Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: life extension

A quick look at synthetic biology and its potential for health and treating age-related diseases.

All living organisms contain an instruction set that determines what they look like and what they do. These instructions are encoded in the organism’s DNA within every cell, this is an organism’s genetic code (or “genome”).

Mankind has been altering the genetic code of plants and animals for thousands of years, by selectively breeding individuals with desired features. Over time we have become experts at viewing and manipulating this code, and we can now take genetic information associated with the desired features from one organism, and add it into another one. This is the basis of genetic engineering, which has allowed us to speed up the process of developing new breeds of plants and animals.

More recent advances however have enabled scientists to create new sequences of DNA from scratch. By combining these advances in biology with modern engineering, chemistry and computer science, researchers can now design and construct new organisms with cells that perform new useful functions. This “customised” cell biology is the essence of synthetic biology.

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Some exciting news from Lifespan.io about their current senescent cell therapy campaign.

While the CellAge campaign has done a great job thus far, with over 200 backers raising $11,000+ to better target dysfunctional “senescent” cells in the body, many supporters have let us know that the holidays, along with other concurrent fundraisers, have made it challenging to contribute.

In response we have decided to announce a 1-month extension for the CellAge campaign, and give the generous members of our community greater opportunity to support this important research.

If you are unfamiliar with the project: CellAge is developing tools to better target and remove harmful senescent cells that accumulate in the body with age and play a role in various diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and osteoarthritis, and which also complicate recovery after certain treatments like chemotherapy. Having the ability to selectively remove these cells is a critical component in the fight against age-related diseases and an important tool towards lifespans that are both long and healthy.

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It seems more likely what you remove is more important than what you add with old blood.

The evidence is increasingly suggesting that dilution of pro-aging signals is why we are seeing rejuvenation when blood is exchanged between young and old animals. Forget transfusions the next step is to filter our own blood to promote health as we age.

#aging #crowdfundthecure

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We are at the cusp of a stem cell revolution.

Understanding and harnessing these unique cells may unlock breakthroughs in longevity and therapeutic solutions to all kinds of chronic diseases and regenerative opportunities.

Last month, I took a trip down to the Stem Cell Institute in Panama City with Dr. Bob Hariri (co-Founder of Human Longevity Inc.) to get stem cell injections in my knee and shoulder as an alternative to reconstructive surgery.

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Exercise is one of the best ways to slow down aging and its free too!

(Boston) — Older adults who experience good cardiac fitness may be also keeping their brains in good shape as well.

In what is believed to be the first study of its kind, older adults who scored high on cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) tests performed better on memory tasks than those who had low CRF. Further, the more fit older adults were, the more active their brain was during learning. These findings appear in the journal Cortex. Difficulty remembering new information represents one of the most common complaints in aging and decreased memory performance is one of the hallmark impairments in Alzheimer’s disease.

Healthy young (18−31 years) and older adults (55−74 years) with a wide range of fitness levels walked and jogged on a treadmill while researchers assessed their cardiorespiratory fitness by measuring the ratio of inhaled and exhaled oxygen and carbon dioxide. These participants also underwent MRI scans which collected images of their brain while they learned and remembered names that were associated with pictures of unfamiliar faces.

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(Phys.org) —Tufts University biologists using new, automated training and testing techniques have found that planarian flatworms store memory outside their brains and, if their heads are removed, can apparently imprint these memories on their new brains during regeneration.

The work, published online in the Journal of Experimental Biology, can help unlock the secrets of how memories can be encoded in living tissues, noted Michael Levin, Ph.D., Vannevar Bush professor of biology at Tufts and senior author on the paper.

“As and biomedicine advance, there’s a great need to better understand the dynamics of memory and the brain-body interface. For example, what will happen to stored memory if we replace big portions of aging brains with the progeny of fresh ?” said Levin, who directs the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology in Tufts’ School of Arts and Sciences.

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The quest for the fountain of youth is as ancient as humanity itself. Now, it appears scientists may have found the source.

Using a process designed to “reprogram” normal adult cells into pluripotent stem cells—cells that can transform into many different kinds of cells—researchers have managed to boost the life spans of mice by up to 30% and rejuvenate some of their tissues.

The treatment did not change the cell’s genetic code, but rather chemical attachments on their DNA called epigenetic marks, responsible for regulating the genome and determining how active certain genes are.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6s2qk_ILnU

I missed this one. A Liz lecture with what they do and about regulation questions from the audience.

The fourth speaker at the “Designing New Advances” conference hosted by the Institute of Exponential Sciences in Utrecht. Liz Parrish, CEO BioViva Sciences, talks about her work. Learn more about gene therapies and ageing diseases.

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Senescent cell therapy for treating age-related diseases could also help people after chemotherapy.

Senescent cell removal therapies could help reduce the damaging impact chemotherapy has on patients as well as being used to address one of the aging processes to treat diseases.

#aging #cancer

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