Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: life extension – Page 227

DNA damage is constantly occurring in cells, either due to external sources or as a result of internal cellular metabolic reactions and physiological activities. Accurate repair of such DNA damages is critical to avoid mutations and chromosomal rearrangements linked to diseases including cancer, immunodeficiencies, neurodegeneration, and premature aging.

A team of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and the National Cancer Research Centre have identified a way to repair genetic damage and prevent DNA alterations using machine learning techniques.

The researchers state that it is possible to learn more about how cancer develops and how to fight it if we understand how DNA lesions originate and repair. Therefore, they hope that their discovery will help create better cancer treatments while also protecting our healthy cells.

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Down syndrome is the most common genetic disorder, impacting about 1 in 700 newborns around the world. At some point during their first hours and days of embryonic development, their dividing cells fail to properly wriggle a chromosome pair away from each other, leaving an extra copy where it shouldn’t be. Although scientists have known for more than six decades that this extra copy of chromosome 21 causes the cognitive impairment people with Down syndrome experience, exactly how it happens remains a matter of debate.

But in recent years, scientists using new RNA sequencing techniques to study cells from pairs of twins — one with Down syndrome and one without — have repeatedly turned up a curious pattern. It wasn’t just the genes on chromosome 21 that had been cranked way up in individuals with Down syndrome. Across every chromosome, gene expression had gone haywire. Something else was going on.

On Thursday, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported in Cell Stem Cell that it may have found a surprising culprit: senescent cells, the same types implicated in many diseases of aging. The study was small and preliminary, and some experts want to see it replicated in samples from more individuals before buying into its interpretations. But they are nevertheless intriguing.

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They say ‘I believe in nature. Nature is harmonious’. Every big fish is eating every smaller fish. Every organ is fighting constantly invading bacteria. Is that what you mean by harmony? There are planets that are exploding out there. Meteorites that hit another and blow up. What’s the purpose of that? What’s the purpose of floods? To drown people? In other words, if you start looking for purpose, you gotta look all over, take in the whole picture. So, man projects his own values into nature. — Jacque Fresco (March 13, 1916 — May 18, 2017)

When most of us use the word ‘nature‘, we really don’t know much about it in reality. — Ursa.

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Unlocking The Secrets Of Salamander Regeneration For Regenerative Therapies — Dr. Maximina Yun, Ph.D., CRTD / Center for Regenerative Therapies TU Dresden, Technische Universität Dresden.

Dr. Maximina Yun, Ph.D. (https://tu-dresden.de/cmcb/crtd/forschungsgruppen/crtd-forsc…oup-leader) is Research Group Leader at the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD), Technical University Dresden, jointly affiliated with Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG).

Dr. Yun and her group (https://tu-dresden.de/cmcb/crtd/forschungsgruppen/crtd-forschungsgruppen/yun) study the cellular and molecular basis of regeneration of complex structures with the help of salamanders (like newts and axolotls) and these vertebrates exceptional regenerative abilities, which in contrast to humans, are capable of regenerating complex tissues, and even entire organs, to a remarkable extent. Therefore, they offer unique insights into what molecular mechanisms must be in place for achieving quasi-perfect regeneration.

Continue reading “Dr. Maximina Yun, Ph.D. — Unlocking Secrets Of Salamander Regeneration For Regenerative Therapies” | >

The University of Copenhagen in Denmark is a very unique place. Apart from being one of the oldest universities in Scandinavia, it is also one of the top universities in the world. So far, 39 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with the University and it sports a spectacular center for healthy aging which hosts the Biology of Aging lab. In September 2021 the University of Copenhagen hosted the 8th annual Aging Research and Drug Discovery (ARDD) meeting.

This year’s ARDD meeting, held at the Ceremonial Hall of the University, was the largest conference on aging and biopharma in the world for the second consecutive year.

The conference, which took place from August 31 to September 3, brought together leaders in the field of longevity research with the focus on aging research, drug discovery and biomarker development. Those who regularly read my articles know that I believe that aging research is the emerging trend in the biopharmaceutical industry. The field is well and truly emerging and ARDD is one of the first conferences to credibly bring together pharmaceutical companies, startups, clinicians, venture capital firms, and representatives from academia to the same table.

The first ARDD meeting was held in 2014 at Basil, Switzerland. Back then, the meeting was known as the Aging Forum and was part of the MipTec and Basel Life congresses. From its inception, the conference was intended to bring together the pharmaceutical industry, leading academics, investors, and startups while maintaining a very high level of scientific credibility, while focusing on the translational potential.

Continue reading “Can The Pharmaceutical Companies Use Basic Aging Biology To Develop Drugs For Age-Related Diseases?” | >

If you thought the Hubble Space Telescope was about to be surpassed by the new James Webb Space Telescope (Webb), think again.

Now on its way to its observing position a million miles from Earth, Webb has a 6.6 meter mirror–compared to the 2.4-meter mirror inside Hubble–so six times more collecting power.

Should we compare Webb with Hubble? No–Webb is an infrared telescope while Hubble deals mainly in optical (visible) light.

Besides, Hubble has just issued a stunning new image, one of several in the last few weeks, that prove that there’s plenty of life left in the old space telescope yet.

The main image of this article, above, was released yesterday and shows a spiral galaxy called NGC 105 about 215 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces. It also shows, top-left, a smaller galaxy. Are the two colliding? No–it’s merely a chance alignment of the two objects in the night sky. That smaller galaxy is much further away.

Continue reading “In Photos: Hubble Isn’t Done Yet As Ageing Space Telescope Sends Back Stunning New ‘Galactic Collision’ Images” | >

Our reluctance to think, talk or communicate about death is even more pronounced when we deal with others’ loss compared to our own, new research finds, but either way we tend to frame attitudes and emotions in a sad and negative way.

Teaching new more positive ways to address these difficult conversations is the focus of a new paper in PLOS ONE journal by palliative care specialists across Australia.

Led by Flinders University’s Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death and Dying (RePaDD) and Palliative and Supportive Services, researchers from Flinders, CQUniversity Australia, NT Palliative Care Central Australia and University of Technology Sydney, surveyed 1,491 people about the use of language to express their feelings and insights into death and dying.

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