Give Him a Hand – No, Really
BY KIM BELLARD
When I read The Washington Post article about how a Tennessee high school student’s engineering class built him a prosthetic hand, my immediate reaction, of course, was to be touched, but my bigger reaction was, wait – high school students can now create prosthetics?
If you haven’t been paying attention, the world of prosthetics has been changing in amazing ways, and it’s not done.
The student, Sergio Peralta, was born with his right hand not fully formed, and for much of his life it was a problem. As he wrote in his own account in Newsweek: “When I got bullied at my old scho...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 14, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Tech Kim Bellard LIMBER Prosthetic hands Robot Arms Source Type: blogs
Loss of Hippocampal Neurogenesis in Alzheimer's Disease
Neurogenesis is the process by which new neurons are produced from neural stem cells and then integrated into existing neural circuits in the brain. Adult neurogenesis is important to memory function, as well as to the resilience of the brain to injury and degeneration. Neurogenesis declines with age, and is noted to be one of the many aspects of neural biology that is negatively impacted by the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Is this loss of neurogenesis secondary to the better known disease mechanisms associated with Alzheimer's? Is it important enough to be pursued as a basis for therapy? Researchers here discuss the topi...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 14, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Career Conversations: Q & A with Evolutionary Biologist William Ratcliff
Dr. William Ratcliff. Credit: Courtesy of Dr. William Ratcliff.
“Being a researcher is special because there aren’t many jobs that allow you to spend the majority of your time thinking about the things you find the most interesting in the whole world,” says William Ratcliff, Ph.D., an associate professor of biological sciences and the director of the interdisciplinary graduate program in quantitative biosciences at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta. We talked with Dr. Ratcliff about his career path, research on yeast, and advice to budding scientists.
Q: How did you first become intereste...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - February 8, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Cells Tools and Techniques Cool Tools/Techniques Evolutionary Biology Profiles Source Type: blogs
Unlocking the Future of Health —and Care—with AI
The following is a guest article by Jonathan Jesneck, Co-Founder and CTO at Firefly Lab.
Unlocking the future of healthcare with Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic amongst tech and medical professionals alike. Leaps and bounds have been made since the term was first applied in medicine in the mid-1950s, but it wasn’t until the late 2000s that developments using AI in a variety of healthcare fields started to happen.
Now, AI is effective across the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. The benefits are already being felt by many: 92% of healthcare institutes and professionals say they performed better as a ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - February 7, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: AI/Machine Learning Communication and Patient Experience Healthcare IT Telemedicine and Remote Monitoring AAMC AI Chatbots AI in healthcare American Association of Medical Colleges Artificial Intelligence Biomedicine Dr. Jonathan Jesne Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 30th 2023
In conclusion, deletion of p16Ink4a cells did not negatively impact beta-cell mass and blood glucose under basal and HFD conditions and proliferation was restored in a subset of HFD mice opening further therapeutic targets in the treatment of diabetes.
Communication Between Blood and Brain in Aging and Rejuvenation
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/01/communication-between-blood-and-brain-in-aging-and-rejuvenation/
As noted here, joining the circulatory systems of an old and young mouse results in some degree of rejuvenation in the old mouse. Where brain function is improved, researchers are inte...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 29, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Investigating the Comparative Biology of Variations in Rockfish Species Life Spans
The comparative biology of aging, the study of aging in species with widely divergent life spans, is hoped to improve the catalog and understanding of important mechanisms of aging. It may or may not turn out to be the case that the biochemistry of long-lived species can give rise to practical therapies that slow aspects of human aging, at least in the near future of the next few decades. Engineering a human that ages more slowly seems a far more daunting task than the production of rejuvenation therapies that repair the known forms of cell and tissue damage that drive aging.
An alternative to comparing other specie...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 26, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
A Career Launched Through “Transformative” NIGMS-Funded Training Programs
Dr. Brenda Andrade. Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Brenda Andrade.
Brenda Andrade, Ph.D., assistant professor at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA), wasn’t sure what she wanted to do when she first started community college. Through a program at her high school, she’d participated in Saturday morning science labs on the CSULA campus, and that introduction to science led her to think about pursuing some sort of scientific degree. She recalls flipping through the course catalog to the list of science classes needed to transfer to a 4-year university, and “naively going down the list and taking them.”
When...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - January 25, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Profiles Training Source Type: blogs
Mitochondrial Dynamics Triggers Inflammation When Too Imbalanced in Either Direction
In this study, we provide evidence that mitochondrial dynamics also controls the activation of intracellular inflammatory pathways. Our conclusion is based on a number of observations, namely that: a) repression of the mitochondrial fusion proteins Mfn1 or Mfn2 induces mitochondrial fragmentation and TLR9-dependent NFκB activation; and b) Drp1 or Fis1 repression causes mitochondrial elongation and both NFκB-dependent and type I IFN inflammatory responses.
Given the role of mitochondrial dynamics in regulating mitochondrial function and mitophagy, it is conceivable that alterations in these processes could be invo...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 25, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Panoramas from the past ...
In 1997, my then girlfriend (now wife) and I went camping in Death Valley. It was our fourth trip there to camp in grad. school.I brought my Olympus OM1 and did something I thought could be cool with it. I took multiple overlapping pics of landscapes with the idea that I would use Photoshop or some such program to combine them together into large panoramic landscape imagesThe only problem was -- I did not know how to do thatBut when I got home I got the photos developed and scanned them using a scanner I had and merged them with something like Claris Draw. Here is an example - three pics from the Sand Dunes area - and the ...
Source: The Tree of Life - January 20, 2023 Category: Microbiology Source Type: blogs
Wanted: Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences Program Director
We’re recruiting for a position in the Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences (PPS) Branch of the Division of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biological Chemistry (PPBC). Scientific responsibilities of the position include any or all of the following research subjects, depending on the applicant’s experience: cellular signaling, drug-receptor interactions, drug metabolism and transport, drug delivery, and wound healing. The successful hire will be responsible for management of a portfolio of research grants and research training and/or career development awards, and will collaboratively stimulate, plan, advise, and d...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - January 18, 2023 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Job Announcements Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 16th 2023
Conclusions
Implanted Hair Follicle Cells Produce Remodeling of Scar Tissue
Assessment of Somatic Mosaicism as a Biomarker of Aging
The Gut Microbiome of Centenarians
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/01/the-gut-microbiome-of-centenarians/
The state of the gut microbiome is arguably as influential on health as exercise. Various microbial species present in the gut produce beneficial metabolites, such as butyrate, or harmful metabolites, such as isoamylamine, or can provoke chronic inflammation in a variety of ways. An individual can have a better or worse microbiome, assessing these and other...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 15, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Wanted: Developmental and Cellular Processes Branch Chief
We’re recruiting an outstanding individual to serve as branch chief within our Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (GMCDB). This person will oversee the scientific and administrative management of the Developmental and Cellular Processes (DCP) Branch and will be responsible for supervising program officials and advising, directing, and evaluating program activities for a portfolio of research grants in one of the Branch areas.
The GMCDB Division supports research to understand the structure and function of cells and cellular components and the cellular and molecular mechani...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - January 13, 2023 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Job Announcements Source Type: blogs
Wanted: NIGMS Program Directors
We’re recruiting scientists for positions in our Division for Research Capacity Building (DRCB) and Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (GMCDB). The successful applicants will be responsible for scientific and administrative management of a portfolio of research grants and/or research training and career development awards, and will stimulate, plan, advise, direct, and evaluate program activities related to their field of expertise.
The DRCB position involves overseeing grants supporting research and providing resources for research infrastructure enhancemen...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - January 13, 2023 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Job Announcements Source Type: blogs
A Proposal to Accelerate Progress Towards Human Rejuvenation
Here find the first draft of a proposal regarding the best way forward at the present time to accelerate progress towards the development of diverse, effective rejuvenation therapies. The key is to use philanthropic funding to (a) prove efficacy in low-cost clinical trials, and then (b) market that data to ensure physician adoption of the first working rejuvenation therapies. A PDF version of this draft also exists.
Executive Summary
1. Aging is by far the greatest cause of human morbidity and mortality.
2. Rejuvenation therapies that will greatly reduce unnecessary late life suffering and death ar...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 13, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Activism, Advocacy and Education Source Type: blogs
Funding Opportunity: Optimization of Data Storage and Utilization for the Sequence Read Archive
We’re pleased to announce a new notice of special interest (NOSI) (NOT-GM-23-015) addressing the urgent need for cost reduction of the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) data storage and utilization.
The SRA, hosted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), contains a broad collection of raw DNA and RNA sequencing data that continues to grow exponentially. In an effort to reduce the cost and identify efficient solutions for SRA data, NIGMS has partnered with NLM and NIH’s Office of Data Science Strategy to support research on ways to optimize SRA data compression and re...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - January 12, 2023 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Funding Opportunities Source Type: blogs
