Lifeboat Foundation

(Part of the look back at the best of 2017)

Summary: Doctors lengthen telomeres with RNA therapy to reverse aging in human cells, according to a new research report. Telomere attrition is one of the nine hallmarks of aging. [Author: Brady Hartman] This article first appeared on LongevityFacts.]

Dr. John Cooke is department chair of cardiovascular sciences at Houston Methodist Research Institute and is the lead author of a recent paper published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Dr. Cooke’s team used RNA therapy to lengthen the telomeres of patients’ cells, making them younger in the process. In a video statement accompanying the report, the lead author remarked:

Continue reading “New RNA Telomere Therapy Reverses Aging” »

“Yes, Mr. Bedford is here.”

That’s what Marji Klima, executive assistant at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, told me over email this week. She was referring to Dr. James Hiram Bedford, a former University of California-Berkeley psychology professor who died of renal cancer on Jan. 12, 1967. Bedford was the first human to be cryonically preserved—that is, frozen and stored indefinitely in the hopes that technology to revive him will one day exist. He’s been at Alcor since 1991.

His was the first of 300 bodies and brains currently preserved in the world’s three known commercial cryonics facilities: Alcor; the Cryonics Institute in Clinton Township, Michigan; and KrioRus near Moscow. Another 3,000 people still living have arranged to join them upon what cryonicists call “deanimation.” In other words, death.

Continue reading “Fifty years frozen: The world’s first cryonically preserved human’s disturbing journey to immortality” »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtL1fEEtLaA&t=0s

Mel Gibson and Joe Rogan, talk on Stem Cells:

Mel Gibson is an actor and filmmaker. Neil Riordan, PA, PhD is one of the early pioneers and experts in applied stem cell researchttps://www.cellmedicine.com/

Nearly 500 years ago in what we now call Mexico, a disease started rippling through the population. Red spots appeared on the skin, accompanied by wretched vomiting, bleeding from multiple orifices, and eventually, death. Combined with an invasion from Europe and horrific droughts, it was generally not a pleasant time or place to be alive.

It bore the name cocoliztli, meaning ‘pestilence,’ and it killed between five and 15 million people in just three years. As many plagues were at the time, it proved deadly and mysterious, burning through entire populations. Occurring centuries before John Snow’s work on cholera gave rise to epidemiology, data on the disease’s devastation was sparse. Over the years, researchers and historians attempted to pin the blame for the illness on measles, plague, viral hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola, and typhoid fever—a disease caused by a variation of the bacteria Salmonella enterica.

In a paper published this week in Nature Ecology & Evolution, researchers present evidence that the latter was the most likely candidate in this cast of microbial miscreants. The study was pre-printed in biorxiv last year. The researchers detected the genome of a different variety of Salmonella enterica (the specific variety is Paratyphi C) in teeth of individuals buried in a cemetery historically linked to the deadly outbreak.

But it remains to be seen whether drug regulators will go along with a new way of making medicines. To do so, agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will need to rewrite their rules for validating the safety of medicines. Instead of signing off on the production facility and manufactured drug samples, regulators would have to validate that reactionware produces the desired medication. Cronin agrees it’s a hurdle. But he argues that future printed reactors could simply include a final module containing standard validation tests that produce a visual readout, much like a pregnancy test. “I think it’s manageable.”

Digitized chemistry on demand could also undermine drug counterfeiters.

Macromolecular damage contributes to the chronic diseases of aging. Geroscientists hope to repair the damage by inducing autophagy.

Looking back at best of 2017)

A clinical trial of rapamycin on healthy seniors. The anti-aging drug extends the lifespan of mice and reduces inflammation markers.

Looking back at best of 2017)

The finding was a milestone in the field of anti-aging science. Professor Judith Campisi, Ph.D., a celebrity in the anti-aging field, and lead author of the study remarked

“Imagine the possibility of taking a pill [rapamycin] for a few days or weeks every few years, as opposed to taking something with side effects every day for the rest of your life. It’s a new way of looking at how we could deal with age-related maladies.” – Judith Campisi, PhD

Continue reading “Can We Slow Aging in our Bodies with Intermittent Rapamycin Therapy?” »

Looking back at best of 2017)

Summary: Nanotechnology meets gene editing. MIT researchers use nanoparticles instead of viruses to deliver the CRISPR gene editing system. This article first appeared on LongevityFacts. Author: Brady Hartman]

In a new study, MIT scientists have developed nanoparticles that deliver the CRISPR gene editing system, eliminating the need to use viruses for delivery.

Continue reading “Revolutionary CRISPR Gene Editing with Nanoparticles” »