Lifeboat Foundation

“Horizontal gene transfer is an important way that antibiotic resistance moves between bacterial species, but the process has never been observed before, since the structures involved are so incredibly small,” said biologist Ankur Dalia of Indiana University Bloomington.

Bacteria are slippery little suckers. They evolve rapidly, developing resistance to antibiotics and therefore becoming increasingly difficult to deal with. Now, for the first time, researchers have caught on film one of the mechanisms the microbes use for this speedy evolution.

Two Vibrio cholerae bacteria — the pathogen responsible for cholera — sit under a microscope, glowing a vivid green. As we watch, a tendril snakes forth from one of the bacterium, harpooning a piece of DNA and carrying it back to its body.

Continue reading “For The First Time, Scientists Have Caught Bacteria ‘Fishing’ For DNA From Their Dead Friends” »

Yet even the U.S. is disturbingly vulnerable—and in some respects is becoming quickly more so. It depends on a just-in-time medical economy, in which stockpiles are limited and even key items are made to order. Most of the intravenous bags used in the country are manufactured in Puerto Rico, so when Hurricane Maria devastated the island last September, the bags fell in short supply. Some hospitals were forced to inject saline with syringes—and so syringe supplies started runn…ing low too. The most common lifesaving drugs all depend on long supply chains that include India and China—chains that would likely break in a severe pandemic. “Each year, the system gets leaner and leaner,” says Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “It doesn’t take much of a hiccup anymore to challenge it.”

The epidemics of the early 21st century revealed a world unprepared, even as the risks continue to multiply. Much worse is coming.

Continue reading “The Next Plague Is Coming. Is America Ready?” »

KANSAS CITY, MO — Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have captured the one cell that is capable of regenerating an entire organism. For over a century, scientists have witnessed the effects of this cellular marvel, which enables creatures such as the planarian flatworm to perform death-defying feats like regrowing a severed head. But until recently, they lacked the tools necessary to target and track this cell, so they could watch it in action and discover its secrets.

Now, by pioneering a technique that combines genomics, single-cell analysis, flow cytometry and imaging, scientists have isolated this amazing regenerative cell – a subtype of the long-studied adult pluripotent stem cell – before it performs its remarkable act. The findings, published in the June 14, 2018, issue of the journal Cell, will likely propel biological studies on highly regenerative organisms like planarians and also inform regenerative medicine efforts for other organisms like humans that have less regenerative capacity.

“This is the first time that an adult pluripotent stem cell has been isolated prospectively,” says Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Ph.D., an investigator at the Stowers Institute and Howard Hughes Medical Institute and senior author of the study. “Our finding essentially says that this is no longer an abstraction, that there truly is a cellular entity that can restore regenerative capacities to animals that have lost it and that such entity can now be purified alive and studied in detail.”

A preclinical trial demonstrated that gene therapy could dissolve the nerve-blocking scars that form after spinal cord damage in lab rats.

Some worms that inhabit lakes and rivers are capable of almost limitless regeneration.

Some worms that inhabit lakes and rivers are capable of almost limitless regeneration, and scientists have isolated the cell that allows them to perform their death-defying feats.

The ability of planarian flatworms to regrow severed heads and other body parts has been known for over a century, but new techniques have allowed a research team to discover how they do it.

Continue reading “Scientists have found a single cell that can be used to regenerate an entire animal” »

Why is no one talking about this? — “More than one-third of U.S. adults are taking prescription medications that may lead to depression, new research finds. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, warns that depression is a potential side effect of more than 200 commonly prescribed medications, including beta blockers for blood pressure, birth control pills, antacids, and painkillers.”

___ Many Americans taking common meds that may cause depression, study finds (CBS News): “More than one-third of U.S. adults are taking prescription medications that may lead to depression, new research finds. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, warns that depression is a potential.

In case we needed more evidence that staying fit is good for you…

A study to be published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease shows a correlation between low fitness, aortic stiffness, and the cognitive decline typically observed during brain aging [1].

Study abstract

Continue reading “Brain Aging Correlates with Aortic Stiffness and Low Fitness” »

Almost anywhere in the world, an HIV-infected woman who has an uninfected partner and wants to have a baby would be first in line to receive ARVs. The challenges Katia faced in getting treatment amid Russia’s epidemic highlight the country’s faltering response, which critics have blasted as misguided, lackadaisical, and downright dismissive. Some federal health officials even question the term epidemic. “This is a very large and very serious epidemic, and certainly one of the few epidemics in the world that continues to get worse rather than get better,” says Vinay Saldanha, the Moscow-based regional director for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. “This is a public health crisis.”

The government has begun to confront its shortcomings, but critics want more aggressive change.

July 12th sees us launch our first conference in New York City dedicated to the field of rejuvenation biotechnology, the science that seeks to end age-related diseases forever.

At the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, Cooper Union in New York City, we will be hosting a special one-day conference focused on aging research and biotech investment. Developing therapies from initial concepts, through clinical testing, and ultimately to market takes a pipeline, and right now, that p…