Lifeboat Foundation

Regenerative medicine company Frequency Therapeutics is developing new drugs that activate our innate abilities to restore function and reverse degenerative diseases. The company is working on small molecules that selectively activate progenitor cells already present within our bodies to create healthy, functional tissues. Frequency’s initial focus is on hearing loss and multiple sclerosis, and the company has just completed enrolment of a Phase 2b trial in adults with acquired sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL).

Longevity. Technology: Frequency is focused on progenitor cells, which are like stem cells but can only make cells that belong to the same tissue or organ. While progenitor cells remain active in some of our organs and tissues, they can become dormant in others. Frequency’s small molecules are designed to selectively target and induce dormant progenitor cells to create specific cell types to restore tissue structure and function. We caught up with Frequency’s Chief Scientific Officer Dr Chris Loose to learn more.

Nasdaq-listed Frequency was founded in 2014, licensing technology developed by professors Robert Langer from MIT and Jeffrey Karp from Harvard Medical School.

Dr talks taking hardcore science to market without biotech approval risk and the catalyst that is translational research.

We were lucky enough to attend the Longevity Investors Conference last month; this key event attracts those interested in learning about longevity investment opportunities and finding out more about the exciting directions in which the field is accelerating. To put it succinctly, as MIT Tech Review did recently, LIC “brings academic scientists and biotech companies together with deep-pocketed investors. We’re talking millionaires and billionaires.”

Continue reading “Tobias Reichmuth — the longevity market starts now” »

A multinational team headed by University College London scientists has discovered a new mechanism that slows down and maybe even prevents the normal aging of immune cells, one of the nine “hallmarks of aging.”

The discovery in-vitro (cells) and validated in mice was “unexpected,” according to the researchers, who believe harnessing the mechanism might extend the life of the immune system, enabling people to live healthier and longer lives, and would also have therapeutic use for diseases such as cancer and dementia. Their findings were recently published in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

Explaining the study, lead author, Dr. Alessio Lanna, Honorary Professor at UCL Division of Medicine, said: Immune cells are on constant high-alert, always ready to fight pathogens. To be effective they also must persist for decades in the body – but the strategies employed to execute this life-long protection are largely unknown.

New foundation aims for scientific and rhetorical value – and to run the debug cycle for longevity research.

The Longevity Investors Conference is quickly turning into one of the highlights in the longevity calendar, and we were delighted to be able to interview some of the speakers in a few ‘backstage’ moments.

Continue reading “Aubrey de Grey on longevity at scale” »

Dr. Michael Rose is an evolutionary biologist and authority in gerontology. His many years of research and keen insight establish unique methods to frame the problems of aging. Michael made scientific history with experiments manipulating the life spans of fruit flies. As a pragmatist, Michael sees beyond today’s quick fixes to examine what could be the most important changes in the longevity industry to slow down and stop aging. His view is that genomics in conjunction with machine learning is the future of longevity.

The latest trailer for Immortality, a narrative FMV game from Sam Barlow, creator of Her Story. Immortality releases July 26 on Game Pass, Steam, and GOG.

Catch everything that was revealed at the PC Gaming Show: https://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-watch-pc-gaming-show-2022/

Continue reading “Immortality trailer (PC Gaming Show 2022)” »

(https://hannalabweb.weizmann.ac.il/) is a Senior Scientist and Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, where his lab, and the interdisciplinary group of scientists within it, are focused on understanding the complexity of early embryonic stem cell biology and early developmental dynamics, as well as advancing human disease modeling.

More specifically, Dr. Hanna’s lab investigates the detailed process of cellular reprogramming, in which induced pluripotent stem cells are generated from somatic cells, and they investigate how pluripotency is maintained throughout development in mouse and human. In their studies they employ a diverse arsenal of biological experimentation methods, high throughput screening, advanced microscopy and genomic analyses seeking to combine biological experimentation with computational biology, theory and modeling, to elucidate various biological questions.

Continue reading “Dr. Jacob Hanna, MD, Ph.D. — Synthetic Embryo R&D In Regenerative Medicine & Developmental Biology” »

Mount Sinai researchers have cataloged thousands of sites in the brain where RNA is modified throughout the human lifespan in a process known as adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) editing, offering important new avenues for understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of brain development and how they factor into both health and disease.

In a study published in Cell Reports, the team described how the rate of RNA editing in the brain increases as individuals age, with implications for dissecting the pathology of altered A-to-I editing across a range of neurodevelopmental and aging disorders.

“Our work provides more nuanced and accurate insights into the contribution of RNA modifications by A-to-I editing during human brain development,” says senior author Michael Breen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, and Genetics and Genomic Sciences, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and a member of the Seaver Center for Autism Research and Treatment.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new method for determining which genes are relevant to the aging process. The work was done in an animal species widely used as a model for genetic and biological research, but the finding has broader applications for research into the genetics of aging.

“There are a lot of genes out there that we still don’t know what they do, particularly in regard to aging,” says Adriana San Miguel, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State.

That’s because this field faces a very specific technical challenge: by the time you know whether an organism is going to live for a long time, it’s old and no longer able to reproduce. But the techniques we use to study genes require us to work with animals that are capable of reproducing, so we can study the role of specific genes in subsequent generations.