Lifeboat Foundation

Watch out, George Lucas, there’s a new attack of the clones, and these ones are furry.

Japanese researchers have created a potentially endless line of mice cloned from other cloned mice. They used the same technique that created Dolly the sheep to produce 581 mice from an original donor mouse through 25 rounds of cloning, the scientists report in the March 7 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell.

“This technique could be very useful for the large-scale production of superior-quality animals, for farming or conservation purposes,” study leader Teruhiko Wakayama of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, said in a statement.

CRISPR gene editing in mice has been used to correct a mutation that can cause rapid ageing, dramatically improving the animals’ health and lifespan.

Moonshot Thinking For Aging, Mental Health, And Drug Re-Purposing — Dr. Tim R. Peterson.

Washington University in St. Louis.

Continue reading “Dr. Tim R. Peterson — Moonshot Thinking For Aging, Mental Health, And Drug Re-Purposing” »

We tried to be comprehensive here, but are there any big arguments against life extension (ethical or otherwise) that you always hear that we missed?

Thinking through the ethics of life extension can be complicated. Here are the main pros and cons of immortality from an ethical standpoint.

Gene therapies are opening up possibilities that were once reserved for science fiction.

At Harvard University, Professor of Genetics David Sinclair says he believes it’s possible to unlock the fountain of youth, and gene therapy is the key.

Continue reading “Gene Therapies and the Promise of the Fountain of Youth” »

A huge shout-out to LessWrong for this fantastic write-up on the science of anti-aging research:

We join them in their call-to-action…

Continue reading “Anti-Aging: State of the Art” »

The idea of slowing down the ageing process and living healthier, more productive lives is hugely appealing. It’s led to a growing trend for people looking to take control of their own biology, optimising their bodies and minds through ‘biohacking’. But how safe and ethical is this pursuit of longevity? And are there more natural ways of expanding your healthy lifespan? Video by Dan John Animation by Adam Proctor.

Once, at a friend’s wedding, he left a group of guests mildly incensed for suggesting that near-future humans might live well into their 100s. A similar thing happens at dinner parties, where the responses are more polite but no less sceptical. Eventually, he says, “I think we are very likely to have a drug that treats ageing in the next 10 years.” Steele believes we will be hopelessly unlucky if scientists don’t make a breakthrough within that time, given how many human trials are in progress or upcoming. And although these breakthroughs won’t result in treatments that extend our lives by 100 years, they will give us enough extra time to ensure we’re alive for subsequent breakthroughs, subsequent treatments, subsequent additions in lifespan and so on.

The biologist Andrew Steele thinks ageing is a disease that can be treated. But if we had a cure for getting old, what would that mean for us?

Cellular senescence, a state of permanent growth arrest, has emerged as a hallmark and fundamental driver of organismal aging. It is regulated by both genetic and epigenetic factors. Despite a few previously reported aging-associated genes, the identity and roles of additional genes involved in the regulation of human cellular aging remain to be elucidated. Yet, there is a lack of systematic investigation on the intervention of these genes to treat aging and aging-related diseases.

How many aging-promoting genes are there in the human genome? What are the molecular mechanisms by which these genes regulate aging? Can gene therapy alleviate individual aging? Recently, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have shed new light on the regulation of aging.

Recently, researchers from the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Peking University, and Beijing Institute of Genomics of CAS have collaborated to identify new human senescence-promoting genes by using a genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 screening system and provide a new therapeutic approach for treating aging and aging-related pathologies.