Lifeboat Foundation

Post-mitotic neurons in the brain that re-enter the cell cycle quickly succumb to senescence, and this re-entry is more common in Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study published April 9 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Kim Hai-Man Chow and colleagues at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The phenomenon may provide an opportunity to learn more about the neurodegeneration process, and the technique used to make this discovery is readily applicable to other inquiries about unique populations of cells in the brain.

Most neurons in the brain are post-mitotic, meaning they have ceased to divide. For many years, it had been assumed that this post-mitotic state was permanent. Recent discoveries have shown that a small proportion of neurons re-enter the cell cycle, but little is known about their fate after they do.

The researchers said the current design of the FRS means multiple cardiovascular conditions are overlooked and consequently under-diagnosed in women.

“When it comes to cardiovascular diseases in particular, the prevalence of these diseases is higher in men than women, but several studies have shown that women are less likely to be diagnosed during a routine exam, get diagnosed at an older age, and with more severe symptoms than men,” Skyler St. Pierre, a study author and a researcher at the Stanford University Living Matter Lab in California, told Medical News Today. “This really points to the fact that we are under-diagnosing women and the current screening methods are not catching women with cardiovascular diseases early enough.”

Thsi is a year old. But at 27 minutes David gets asked a couple fo “when” questions.

Dr. David Sinclair presents the progress of epigenetic reprogramming and rejuvenation in this video. He’s also answering questions on when he thinks the rejuvenation therapy be available in the Q\&A session at the end of the presentation.

Continue reading “Will Rejuvenation Therapy Be Available In Our LIFETIME? Gene Therapy VS Small Molecules” »

Years ago, a man paralyzed in a surfing accident was able to walk again after undergoing a revolutionary stem cell treatment. Now, he says that his mobility has only continued to improve! Chris Barr was one out of only 10 people to undergo this experimental treatment in a study by the Mayo Clinic. It’s safe to say that the procedure was a success for this patient!

“I never dreamed I would have a recovery like this,” Chris said, according to Good Morning America.

Continue reading “Man Who Was Paralyzed From The Neck Down Can Walk Again Thanks To Miracle Treatment” »

Human history was forever changed with the discovery of antibiotics in 1928. Infectious diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and sepsis were widespread and lethal until penicillin made them treatable.

Surgical procedures that once came with a high risk of infection became safer and more routine. Antibiotics marked a triumphant moment in science that transformed medical practice and saved countless lives.

But antibiotics have an inherent caveat: When overused, bacteria can evolve resistance to these drugs. The World Health Organization estimated that these superbugs caused 1.27 million deaths around the world in 2019 and will likely become an increasing threat to global public health in the coming years.

Jason Matheny is a delight to speak with, provided you’re up for a lengthy conversation about potential technological and biomedical catastrophe.

Now CEO and president of Rand Corporation, Matheny has built a career out of thinking about such gloomy scenarios. An economist by training with a focus on public health, he dived into the worlds of pharmaceutical development and cultivated meat before turning his attention to national security.

As director of Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, the US intelligence community’s research agency, he pushed for more attention to the dangers of biological weapons and badly designed artificial intelligence. In 2021, Matheny was tapped to be President Biden’s senior adviser on technology and national security issues. And then, in July of last year, he became CEO and president of Rand, the oldest nonprofit think tank in the US, which has shaped government policy on nuclear strategy, the Vietnam War, and the development of the internet.

National clinical guidelines for the treatment of COVID-19 vary significantly around the world, with under-resourced countries the most likely to diverge from gold standard (World Health Organization; WHO) treatment recommendations, finds a comparative analysis published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.

And nearly every national guideline recommends at least one treatment proven not to work, the analysis shows.

Significant variations in national COVID-19 treatment recommendations have been suspected since the advent of the pandemic, but these haven’t been formally quantified or studied in depth, note the researchers.

Rice University engineers have developed the smallest implantable brain stimulator demonstrated in a human patient. Thanks to pioneering magnetoelectric power transfer technology, the pea-sized device developed in the Rice lab of Jacob Robinson in collaboration with Motif Neurotech and clinicians Dr. Sameer Sheth and Dr. Sunil Sheth can be powered wirelessly via an external transmitter and used to stimulate the brain through the dura ⎯ the protective membrane attached to the bottom of the skull.

The device, known as the Digitally programmable Over-brain Therapeutic (DOT), could revolutionize treatment for drug-resistant depression and other psychiatric or neurological disorders by providing a therapeutic alternative that offers greater patient autonomy and accessibility than current neurostimulation-based therapies and is less invasive than other brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

Advances in gene sequencing technology and computing power have significantly increased the availability of bioinformatic data and processing capabilities. This convergence provides an ideal opportunity for artificial intelligence (AI) to develop methods to control cellular behavior.

In a new study, Northwestern University researchers have reaped fruit from this nexus by developing an AI-powered transfer learning approach that repurposes publicly available data to predict combinations of gene perturbations that can transform cell type or restore diseased cells to health.

The study was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.