Lifeboat Foundation

Preliminary results from young blood plasma transfusions in mice are showing some really promising results!

For organisms like us, survival is a team sport. I do not mean in the sense of being a pack animal that forms mutually beneficial relationships with others in order to increase the likelihood of acquiring protection and resources (although this is certain true), but instead to the fundamental functions of our biology. The cells which make up our body are all in essence working towards the goal of survival, and in turn work with one another in a variety of different ways. As anyone who has ever worked in a team will tell you, communication is key, and without it a team is doomed to failure. However, often poor or incorrect communication can be even worse than no communication at all.

Immortal gut biome o.o

Our genetic material is stored in our cells in a specific way to make the meter-long DNA molecule fit into the tiny cell nucleus of each body cell. An international team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging, the CECAD Cluster of Excellence in Aging Research at the University of Cologne, the University College London and the University of Michigan have now been able to show that rapamycin, a well-known anti-aging candidate, targets gut cells specifically to alter the way of DNA storage inside these cells, and thereby promotes gut health and longevity. This effect has been observed in flies and mice. The researchers believe this finding will open up new possibilities for targeted therapeutic interventions against aging.

Our genetic material lies in the form of DNA in every cell nucleus of our body cells. In humans, this DNA molecule is two meters long—yet it fits into the cell nucleus, which is only a few micrometers in size. This is possible because the DNA is precisely stored. To do this, it is wound several times around certain proteins known as histones. How tightly the DNA is wound around the histones also determines which genes can be read from our genome. In many species, the amount of histones changes with age. Until now, however, it has been unclear whether changes in cellular histone levels could be utilized to improve the aging process in living organisms.

Continue reading “Rapamycin changes the way our DNA is stored” »

David Sinclair is a geneticist at Harvard and author of Lifespan.

Nature – Reversal of biological clock restores vision in old mice

Continue reading “Age Resetting Genes Going to Human Studies in Two Years” »

New research suggests age-related changes in blood cell chromosomes are a marker of impaired immunity.

A person’s risk of severe infections increases dramatically as they grow older, but scientists do not yet understand how age might be linked to weakened immunity. Now, research shows that certain age-related changes in blood cells are associated with a higher risk of a range of severe infections including severe COVID-19, other pneumonias, and sepsis.

Researchers analyzed genetic and clinical data from nearly 800000 patients from around the world. They discovered that people with a specific type of acquired rearrangement in the chromosomes of their blood cells, called mosaic chromosomal alterations (mCAs), were nearly three times more likely to develop sepsis and two times more likely to get pneumonia than those without mCAs. These genetic changes accumulate in blood cells with age and often indicate a common condition in the elderly called clonal hematopoiesis.

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Continue reading “Trials Begin For Lozenge That Rebuilds Tooth Enamel” »

Instead of putting genetic instructions into people whose cells then make a viral protein, the vaccines from Novavax, Medicago and Sanofi carry a spike protein payload.

Don’t worry you haven’t stumbled onto that strange part of the internet again, but it is true that we never truly did sequence the entire Human genome. For you see what was completed in June 2000 was the so called ‘first draft’, which constituted roughly 92% of genome. The problem with the remaining 8% was that these were genomic ‘dead zones’, made up of vast regions of repeating patterns of nucleotide bases that made studying these regions of the genome effectively impossible with the technology that was available at the time.

However, recent breakthroughs in high throughput nanopore sequencing technology have allowed for these so call dead zones to be sequences. Analysing these zone revealed 80 different genes which had been missed during the initial draft of the Human genome. Admittedly this is not many considering that the other 92% of the genome contain 19889 genes, but it may turn out that these genes hold great significance, as there are still many biological pathways which we do not fully understand. It is likely that many of these genes will soon be linked with what are known as orphan enzymes, which are proteins that are created from an unidentified gene, which is turn opens up the door to studying these enzymes more closely via controlling their expression.

Continue reading “Genes in the Dead Zone” »

Papers referenced in the video:

Sirtuins, Healthspan, and Longevity in Mammals.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780124115965000034

Continue reading “SIRT6 Positively Affects The Hallmarks Of Aging And Extends Lifespan” »

The latest from Calico. A bit technical.

Reprogramming of ordinary somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) was initially thought to be a way to obtain all of the patient matched cells needed for tissue engineering or cell therapies. A great deal of work has gone towards realizing that goal over the past fifteen years or so; the research community isn’t there yet, but meaningful progress has taken place. Of late, another line of work has emerged, in that it might be possible to use partial reprogramming as a basis for therapy, delivering reprogramming factors into animals and humans in order to improve tissue function, without turning large numbers of somatic cells into iPSCs and thus risking cancer or loss of tissue structure and function.

Reprogramming triggers some of the same mechanisms of rejuvenation that operate in the developing embryo, removing epigenetic marks characteristic of aged tissues, and restoring youthful mitochondrial function. It cannot do much for forms of damage such as mutations to nuclear DNA or buildup of resilient metabolic waste, but the present feeling is there is nonetheless enough of a potential benefit to make it worth developing this approach to treatments for aging. Some groups have shown that partial reprogramming — via transient expression of reprogramming factors — can reverse functional losses in cells from aged tissues without making those cells lose their differentiated type. But this is a complicated business. Tissues are made up of many cell types, all of which can need subtly different approaches to safe reprogramming.

Today’s open access preprint is illustrative of the amount of work that lies ahead when it comes to the exploration of in vivo reprogramming. Different cell types behave quite differently, will require different recipes and approaches to reprogramming, different times of exposure, and so forth. It makes it very hard to envisage a near term therapy that operates much like present day gene therapies, meaning one vector and one cargo, as most tissues are comprised of many different cell types all mixed in together. On the other hand, the evidence to date, including that in the paper here, suggests that there are ways to create the desired rejuvenation of epigenetic patterns and mitochondrial function without the risk of somatic cells dedifferentiating into stem cells.

Continue reading “A Great Deal of Work Lies Ahead in the Development of In Vivo Reprogramming as a Therapy” »