Lifeboat Foundation

In a small and preliminary clinical trial, Johns Hopkins researchers and their collaborators have shown that an experimental gene therapy that uses viruses to introduce a therapeutic gene into the eye is safe and that it may be effective in preserving the vision of people with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD is a leading cause of vision loss in the U.S., affecting an estimated 1.6 million Americans. The disease is marked by growth of abnormal blood vessels that leak fluid into the central portion of the retina called the macula, which we use for reading, driving and recognizing faces.

The study published on May 16 in The Lancet, reports an exciting new approach in which a virus, similar to the common cold, but altered in the lab so that it is unable to cause disease, is used as a carrier for a gene and is injected into the eye. The virus penetrates retinal cells and deposits a gene, which turns the cells into factories for productions of a therapeutic protein, called sFLT01.

The abnormal blood vessels that cause wet AMD grow because patients have increased production of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in their retinas. Current treatments require injections of proteins directly into the eye that bind and inactivate VEGF, reducing fluid in the macula and improving vision. However, the therapeutic proteins exit the eye over the course of a month, so patients with wet AMD usually need to return to the clinic for more injections every six to eight weeks in order to stave off vision loss. Eye specialists say the burden and discomfort of the regimen is responsible for many patients not getting injections as frequently as they need, causing vision loss.

Continue reading “New Gene Therapy for Vision Loss Proven Safe in Humans” »

The results from a human pilot study that focused on treating idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis with senescent cell-clearing drugs has been published. The drugs target aged and damaged cells, which are thought to be a reason we age and get sick, and remove them from the body.

Senescent cells and aging

As we age, increasing numbers of our cells become dysfunctional, entering into a state known as senescence. Senescent cells no longer divide or support the tissues and organs of which they are part; instead, they secrete a range of harmful inflammatory chemical signals, which are collectively known as the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP).

Continue reading “Human Pilot Study Results for Senolytics Published” »

An exciting recent article to wish everyone here a happy new year!

A super-stealthy holding company called Life Biosciences has launched more than a half dozen biotechs aimed at finding new ways to slow the aging process.

Many scientists research the practical and immediate applications of bio molecular technology but it seems most fail to study our most important, and largest organ, our skin.

Who will officially be the first transhuman? Will it be you? Why wait decades? This article explains one approach to speeding up the process and also the challenge involved.

Defining the Object of the Goal:

Continue reading “Becoming the First Transhuman: A Call For The Right Stuff” »

At the Fourth Eurosymposium on Healthy Ageing, which was held in Brussels last November, Elena and I met Dr. Kris Verburgh, a medical doctor who is especially interested in biogerontology and the potential of this field of study to turn medicine on its head.

Dr. Verburgh is only about 33 years old and has already written several science books—one of which, written when he was only 16, made him the youngest science author in Europe. Another prominent interest of his is nutrition, which he believes is one of the best, if not the best, ways we currently have to slow down the march of aging and buy ourselves more time to live until the rejuvenation age; his latest book, The Longevity Code, is centered around this topic.

Dr. Verburgh is also a strong supporter of the idea that AI will play a more and more important role in research, leading the way to a not-too-far age of personalized medicine—this was one of the theses he touched upon during the panel in which he participated at EHA.

In this interview, Dr. Leonid Peshkin offers insights on aging, the pitfalls of excessive optimism, and the role of machine learning in studying age-related disease.

Determined but not complacent, grounded but hopeful, Dr. Leonid Peshkin is one of the scientists working on understanding aging so that it may one day be treated like we treat any other ailment.

As he revealed in an interview with the Boston Globe in mid-2018, the idea of having to lose oneself and one’s loved ones to aging never made any sense to him, and ever since he was a child, he has been preoccupied with aging and the fear that it might take away his father, who was almost 60 when Leon was 10 and, sadly, passed away in July 2018 at the age of 96.

Continue reading “An Interview with Dr. Leonid Peshkin” »

Researchers at the University of Michigan have found a molecule that may be a potential target in new treatments to slow aging (Credit: ktsdesign/Depositphotos)

Drive an hour north of Google’s headquarters up to Oyster Point, south San Francisco, and you will find the office of Calico Labs. The steel and glass building has none of the showmanship of its sister company, with its colourful, attention-grabbing Googleplex campus.

Its name is an acronym for “California Life Company” but its lifeless exterior makes it easy to imagine it being named after another Calico – an abandoned mining town further down the Pacific Coast. The company, a division of Google’s parent company Alphabet, is now five years old, but its operations remain highly secretive.

Dear friends of healthy longevity, yet another year has gone by. Hold back the melancholy though, because in this day and age a passing year can be looked at as a year fewer to wait before rejuvenation biotechnologies are available, rather than a year taken from your healthy lifespan. Busy as we are with all the errands of daily life, it is easy to forget all that’s happened and the progress we’ve made in the field in one year. So while we wait for 2019, let’s take a look back at what 2018 has brought us.