Here’s an important story I wrote on #cryonics for Quartz about a recent tragedy of a young girl and society’s reluctance to give people rights after death. I think something like “Danielle’s Law” could be important moving forward:
Cryogenics is facing legal hurdles for people who want their bodies to be frozen for the future.
TELL CONGRESS: PROTECT BIOIDENTICALS! The FDA is trying to take away our access to bioidentical hormones (also called BHRT). Like millions of you, I don’t want to live in a world without BHRThese life-saving hormones have made the aging process a joy! I have energy and vitality! I sleep great! My weight is under control! I have a healthy libido! My hair, skin and nails are strong! And my overall health is incredible. I attribute my successful aging to Bioidentical Hormone Replacement. The time to act is NOW! Visit: http://SaveBioidenticals.com/ and LET YOUR VOICES BE HEARD!
NIR BARZILAI HAS a plan. It’s a really big plan that might one day change medicine and health care as we know it. Its promise: extending our years of healthy, disease-free living by decades.
The more researchers learn about metformin, the more it seems like a medieval wonder drug that could extend lifespans in the 21st century.
Firstly, it greatly depends on how you define immortality. If you define it as living forever and being indestructible as in a comic book, then, no, it is highly unlikely. However, if you define it in terms of showing no decline in survival characteristics, no increase in disease incidence and no increase in mortality with advancing age, then yes. The first is a science-fiction fantasy; the second is based on real-world biology that evolution has already selected for in certain species. We call this state negligible senescence.
Senescence and negligible senescence
Circa 2015
Death is the one thing that’s guaranteed in today’s uncertain world, but now a new start-up called Humai thinks it might be able to get rid of that inconvenient problem for us too, by promising to transfer people’s consciousness into a new, artificial body.
If it sounds like science fiction, and that’s because it still is, with none of the technology required for Humai’s business plan currently up and running. But that’s not deterring the company’s CEO, Josh Bocanegra, who says his team will resurrect their first human within 30 years.
Researchers at the Salk Institute have moved a step closer to a possible therapy for Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that is often described as accelerated aging, as people with it appear to age far faster than normal. Using a new CRISPR/Cas9 gene therapy in a mouse model, they were able to slow down the pace of the condition, improve health, and increase lifespan.
What is Hutchinson-Gilford progeria?
Progeria is a degenerative disorder caused by a mutation in the LMNA gene. This disease has an early onset and progresses rapidly, and animals and humans with progeria show symptoms that are similar to regular aging, only on a much-accelerated timescale, giving them drastically shorter lifespans than normal. Humans with this condition rarely live very long, with the average being only 13 years old.
Continue reading “A CRISPR Gene Therapy for Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria” »
“Paul and Laura have made huge contributions to the biomedical gerontology field in recent years. Their work focuses on the characterisation and alleviation of the aspects of aging that are driven by DNA damage. At UA2019, their talks will describe their recent advances in the mechanistic understanding of DNA damage, aided by spectacularly good mouse models, and also their identification of natural products with potent senolytic activity”, says Aubrey de Grey.
undoing-aging.org/…/dr-laura-niedernhofer-and-dr-paul-robbi…
Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is a rare lethal genetic disorder characterized by symptoms reminiscent of accelerated aging. The major underlying genetic cause is a substitution mutation in the gene coding for lamin A, causing the production of a toxic isoform called progerin. Here we show that reduction of lamin A/progerin by a single-dose systemic administration of adeno-associated virus-delivered CRISPR–Cas9 components suppresses HGPS in a mouse model.
It’s inevitable in life, but aging isn’t really something people look forward to. Researchers have been seeking ways to reduce the impact of aging, not only because of vanity but also because as we age, there is a greater risk of certain serious health conditions like cancer, heart disease and neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s disease. Salk Institute scientists have now used CRISPR/Cas9, the gene-editing tool, to slow down aging. The work, reported in Nature Medicine, showed accelerated aging can be slowed in mice modeling a rare genetic disorder called Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome.
“Aging is a complex process in which cells start to lose their functionality, so it is critical for us to find effective ways to study the molecular drivers of aging,” said the senior author of the report Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory. “Progeria is an ideal aging model because it allows us to devise an intervention, refine it and test it again quickly.”
Not all damaged cells die. Some stick around as senescent cells, unable to divide but still able to produce chemical signals — and they could play a major role in the battle against aging.
“It is thought that these cells and the substances they produce are involved in the process of aging,” longevity researcher Nicolas Musi from the University of Texas at Austin told MIT Technology Review.
“The idea is that removing these cells may be beneficial to promote healthy aging and also to prevent diseases of aging.”
