Reviewing Blood-Brain Barrier Dysfunction in the Context of Alzheimer's Disease
The biochemistry of the central nervous system is separated from the biochemistry of the rest of the body by the blood-brain barrier, a specialized lining of cells that wrap blood vessels that pass through the brain. Only some molecules and cells are permitted to pass into and out of the brain. Like all bodily systems, the blood-brain barrier breaks down with age, leading to leakage of unwanted molecules and cells into the brain, where they can provoke inflammation and dysfunction. This is thought to provide a significant contribution to the onset and further progression of age-related neurodegenerative conditions, given t...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 23, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Automating Cellular Image Analysis to Find Potential Medicines
Dr. Anne Carpenter. Credit: Juliana Sohn.
When she started college, Anne Carpenter, Ph.D., never guessed she’d one day create software for analyzing images of cells that would help identify potential medicines and that thousands of researchers would use. She wasn’t planning to become a computational biologist, or even to focus on science at all, but she’s now an institute scientist and the senior director of the Imaging Platform at the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard in Cambridge.
Starting Out in Science
Before beginning her undergraduate studies at Purdue University...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - March 22, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Cells Tools and Techniques Bioinformatics Cellular Imaging Computational Biology Cool Tools/Techniques Profiles Source Type: blogs
The flour beetle ’ s water butt
A new study has demonstrated the ability of red flour beetles (Tribolium castaneum) to recycle water in their rectums. This feat allows the beetles to survive in some of the driest environments on Earth.
The research team of Kenneth Halberg and colleagues built a transcriptomic atlas of the beetles’ life stages, which allowed them to systematically compare gene expression across tissues and stages. By searching the atlas for genes with enriched expression in the rectum, the researchers were able to identify a specific gene associated with this phenomenon, Nha1.
Electrophysiological experiments confirmed that Nha1 pl...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 21, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Invertebrates Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 20th 2023
This study also provides the potential for de novo generation of complex organs in vivo.
T Cells May Play a Role in the Brain Inflammation Characteristic of Neurodegenerative Conditions
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/03/t-cells-may-play-a-role-in-the-brain-inflammation-characteristic-of-neurodegenerative-conditions/
Alzheimer's disease, and other forms of neurodegenerative condition, are characterized by chronic inflammation in brain tissue. Unresolved inflammatory signaling is disruptive of tissue structure and function. Here, researchers provide evidence for T cells to become involved in thi...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 19, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Background on the Funding of Retro Biosciences, an Illustrative Slice of Life for the Longevity Industry and its Backers
Retro Biosciences is one of the better funded ventures focused on the treatment of aging to have emerged from the Bay Area centered science, advocacy, and venture communities. The story of how Retro Biosciences came to exist is illustrative of that community, and the way in which a strong interest in human longevity on the part of a few high net worth individuals has shifted in its focus over the past decade. Interested parties have expanded their activities from philanthropic funding of research, initially the only viable approach to make progress, to the addition of much larger investments in startup companies, growing a...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 16, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Slideshow: Circles of Life
Every year on March 14, many people eat pie in honor of Pi Day. Mathematically speaking, pi (π) is the ratio of a circle’s circumference (the distance around the outside) to its diameter (the length from one side of the circle to the other, straight through the center). That means if you divide the circumference of any circle by its diameter, the solution will always be pi, which is roughly 3.14—hence March 14, or 3/14. But pi is an irrational number, which means that the numbers after the decimal point never end. With the help of computers, mathematicians have determined trillions of digits of pi.
To celebrate Pi ...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - March 14, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Cells Molecular Structures Cellular Imaging Cool Images Microbes Research Organisms Source Type: blogs
Spawn again amphibian
Son reported from our garden pond #PondLife on 11th March that there were at least a couple of dozen frogs visible in the pond mating and spawning. First dollop of spawn was seen on this date. He counted at least 30 frogs. I got a bit of video of the activity a day later in the rain. I will try and do better if it is dry this evening. The video was done as more of a hasty record of the sound of the frogs croaking.
https://www.sciencebase.com/images/spawning.mp4
(Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science)
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 13, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Biology PondLife Vertebrates Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 13th 2023
In this study, we report the extensive and progressive accumulation of misfolded proteins during natural aging/senescence in different models, in the absence of disease. We coined the term age-ggregates to refer to this subset of proteins. Our findings demonstrate that age-ggregates exhibit the main characteristics of misfolded protein aggregates implicated in PMDs, including insolubility in detergents, protease-resistance, and staining with dyes specific for misfolded aggregates. Misfolded protein aggregates with these characteristics are thought to be implicated in some of today most prevalent diseases, including Alzheim...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 12, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Color-Evasive Cognition: The Unavoidable Impact of Scientific Racism in the Founding of a Field - Ayanna K. Thomas, Maxine McKinney de Royston, Shameka Powell, 2023
Color-Evasive Cognition: The Unavoidable Impact of Scientific Racism in the Founding of a Field - Ayanna K. Thomas, Maxine McKinney de Royston, Shameka Powell, 2023 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09637214221141713Cognitive psychology has traditionally focused on investigating principles of cognition that are universal across the human species. The motivation to identify " cognitive universals " stems from the close relationship between biology and human cognition and from the theoretical architecture presupposed by the information-processing model. In this article, we argue that the underlying theoret...
Source: Intelligent Insights on Intelligence Theories and Tests (aka IQ's Corner) - March 11, 2023 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: blogs
Another New Player in the Thymus Regeneration Space
It seems there is ever more enthusiasm for regenerating the thymus these days, which is welcome. A number of companies are out there pursuing widely divergent scientific programs to achieve this goal, at varying stages of progress towards the clinic. At some point, someone will figure out an optimal path past the various challenges presented by the location and biology of the thymus to produce a large regrowth of this organ in older individuals. The company noted here, Thymmune Therapeutics, is taking the cell therapy approach, which I think to be one of the more viable options, given that a few cell types have been shown ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 10, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Inhibiting the NLRP1 Inflammasome Reduces the Senescence-Associated Secretory Phenotype
A sizable portion of the chronic inflammation of aging is produced by the growing presence of senescent cells in tissues throughout the body. Senescent cells secrete a mix of pro-growth, pro-inflammatory signals (the senescence-associated secretory phenotype, SASP), useful when present in the short-term in the context of wound healing and suppression of cancer risk resulting from cell damage. When sustained over the long-term, however, this signaling becomes highly disruptive to tissue structure and function. The inflammatory mechanisms inside senescent cells that produce pro-inflammatory components of the SASP include the...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 8, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Launching Biomedical Careers for Students Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Group of RIT U-RISE students, including Bo Allaby (standing second from the right) and Maameyaa Asiamah (kneeling in front) who are interviewed in this post. Credit: Dr. Bonnie Jacob.
Scientists who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) are underrepresented at all career stages, especially at the Ph.D. level. To address this, the Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (U-RISE) training program for undergraduates who are deaf and hard of hearing at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York, has committed to lifting barriers and increasing DHH representation in science.
...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - March 8, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Profiles Training Source Type: blogs
Lobbying for the Treatment of Aging Leads to a Congressional Caucus for Longevity Science
For those who believe that only governments get things done, it is frustrating to see the lack of interest in human longevity in politics, a mirror of the relative lack of interest in society at large. The past few decades have seen a number of political initiatives, largely the formation of lobbying campaigns and organizations, aimed at diverting more public funding into aging research. Little has been achieved to date as a result, but these efforts are now growing alongside the new longevity industry.
Politicians pay attention to the movement of money in the world, for the obvious reasons; they are nothing if not ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 7, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Politics and Legislation Source Type: blogs
OI May Be The Next AI
In the past few months, artificial intelligence (AI) has suddenly seemed to come of age, with “generative AI” showing that AI was capable of being creative in ways that we thought was uniquely human. Whether it is writing, taking tests, creating art, inventing things, making convincing deepfake videos, or conducting searches on your behalf, AI is proving its potential. Even healthcare has figured out a surprising number of uses.
It’s fun to speculate about which AI — ChatGPT, Bard, DeepMind, Sydney, etc. – will prove “best,” but it turns out that “AI” as we’ve known it may become outdated...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 7, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Tech Artificial intelligence health technology Kim Bellard Organoid Intelligence Source Type: blogs
Mitochondrial Dysfunction and its Interaction with Cellular Senescence
Aging is caused by a number of independent issues, forms of damage and dysfunction that arise as a consequence of the normal operation of a youthful and undamaged metabolism. If these processes remained independent, aging would be a far less challenging field of study than is the case, but unfortunately, everything interacts with everything else in cellular biology. Processes of damage encourage one another, and combine in complex ways to produce shared consequences. Those consequences can in turn interact with the underlying mechanisms of damage to alter and accelerate their effects.
In today's open access paper, r...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 6, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
