Category: biotech/medical
Summary: Biomarkers of aging would be a breakthrough that slashes the time and cost it currently takes to develop lifespan-extension drugs. [Author: Brady Hartman. This article first appeared on the LongevityFacts.com website. ]
Biomarkers of aging would revolutionize the development of lifespan-extension drugs, helping to bring them out of the laboratory and into the clinic in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost. The first scientist to come up with an effective biomarker of aging would produce a true breakthrough for the field of life extension.
Imagine that geroscientists have just developed a miraculous compound called Regulus that promises to extend human lifespans by a significant amount. Unfortunately, the researchers would not have an easy time testing Regulus because humans live a long time. Testing Regulus in mice, would help, but researchers would still have to test the drug’s lifespan-extending effects in humans. Before anti-aging physicians could prescribe Regulus, it would need to undergo an expensive and lengthy clinical trial.
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Summary: These breakthroughs in stem cell therapy could potentially rejuvenate our damaged organs with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Moreover, biotech firms are rushing to bring organ-rejuvenating cell therapies to the marketplace. [This article first appeared on the LongevityFacts.com website. Author: Brady Hartman. ]
Recent advances in stem cell therapies could translate into effective treatments for intractable diseases.
Stem cells are the repairmen of our bodies. Unlike our ordinary cells, stem cells can divide without limit and create fresh copies of nearly any tissue type to repair damaged organs. While we have an abundance of these repairmen in our youth, we experience stem cell decline as we age.
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Researchers find promising Alzheimer’s treatment with a diabetes drug that ‘significantly reversed memory loss.’
Promising alzheimer’s treatment using diabetes drug.
Scientists announced a drug that ‘significantly reversed memory loss’ in mice with Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers from Lancaster University in the UK say the novel drug – created to treat type 2 diabetes – works through a triple method of action and also add that the medicine could provide substantial improvements in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The drug combines three growth factors that act in multiple ways to protect the brain from degeneration. The Lancaster University scientists published their study results on January 1 in the journal Brain Research.
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Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are one of the most thoroughly studied and understood stem cell types. They are used in a wide range of therapies, and the many studies using MSCs have enjoyed varied levels of success, depending on delivery methods, patients, co-therapies and other factors.
Today, we will be taking a look at MSCs and a new human clinical trial focused on treating osteoarthritis, an age-related inflammatory condition that leads to the breakdown of bone and cartilage.
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Victor Björk, biologist and member of the LEAF teama report about a recent aging research conference that he attended in Germany. Victor is one of our more well-traveled writers, and he has the fortune to attend many interesting shows, events, and conferences in Europe. Today Victor reports on the DGfA Aging Conference and also interviews James Peyer from Apollo Ventures, an early-stage life science investor and company builder focused on translational research for age-related diseases.
An annual aging research conference
I took part in the yearly DGfA conference at the Max Planck Institute for Aging Research in Cologne on December 1–2, 2017. The event was organized by the German association for aging research, an interdisciplinary non-profit organization based in Nürnberg. Established in 1990, it conducts research on aging, including research on developing therapeutic options to treat age-related diseases.
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Scientists from Rice University have discovered a titanium alloy that’s better than titanium at being a medical implant, and it is four times harder than titanium and a vast majority of steels.
When it comes to bone replacements, the go-to material is still titanium. Hard, wear-resistant, and compatible to the body, titanium looks like the best alternative to actual bone, maybe even better. Who knew that you could improve the ‘gold standard’ by just adding actual gold?
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Cold plasma looks like the glow from the “Star Wars” blue lightsaber but this beam of energy, made of electrons that change polarity at micro-second or nanosecond speeds, could help bones heal faster, according to a study published August 11th in the Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.
Most people interact with plasma every day. It’s in our TVs, fluorescent lights, lightning, the aurora borealis, and the sun. However, these are all examples of hot or “thermal” plasmas. Since the discovery of cold plasma, about 20 years ago, it has been used in agriculture to sterilize the surface of fruit without damaging the delicate edibles. More recently, scientists have been performing experiments treating living animal cells and tissues with cold plasma to learn more about its potential applications in medicine.
“We’ve previously studied how different applications of cold plasma can either directly kill cells, such as in skin cancer, or help them grow, as in developing bones. In this study, we asked how cold plasma would affect the area surrounding cells, known as the extracellular matrix,” says lead author Theresa Freeman, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery in the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. The extracellular matrix around cells is made of collagen and other proteins that interact with the cells and can influence their growth and behavior. For example, the extracellular matrix can either promote or inhibit bone formation or cancer cell growth and metastasis.
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