Lifeboat Foundation

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in South Korea has found that stimulating production of a certain enzyme in roundworms can increase their lifespan. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their study of the protein VRK-1 and what they learned about its impact on the longevity of roundworms.

Prior research has shown that one way to increase longevity in some species is to use techniques that slow down mitochondrial respiration. In this new effort, the researchers were looking to better understand why slowing energy use in mitochondria has an impact on aging. As part of their effort, they looked at an energy sensor in mitochondria called adenosine 5’-monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK), known to play a role in controlling how much energy is used in cells in roundworms. Prior research had suggested its level of activity is controlled by the protein VRK-1. To learn more about its impact on aging, the researchers genetically engineered two lines of roundworms to force them to produce more VRK-1 and two lines of roundworms to force them to produce less VRK-1. They then monitored the roundworms to see how long they lived.

The researchers found those roundworms expressing more than the normal amount of VRK-1 tended to live longer than average, while those expressing less than average amounts of VRK-1 had shorter lifespans. More specifically, control worms representing the normal lifespan of a roundworm lived on average 16.9 days. In their experiments, one of the lines expressing more VRK-1 lived on average 20.8 days, while the other lived on average 23.7 days. And one of the lines producing less VRK-1 lived on average just 12.7 days and the other just 15.9 days. The researchers suggest this finding indicates that VRK-1 has a direct impact on roundworm longevity.

Why do we age? What exactly is happening in our bodies? And can we do anything about it? Mankind has sought answers to these questions since time immemorial. While the pharmaceutical scientists Alexandra K. Kiemer and Jessica Hoppstädter from Saarland University are not claiming to have solved this ancient problem, they have uncovered processes within our immune system that contribute to aging. Kiemer and Hoppstädter have shown that low levels of the hormone cortisol and the protein known as GILZ can trigger chronic inflammatory responses in the body. The results have been published in the journal Aging Cell.

The phenomenon of human aging is the result of a complex interaction between numerous factors, with our own immune system playing a critical role. As we get older, our body’s own defense mechanisms age, too. The adaptive or specific immune system that each of us acquires over the course of our lives and that protects us from the pathogens that we came into contact with gradually deteriorates as we age. In contrast, however, our innate or non-specific immune system, which is the first line of defense towards a wide variety of pathogens, becomes overactive. The result is chronic inflammation.

A persistent state of inflammation can cause serious damage to our bodies. One consequence is that chronic inflammatory diseases, such as atherosclerosis or arthritis, are far more prevalent in older patients. “This has been well-known for a long time. In fact, the scientific community refers to this phenomenon as ‘inflamm-aging’—a portmanteau word that combines the two inseparably linked processes of inflammation and aging,” explains Alexandra K. Kiemer, Professor of Pharmaceutical Biology at Saarland University.

3 things:

1. The company claims that it has been successful in reducing the epigenetic age of participants(17 people) by an average of 8.5 years with its dietary supplement Rejuvant.

2. Obviously, this has yet to be proven conclusively in human trials, and the company is busy preparing to launch a larger-scale trial later this year to that end.

Continue reading “Pilot Study Results Suggest Epigenetic Age Reversal” »

Research at IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) has led to the revolutionary development of an artificial liquid retinal prosthesis to counteract the effects of diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration that cause the progressive degeneration of photoreceptors of the retina, resulting in blindness. The study has been published in Nature Nanotechnology.

The study represents the state of the art in retinal prosthetics and is an evolution of the planar artificial retinal model developed by the same team in 2017 and based on organic semiconductor materials (Nature Materials 2017, 16: 681–689).

The ‘second generation’ artificial retina is biomimetic, offers high spatial resolution and consists of an aqueous component in which photoactive polymeric nanoparticles (whose size is 350 nanometres, thus about 1/100 of the diameter of a hair) are suspended, and will replace damaged photoreceptors.

The death of cash is still some way off, but a tipping point is fast approaching helped by consumer realisation that contactless payments are more secure and more convenient.

Ribonucleic acid, or RNA, is part of our genetic code and present in every cell of our body. The best known form of RNA is a single linear strand, of which the function is well known and characterized. But there is also another type of RNA, so-called “circular RNA,” or circRNA, which forms a continuous loop that makes it more stable and less vulnerable to degradation. CircRNAs accumulate in the brain with age. Still, the biological functions of most circRNAs are not known and are a riddle for the scientific community. Now scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging have come one step closer to answer the question what these mysterious circRNAs do: one of them contributes to the aging process in fruit flies.

Carina Weigelt and other researchers in the group led by Linda Partridge, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging, used fruit flies to investigate the role of the circRNAs in the aging process. “This is unique, because it is not very well understood what circRNAs do, especially not in an aging perspective. Nobody has looked at circRNAs in a longevity context before,” says Carina Weigelt who conducted the main part of the study. She continues: “Now we have identified a circRNA that can extend lifespan of fruit flies when we increase it, and it is regulated by insulin signaling.”

Animal experiments demonstrating the anti-aging effects of exchanging young blood plasma for old have been prominent in the last two months. Several groups are saying it’s time to translate their findings into human trials. But I’ve recently learned that others have been doing this for several years. What can we learn from their results to guide the next steps in experimentation?

I had never heard of Grifols, the Spanish pharmaceutical company that is the world’s largest supplier of albumin. Since 2005, Grifols has been quietly funding world leaders in plasma exchange research in humans. Albutein ® is their brand-name solution of human albumin.

Last month, the first results of the Grifol’s AMBAR trial were released. (AMBAR stands for A lzheimer’s M odulation B y A lbumin R eplacement). It was a much larger-scale phase 2.5 trial, with 496 subjects recruited from sites in Spain and USA, and treated for 14 months. A single treatment consisted of removing 2.5 to 3 litres of blood (more than half the body’s inventory) and replacing it with Albutein. Patients began with 6 weekly treatments, and thereafter there were 12 monthly smaller plasma replacements (0.7 litres), again with Albutein.

Happy birthday to the World most important Entrepreneur (Olorogun Elon Musk). We at the Ogba Educational Clinic and Artificial intelligence Hub celebrate and wish to immortalize you by Setting up a club after you (The Elon Musk Club). This is in line with our vision to create small Elon’s that would eventually outdo you from Africa.

Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway, is currently spearheading a project to convert part of the old New Hampshire textile plant into a factory for lab-grown lungs, livers, and other organs for transplantation — and he doesn’t think it’ll take long to do it.

The nonprofit is like a club for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine researchers. Groups must have something to offer in order to join (money, equipment, experience), but once a part of ARMI, they gain access to the other members’ research and resources.