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Category: biotech/medical

An interesting but predictably hyped research study currently doing the rounds. Epigentic changes are one of the Hallmarks of Aging and this study reinforces their importance despite the usual media hype.

Graying hair, crow’s feet, an injury that’s taking longer to heal than when we were 20—faced with the unmistakable signs of aging, most of us have had a least one fantasy of turning back time. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have found that intermittent expression of genes normally associated with an embryonic state can reverse the hallmarks of old age.

This approach, which not only prompted in a dish to look and behave young again, also resulted in the rejuvenation of with a , countering signs of aging and increasing the animals’ lifespan by 30 percent. The early-stage work provides insight both into the cellular drivers of aging and possible therapeutic approaches for improving human health and longevity.

“Our study shows that aging may not have to proceed in one single direction,” says Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory and senior author of the paper appearing in the December 15, 2016 issue of Cell. “It has plasticity and, with careful modulation, aging might be reversed.”

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In September, a doctor named John Zhang announced that a baby, created via a complicated fertility treatment involving DNA contributions from three people, was successfully delivered the previous April. Now the U.K. has opened the way for more attempts at creating babies with three parents.

The fertility treatment involves sperm, an egg from the prospective mother, and an egg from a donor and has been used to help women who have mitochondrial issues with their eggs, replacing the nucleus DNA of those eggs with that of donor, either before or after fertilization. The embryo then carries the donor’s mitochondrial DNA, which amounts to less than 1% of the resulting child’s genes. CBS News reports that on Thursday, Britain’s fertility regulator, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, approved the technique.

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=JA8PRMacArU

We already know that excessive amounts of stress long term can cause certain individuals with certain predisposition cancer genetic mutations can cause cancer such as breast cancer. So, not surprise to see this.

In some situations, people who got hurt, replay the disturbing moment in their heads for many times and for many days. Every repetition you make usually causes more intense feelings making the situation worse.

Thanks to modern medicine, there is now proof that keeping these emotions inside you can have negative effects on your overall health. That’s why we would like to discuss forgiveness.

When it comes to clinical view, forgiveness is a process where a person gives up from the feeling of bitterness and thoughts associated with retribution.

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What combinations of mutations help cancer cells survive? Which cells in the brain are involved in the onset of Alzheimer’s? How do immune cells conduct their convoluted decision-making processes? Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have now combined two powerful research tools — CRISPR gene editing and single cell genomic profiling — in a method that may finally help us get answers to these questions and many more.

The new technology enables researchers to manipulate gene functions within single cells, and understand the results of each change in extremely high resolution. A single experiment with this method, say the scientists, may be equal to thousands of experiments conducted using previous approaches, and it may advance the field of genetic engineering for medical applications.

The gene-editing technique CRISPR is already transforming biology research around the world, and its clinical use in humans is just around the corner. CRISPR was first discovered in bacteria as a primitive acquired immune system, which cuts and pastes viral DNA into their own genomes to fight viruses. In recent years, this bacterial system has been adopted by researchers to snip out or insert nearly any gene in any organism or cell, quickly and efficiently. “But CRISPR, on its own, is a blunt research tool, since we often have trouble observing or understanding the outcome of this genomic editing,” says Prof. Ido Amit of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Immunology Department, who led the study. “Most studies so far have looked for black-or-white types of effects,” adds Dr. Diego Jaitin, of Amit’s lab group, “but the majority of processes in the body are complex and even chaotic.”

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Nice.

Doctors in the US have developed a stimulator that bypasses spinal injuries by forcing the body to use alternative pathways to transmit signals from the brain to other areas of the body.

In the latest test, the team has shown that the device can improve a quadriplegic patient’s finger motion by 300 percent while improving grip strength, helping him to perform everyday tasks again.

Back in June, the team from the Ronald Reagan University of California, Los Angeles Medical Centre performed surgery to implant the newly developed device inside a 28-year-old California man named Brian Gomez.

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Nice write up.

A research team led by Associate Professor Mitsuharu ENDO and Professor Yasuhiro MINAMI (both from the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology, Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe University) has pinpointed the mechanism underlying astrocyte-mediated restoration of brain tissue after an injury. This could lead to new treatments that encourage regeneration by limiting damage to neurons incurred by reduced blood supply or trauma. The findings were published on October 11 in the online version of GLIA ahead of print release in January 2017.

When the brain is damaged by trauma or ischemia (restriction in blood supply), immune cells such as macrophages and lymphocytes dispose of the damaged neurons with an inflammatory response. However, an excessive inflammatory response can also harm healthy neurons.

Astrocytes are a type of glial cell*, and the most numerous cell within the human cerebral cortex. In addition to their supportive role in providing nutrients to neurons, studies have shown that they have various other functions, including the direct or active regulation of neuronal activities.

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Pretty wild.

A mesmerising new video reveals how neuronal signaling changes blood flow through the brain. Image shows patterns of brain activity occurring across the bilateral cortex of an awake mouse. Colours indicate different patterns of activity over time.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans are a common type of brain scan used in both research and medicine.

FMRI machines work by tracking blood flow through the brain.

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Although this still looks like you’re part of a medical experiment; it is in fact a step forward in BMI progress as it is non-invasive & not bulky as the other BMI technology that I have seen. With the insights we’re able to collect from this model plus prove 80% accuracy in the neuro communication means next generations will be able to focus on materials to make the model more and more seamless. So, it is very promising.

A new non-invasive brain-computer interface allows people to control a robotic arm using only their minds.

(Photo : Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

A team of researchers at the University of Minnesota has developed a new non-invasive brain-computer interface that allows people to control a robotic arm using only their minds.

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Very promising for Giloblastoma patients.

Adding Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) to maintenance temozolomide significantly prolongs both median and long-term survival.

Among patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme, adding Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) to maintenance temozolomide significantly prolongs both median and long-term survival, according to a study presented 21st Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society of Neuro-Oncology (SNO).

TTFields is a frequency-tuned, anti-mitotic, physical treatment modality delivered to the brain through a patient-operated, portable medical device called Optune. Results of a pre-specific successful interim analysis of the international, phase 3 trial (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00916409) comparing TTFields and temozolomide with temozolomide alone after radiotherapy and adjuvant temozolomide led to the approval of TTFields for the treatment of adult patients with glioblastoma.

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