Lifeboat Foundation

One of the biggest obstacles to transplanting organs from one person to another is that the immune system of the person getting the new life-saving organ often tries to reject it. The immune cells see the new material as “foreign” and attacks it, sometimes destroying it.

Right now, the only way to prevent that is by using powerful immunosuppressive drugs to keep the patient’s immune system at bay and protect the new organ. It’s effective, but it also comes with some long-term health consequences.

But now researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel say they may have found a way around that, using the patient’s own stem cells.

Continue reading “Scientists say they’re one step closer to being able to build a new you, using your own stem cells” »

The Fourth Eurosymposium on Healthy Ageing (EHA) was held in Brussels on November 8–10, 2018, and we had the opportunity to give talks about aging, advocacy, and engaging new audiences.

The EHA is a conference hosted every two years by Heales, and it sees like-minded people from the research and advocacy community come together to share knowledge and listen to talks from various researchers and other experts in the field. We were very pleased to be invited to give two presentations during the conference and share our knowledge and experience with the audience there.

Continue reading “LEAF at the Eurosymposium on Healthy Ageing” »

In a groundbreaking study, researchers have successfully developed a method that could lead to unprecedented advances in computer speed and efficiency.

Continue reading “Bioquark — Electroceuticals — Real Bodies” »

There have been 39 womb transplants using a live donor, including mothers donating their womb to their daughter, resulting in 11 babies.

But the 10 previous transplants from a dead donor have failed or resulted in miscarriage.

In this case, reported in The Lancet, the womb donor was a mother of three in her mid-40s who died from bleeding on the brain.

A fascinating new study from scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center could provide some motivation to get moving, even just occasionally. The research has revealed that a single workout can positively affect the activity of neurons in the brain that influence metabolism for up to two days.

A team of doctors in Brazil have announced a medical first that could someday help countless women unable to have children because of a damaged or absent uterus. In a case report published Tuesday in the Lancet, they claim to have successfully helped a woman give birth using a transplanted uterus from a deceased donor.

According to the report, the team performed the operation on an unnamed 32-year-old woman in a Brazilian hospital in September 2016. The woman had been born with a rare genetic condition that left her without a uterus, known as Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, but she was otherwise healthy. The donor was a 45-year-old woman who had suddenly died of stroke; she had had three successful pregnancies delivered vaginally in the past.

• The FDA on Monday approved a new cancer treatment in an unconventional way: not by tumor type, but rather by the genetic mutation the drug targets.
• The drug, Vitrakvi, was developed by Loxo Oncology in partnership with pharma giant Bayer.
• It’s only the second time the FDA has approved a cancer drug’s use based on a certain mutation rather than a particular tumor type.

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday took an unconventional approach to approving a new cancer drug.

The drug, Vitrakvi, was developed by Loxo Oncology. It’s the company’s first drug to get approved.

For at least the last 10 million years every yeast cell of the sort used to make beer or bread has had 16 chromosomes. But now—thanks to CRISPR technology and some DNA tinkerers in China—there are living yeast with just one.

Genome organizer: We humans have our genes arranged on 46 chromosomes, yeast use 16, and there’s even a fern plant with 1260 of them. That’s just the way it is. And no one is quite sure why.

The big one: Do we really need so many chromosomes? That’s what Zhogjun Qin and colleagues at the Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology in Shanghai wanted to know.

Continue reading “CRISPR creates new species with single giant chromosome” »