Call for Submissions for Round 3 of the Impetus Grants, $10M for Aging Research Proposals
The Impetus Grants project has for the past few years aimed to make rapid, low-overhead philanthropic grants to researchers in order to accelerate aging research. While choosing to funding specific proposals, the organizers appear to keep the bigger picture in mind. One might not agree with their chosen directions, but they do try to support work that would otherwise not be supported. The recent call for submissions for the August 2023 $10 million round of grants starts out on a contrarian note, in search of projects that can stress test existing directions and theories in the field, and ends with a thought on accelerating...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 28, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Activism, Advocacy and Education Source Type: blogs
The Repair Biotechnologies View of Cholesterol Pathology at the 2023 Foresight Longevity Workshop
I attended the Foresight Institute's 2023 Longevity Frontiers Workshop earlier in the year. This event series provides a chance to make connections with some of the longevity industry figures and academic researchers in the field of aging that are associated with the Bay Area venture and futurist communities. The format this year was rapid-fire seven minute presentations and longer discussions; the presentations are shared online. I presented an informal, abbreviated version of the Repair Biotechnologies viewpoint on the role of cholesterol in aging and disease, trying to cover at least the important points in the time all...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 27, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Longevity Industry Source Type: blogs
Cancer Treatment Increases Biological Age
The established non-surgical forms of cancer treatment, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, induce cellular senescence via stress and damage to cells. The target for these harmful effects is the cancer, but other cells are also inevitably stressed to the point of entering a senescent state. An increased burden of senescent cells in tissues throughout the body is a feature of aging. These cells directly contribute to dysfunction of tissues and organs via secreted signals, the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). When maintained over the long term, the SASP contributes to the onset and progression of age-related cond...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 26, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Mitochondrial Copy Number in Immune Cells Strongly Correlates with 15-Year Mortality
We examined a random population sample in 2003/2005 (n = 9,360, age 45-69, the HAPIEE project) and followed up for 15 years. Using a nested case-control design, we selected non-external deaths among those free from baseline cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and cancer (n = 371), and a sex- and age-stratified control (n = 785). The odds ratios (ORs) of death were 1.06 per one-decile decrease in mtDNA-CN independent of age, sex, metabolic factors, smoking, alcohol intake, and education.
The age-sex-adjusted ORs of death in the second and first tertiles of mtDNA-CN vs. the top tertile were 2.35 and 1.59; an increased risk ...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 25, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Lobbying Efforts for the Development of Means to Treat Aging are at a Very Early Stage
That so many people turn their hand to lobbying government is a sad statement of the character of our era. Those engaged in getting things done start to feel, at some level of funding, that lobbying is a necessary defense on the one hand, against Big Pharma entities who will use regulators to impede and coerce competition, and on the other hand a way to access greater funding and publicity. The trough of public funds is ever an attractive proposition, and never as easy to access without tainting everything involved as people would like to think it is. A world with smaller, less powerful governments would be a world in whic...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 24, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Politics and Legislation Source Type: blogs
