Lifeboat Foundation

The naked mole rat lives much longer than iI’s than other members of its species. Can it’s ability to repair DNA and fold proteins be employed in Humans to extend our lifespan?

Several animal species are considered to exhibit what is called negligible senescence, i.e. they do not show signs of functional decline or any increase of mortality with age. Recent studies in naked mole rat and long-lived sea urchins showed that these species do not alter their gene-expression profiles with age as much as other organisms do. This is consistent with exceptional endurance of naked mole rat tissues to various genotoxic stresses. We conjectured, therefore, that the lifelong transcriptional stability of an organism may be a key determinant of longevity. We analyzed the stability of a simple genetic-network model and found that under most common circumstances, such a gene network is inherently unstable. Over a time it undergoes an exponential accumulation of gene-regulation deviations leading to death.

In a bizarre experiment researchers from US and Russia connected the circulatory systems of young and old mice for a whole 12 weeks, slowing the older animals’ cellular aging and increasing their lifespan by as much as 10 percent.

The study expands on previous research showing there are components in young mammalian blood worth investigating for anti-aging health benefits.

As impressive as the results seem, they fall well short of supporting whole-blood transfusion treatments in humans. Putting aside the huge biological leap between mice and humans, there are numerous known and severe risks associated with such treatments for the receiver, not to mention questionable ethics of donation.

A team at Nottingham Trent University analyzed the full set of more than 11,000 gene transcripts inside muscle cells, finding that the ‘development pathways’—the different ways in which genes work together to regenerate muscle—become weakened in aged cells.

The study may help to shed some light on why muscle damage take longer to recover from as we age. The study is published in the Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.

The researchers developed a new approach to examine muscle cells in vitro in the laboratory to enable them to observe the different molecular mechanisms that drive muscle aging.

The Klotho gene has gained increasing attention for its anti-aging properties. In the most recent installment of this series, we explored the promising cognitive benefits of administering Klotho to both mice and monkeys, the results from which may be mirrored in humans. The benefits of this circulating hormone, however, extend beyond the brain.

Klotho was first discovered as the antiaging gene in 1997 when researchers found that enhancing its expression could increase the lifespan of mice by more than 30%. Although a variety of different genes and environmental factors can influence longevity, studies have shown that Klotho-deficient mice not only have shorter lifespans but also experience more age-related complications. Premature aging in these mice often was accompanied by loss of muscle and fat tissue, thinning skin, reduced fertility, cardiovascular complications, movement abnormalities, and bone disease. Since Klotho is primarily produced in the kidneys, it is not surprising that many of these age-related complications often result from kidney dysfunction.

The kidneys generate two types of Klotho: a transmembrane protein that inserts itself into the cell membrane and mediates kidney function, and a secreted hormone that is released into the bloodstream. Individuals with naturally high levels of the hormone in their blood seem to not only live longer and be more resistant to age-related complications but also perform better on learning and memory tasks. In fact, even when a relatively small dose of Klotho is administered, animal studies have shown that the brain undergoes significant changes that allow more connections to be made in the hippocampus, the brain’s learning and memory center.

There’s no shortage of AI doomsday scenarios to go around, so here’s another AI expert who pretty bluntly forecasts that the technology will spell the death of us all, as reported by Bloomberg.

This time, it’s not a so-called godfather of AI sounding the alarm bell — or that other AI godfather (is there a committee that decides these things?) — but a controversial AI theorist and provocateur known as Eliezer Yudkowsky, who has previously called for bombing machine learning data centers. So, pretty in character.

Continue reading “AI Expert: ‘I Think We’re All Going to Die’” »

Year 2021 😗😁😘

The authors developed a vaccine against a membrane-bound seno-antigen called GPNMB and show that it can be used as a new senolytic approach. The vaccine led to improvements of several age-related phenotypes and prolonged the lifespan of a progeroid mouse model.

The fear of artificial intelligence is largely a Western phenomenon. It is virtually absent in Asia. In contrast, East Asia sees AI as an invaluable tool to relieve humans of tedious, repetitive tasks and to deal with the problems of aging societies. AI brings productivity gains comparable to the ICT (information and communications technology) revolution of the late 20th century.

China is using AI as an integral part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which brings together different “Industry 4.0” technologies – high-speed (fifth-generation) communications, the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, etc. Chinese ports unload container ships in 45 minutes, a task that can take up to a week in other countries.

Today’s fear of AI has many parallels to the fear of machines at the end of the 19th century. French textile workers, fearing mechanical weaving would endanger their jobs and devalue their craft, threw their “sabots” (clogs) into weaving machines to render them inoperable. They gave us the word sabotage.

Now fast forward 10 more years. That same man and his peers will have counted 70 circles round the sun. But John will remain biologically 60. At the same time, someone who is 30 years old in the year 2033 could theoretically begin the therapy at age 30, and stick at a biological age of 30 for the next 30 years, when their calendar would call them 60. That’s what gene therapies for longevity could do.

Longevity startups are riding high as a wave of gene therapies advance through clinical trials. Can they actually turn back the clock?

So far, gene therapy has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for only a couple of applications like rare inherited diseases and blood cancer. That said, more than 2,000 clinical trials are taking place in 2023, with 200 of them having already reached phase 3 clinical trials. A slew of upcoming gene therapies could be approved—possibly in the months to come—in the United States and Europe, targeting everything from sickle cell disease and hemophilia to metastatic skin cancer. In this future, gene therapy will be approved for everything we can imagine—and many things we can’t.

I’m going to start bringing you Smart Brevity™ versions of books I find worthy of your time.

Zoom in: “Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity,” by Peter Attia, M.D., is getting tons of buzz, and has spent 18 weeks on the N.Y. Times bestseller list (no. 2 for hardcover nonfiction in the list for Aug. 13).