Looking back at best of 2017)
A clinical trial of rapamycin on healthy seniors. The anti-aging drug extends the lifespan of mice and reduces inflammation markers.
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Category: biotech/medical
Looking back at best of 2017)
The finding was a milestone in the field of anti-aging science. Professor Judith Campisi, Ph.D., a celebrity in the anti-aging field, and lead author of the study remarked
“Imagine the possibility of taking a pill [rapamycin] for a few days or weeks every few years, as opposed to taking something with side effects every day for the rest of your life. It’s a new way of looking at how we could deal with age-related maladies.” – Judith Campisi, PhD
Campisi’s discovery suggests that a person could take rapamycin intermittently, say, once a week, shutting down the chronic inflammation. Because the zombie cells haven’t gone away, they will eventually find their footing and start the inflammatory ball rolling once again. A person on this regimen would repeat the dosage intermittently and substantially reduce inflammation.
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Looking back at best of 2017)
Summary: Nanotechnology meets gene editing. MIT researchers use nanoparticles instead of viruses to deliver the CRISPR gene editing system. This article first appeared on LongevityFacts. Author: Brady Hartman]
In a new study, MIT scientists have developed nanoparticles that deliver the CRISPR gene editing system, eliminating the need to use viruses for delivery.
Using the new delivery technique, the gene editors were able to cut out genes in about 80 percent of liver cells, the best success rate ever achieved with CRISPR in adult animals. Speaking about the success of the project, Daniel Anderson, senior author of the study and an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, said.
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If you were awestruck by the New Year’s Day super moon, hold onto your pants.
On January 31, around midnight, the full moon will not only be super, it will be a blue moon and a blood moon.
The blue moon comes as it will be the second full moon in a month. That happens every two and a half years, hence the saying “once in a blue moon”.
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High-tech warfare at knife-fight ranges: that’s the ugly future of urban combat. If you thought Baghdad was bad, with its roughly six million people, imagine a “megacity” of 10 or 20 million, where the slums have more inhabitants than some countries. Imagine a city of the very near future where suspicious locals post every US military movement on Twitter with digital photos and GPS-precise coordinates. Imagine roadside bombs that fly because the bad guys downloaded blueprints for a kamikaze mini-drone and built it with their 3D printer.
As the US pulls out of the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan, the Navy and Air Force may be looking to the wide-open Pacific, but the Army is increasingly concerned about the cramped alleyways of Third World cities. (The Marines, as usual, have a foot in both worlds). Chief of Staff Ray Odierno’s personal Strategic Studies Group — now led by hybrid warfare expert David Johnson — is working on the subject, as is the Army’s think tank and teaching institution, Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). This August, after months of seminars, simulations, and study, the Army War College will host a “deep future wargame” set in a megacity, probably a coastal one, circa 2035.
“We talk about the danger of failed states: Imagine a failed megacity,” offers Col. Kevin Felix of TRADOC’s Army Capability Integration Center (ARCIC), which plays a leading role in organizing the wargame. Even a partial breakdown of security and public services could put thousands of people in peril — or under the rule of drug gangs, as in Brazil’s infamous favelas; or of terrorist groups, like Hezbollah in parts of Lebanon. In those parts of the city, Felix told me, “there may be order, but I wouldn’t define it as law and order.”
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SENS Research Foundation is a 501©(3) public charity that is transforming the way the world researches and treats age-related disease.
“At SENS Research Foundation, we believe that a world free of age-related disease is possible. That’s why we’re funding work at universities across the world and at our own Research Center in Mountain View, CA.
Our research emphasizes the application of regenerative medicine to age-related disease, with the intent of repairing underlying damage to the body’s tissues, cells, and molecules. Our goal is to help build the industry that will cure the diseases of aging. ”
Aubrey de Grey ► http://goo.gl/Tc5QHl
Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey is an English author and theoretician in the field of gerontology and the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation. He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Rejuvenation Research, author of The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging (1999) and co-author of Ending Aging (2007). He is known for his view that medical technology may enable human beings alive today to live to lifespans far in excess of any existing authenticated cases.
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In a scientific first, researchers have turned skin cells from mice into stem cells by activating a specific gene in the cells using CRISPR technology. The innovative approach offers a potentially simpler technique to produce the valuable cell type and provides important insights into the cellular r…
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Treating the diseases of ageing requires rethinking of our approach to treating disease. Rather than a “whack-a-mole” strategy going after individual conditions, a concerted medical effort against ageing as a whole is in order.
Aging is something that we all share, rich or poor; it is something that happens to us all, and we are taught from a young age that it is inevitable. However, some scientists believe that aging is amenable to medical intervention and that such interventions could be the solution to preventing or reversing age-related diseases.
Academics are currently debating whether aging is natural or a pathological disease that we can treat.
In fact, there is now pressure from many academics to classify aging itself as a disease; indeed, doing so could potentially improve funding for aging research and help to speed up progress in finding solutions to age-related diseases.[1] The debate continues, but does it really matter if aging is classified as a disease, or is it largely a matter of semantics?
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