Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 8th 2024
This study examined whether the local injection of the supernatant of activated PRP (saPRP) into the salivary gland (SG) could help prevent aging-induced SG dysfunction and explored the mechanisms responsible for the protective effects on the SG hypofunction. Human salivary gland epithelial cells (hSGEC) were treated with saPRP or PRP after senescence through irradiation. The significant proliferation of hSGEC was observed in saPRP treated group compared to irradiation only group and irradiation + PRP group. Cellular senescence, apoptosis, and inflammation were significantly reduced in the saPRP group. Th...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 7, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Standardization to a Single Epigenetic Clock is Much Overdue
In the past year or two, a great deal of effort on the part of leading researchers has gone into trying to standardize the use of a single epigenetic clock based on DNA methylation status of CpG sites on the genome. Suitable candidate universal mammalian clocks now exist. There are good reasons for standardization. Given that any large amount of omics data can be used to produce aging clocks, where "clock" in this context means a weighted combination of measured values that correlates well with chronological age or biological age, there is an essentially infinite number of potential clocks. People can build or cherry pick ...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 5, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Sirtuin 2 Overexpression Fails to Extend Life in Mice
One long-lasting result of the hype engineered over sirtuin 1 overexpression as a possible avenue to modestly slow aging is a continued focus on other sirtuins in the context of aging. Sirtuin 1 overexpression turned out to be entirely unimpressive, a dead end. Sirtuin 6, however, is more interesting, and overexpression in mice does modestly extend life span, possibly by improving DNA repair efficiency. It may also be the case that sirtuin 3 overexpression can improve mitochondrial function to a great enough degree to also be interesting. On the whole, however, this sort of approach to manipulating metabolism has y...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 4, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

The US needs a Chief Patient Officer
By KAT McDAVITT and LISA BARI Regulations are created by well-intentioned government employees who, understandably, focus on the loudest voices they hear. The loudest voices tend to be from organizations — vendors, associations, large corporations — that have the internal and external resources needed to access the federal government, navigate the 80,000-employee Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and ensure that the perspectives of their employers and members are heard. Patients do not have the resources to hire lobbyists or high-profile legal teams, nor do they have a large and well-funded tra...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 4, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Kat McDavitt Lisa Bari Patients patients rights regulatory capture Source Type: blogs

Is Alternative Splicing a Meaningful Cause of Degenerative Aging, or Largely a Downstream Side-Effect?
A gene sequence consists of a mix of shorter sequences, only some of which are used to manufacture the protein encoded in that gene. Exon sequences are included and intron sequences are excluded. Nothing is ever quite that simple, of course, but changes in which exons and introns end up in a protein enable multiple proteins to be produced from a single gene sequence. Sometimes this is an accident, assome genes are prone to accidental production of truncated or extended proteins that are toxic. Sometimes this is an evolutionary reuse in which a gene produces several different vital proteins with quite different functions. ...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 3, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Inspiring the Next Generation of Scientists Through CityLab
Credit: CityLab. “Many of the students we work with don’t have access to a laboratory through their local schools. For them, CityLab is their first exposure to a laboratory environment—these are hugely important moments for these kids,” says Carl Franzblau, Ph.D., the founder of CityLab at Boston University (BU). CityLab was established more than 30 years ago as a science education outreach program for precollege students and teachers through a partnership between the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development at BU. “Since our first Science Edu...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - January 3, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology STEM Education SEPA Training Source Type: blogs

Failing Mitochondrial Quality Control in Aging and Neurodegeneration
Every one of our cells contains hundreds of mitochondria, the descendants of ancient symbiotic bacteria now fully integrated into our biochemistry. Mitochondria contain their own small remnant genome, the mitochondrial DNA, replicate like bacteria, and toil to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a chemical energy store molecule used to power cell processes. Mitochondrial function declines with age, unfortunately, and our cells suffer for it. This contributes meaningfully to many age-related conditions. This decline appears to result in large part from changes in gene expression that impair the various quality control pro...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 2, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Should We Think of Rheumatoid Arthritis as an Age-Related Condition?
There are medical conditions that occur only in old age, and there are medical conditions, such as cancer, that can occur at any point in life, but more so in the old. Then there are grey area conditions that may occur to some greater degree in later life, or be worse in later life, but this is by no means widely appreciated. Where does the autoimmune condition of rheumatoid arthritis sit in this spectrum? Unlike cancer, it is not commonly thought of as an age-related disease, even though it is certainly affected and made worse by the processes of aging. This point is discussed in today's open access commentary and the pap...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 1, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 1st 2024
Discussion of What is Need to Speed the Pace at which Drugs to Treat Aging Arrive in the Clinic Cellular Senescence in the Aging Brain, a Contributing Cause of Cognitive Decline Reviewing What is Known of the Mechanisms of Taurine Supplementation Relevant to Aging and Metabolism Blunt Thoughts on Calculating the Revealed Value of Human Life A Look Back at 2023: Progress Towards the Treatment of Aging as a Medical Condition Towards Adjustment of the Gut Microbiome to Slow Aging Gene Therapy Enhances Object Recognition Memory in Young and Old Mice Benefits of Sem...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 31, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

A Look Back at 2023: Progress Towards the Treatment of Aging as a Medical Condition
The market has been in the doldrums and it has been a tough year for fundraising, both for non-profits and biotech startups. The conferences have exhibited more of an academic focus as companies tightened belts and postponed investment rounds, while investors stayed home. Not that this halts the flow of hype for some projects, and nor has it slowed media commentary on the longevity industry as it presently stands. A few of the articles in that commmentary are even interesting to read! The field has grown and is more mature now than has ever been the case. Biotech of all forms is a challenging field with a high failure rate...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 29, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Of Interest Source Type: blogs

Blunt Thoughts on Calculating the Revealed Value of Human Life
Bloodless, heartless calculations of the value of your life are constantly taking place behind the curtains that society politely draws over some of the uglier realities of the human condition. Interactions with insurance companies might be the most visible signs of these calculations, but this is the tip of the iceberg. Humans assign value instinctively; to value is to be human. We don't just value objects, we value our lives, we value the lives of others. Based on an analysis of our actions, i.e. revealed preferences, one can estimate monetary equivalents to those life valuations and how they shift with time and circumst...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 28, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Ketryx Raises $14M in Series A Funding Led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
Investment Fuels Innovation to Ensure Patient Safety and Validate the Use of AI in Medical Devices Ketryx, provider of the first and only connected application lifecycle management software for the life sciences industry, today announced that it has raised $14 Million in Series A funding. The round was led by investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors including MIT’s E14 Fund and Ubiquity Ventures, bringing the total funding raised to date to over $18 Million. Lightspeed Partner, Guru Chahal, will join the board. The new funds will be used to accelerate product development and commer...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 28, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Amgen E14 Fund Erez Kaminski Guru Chahal Health IT Funding Health IT Fundings Health IT Investment Ketryx Lightspeed Venture Partners MIT Ubiquity Ventures Wolfram Research Source Type: blogs

Reviewing What is Known of the Mechanisms of Taurine Supplementation Relevant to Aging and Metabolism
Taurine is a semi-essential amino acid. Dietary taurine supplementation has been shown to modestly slow aging in mice, though as for all such interventions there is always the question of whether it will prove to be less useful in humans, and also whether these results in mice will be disproved by the much more rigorous Interventions Testing Program (ITP), once that group gets around to assessing taurine supplementation. Few of the numerous interventions thought to modestly slow aging in mice on the basis of earlier research actually held up once subjected to the ITP degree of experimental rigor. Speculatively, taur...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 27, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Cellular Senescence in the Aging Brain, a Contributing Cause of Cognitive Decline
Senescent cells are created throughout the body at all stages of life, largely when somatic cells reach the Hayflick limit on replication. Senescent cells cease replication and begin to energetically produce pro-growth, pro-inflammatory factors, attracting the attention of the immune system and otherwise changing the behavior of surrounding cells. Cell stress and mutational damage can induce senescence, and in this case senescence is a mechanism that acts to limit the risk of cancer. Tissue injury also produces senescent cells, and here they help to coordinate the activities of the many different cell types that become inv...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 26, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

A Discussion of What is Need to Speed the Pace at which Drugs to Treat Aging Arrive in the Clinic
Today I'll point out an opinion piece on how to get drugs to treat aging into the clinic as fast as possible. This is a moderately conservative viewpoint, focused on what will most rapidly produce the necessary regulatory changes to allow approval of new therapies specifically for the treatment of aging. At present regulators will only approve therapies to treat specific diseases of aging. The present focus of the industry is to produce treatments for specific age-related disease based on underlying technologies that target one or more mechanisms of aging, conforming to the present regulatory regime. The author makes the f...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 25, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Politics and Legislation Source Type: blogs