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Cyborgs and immortality: into the research of Dr. Huberman

Who doesn’t want to live forever?

Every society has its own set of myths about finding eternal life: the Fountain of Youth for the Spaniards and Shangri La for the Chinese, for example. For the transhumanists, this myth may become a reality.

Dr. Jennifer Huberman is a cultural anthropology professor at UMKC whose recent research has focused on this emerging high-tech society. Initially, Huberman did not set out to study the transhumanists.

Greg Fahy at Ending Age-Related Diseases 2019

We’re continuing to release talks from Ending Age-Related Diseases 2019, our highly successful two-day conference that featured talks from leading researchers and investors, bringing them together to discuss the future of aging and rejuvenation biotechnology.

Dr. Greg Fahy of Intervene Immune gave a presentation about his company’s Phase 1 human trials in which the thymus, a critical organ of the immune system, was regenerated through a combination of existing drugs, restoring immune function and causing epigenetic biomarkers to show rejuvenation.

AgeX Therapeutics Publishes Theoretical Basis of Human Cell Age-Reversal in the Journal Regenerative Medicine

A unified theory of ageing, there is a vid and a paper linked within.


ALAMEDA, Calif.—( )—AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. (“AgeX”; NYSE American: AGE), a biotechnology company focused on therapeutics for human aging and regeneration, announced today that founder and CEO Michael D. West, Ph.D., and colleagues have authored a paper in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Regenerative Medicine on the theoretical foundation of the Company’s induced Tissue Regeneration (iTRTM) technology. The paper presents the work of the company’s scientists in describing a unified theory of aging and regeneration that could pave the way for the development of new therapies for a variety of age-related degenerative diseases and conditions.

“The longevity sector is advancing at an accelerating pace, but for the most part, without a consensus on the fundamental root causes of aging,” commented Dr. West. “We believe that it is now possible to collate the diverse observations about aging into a unified model. In the paper titled, ‘Toward a Unified Theory of Aging and Regeneration’ we outline such a theory that underlies the technological underpinnings of the company’s induced tissue regeneration (iTR) program.”

The design, construction and characterization of new nanovibrational bioreactors for osteogenesis

In regenerative medicine, scientists aim to significantly advance techniques that can control stem cell lineage commitment. For example, mechanical stimulation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) at the nanoscale can activate mechanotransduction pathways to stimulate osteogenesis (bone development) in 2-D and 3D culture. Such work can revolutionize bone graft procedures by creating graft material from autologous or allogenic sources of MSCs without chemically inducing the phenomenon. Due to increasing biomedical interest in such mechanical stimulation of cells for clinical use, both researchers and clinicians require a scalable bioreactor system to provide consistently reproducible results. In a new study now published on Scientific Reports, Paul Campsie and a team of multidisciplinary researchers at the departments of biomedical engineering, computing, physics, and molecular, cell and systems biology engineered a new bioreactor system to meet the existing requirements.

The new instrument contained a vibration plate for bioreactions, calibrated and optimized for nanometer vibrations at 1 kHz, a power supply unit to generate a 30 nm vibration amplitude and custom six-well cultureware for cell growth. The cultureware contained magnetic inserts to attach to the bioreactor’s magnetic vibration plate. They assessed osteogenic protein expression to confirm the differentiation of MSCs after initial biological experiments within the system. Campsie et al. conducted atomic force microscopy (AFM) of the 3D gel constructs to verify that strain hardening of the gel did not occur during vibrational stimulation. The results confirmed to be the result of nano-vibrational stimulations provided by the bioreactor alone.

The increasing incidence of skeletal injuries due to age-related conditions such as osteoporosis and osteoarthritis is a metric of the depleting quality of human life. The development of treatments for increased bone density or fracture healing are prime targets for the regenerative potential of mesenchymal stem (MSCs). Researchers have demonstrated controlled osteogenesis (development of bones) of MSCs via mechanical stimulation using several methods, including passive and active strategies. Passive methods typically alter the substrate topography to influence the cell adhesion profile, while active methods include exposure to varied forces from external sources.

The Heterogeneity of Senescent Cells

Cellular senescence, discovered in 1961 by Leonard Hayflick and Paul Moorhead, is a state in which cells no longer perform their functions, instead emitting harmful chemicals that turn other cells senescent. Senescence is primarily caused by telomere shortening and DNA damage, and senescent cells are known to contribute to multiple diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and dementia.

One method of removing senescent cells is caloric restriction, which is a temporary reduction of food calories. This has been shown to be one of the most effective methods to decrease and slow the onset of aging phenotypes [1].

This is related to autophagy, which is the cell’s natural method of breaking down parts of itself when it doesn’t have immediate access to food [2]. Autophagy has been shown to both promote and prevent senescence. It removes damaged macromolecules or organelles, such as mitochondria, which would otherwise cause cellular senescence. However, some of the processes that cause autophagy cause cellular senescence as well [3].

How Close Are We to Downloading the Human Brain?

Downloading your brain may seem like science fiction, but some neuroscientists think it’s not only possible, but that we’ve already started down a path to one day make it a reality. So, how close are we to downloading a human brain?

How Close Are We to Fusion Energy? — https://youtu.be/ZW_YCWLyv6A

We’ve Put a Worm’s Mind in a Lego Robot’s Body
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/weve-put-worms-min…399/?no-is
“A wheeled Lego robot may not look like a worm, but it ‘thinks’ like one after programmers gave it the neuron connections in a C. elegans roundworm”

Crumb of Mouse Brain Reconstructed in Full Detail
https://www.nature.com/news/crumb-of-mouse-brain-reconstruct…il-1.18105
“The resulting three-dimensional map is the first complete reconstruction of a piece of tissue in the mammalian neocortex, the most recently evolved region of the brain.”

The Immortalist: Uploading the Mind to a Computer
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35786771
“Within the next 30 years,” promises Dmitry Itskov, “I am going to make sure that we can all live forever.”

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