A new PBS film educates viewers about gene therapy at a time when the once controversial field of research is starting to bear fruit.
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Category: biotech/medical
The benefits of rejuvenation biotechnology to end age-related diseases could go beyond just the individual.
As I wrote in a different article, rejuvenation biotechnology promises a range of benefits for individuals. Lest anyone thinks that’s all rejuvenation has to offer, I reckon it’s worth discussing other ways that this technology would benefit larger groups of people—namely, your friends and family. If you are rejuvenated, that’s all good for you, but is there anything good coming out of it for your dear ones? Oh, yes.
Two burdens relieved with a single shot
The ill health of old age is a formidable sword of Damocles looming over us all, and when it falls down, it typically does not hit just us; the elderly are certainly the primary victims, but their family are collateral casualties. When people lose their health and independence to aging, their families have to go through the pain of seeing their loved ones becoming more and more fragile, sick, dependent, perhaps even demented. Adding insult to injury, the troubles caused by aging don’t stop here, because a sick and dependent person needs looking after. Thus, the family of an elderly person needs to step in themselves to take care of their relative; if this is not possible, a nursing home is likely going to be the only option left.
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Izpisúa, Blasco, De Grey, and Magalhães meet in Madrid at the end of summer at the first “International Longevity and Cryopreservation Summit.” The conference lasts two days and is held in the CSIC, attracting prominent scientists, futurists and freaks, as conference organizer and Vidaplus President Txetxu Mazuelas, refers to them. The scientific world and the futuristic world inevitably clash. One of the most heated debates is on the cryopreservation of human beings – a kind of plan B that puts humans on ice while they work out the secret to eternal life.
Could we live to 140? 1,000? Is there a limit? Scientific research into extending the human lifespan is being backed by Silicon Valley giants such as Google and Facebook.
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Lyme disease is exceedingly difficult to treat, due to its well-known shape-shifting (pleomorphic) abilities, with conventional antibiotics often failing to produce a long-term cure. Could the commonly used natural plant Stevia provide a safer, and more effective means to combat this increasingly prevalent infection?
A promising new preclinical study has revealed that whole stevia leaf extract possesses exceptional antibiotic activity against the exceedingly difficult to treat pathogen Borrelia Burgdorferi known to cause Lyme disease. The study found.
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Genome editing technologies have revolutionized biomedical science, providing a fast and easy way to modify genes. However, the technique allowing scientists to carryout the most precise edits, doesn’t work in cells that are no longer dividing — which includes most neurons in the brain. This technology had limited use in brain research, until now. Research Fellow Jun Nishiyama, M.D., Ph.D., Research Scientist, Takayasu Mikuni, M.D., Ph.D., and Scientific Director, Ryohei Yasuda, Ph.D. at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI) have developed a new tool that, for the first time, allows precise genome editing in mature neurons, opening up vast new possibilities in neuroscience research.
This novel and powerful tool utilizes the newly discovered gene editing technology of CRISPR-Cas9, a viral defense mechanism originally found in bacteria. When placed inside a cell such as a neuron, the CRISPR-Cas9 system acts to damage DNA in a specifically targeted place. The cell then subsequently repairs this damage using predominantly two opposing methods; one being non-homologous end joining (NHEJ), which tends to be error prone, and homology directed repair (HDR), which is very precise and capable of undergoing specified gene insertions. HDR is the more desired method, allowing researchers flexibility to add, modify, or delete genes depending on the intended purpose.
Coaxing cells in the brain to preferentially make use of the HDR DNA repair mechanism has been rather challenging. HDR was originally thought to only be available as a repair route for actively proliferating cells in the body. When precursor brain cells mature into neurons, they are referred to as post-mitotic or nondividing cells, making the mature brain largely inaccessible to HDR — or so researchers previously thought. The team has now shown that it is possible for post-mitotic neurons of the brain to actively undergo HDR, terming the strategy “vSLENDR (viral mediated single-cell labeling of endogenous proteins by CRISPR-Cas9-mediated homology-directed repair).” The critical key to the success of this process is the combined use of CRISPR-Cas9 and a virus.
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Researchers have developed a technique that enables gene editing on neurons — something previously thought to be impossible. This new tool will present amazing new opportunities for neuroscience research.
Technologies designed for editing the human genome are transforming biomedical science and providing us with relatively simple ways to modify and edit genes. However, precision editing has not been possible for cells that have stopped dividing, including mature neurons. This has meant that gene editing has been of limited use in neurological research — until now. Researchers at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI) have created a new tool that allows, for the first time ever, precise genome editing in mature neurons. This relieves previous constraints and presents amazing new opportunities for neuroscience research.
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Speaking of concerns, I’m a bit concerned that the discussion about what might go wrong or how to prevent this or that hypothetical problem might draw attention away from another, possibly even more important question: Why do we strive to make rejuvenation a reality? There’s not much point in doing something if it doesn’t yield any benefits, especially if that something requires as much hard work as this cause does; so, what are the expected benefits of rejuvenation?
The benefits are many; some are obvious, and some are less so. The ones I’ll discuss in this article are the ones I see as obvious—tangible, immediate benefits for the people undergoing rejuvenation.
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Exercise is a sensible part of any personal health strategy, and a new study suggests that even low levels of walking are associated with lower mortality compared to inactivity[1].
U.S. public health guidelines recommend that adults engage in at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of intense exercise per week. However, surveys show that only half of U.S. adults actually reach this ideal target level of activity. Worse than that, older adults are even less likely to reach these recommendations, with only 42% of people between the ages of 65 and 74 and 28% of people age 75 or over meeting this goal.
Walking is a great choice for exercise, as it is low impact, convenient, free to do, and requires no special equipment. It is the most common kind of physical activity and is associated with a lower risk of heart disease and diabetes. While there are many studies that have focused on moderate to intense physical activity and mortality, there are considerably fewer studies looking at walking.
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I often hear the claim that death is a statistical certainty. This is my mathematical take at why this is not true, assuming the defeat of ageing, and no, being immortal is not required.
If a fully rejuvenated person was hit by a train at full speed, I can promise you they would stand the same pathetically low chances of ever being reassembled into a single, barely functional piece as any non-rejuvenated person of any age. Keeping that in mind, if anyone tried to sell me rejuvenation as ‘immortality’, rest assured I would demand to see the manager right away.
On a different yet unexpectedly related note, if I had a nickel for every time I heard or read something along the lines of ‘death is inevitable because probability’, I could donate so much money to LEAF the IRS would start thinking they’re a bit too well off for a charity.
Oh, and with the rest of the money, I could buy LinkedIn and pay someone to finally give it a user interface you can look at without your eyes bleeding.
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