Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical

Aged population is increasing worldwide due to the aging process that is inevitable. Accordingly, longevity and healthy aging have been spotlighted to promote social contribution of aged population. Many studies in the past few decades have reported the process of aging and longevity, emphasizing the importance of maintaining genomic stability in exceptionally long-lived population. Underlying reason of longevity remains unclear due to its complexity involving multiple factors. With advances in sequencing technology and human genome-associated approaches, studies based on population-based genomic studies are increasing. In this review, we summarize recent longevity and healthy aging studies of human population focusing on DNA repair as a major factor in maintaining genome integrity. To keep pace with recent growth in genomic research, aging- and longevity-associated genomic databases are also briefly introduced. To suggest novel approaches to investigate longevity-associated genetic variants related to DNA repair using genomic databases, gene set analysis was conducted, focusing on DNA repair- and longevity-associated genes. Their biological networks were additionally analyzed to grasp major factors containing genetic variants of human longevity and healthy aging in DNA repair mechanisms. In summary, this review emphasizes DNA repair activity in human longevity and suggests approach to conduct DNA repair-associated genomic study on human healthy aging.

Aging is an inevitable process in human life. Many countries are rapidly transitioning to an aging society due to increasing life expectancy and advanced medical supports [1–3]. Over the last few decades, the advent of aging society is considered a crucial issue that may cause future decline in productivity of community [1, 4]. Many researchers have recently warned that urban environmental pollutants can cause physiological weakness and increase the risk of premature aging or chronic diseases in the elderly population [5–9]. Thus, interest in antiaging and healthy longevity is constantly increasing. “Active aging” or “successful aging” has been spotlighted as a strategy to promote social contribution of the elderly [10]. The definition of successful aging remains controversial.

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A journalist, a soup exec, and an imam walk into a room. There’s no joke here. It’s just another day at CrisprCon.

On Monday and Tuesday, hundreds of scientists, industry folk, and public health officials from all over the world filled the amphitheater at the Boston World Trade Center to reckon with the power of biology’s favorite new DNA-tinkering tool: Crispr. The topics were thorny—from the ethics of self-experimenting biohackers to the feasibility of pan-global governance structures. And more than once you could feel the air rush right out of the room. But that was kind of the point. CrisprCon is designed to make people uncomfortable.

“I’m going to talk about the monkey in the room,” said Antonio Cosme, an urban farmer and community organizer in Detroit who appeared on a panel at the second annual conference devoted to Crispr’s big ethical questions to talk about equitable access to gene editing technologies. He referred to the results of an audience poll that had appeared moments before in a word cloud behind him, with one bigger than all the others: “eugenics.”

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Johnson and Johnson recently announced that it was halting a clinical trial for a new Alzheimer’s drug after safety issues emerged. This latest failure adds to the dozens of large, costly clinical trials that have shown no effect in treating this devastating disease.

The growing list of failures should give us pause for thought – have we got the causes of Alzheimer’s all wrong?

In the first analysis of the disease, the German physician, Alois Alzheimer, noted odd changes in the brain of a patient who died of the condition. Alzheimer identified two kinds of protein aggregates that are not found in younger brains: plaques that are found between brain cells and tangles that are found inside brain cells.

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Very promising since “Identifying what changes are happening in the brain when interventions successfully reduce depressive symptoms could allow us to create more effective, pharmaceutical-free approaches to help alleviate depression in people who experience chronic traumatic brain injury symptoms,” said study author Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman, founder and chief director of the Center for BrainHealth.

Images show prefrontal connectivity patterns after cognitive training in individuals who suffered traumatic brain injury. Kihwan Han et al (2018) _____ Cognitive training reduces depression, rebuilds injured brain structure & connectivity after traumatic brain injury (UT-Dallas release): “New research from the Center.

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MIT researchers, working with scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, have developed a new way to power and communicate with devices implanted deep within the human body. Such devices could be used to deliver drugs, monitor conditions inside the body, or treat disease by stimulating the brain with electricity or light.

The implants are powered by radio frequency waves, which can safely pass through human tissues. In tests in animals, the researchers showed that the waves can power devices located 10 centimeters deep in tissue, from a distance of 1 meter.

“Even though these tiny implantable devices have no batteries, we can now communicate with them from a distance outside the body. This opens up entirely new types of medical applications,” says Fadel Adib, an assistant professor in MIT’s Media Lab and a senior author of the paper, which will be presented at the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM) conference in August.

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Sought after guest speaker, Aubrey de Grey, has appeared on numerous popular programs including CBS 60 Minutes, BBC, TED and The Colbert Report to name just a few. Today, he joins The Future Tech Podcast, to share his vision on how we can improve the aging process through enhancing the human body’s capability of rejuvenation through cell immortality and pluripotency to human aging and age-related disease.

The. Vice President of New Technology and Discovery at AgeX Therapeutics, Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D., is also the Chief Science Officer of SENS Research Foundation, a California-based 501©(3) biomedical research charity that performs, and funds research devoted to battling the progression of aging.

In this fascinating discussion, Aubrey explains some of the obstacles that need to be overcome, including issues involving age-related tissue damage and stem cell decline which contribute to accelerating the aging process. He also discusses what AgeX is doing in stem cell research and in regenerative medicine that will improve not only the longevity of life, but also the quality and health of individuals throughout the aging process. He also touches on what he sees could be the future in the science of aging and treatments being worked on by the rejuvenation research community.

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By Julianna Photopoulos

A plasma patch could soon be used to dress wounds. Plasma is a state of matter, like a solid or gas, and can kill bacteria including those that are resistant to antibiotics. Normally plasmas form at high temperatures, but a new patch can create cold plasmas that may be ideal for use on the body.

The patch is developed by German company Coldplasmatech and produces a plasma by sending high energy electrons through the air between the patch and skin. This rips some of the electrons off molecules …

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New research on brain ageing and mitochondria from Salk Institute.

Thanks to a new technique, researchers from the Salk Institute’s Gage laboratory have shown that impaired energy production might be a reason why human brains are susceptible to age-related diseases in the first place [1].

In particular, Salk scientists observed that induced neurons (iNs) obtained from fibroblasts of older individuals had dysfunctional mitochondria and therefore decreased energy levels compared to younger neurons. Out-of-shape mitochondria have previously been implicated in degenerative brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and this finding might help reveal more about the connection between these diseases and this particular hallmark of aging.

Mitochondrial dysfunction 101

Our readers are probably familiar with the 2013 study “The Hallmarks of Aging”, a review describing in detail what is known of the typical signs of age-related degeneration at the molecular level [2]. Mitochondrial dysfunction is a hallmark in its own right, and it can be thought of as the meltdown of cellular energy production facilities.

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