A team of mechanical engineers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore has found a way to electronically control cockroaches without injuring them. In their paper published in the journal npj Flexible Electronics, the group describes the new technology they used to remotely control the cockroaches and the benefits of doing so.
Prior research teams have created a variety of cyborg cockroaches, but they all had one feature in common—they all involved attaching probes to the insect’s nervous system—procedures that led to damage to the insect, and likely some degree of pain.
In this new effort, the researchers noted that damaging cockroaches during attempts to control them results in a very short life expectancy, which then results in very little payoff for a lot of work. They also suggest such research is unethical because of the pain inflicted on the cockroaches. In this new effort, they have found a way to control cockroaches that does not involve cutting into them, resulting in a much longer lifespan.
Just about everyone may want to look and feel younger and healthier, but multimillion-dollar investments and broccoli smoothies are not for everyone. Still, that doesn’t mean the less hardcore among us are out of luck if we’re hoping to turn back the clock on our brain health.
New research by a team of psychologists uncovered a simple way just about anyone can get their brain working like it’s decades younger.
You probably don’t need science to tell you this, but people’s cognitive acuity generally starts to level off in their 30s and 40s before declining more markedly in their 60s. Most of us write our slower responses and memory lapses off to the unavoidable indignities of aging. But what if they were just the adult equivalent of the “summer slide” that affects kids, a pair of researchers wanted to know.
Though drug developers have achieved some progress in treating Alzheimer’s disease with medicines that reduce amyloid-beta protein, other problems of the disease, including inflammation, continue unchecked. In a new study, scientists at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT describe a candidate drug that in human cell cultures and Alzheimer’s mouse models reduced inflammation and improved memory.
The target of the new “A11” molecule is a genetic transcription factor called PU.1. Prior research has shown that amid Alzheimer’s disease, PU.1 becomes an overzealous director of inflammatory gene expression in the brain’s microglia immune cells. A11 suppresses this problematic PU.1 activity, the new research shows, by recruiting other proteins that repress the inflammatory genes PU.1 works to express. But because A11 concentrates mostly in the brain and does not reduce PU.1 levels, it does not appear to disrupt PU.1’s other job, which is to ensure the production of a wide variety of blood cells.
“Inflammation is a major component of Alzheimer’s disease pathology that has been especially hard to treat,” says study senior author Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience at MIT and director of The Picower Institute and MIT’s Aging Brain Initiative. “This preclinical study demonstrates that A11 reduces inflammation in human microglia-like cells, as well as in multiple mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease, and significantly improves cognition in the mice. We believe A11 therefore merits further development and testing.”
As we age, our muscles and other tissues break down in much the same way as degenerative diseases progress. What we learn from studying degenerative diseases such as muscular dystrophy could help researchers develop new interventions to fight common age-related ailments and chronic illnesses.
With help from NIA, biotechnology company Juvena Therapeutics has begun unlocking the secrets of proteins for regenerative medicine. Juvena scientists are using a form of muscular dystrophy — myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM-1) — as a model to sift through proteins that are produced by the body’s stem cells. These cells have the potential to become any type of cell in the body, from liver tissue to skin cells. The goal is to find proteins that encourage tissue growth and repair, ultimately designing new drugs to prevent and treat degenerative diseases like DM-1. As part of this process, Juvena hopes to learn more about how to reduce the effects of aging on muscles and other tissues, too.
A new biotech trying to establish itself can feel isolated from the larger scientific community. For example, Juvena is unable to submit findings for publication before taking care of intellectual property protections. But NIH’s peer-review process offered confidential, scientifically rigorous feedback to fill that critical gap, and the NIA Small Business Programs staff offered helpful advice.
“We can get the input, guidance, and advice that we need to really better the work,” Yousef said.
Five years in, the company has now raised about $60 million. But Yousef said that NIA funding is more than just financial support and feedback. It gives the company no-strings-attached freedom to explore the scientific potential of their ideas as well as the capital needed to pursue preclinical development of new leads, unlike loans or business obligations that come with venture capital.
Insights into healing and aging were discovered by National Institutes of Health researchers and their collaborators, who studied how a tiny sea creature regenerates an entire new body from only its mouth. The researchers sequenced RNA from Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus, a small, tube-shaped animal that lives on the shells of hermit crabs. Just as the Hydractinia were beginning to regenerate new bodies, the researchers detected a molecular signature associated with the biological process of aging, also known as senescence. According to the study published in Cell Reports, Hydractinia demonstrates that the fundamental biological processes of healing and aging are intertwined, providing new perspective on how aging evolved.
NIH researchers researchers and collaborators have gained some key insights into the biological inner-workings of regrowing a body, the evolution of aging and a unique method to dispose of aging cells, by studying the genomes of a hermit crab (Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus).
Discovering And Developing Medicines To Keep You Biologically Young — Dr. Marco Quarta, Ph.D. — Co-Founder and CEO, Rubedo Life Sciences; CEO, Phaedon Institute.
Dr. Marco Quarta, Ph.D. is Co-Founder and CEO of Rubedo Life Sciences (https://www.rubedolife.com/), a biopharmaceutical company developing a broad portfolio of innovative therapies engineered to target cells which drive chronic age-related diseases. The company’s proprietary ALEMBIC™ drug discovery platform has engineered novel first-in-class small molecules designed to selectively target senescent cells, which play a key role in the progression of pulmonary, dermatological, oncological, neurodegenerative, fibrotic and other chronic disorders.
Dr. Quarta received his doctorate degree in Biotechnology from the University of Bologna and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Padua. He completed a post-doc in Aging and Stem cell Biology in the lab of Prof. Thomas Rando at Stanford University and continued his work at Stanford directing a research team at the Center for Tissue Regeneration, Repair, and Restoration at the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, CA. While there, he established a translational program in regenerative medicine. He has over 35 publications and patents in the field of aging, stem cells, regenerative medicine, and rejuvenation.
Dr. Quarta also co-founded Wetware Concepts, Young European Biotech Network (YEBN), and Turn Biotechnology, and served as an executive board member of the European Federation of Biotechnologies. He currently sits on the advisory board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) Calpoly Bridge program, and the advisory board at the Center for Healthcare Innovation. He is a member of the Paul F Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging Studies at Stanford University, one of the most prestigious institutions supporting the science of aging.
Dr. Quarta also serves as CEO and President for the Board of Directors of The Phaedon Institute (https://www.phaedon.institute/), a think-tank organization that operates with the mission of supporting and enabling effective and sustainable growth in the field of aging and longevity sciences.
This November, researchers, clinicians, and investors will descend on Miami, Florida for the annual Wonderland conference. This year, the world’s leading psychedelics conference is expanding its focus to include longevity for the first time, welcoming top speakers from across the field, from Bryan Johnson to Aubrey de Grey.
Through a series of keynotes, round table and panel discussions, and town hall open mic sessions, the event aims to explore the increasingly linked topics of psychedelic medicine, mental health, and longevity medicine.
Longevity. Technology: Every month it seems, more and more research is highlighting the connection between mental health and longevity – from accelerated biological aging to reduced life expectancy. With psychedelics simultaneously demonstrating compelling results in the treatment of mental conditions, from depression to PTSD, the synergies between longevity and psychedelic medicine are clear. We caught up with leading longevity physician Dr Halland Chen to tap into his views on recent developments in longevity medicine and its links with the psychedelic world.
