Lifeboat Foundation

Whether or not you like tattoos (or have one yourself), you’ll have to admit—these are pretty cool. Scientists have developed something called a “biosensing” tattoo that could help change the lives of people living with types 1 or 2 diabetes. How could a tattoo do this, you ask? Well, by changing color along with the person’s blood sugar levels.

This new tattoo is the hard work of a team of researchers from Harvard and MIT who call the project Dermal Abyss. The researchers replaced traditional tattoo ink with color-changing “biosensors” that react to variations in the interstitial fluid, which surrounds tissue cells in the human body.

“It blends advances in biotechnology with traditional methods in tattoo artistry,” the team writes on their website. “Currently… diabetics need to monitor their glucose levels by piercing the skin, 3 to 10 times per day. With Dermal Abyss, we imagine the future where the painful procedure is replaced with a tattoo. Thus, the user could monitor the color changes and the need of insulin.”

Continue reading “This Tattoo Changes Colors As Your Blood Sugar Levels Change” »

This innovative technique has been used to cure blindness.

26 weeks until the world’s first human head transplant (Graphic).

A head transplant doctor claims to have made advance toward realizing the medical procedure, but the scientific community remains skeptical. The team claims to have used a proprietary “glue” to repair the severed spines of rats and achieved full recovery.

Sergio Canavero, a man who has made the goal of his life’s work to transplant a human head onto a donor body, is claiming a success. He and his team have reported seemingly positive results from a technique called the Gemini Protocol. They used the protocol to repair severed spinal cords in rats, and their findings indicate that their methodology works “across the board.”

On the 9th of June we teamed up with the Major Mouse Testing Program (MMTP) for a live stream longevity panel on the MMTP Facebook page. The panel included Dr. Alexandra Stolzing, Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Dr. Oliver Medvedik, MMTP coordinators Steve Hill and Elena Milova, Lifespan.io President Keith Comito, and one of the most active contributors Alen Akhabaev. The event was one of the rewards from the MMTP campaign launched on Lifespan.io last year.

During the first section the panelists discuss the science and progress in the field, touching upon senescent cell therapy with senolytics, its progress and limitations, stem cells therapies and other promising interventions to slow down and potentially reverse age-related damage to health.

Continue reading “LEAF Panel: How to Promote Longevity? ft. Drs. Aubrey de Grey, Alexandra Stolzing, Oliver Medvedik” »

Cancer…your days are numbered!!!

Here’s why there has never been a human clinical trial conducted on the Cancer-Killing power of Cannabis: IT WORKS! Watch cannabis documentary episode on “Treating Cancer.” http://bit.ly/2r98jhU

You may not be familiar with the work we do at Lifespan.io and how we are supporting rejuvenation biotech research using the power of crowdfunding. Here is a short video talking about the importance of supporting breakthrough technology and the work we do at Lifespan.io.

Connect with us on social media to stay informed:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/LifespanIO?sub_confirmation=1

Continue reading “LEAF President Keith Comito explains the origin of Lifespan.io and why crowdfunding research to extend healthy lifespan is both important and exciting” »

Sinclair lab enters human trials for DNA repair this year!

DNA is a critical part of the cell, it is the instruction manual for building cells. Whilst DNA is well protected within the cell nucleus damage does occur, therefore DNA repair is absolutely essential for cell function, cell survival and the prevention of cancer. The good news is cells are able to repair damaged DNA but the bad news is that this ability declines with aging for reasons as yet to be fully understood.

An exciting new study by researchers led by Dr. David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School shows a part of the process that enables cells to repair damaged DNA involving the signalling molecule NAD. This offers insight into how the body repairs DNA and why that repair system declines as we age. Before we get into the new research study let’s take a look at how DNA damage relates to aging and what NAD is.

Organs-on-Chips (Organ Chips) are emerging as powerful tools that allow researchers to study the physiology of human organs and tissues in ways not possible before. By mimicking normal blood flow, the mechanical microenvironment, and how different tissues physically interface with one another in living organs, they offer a more systematic approach to testing drugs than other in vitro methods that ultimately could help to replace animal testing.

As it can take weeks to grow human cells into intact differentiated and functional tissues within Organ Chips, such as those that mimic the lung and intestine, and researchers seek to understand how drugs, toxins or other perturbations alter tissue structure and function, the team at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering led by Donald Ingber has been searching for ways to non-invasively monitor the health and maturity of cells cultured within these microfluidic devices over extended times.

It has been particularly difficult to measure changes in electrical functions of cells grown within Organ Chips that are normally electrically active, such as neuronal cells in the brain or beating heart cells, both during their differentiation and in response to drugs.