Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 522

In a new multidisciplinary study, researchers at Texas A&M University showed how quantum computing—a new kind of computing that can process additional types of data—can assist with genetic research and used it to discover new links between genes that scientists were previously unable to detect.

Their project used the new computing technology to map gene regulatory networks (GRNs), which provide information about how can cause each other to activate or deactivate.

As the team published in npj Quantum Information, will help scientists more accurately predict relationships between genes, which could have huge implications for both animal and human medicine.

Read more | >

Year 2021 face_with_colon_three

Senescent cells accumulate in organs during aging, promote tissue dysfunction, and cause numerous aging-related diseases like cancer. The cells arise through a process called “cellular senescence,” a permanent cell cycle arrest resulting from multiple stresses.

A collaborative research group led by Professor Makoto Nakanishi of the Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo (IMSUT), and co-researchers have identified an inhibitor of the glutamate metabolic enzyme GLS1so that its administration selectively eliminates senescent cells in vivo.

They confirmed that the GLS1 inhibitor eliminated senescent cells from various organs and tissues in aged mice, ameliorating age-associated tissue dysfunction and the symptoms of obese diabetes, arteriosclerosis, and NASH. The results of this research were published in “Science” on January 15, 2021.

Continue reading “GLS1 inhibitor selectively eliminates senescent cells, ameliorates age-associated disorders” | >

On July 12, 2023, a new research paper was published in Aging, titled, “Chemically induced reprogramming to reverse cellular aging.”

BUFFALO, NY– July 12, 2023 – In a groundbreaking study, researchers have unlocked a new frontier in the fight against aging and age-related diseases. The study, conducted by a team of scientists at Harvard Medical School, has published the first chemical approach to reprogram cells to a younger state. Previously, this was only achievable using a powerful gene therapy.

On July 12, 2023, researchers Jae-Hyun Yang, Christopher A. Petty, Thomas Dixon-McDougall, Maria Vina Lopez, Alexander Tyshkovskiy, Sun Maybury-Lewis, Xiao Tian, Nabilah Ibrahim, Zhili Chen, Patrick T. Griffin, Matthew Arnold, Jien Li, Oswaldo A. Martinez, Alexander Behn, Ryan Rogers-Hammond, Suzanne Angeli, Vadim N. Gladyshev, and David A. Sinclair from Harvard Medical School, University of Maine and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published a new research paper in Aging, titled, “Chemically induced reprogramming to reverse cellular aging.”

Read more | >

face_with_colon_three year 2021.

UTokyo People NAKANISH Makoto

UTokyo People JOHMURA Yoshikazu

Division of Cancer Cell Biology(IMSUT)

Continue reading “GLS1 inhibitor that selectively removes senescent cells ameliorated age-associated tissue dysfunction and diseases such as arteriosclerosis” | >

Cambridge scientists have shown that placing physical constraints on an artificially-intelligent system—in much the same way that the human brain has to develop and operate within physical and biological constraints—allows it to develop features of the brains of complex organisms in order to solve tasks.

As such as the organize themselves and make connections, they have to balance competing demands. For example, energy and resources are needed to grow and sustain the network in , while at the same time optimizing the network for . This trade-off shapes all brains within and across species, which may help explain why many brains converge on similar organizational solutions.

Jascha Achterberg, a Gates Scholar from the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (MRC CBSU) at the University of Cambridge said, “Not only is the brain great at solving , it does so while using very little energy. In our new work we show that considering the brain’s problem-solving abilities alongside its goal of spending as few resources as possible can help us understand why brains look like they do.”

Read more | >

With 3D inkjet printing systems, engineers can fabricate hybrid structures that have soft and rigid components, like robotic grippers that are strong enough to grasp heavy objects but soft enough to interact safely with humans.

These multimaterial 3D printing systems utilize thousands of nozzles to deposit tiny droplets of resin, which are smoothed with a scraper or roller and cured with UV light. But the smoothing process could squish or smear resins that cure slowly, limiting the types of materials that can be used.

Researchers from MIT, the MIT spinout Inkbit, and ETH Zurich have developed a new 3D inkjet printing system that works with a much wider range of materials. Their printer utilizes computer vision to automatically scan the 3D printing surface and adjust the amount of resin each nozzle deposits in real time to ensure no areas have too much or too little material.

Read more | >

A University of Texas at Dallas bioengineer has developed synthetic enzymes that can control the behavior of the signaling protein Vg1, which plays a key role in the development of muscle, bone and blood in vertebrate embryos.

The team of researchers is using a new approach, called the Synthetic Processing (SynPro) system, in zebrafish to study how Vg1 is formed. By learning the molecular rules of signal formation in a developing animal, researchers aim to engineer mechanisms – such as giving cells new instructions – that could play a role in treating or preventing disease.

Dr. P.C. Dave P. Dingal, assistant professor of bioengineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, and his colleagues published their research online Oct. 16 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read more | >

Autoimmune disorders are among the most prevalent chronic diseases across the globe. Emerging treatments for autoimmune disorders focus on “adoptive cell therapies,” or those using cells from a patient’s own body to achieve immunosuppression. These therapeutic cells are recognized by the patient’s body as “self,” therefore limiting side effects, and are specifically engineered to localize the intended therapeutic effect.

In treating , current adoptive cell therapies have largely centered around the regulatory T cell (Treg), which is defined by the expression of the Forkhead box protein 3, orFoxp3. Although Tregs offer great potential, using them for therapeutic purposes remains a major challenge. In particular, current delivery methods result in inefficient engineering of T cells.

Tregs only compose approximately 5%–10% of circulating peripheral blood . Furthermore, Tregs lack more specific surface markers that differentiate them from other T cell populations. These hurdles make it difficult to harvest, purify and grow Tregs to therapeutically relevant numbers. Although there are additional tissue-resident Tregs in non-lymphoid organs such as in and visceral adipose tissue, these Tregs are severely inaccessible and low in number.

Read more | >

Every cell in the human body contains the same genetic instructions, encoded in its DNA. However, out of about 30,000 genes, each cell expresses only those genes that it needs to become a nerve cell, immune cell, or any of the other hundreds of cell types in the body.

Each cell’s fate is largely determined by chemical modifications to the proteins that decorate its DNA; these modification in turn control which genes get turned on or off. When copy their DNA to divide, however, they lose half of these modifications, leaving the question: How do cells maintain the of what kind of cell they are supposed to be?

A new MIT study proposes a theoretical that helps explain how these memories are passed from generation to generation when cells divide. The research team suggests that within each cell’s nucleus, the 3D folding pattern of its genome determines which parts of the genome will be marked by these chemical modifications.

Read more | >