Notes from the 2023 Age-Related Disease Therapeutics Summit
The former Longevity Therapeutics conference series was renamed to the Age-Related Disease Therapeutics Summit and held its fifth event recently in San Francisco. It was a smaller meeting than in past years, perhaps a result of the recent downturn in the global financial and investment environment. Few investors were present. Nonetheless, one can usually learn something interesting from the presenting biotech founders and executives. I took a few notes while I was there to present on progress at Repair Biotechnologies, and they follow in the order of the conference program.
Birget Schilling from the Buck Institute f...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 16, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Longevity Industry Source Type: blogs
Career Conversations: Q & A With Physiologist Elimelda Moige Ongeri
Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Elimelda Moige Ongeri.
A career path in science is rarely clear cut and linear, which Elimelda Moige Ongeri, Ph.D., can attest adds to its excitement. She went from working in animal reproductive biology to studying proteins involved in inflammation and tissue injury. Dr. Ongeri is also currently dean of the Hairston College of Health and Human Sciences and professor of physiology at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T) in Greensboro. In this interview, she shares details of her career, including a change in research focus to human physiology; her goals for the f...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 14, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Profiles Proteins Source Type: blogs
AGEs Produce Harmful Effects via Interaction with RAGE
Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) are a threefold problem. Firstly, a few species of persistent AGEs can form lasting cross-links between structural molecules of the extracellular matrix that alter its tensile properties, such as a loss of elasticity. Human biochemistry is ill-suited to the task of removing these cross-links, particularly those based on glucosepane. Secondly, AGEs can bind to proteins and modify their function, acting as a form of damage that cells must clear. Thirdly, transient AGEs interact with the receptor for AGEs, RAGE, to produce chronic inflammation and cellular dysfunction. This is characteri...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 14, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Urine Test for Parkinson ’s Disease
Scientists at Purdue University have developed a urine test for early-stage Parkinson’s disease. The technology involves isolating extracellular vesicles of neural origin from urine samples and then assessing the proteins within the vesicles to detect biomarkers of the disease. The researchers have called their technology “EVtrap” (Extracellular Vesicles total recovery and purification) and it involves using magnetic beads to concentrate extracellular vesicles in urine, before subsequent proteomics analysis. The goal of the technique is to detect levels of LRRK2 (leucine-rich repeat kinase 2) proteins and related dow...
Source: Medgadget - June 6, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Diagnostics Medicine Neurology parkinson's purdue Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 5th 2023
In conclusion, higher BMR might reduce lifespan. The underlying pathways linking to major causes of death and relevant interventions warrant further investigation.
Betting Against Progress Turns Out Poorly, But Can Work in the Short Term in a Slow Field
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/06/betting-against-progress-turns-out-poorly-but-can-work-in-the-short-term-in-a-slow-field/
Setting oneself up as a spokesperson for "we will not achieve this goal", as the fellow noted here is choosing to do, is a bet against technological progress. A glance at any few decade period in the past two hundred yea...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 4, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Betting Against Progress Turns Out Poorly, But Can Work in the Short Term in a Slow Field
Setting oneself up as a spokesperson for "we will not achieve this goal", as the fellow noted here is choosing to do, is a bet against technological progress. A glance at any few decade period in the past two hundred years suggests that such a bet will almost certainly fail in time, sometimes quite rapidly. In highly regulated fields that move as slowly as is the case for medicine, however, one can profitably continue to be a skeptic for quite some time. While progress is rapid and impressive in the lab and in animal studies, a skeptic can continue to shrug and point to the lack of human therapies.
This is the resul...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 1, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs
Investigating Bacteria ’ s CRISPR Defense System to Improve Human Health
Credit: Adrian Sanchez Gonzales.
The earliest Andrew Santiago-Frangos, Ph.D., remembers being interested in science was when he was about 8 years old. He was home sick and became engrossed in a children’s book that explained how some bacteria and viruses cause illness. To this day, his curiosity about bacteria persists, and he’s making discoveries about CRISPR—a system that helps bacteria defend against viruses—as a postdoctoral researcher and NIGMS-funded Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers (MOSAIC) scholar at Montana State University (MSU) in Bozeman.
Becoming a Biologist...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - May 31, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Cells Bacteria Cellular Processes COVID-19 DNA Profiles Source Type: blogs
Using Robots and Artificial Intelligence to Search for New Medicines
Courtesy of Dr. Adam Gormley.
Adam Gormley, Ph.D., describes himself as a creative and adventurous person—albeit, not creative in the traditional sense. “Science allows me to be creative; to me, it’s a form of art. I love being outdoors, going on sailing trips, and spending time adventuring with my family. Research is the same—it’s an adventure. My creative and adventurous sides have combined into a real love for science,” he says. Dr. Gormley currently channels his passion for science into his position as an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey.
Lea...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - May 24, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Cells Tools and Techniques Bioinformatics Computational Biology Medicines Profiles Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 22nd 2023
Conclusions to be Drawn
A High Fat Diet Accelerates Atherosclerosis Less Directly than One Might Suspect
How to Construct Measures of Biological Age
A Long-Term Comparison of Metformin in Diabetics with Non-Diabetic Controls
In Search of Distinctive Features of the Gut Microbiome in Long-Lived Individuals
Greater Fitness in Humans Implies a Younger Epigenome and Transcriptome
Intestinal Barrier Dysfunction as a Feature of Aging in Many Species
NAFLD as an Age-Related Condition
Towards Sensory Hair Cell Regeneration in the Inner Ear
Raised Leve...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 21, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Evidence for Parkinson's Disease to Have a Bacterial Origin
This study aimed to investigate whether Desulfovibrio bacteria induce alpha-syn aggregation.
Fecal samples of ten PD patients and their healthy spouses were collected for molecular detection of Desulfovibrio species, followed by bacterial isolation. Isolated Desulfovibrio strains were used as diets to feed Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes which overexpress human alpha-syn fused with yellow fluorescence protein. Curli-producing Escherichia coli MC4100, which has been shown to facilitate alpha-syn aggregation in animal models, was used as a control bacterial strain, and E. coli LSR11, incapable of producing curli, was...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 16, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 15th 2023
In this study, we examined the average telomere length and telomerase activity, as well as the formation of telomere associated foci (TAFs) and the mRNA expression levels of the shelterin components in cultured primary cells of Spalax, a long-lived, hypoxia-tolerant, and cancer-resistant blind mole-rat species.
We showed that with cell passages, Spalax fibroblasts demonstrated significant shortening in telomere length, similar to rat cells, and in line with the processes observed earlier in tissues. We also demonstrated that the average telomere length in Spalax fibroblasts was significantly higher than the average ...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 14, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Knowing Both a Great Deal and Too Little About the Mechanisms of Sarcopenia
Today's open access paper is a tour of the better known mechanisms of post-translational modification of proteins, and their relevance to the universal age-related loss of muscle mass and strength, the onset of sarcopenia. It is a good example of the state of knowledge in much of the life sciences, where it is possible to know both a great deal and very little about an important topic such as maintenance of muscle tissue.
Thus one can find any number of papers in which specific mechanisms of post-translational modification when applied to specific proteins are investigated in connection to the regulation of muscle g...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 12, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
The Thioredoxin Antioxidant System in Aging and Longevity
Sabotaging antioxidant systems can shorten life span in model organisms, but that doesn't necessarily imply that one can lengthen life by improving on biological antioxidant capacity. Yes, oxidative stress rises with age, and the presence of too many oxidizing molecules is harmful to a cell, but the presence of those oxidizing molecules and the damage they cause to cellular machinery is also a signal that produces greater cell maintenance and other beneficial outcomes. Cellular biochemistry is complicated, and it is rarely the case that relationships are simple and linear. General delivery of antioxidants as supplements ha...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 11, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Career Conversations: Q & A With Biochemist Prabodhika Mallikaratchy
Credit: CUNY School of Medicine.
“One of the biggest things I hope for in my career is that in 20 years, I still feel the same joy and enthusiasm for research and training that I feel now,” says Prabodhika Mallikaratchy, Ph.D., a professor in the department of molecular, cellular, and biomedical sciences at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Medicine. Dr. Mallikaratchy talks with us about her career path, research on developing new immunotherapies and molecular tools using nucleic acids, and her belief in the importance of being passionate about your career.
Q: How did you first become interested in ...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - May 10, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Tools and Techniques DNA Medicines Profiles Proteins Source Type: blogs
Inhibition of miR-141-3p Reduces Age-Related Inflammation, Improves Health
Researchers here demonstrate an approach to inhibiting miR-141-3p that leads to improved health in old mice following twelve weeks of treatment. It appears that this microRNA is involved in the at least the inflammatory signaling characteristic of old age, but potentially a range of other mechanisms as well, such as mitochondrial function, and tendency for cells to become senescent. Since every aspect of cellular biochemistry influences every other aspect, one can produce benefits in this way and still be left with an unclear understanding of exactly why the results are positive.
We previously demonstrated elevate...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 9, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
