Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: health – Page 492

US Government gives go-ahead to research to grow part-animal part-human organs for transplants

Posting for the friends who hasn’t heard about the US funding the new program to grow half human and half animal embryos. Part of the goal is to enable organs to be made available for transplants, etc…

The federal government is planning to lift a moratorium on funding of controversial experiments that use human stem cells to create animal embryos that are partly human.

The National Institutes of Health has unveiled a new policy to permit scientists to get federal money to make the embryos, known as chimeras, under certain carefully monitored conditions.

The NIH imposed a moratorium on funding these experiments in September because they could raise ethical concerns.

Engineers implanted tiny sensors in rats’ nerves and muscles. Are humans next?

The benefits of the technology for humans, while still largely hypothetical, are promising. The sensors could allow physicians to monitor the health of organs, create new therapies for neurological disorders, and help the physically impaired to control prosthetics.

While chips have been implanted in humans and other animals before, these sensors mark a significant improvement because they are small, wireless, batteryless, and could last in the body for years without degrading, said Michel Maharbiz, the associate professor who devised and studied the sensors alongside neuroscientist Jose Carmena.

“Hopefully the [tiny sensors] demonstrate a new direction for the field, and then you could build the consensus that’s needed to drive these forward,” Maharbiz said.

Would it be immoral to send out a generation starship?

If human beings are ever to colonise other planets – which might become necessary for the survival of the species, given how far we have degraded this one – they will almost certainly have to use generation ships: spaceships that will support not just those who set out on them, but also their descendants. The vast distances between Earth and the nearest habitable planets, combined with the fact that we are unlikely ever to invent a way of travelling that exceeds the speed of light, ensures that many generations will be born, raised and die on board such a ship before it arrives at its destination.

A generation ship would have to be a whole society in microcosm, with hospitals and schools, living quarters and perhaps entertainment districts, a security force, maybe even a judiciary. It would need to be able to provide food for its crew, and that might require agriculture or aquaculture, perhaps even domestic animals (which might also be needed for the colonisation effort). Its design therefore presents a major challenge: not just to engineers but also to social scientists. How should the crew be selected and the environment structured to minimise interpersonal conflict? What size of population is optimal for it to remain committed to the single overarching project of colonising a new planet without too much of a risk of self-destructive boredom or excessive narrowing of the gene pool? Does mental health require that a quasi-natural environment be recreated within the ship (with trees, grass and perhaps undomesticated birds and small animals)?

As well as the technological and social challenges confronting the designers of such ships, there are fascinating philosophical and ethical issues that arise. The issue I want to focus on concerns the ethics of a project that locks the next generation into a form of living, the inauguration of which they had no say over, and that ensures their options are extremely limited.

South Carolina patient has rare ‘brain-eating’ amoeba, CDC confirms

Southern US is having a bad summer. Zika in FL and Brain eating amoebas in SC.

CHARLESTON COUNTY, S.C. — A patient in South Carolina has tested positive for Naegleria fowleri, the so-called “brain-eating amoeba,” The Centers for Disease Control confirmed in a statement.

Health officials think the patient may have been exposed during a July 24 swim at Martin’s Landing in the Edisto River, which runs through the southeast portion of the state through the Ernest F. Hollings Ace Basin National Wildlife park.

The amoeba occurs naturally and is “all around us and is present in many warm water lakes, rivers and streams, but infection in humans is very rare,” Linda Bell, M.D. and state epidemiologist told WISTV.

Bioquark Inc. and RegenerAge SAPI de CV to Collaborate on Clinical Regenerative Healthcare

Philadelphia, PA, USA / Mexico City, Mexico — Bioquark, Inc., (www.bioquark.com) a life sciences company focused on the development of novel bioproducts for complex regeneration, disease reversion, and aging, and RegenerAge SAPI de CV, (www.regenerage.clinic/en/) a clinical company focused on translational therapeutic applications of a range of regenerative and rejuvenation healthcare interventions, have announced a collaboration to focus on novel combinatorial approaches in human disease and wellness. SGR-Especializada (http://www.sgr-especializada.com/), regulatory experts in the Latin American healthcare market, assisted in the relationship.

“We are very excited about this collaboration with RegenerAge SAPI de CV,” said Ira S. Pastor, CEO, Bioquark Inc. “The natural synergy of our cellular and biologic to applications of regenerative and rejuvenative medicine will make for novel and transformational opportunities in a range of degenerative disorders.”

As we close in on $7 trillion in total annual health care expenditures around the globe ($1 trillion spent on pharmaceutical products; $200 billion on new R&D), we are simultaneously witnessing a paradoxical rise in the prevalence of all chronic degenerative diseases responsible for human suffering and death.

With the emergence of such trends including: personalization of medicine on an “n-of-1” basis, adaptive clinical design, globalization of health care training, compassionate use legislative initiatives for experimental therapies, wider acceptance of complementary medical technologies, and the growth of international medical travel, patients and clinicians are more than ever before, exploring the ability to access the therapies of tomorrow, today.

recovering patient

The estimate of the current market size for procedural medical travel, defined by medical travelers who travel across international borders for the purpose of receiving medical care, is in the range of US $40–55 billion.

Additionally, major clinical trial gaps currently exist across all therapeutic segments that are responsible for human suffering and death. Cancer is one prime example. As a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide for many decades, today there are approximately 14 million new cases diagnosed each year, with over 8 million cancer related deaths annually. It is estimated that less than 5% of these patients, take the initiative to participate in any available clinical studies.

“We look forward to working closely with Bioquark Inc. on this exciting initiative,” said Dr. Joel Osorio, Chief of Clinical Development RegenerAge SAPI de CV. “The ability to merge cellular and biologic approaches represents the next step in achieving comprehensive regeneration and disease reversion events in a range of chronic diseases responsible for human suffering and death.”

bioquarklogo

About Bioquark, Inc.
Bioquark Inc. is focused on the development of natural biologic based products, services, and technologies, with the goal of curing a wide range of diseases, as well as effecting complex regeneration. Bioquark is developing both biological pharmaceutical candidates, as well as products for the global consumer health and wellness market segments.

About RegenerAge SAPI de CV

RegenerAge SAPI de CV is a novel clinical company focused on translational therapeutic applications, as well as expedited, experimental access for “no option” patients, to a novel range of regenerative and reparative biomedical products and services, with the goal of reducing human degeneration, suffering, and death.

Now there’s an app to help you breathe

Apple’s new app to help you do deep breathing to improve your mind, intelligence, and over all health.

APPLE is set to launch a new app that aims to make you healthier through just a few minutes a day of deep breathing.

It is based on the growing field of research proving the biological benefits, including genetic changes, of mind-body medicine.

The Breathe app will be released for the Apple Watch later this year and it will prompt people to take a few minutes every day to stop and focus on their breathing, using the heart-rate sensor in the Watch to monitor the reaction.

Education Linked to Brain Tumor Risk

Education and socioeconomic status have been linked with cancer outcomes, but a new study now links higher education with the development of certain types of cancer.

The large observational study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, reports that a high level of education is associated with an increased risk of brain tumors. The study is based on data from 4.3 million Swedish adults who were monitored between 1993 and 2010. Overall, 5,735 men and 7,101 women developed a brain tumor during the observation period.

Men with at least three years of university-level education had a 19% greater risk of developing gliomas than men with only a compulsory level of education (nine years). Women with the same level of education had a 23% increased risk of gliomas and a 16% increased risk of meningiomas. Marital status and amount of disposable income only slightly affected the risk among men but not among women. Single men had a lower risk of glioma but a higher risk of meningiomas. Occupation also influenced brain tumor risks among men and women: men in professional and management roles had a 20% increased risk of gliomas and a 50% increased risk of acoustic neuromas; women in these roles had a 26% increased risk of gliomas and a 14% increased risk of meningiomas.

The U.S. Presidential Candidate Who Loves Science, Technology, And…Immortality?

A new story with lots of transhumanism in it:

Zoltan Istvan is in the running for President of the United States. You may not have heard of him, but if elected, he hopes to put an end to death. All of it. (Yes, seriously).

There are people right now walking around with artificial hearts – something that many people believed would not happen for another decade (or even longer). There are quadriplegics no longer bound to a wheelchair, but walk with exoskeleton technology. There are hundreds of thousands of people with brain implants that help them with various ailments. In short, recent technological breakthroughs like these open up the possibility for humans to enhance themselves and their health—and perhaps to even become immortal (someday).

As you can imagine, such radical developments demand strong, intelligent and science-focused political leadership. That is why Zoltan Istvan, of the Transhumanist Party, says that he is running for U.S. President this year, as the #ScienceCandidate.

He thinks that, by encouraging America to embrace science and technology, we could transform our lives and the planet by overcoming poverty, aging, and even death…and all in the coming generation.

How the most connected hospitals will use chatbots

Sure, chatbots are useful for service industries like hospitality and food delivery, but in health care? Some groups are testing the use of chatbots to retrieve medical information from within a messaging app. At first glance, that seems a bit impersonal, but a closer look reveals a wide range of use cases where bots could make your next visit to the hospital, doctor’s office, or pharmacy faster and more effective.

Let’s run this back a bit. If you’re not familiar with bots, here’s a brief explanation. Bots are software applications that run automated tasks or scripts that serve as shortcuts for completing a certain job, but they do it faster (a lot faster) and with verve. And in health care, we spend a lot of time spent generating and retrieving information.

By putting a trained army of bots inside an application — smartphone, desktop, whatever-top — health care workers can rapidly improve throughput by simply cutting out a bunch of steps. That’s something most care providers today would welcome, especially with millions of new people entering the system as a result of the Affordable Care Act and the aging of baby boomers. With the crush of increased data entry and new regulations, costs and rote work are skyrocketing.

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