabetes, at least 90% have type 2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Type 2 diabetes occurs over time and is characterized by a loss of the cells in the pancreas that make the hormone insulin, which helps the body manage sugar.
These cells make another protein, called islet amyloid polypeptide or IAPP, which has been found clumped together in many type 2 diabetes patients. The formation of IAPP clusters is comparable to how a protein in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients sticks together to eventually form the signature plaques associated with that disease.
Researchers at the University of Washington have demonstrated more similarities between IAPP clusters and those in Alzheimer’s. The team previously showed that a synthetic peptide can block the formation of small, toxic Alzheimer’s protein clusters. Now, in a recently published paper in Protein Science, the researchers have used a similar peptide to block the formation of IAPP clusters.
A technique originally devised to extract DNA from woolly mammoths and other ancient archaeological specimens can be used to potentially identify badly burned human remains, according to a new study from Binghamton University, State University of New York.
The research is published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences.
Fire victims may be identified through dental records if the teeth are preserved and such records exist. Frequently, DNA testing is the only way to identify badly burned bodies. Researchers can extract usable DNA from bones subjected to conditions between 200 and 250 degrees Celsius; between 350 and 550 degrees, there is a steep drop-off in the concentration of DNA.
