Lifeboat Foundation

Don’t worry you haven’t stumbled onto that strange part of the internet again, but it is true that we never truly did sequence the entire Human genome. For you see what was completed in June 2000 was the so called ‘first draft’, which constituted roughly 92% of genome. The problem with the remaining 8% was that these were genomic ‘dead zones’, made up of vast regions of repeating patterns of nucleotide bases that made studying these regions of the genome effectively impossible with the technology that was available at the time.

However, recent breakthroughs in high throughput nanopore sequencing technology have allowed for these so call dead zones to be sequences. Analysing these zone revealed 80 different genes which had been missed during the initial draft of the Human genome. Admittedly this is not many considering that the other 92% of the genome contain 19889 genes, but it may turn out that these genes hold great significance, as there are still many biological pathways which we do not fully understand. It is likely that many of these genes will soon be linked with what are known as orphan enzymes, which are proteins that are created from an unidentified gene, which is turn opens up the door to studying these enzymes more closely via controlling their expression.

Continue reading “Genes in the Dead Zone” »

Clouds on Mars — SpaceX Starlink — Science images.

NASA’s Curiosity rover captured rare clouds on Mars as telescopes peered into the center of the Milky Way and cosmonauts walked in space this week.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=IT0gXa1ZrnA

When attacked by chemotherapy, all cancer cells have the ability to start hibernating in order to wait out the threat, finds new research.

Researchers discover that cancer cells go into hibernation to avoid chemotherapy effects.

Papers referenced in the video:

Sirtuins, Healthspan, and Longevity in Mammals.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780124115965000034

Continue reading “SIRT6 Positively Affects The Hallmarks Of Aging And Extends Lifespan” »

The Moon will get between us and the Sun next week, creating a fiery halo.

During the annular eclipse, the Sun is at its nearest point to Earth, while the Moon is at its greatest distance away from Earth, so it is not large enough to cover up the entirety of the Sun from our view from Earth.

When is the annular solar eclipse?

Continue reading “You need to watch the ‘ring of fire’ annular solar eclipse” »

To keep the longevity train rolling it may not be enough to cure diseases. We may also need to address the underlying condition of aging itself, which is, after all, the primary risk factor for late-life decline.

What happens if we slow down aging?

Space weaponization is on the rise between the 3 super powers. This is dangerous and it could lead to the Stone Age.

HELSINKI — Russia and China have formally invited countries and international organizations to join the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) project being developed by the two nations.

China National Space Administration (CNSA) and Russia’s Roscosmos said the ILRS project would be open to participation at all stages and levels. This includes planning, design, research, development, implementation and operations.

Continue reading “China, Russia open moon base project to international partners, early details emerge” »

Fate Therapeutics on Thursday reported new results from two early-stage studies testing two types of experimental leukemia treatments that use natural killer cells, an emerging form of cancer immunotherapy.

Research into NK cell treatments remains early, and the field has significant hurdles still to overcome, like proving how potent their effects are and how long they last. It’s unclear what role they’ll play in cancer care. But encouraging signs are emerging, most notably from a lymphoma treatment developed by the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

The field’s progress has led to the launch of multiple startups and elevated the profile of biotechs like Fate and Nkarta Therapeutics, the most advanced, publicly traded companies developing the technology. NK cells are “becoming a very important tool and cell type within this fight against cancer,” said CRISPR Therapeutics CEO Sam Kulkarni in an interview after the biotech formed a broad partnership with Nkarta last week.

Continue reading “Fate offers glimpse at ‘natural killer’ cell therapy for leukemia” »

Scientists have been aware of the existence of stem cells since the 1900’s, but it wasn’t until the turn of the millennium that the medical community (and in turn the public) sat up and took notice of their potential. Unfortunately, the first public debut of stem cell therapy in the eyes of the public was through the political and moral minefield of deriving stem cell lines from human embryos. It was long before religious and secular objections lead to President Bush Banning any Federal funding for studies utilising newly created stem cell lines. The public opinion of stem cells was extremely polarised, with the public split heavily down the middle, between support and condemnation. What happened next was unfortunately as predictable as the tide coming in.

To compensate for the pushback against stem cell research, more and more extravagant claims were made in support of stem cells. Although most of these claims were based upon perfectly reasonable extrapolation from what was known of the potential for stem cells, the time frame in which these advances could be made was wildly underestimated. Confounding that problem was the fact that it would be many years until a method through which stem cells could be reverse engineered from a patient’s tissue, which meant that medical treatments had to based around stem cell lines derived from embryonic stem cell lines, which as discusses previously was an ethical nightmare, as well as being logically untenable for the majority of people (as most people don’t have embryonic tissue samples stored away for future use). Great promises were made to the public, without a full understanding of what was needed in order to get stem cell therapy to a functional level.