Reprogramming Cancer Cells into Normal Somatic Cells
Cell reprogramming involves changing the expression of top-level regulatory genes, picking targets that will radically change cell form and function. Given a suitable recipe, many of which have been established, forms of cell reprogramming can be used to change somatic cells into stem cells, or change somatic cells of one type into somatic cells of another type. In the other direction, numerous approaches can be used to guide stem cells into differentiating into varieties of somatic cell.
A cancerous cell adopts some of the characteristics of a stem cell, primarily the unrestricted replication that is the hallmark o...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 26, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 22nd 2021
This article expresses sentiments regarding medical technology and human longevity that we'd all like to see more of in the mainstream media. At some point, it will come to be seen by the average person as basically sensible to work towards minimizing the tide of suffering and death caused aging and age-related disease. It has been, in hindsight, a strange thing to live in a world in which most people were reflexively opposed to that goal.
Death and aging constitute a mystery. Some of us die more quickly. We often ask about it as children, deny it in youth, and reluctantly come to accept it as adults. Aging is uni...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 21, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Targeting of Telomere Lengthening Processes will be the Basis of the Next Generation of Cancer Therapies
Telomeres are repeated DNA sequences that form the end caps of chromosomes. A little of their length is lost with each cell division, and cells self-destruct or become senescent and cease replication when telomeres become too short. This is a part of the Hayflick limit on cell replication: near all cells in the body can only divide a limited number of times. Stem cells are the first exception, using telomerase to extend telomeres. Cancer cells are the second exception, employing either telomerase or the alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) mechanisms that do not operate in normal cells. Telomere lengthening is a univ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 17, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 1st 2021
This study may have important implications for preventing cell senescence and aging-induced tendinopathy, as well as for the selection of novel therapeutic targets of chronic tendon diseases.
Our results showed that the treatment of bleomycin, a DNA damaging agent, induced rat patellar TSC (PTSC) cellular senescence. The senescence was characterized by an increase in the senescence-associated β-galactosidase activity, as well as senescence-associated changes in cell morphology. On the other hand, rapamycin could extend lifespan in multiple species, including yeast, fruit flies, and mice, by decelerating DNA damage ...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 28, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
A Cautious View of Senolytics from the Cancer Research Community
Today's open access publication is an examination of therapy induced senescence in the treatment of cancers, and the role that senolytic therapies might play in cancer therapy. Senolytic therapies selectively destroy senescent cells, which accumulate with age, but are also created in sizable numbers by chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Senescent cells cease replication and begin to generate a potent mix of signals - the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) - that provoke chronic inflammation, disrupt tissue structure and function, and encourage other nearby cells to also become senescent. Cancer treatment shortens...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 23, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 1st 2021
In this study, we characterize age-related phenotypes of human hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). We report increased frequencies of HSC, hematopoetic progenitor cells (HPC), and lineage negative cells in the elderly but a decreased frequency of multi-lymphoid progenitors. Aged human HSCs further exhibited a delay in initiating division ex vivo though without changes in their division kinetics. The activity of the small RhoGTPase Cdc42 was elevated in aged human hematopoietic cells and we identified a positive correlation between Cdc42 activity and the frequency of HSCs upon aging.
The frequency of human HSCs polar fo...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 31, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
The Potential for Senolytics and Other Senotherapies to Improve Outcomes in Cancer Therapies
Cellular senescence is a double-edged sword in the matter of cancer. The state of senescence is a growth arrest coupled with pressure to self-destruct and a call to the immune system to destroy the senescent cell. As such it serves as a first line of defense against cancer. Most cancer treatments force large numbers of cancerous cells into senescence, in addition to causing outright cell death, shutting down their ability to replicate. Unfortunately, the presence of too many senescent cells is harmful in and of itself, as their signaling produces chronic inflammation, disrupts tissue function throughout the body, and makes...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 28, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 11th 2021
This study demonstrates the potential of a natural (o-Vanillin) and a synthetic (RG-7112) senolytic compounds to remove senescent IVD cells, decrease SASP factors release, reduce the inflammatory environment and enhance the IVD matrix production. Removal of senescent cells, using senolytics drugs, could lead to improved therapeutic interventions and ultimately decrease pain and a provide a better quality of life of patients living with intervertebral disc degeneration and low back pain.
From Ying Ann Chiao of Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation: Mitochondrial dysfunction plays a central role in aging and cardiovasc...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 10, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Targeted Delivery of a Short-Lived Radioactive Compound to Cancer Cells
The power of specific targeting of specific cell types is that any cell-killing mechanism can then be delivered. The more efficient the targeting, more more dangerous and effective the cell-killing mechanism can be. The reason why any given cancer therapy is less effective at killing cancer cells than it might be is because the targeting isn't perfect, and thus there is the need to limit the damage to other tissues in the body.
A cancer-specific L-type amino acid transporter 1 (LAT1) is highly expressed in cancer tissues. Inhibiting the function of LAT1 has been known to have anti-tumor effects, but there has been...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 8, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Magnetic Nanoparticles Deliver Chem and Heat Cancer Cells for Synergistic Effects
Researchers at University College London have shown that tiny magnetic nanoparticles could enhance cancer treatment. The particles can deliver chemotherapy drugs to cancer cells and also produce a mild heating effect when stimulated with an external alternating magnetic field. Combining particle-mediated heat treatment and chemotherapy resulted in synergistic effects in killing cancer cells, suggesting that the technology could be a useful tool in the fight against cancer.
Nanoparticles offer enormous potential in creating targeted and highly effective anti-cancer treatments. This latest technology combines two differen...
Source: Medgadget - January 7, 2021 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Materials Nanomedicine Oncology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 4th 2021
The objective of this study is to quantify the overall and cancer type-specific risks of subsequent primary cancers (SPCs) among adult-onset cancer survivors by first primary cancer (FPC) types and sex. Among 1,537,101 survivors (mean age, 60.4 years; 48.8% women), 156,442 SPC cases and 88,818 SPC deaths occurred during 11,197,890 person-years of follow-up (mean, 7.3 years). Among men, the overall risk of developing any SPCs was statistically significantly higher for 18 of the 30 FPC types, and risk of dying from any SPCs was statistically significantly higher for 27 of 30 FPC types as compared with risks in the general po...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 3, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Cancer Survivors Exhibit Greater Risk of New Cancers and Higher Mortality Due to those Cancers
The objective of this study is to quantify the overall and cancer type-specific risks of subsequent primary cancers (SPCs) among adult-onset cancer survivors by first primary cancer (FPC) types and sex. Among 1,537,101 survivors (mean age, 60.4 years; 48.8% women), 156,442 SPC cases and 88,818 SPC deaths occurred during 11,197,890 person-years of follow-up (mean, 7.3 years). Among men, the overall risk of developing any SPCs was statistically significantly higher for 18 of the 30 FPC types, and risk of dying from any SPCs was statistically significantly higher for 27 of 30 FPC types as compared with risks in the general po...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 29, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 28th 2020
In conclusion, our study demonstrated that the molecular processes of aging are relatively subtle in their progress, and the aging process of every tissue depends on the tissue's specialized function and environment. Hence, individual gene or process alone cannot be described as the key of aging in the whole organism.
Mouse Age Matters: How Age Affects the Murine Plasma Metabolome
A large part of metabolomics research relies on experiments involving mouse models, which are usually 6 to 20 weeks of age. However, in this age range mice undergo dramatic developmental changes. Even small age differences may l...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 27, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Inhibition of Mitochondrial DNA Transcription as an Approach to Universal Cancer Therapy
The key to a universal cancer therapy is to find a vulnerability that is (a) common to all cancers, something fundamental to cancer as a class, (b) nowhere near as prevalent in normal cells, and (c) can be cost-effectively exploited as a basis for treatment. Lengthening of telomeres is a good example, and an area in which at least a few groups are working at an early stage. Cancer cells must employ telomerase or alternative lengthening of telomeres mechanisms to evade the Hayflick limit on replication, triggered by short telomeres, as telomere length is reduced with each cell division. Other examples include other mechanis...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 22, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 21st 2020
In this study, we have found that administration of a specific Sgk1 inhibitor significantly reduces the dysregulated form of tau protein that is a pathological hallmark of AD, restores prefrontal cortical synaptic function, and mitigates memory deficits in an AD model. These results have identified Sgk1 as a potential key target for therapeutic intervention of AD, which may have specific and precise effects."
Targeting histone K4 trimethylation for treatment of cognitive and synaptic deficits in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease
Epigenetic aberration is implicated in aging and neurodegeneration. Using p...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 20, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
