Lifeboat Foundation

The genetic encoding of ncAAs with distinct chemical, biological, and physical properties requires the engineering of bioorthogonal translational machinery, consisting of an evolved aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase/tRNA pair and a “blank” codon. To achieve this, the researchers mimicked the ibis’ ability to synthesize sTyr and incorporate it into proteins.

The Xiao lab employed a mutant amber stop codon to encode the desired sulfotransferase, resulting in a completely autonomous mammalian cell line capable of biosynthesizing sTyr and incorporating it with great precision into proteins.

These engineered cells, the authors wrote, can produce “site-specifically sulfated proteins at a higher yield than cells fed exogenously with the highest level of sTyr reported in the literature.” They used the cells to prepare highly potent thrombin inhibitors with site-specific sulfation.

The pursuit of a cure for Alzheimer’s disease is becoming an increasingly competitive and contentious quest with recent years witnessing several important controversies.

In July 2022, Science magazine reported that a key 2006 research paper, published in the prestigious journal Nature, which identified a subtype of brain protein called beta-amyloid as the cause of Alzheimer’s, may have been based on fabricated data.

One year earlier, in June 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration had approved aducanumab, an antibody-targeting beta-amyloid, as a treatment for Alzheimer’s, even though the data supporting its use were incomplete and contradictory.

Young people seeking to slake their curiosity are increasingly turning to TikTok as a substitute search engine, with the addictive video-sharing app filled with everything from fried chicken recipes to music history deep dives. This is typically fine if you’re just after movie recommendations or a place to have lunch. Unfortunately, new research by NewsGuard has found TikTok also contains a concerning volume of misinformation about serious topics.

When looking for prominent news stories in September, the fact checking organisation found misinformation in almost 20 percent of videos surfaced by the app’s search engine. 540 TikTok videos were analysed as part of this investigation, with 105 found to contain “false or misleading claims.”

“This means that for searches on topics ranging from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to school shootings and COVID vaccines, TikTok’s users are consistently fed false and misleading claims,” wrote NewsGuard.

Don’t think about living forever. Just think about never getting sick, ever again.

At least that’s how Aubrey de Grey would like you to contextualize his work. The notoriously bearded biomedical gerontologist is the scientific spark that lights up so many all-caps “immortality” headlines. De Grey wants to increase human longevity so significantly that death could become a thing of the past, a condition people fell prey to before they developed the medical technology to stop it. It’s been the center of his work for approximately 20 years.

De Grey started as a software guy at the genetics department of Cambridge University in 1992, maintaining a database of genetic information on fruit flies. In 1999 he published a book called “The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging,” where he first laid out the key idea we know him for today: preventing damage to mitochondrial DNA ought to make people live much longer. The idea was so well-received that Cambridge awarded him a PhD the following year. De Grey condensed his thesis to a sound byte in a 2007 interview: “[Humans] are machines, and aging is the wearing out of a machine, the accumulation of damage to a machine, and hence potentially fixable.”

Enrollment of 51 patients exceeds target by ~10% due to high interest in the study

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Sept. 19, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — UNITY Biotechnology, Inc. (“UNITY”) [NASDAQ: UBX], a biotechnology company developing therapeutics to slow, halt, or reverse diseases of aging, has completed enrollment for the ENVISION study, its Phase 2 clinical trial of UBX1325 in patients with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). This is an active comparator study, examining the efficacy of two doses of UBX1325 compared to every other month treatment with aflibercept through 24 weeks.

Scientific publishers such as the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and Taylor & Francis have begun attempting to detect fraud in academic paper submissions with an AI image-checking program called Proofig, reports The Register. Proofig, a product of an Israeli firm of the same name, aims to help use “artificial intelligence, computer vision and image processing to review image integrity in scientific publications,” according to the company’s website.

During a trial that ran from January 2021 to May 2022, AACR used Proofig to screen 1,367 papers accepted for publication, according to The Register. Of those, 208 papers required author contact to clear up issues such as mistaken duplications, and four papers were withdrawn.

In particular, many journals need help detecting image duplication fraud in Western blots, which are a specific style of protein-detection imagery consisting of line segments of various widths. Subtle differences in a blot’s appearance can translate to dramatically different conclusions about test results, and many cases of academic fraud have seen unscrupulous researchers duplicate, crop, stretch, and rotate Western blots to make it appear like they have more (or different) data than they really do. Detecting duplicate images can be tedious work for human eyes, which is why some firms like Proofig and ImageTwin, a German firm, are attempting to automate the process.

AI at the Edge, NAD-Enhancing Drugs, and Laser Beam Toting Sharks!! — Discovering, Enabling & Transitioning Technology For Special Operations Forces — Lisa R. Sanders, Director of Science and Technology for Special Operations Forces, USSOCOM.

Lisa R. Sanders is the Director of Science and Technology for Special Operations Forces, Acquisition, Technology & Logistics (SOF AT&L), U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM — https://www.socom.mil/), located at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, where she is responsible for all research and development funded activities — https://www.socom.mil/SOF-ATL/Pages/eSOF_cap_of_interest.aspx.

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A new study recently published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, suggests that physical and mental activities, such as doing chores around the home, exercising, and visiting family and friends, may help reduce the risk of dementia. The research examined how these activities, together with mental activities and the use of electronic devices, affected individuals with and without increased hereditary risk for dementia.

“Many studies have identified potential risk factors for dementia, but we wanted to know more about a wide variety of lifestyle habits and their potential role in the prevention of dementia,” said study author Huan Song, MD, Ph.D., of Sichuan University in Chengdu, China. “Our study found that exercise, household chores, and social visits were linked to a reduced risk of various types of dementia.”

The study involved 501,376 people from a UK database without dementia. The participants had an average age of 36.

We look at the latest in regenerative medicine for treating knee problems. Osteoarthritis happens when the meniscus and cartilage wear out. Researchers aim to repair meniscal damage with autologous synovial stem cell transplants. Ligament tears, an injury common among athletes, are also usually treated with transplants using the patient’s own tendons or artificial ligaments. A bovine tendon has successfully been transplanted into a sheep, and a clinical trial will soon begin for use in humans.