Lifeboat Foundation

In the fictional links he drew between immortal vampires and bats, Dracula creator Bram Stoker may have had one thing right.

“Maybe it’s all in the blood,” says Emma Teeling, a geneticist studying the exceptional longevity of bats in the hope of discovering benefits for humans.

The University College Dublin researcher works with the charity Bretagne Vivante to study bats living in rural churches and schools in Brittany, western France.

Studying Novel Plasma Fractions For Age-Related Diseases And Systemic Rejuvenation — Dr. Harold Katcher Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Yuvan Research Inc.

Dr. Harold Katcher is the Chief Scientific Officer at Yuvan Research Inc., a biotech company exploring the development of novel, young plasma fraction rejuvenation treatments in mammals.

Continue reading “Dr. Harold Katcher, PhD — Chief Scientific Officer — Yuvan Research — Rejuvenative Plasma Fractions” »

Okay, maybe not as big as the one in the picture.

Potatoes are my favorite vegetable; you can turn them into fries, bake them for an exquisite dish or mash them and eat them as a side dish. There are endless possibilities to cook a potato and what can be better than adding human fat gene in them to make them bigger and juicier?

Scientists have been experimenting with growing larger crops and it seems like they found the perfect solution; adding the human gene related to obesity and fat mass into the plants to yield super crops. The potato plants were inserted with a fat-regulating protein called FTO which changed the genetic code into producing extra proteins which resulted in large potatoes that were almost twice the size of regular ones grown from the same plant crop. “It [was] really a bold and bizarre idea. To be honest, we were probably expecting some catastrophic effects,” said Chuan He, a chemist at University of Chicago.

ABOVE: MAPT, one of the genes linked to both heavy drinking and neurodegenerative diseases, codes for the protein tau (blue in this illustration) inside a neuron. NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING/ NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH

Some genetic risk factors for alcohol use disorder overlap with those for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, scientists reported in Nature Communications on August 20. The study, which relied on a combination of genetic, transcriptomic, and epigenetic data, also offers insight into the molecular commonalities among these disorders, and their connections to immune disfunction.

“By meshing findings from genome wide association studies… ith gene expression in brain and other tissues, this new study has prioritized genes likely to harbor regulatory variants influencing risk of Alcohol Use Disorder,” writes David Goldman, a neurogenetics researcher at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), in an email to The Scientist. “Several of these genes are also associated with neurodegenerative disorders—an intriguing connection because of alcohol’s ability to prematurely age the brain.”

A team at Penn’s medical school discovered that an epigenetic regulatory protein called ZMYND8 governs the expression of genes that are critical for the growth and survival of AML cells. Inhibiting ZMYND8 in mouse models shrank tumors. The researchers also found a biomarker that they believe could predict which patients are likely to respond to ZMYND8 inhibition, they reported in the journal Molecular Cell.

AML is one of the hardest leukemias to treat, with a five-year survival rate of about 27% in adults. The Penn team had been searching for precision medicine approaches that could improve the prognosis for adults with AML, and they turned to CRISPR for help.

ZMYND8 is known as a “histone reader” in cancer that can recognize epigenetic changes and influence gene expression involved in metastasis.

What we’ll soon see is the ultimate self-directed evolution fueled forward by gene editing, genetic engineering, reproduction assisted technology, neuro-engineering, mind uploading and creation of artificial life. Our success as a technological species essentially created what might be called our species-specific “success formula.” We devised tools and instruments, created new methodologies and processes, and readjusted ecological niches to suit our needs. And our technology shaped us back by shaping our minds. In a very real sense, we have co-evolved with our technology. As an animal species among many other species competing for survival, this was our unique passage to success.

#TECHNOCULTURE : #TheRiseofMan #CyberneticTheoryofMind

Continue reading “The Rise of Man: What Was Our Ultimate Success Formula As a Species?” »

My story centers on the concept of a genetically modified virus (named) which infects the brain and gives people enhanced empathy. The narrative takes place in a fictional middle eastern city called Fakhoury and explores bioethical themes. Love acts as a central motif which ties the story together. Note that this piece will be available online for a limited time, after which you will need to pay for the magazine. I encourage you to check out my story!

Read Philosophy Ethics Short Stories with your friends, family, book club, and students. Each story comes with suggested discussion questions.

Dravet syndrome (DS) is a developmental and epileptic encephalopathy with an increased incidence of sudden death. Evidence of interictal breathing deficits in DS suggests that alterations in subcortical projections to brainstem nuclei may exist, which might be driving comorbidities in DS.

Summary: Researchers have identified a circuit within the brain that may be responsible for respiratory dysfunction and sudden death associated with Dravet syndrome.

Source: Vanderbilt University

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Denisovan DNA lives on in some humans today because, once our Homo sapien ancestors encountered the Denisovans, they had sex with them and gave birth to babies — something geneticists call admixture. By analyzing current-day genetic data, we can look back into human history.

Geneticists have found that a Philippine ethnic group known as the Ayta Magbukon has the highest level of Denisovan ancestry in the world.