Biodegradable Ultrasound Implant Helps Chemo Reach Brain
Researchers at the University of Connecticut have developed an ultrasound implant that can assist in opening the blood brain barrier to allow chemotherapy to enter and treat brain cancer. However, unlike cumbersome ultrasound systems, this technology can be implanted directly into the brain, and does not require a follow-up surgery to remove the device later as it degrades away to nothing in the brain over time. The implant contains crystals of the amino acid glycine, which has been shown to be strongly piezoelectric, meaning that it vibrates when an electrical current is passed through it. The researchers combined this wi...
Source: Medgadget - June 28, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Medicine Neurosurgery Oncology UConn Source Type: blogs
This and that
Responding to some of the responses to my last post on global carbon emissions, yes, we agree on the facts, the issue seems to be the implications. It is correct that at this moment, the U.S. accounts for about 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and we have been heading downward; while China in particular has been going in the wrong direction and is the largest emitter. Maybe " fairness " is an issue here, since the U.S. is responsible for far more cumulative emissions and China ' s emissions per capita are not as large, but given the crisis facing humanity I think that ' s pretty much beside the point. What matters i...
Source: Stayin' Alive - June 26, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 19th 2023
In conclusion, among Swedish middle-aged subjects, nearly two-thirds showed complete fatty degeneration of thymus on CT.
Age-Related Dysfunction of Water Homeostasis
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/06/age-related-dysfunction-of-water-homeostasis/
Dehydration can be an issue in older people. As in every complex system in the body, the mechanisms by which hydration is regulated become dysfunctional with advancing age. Researchers here look at the brain region responsible for regulating some of the response to dehydration, cataloging altered gene expression in search of the more important mechan...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 18, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Notes from the 2023 Age-Related Disease Therapeutics Summit
The former Longevity Therapeutics conference series was renamed to the Age-Related Disease Therapeutics Summit and held its fifth event recently in San Francisco. It was a smaller meeting than in past years, perhaps a result of the recent downturn in the global financial and investment environment. Few investors were present. Nonetheless, one can usually learn something interesting from the presenting biotech founders and executives. I took a few notes while I was there to present on progress at Repair Biotechnologies, and they follow in the order of the conference program.
Birget Schilling from the Buck Institute f...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 16, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Longevity Industry Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 12th 2023
In this study, we investigated the effect of NXP032 on neurovascular stabilization through the changes of PECAM-1, PDGFR-β, ZO-1, laminin, and glial cells involved in maintaining the integrity of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in aged mice. NXP032 was orally administered daily for 8 weeks. Compared to young mice and NXP032-treated mice, 20-month-old mice displayed cognitive impairments in Y-maze and passive avoidance tests. NXP032 treatment contributed to reducing the BBB damage by attenuating the fragmentation of microvessels and reducing PDGFR-β, ZO-1, and laminin expression, thereby mitigating astrocytes and microglia ...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 11, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
An Example of In Silico Drug Screening for Senolytic Compounds
The average small molecule drug development program starts with a mechanism, an intended outcome such as inhibition, and then screening of as many molecules as possible from the libraries. Sometimes it is possible to make educated guesses as to what types of molecule are more likely to be useful, but often screening must be very broad and with little direction. In principle, low cost computation makes it possible to dramatically reduce the cost of discovery of useful molecules given a specific target mechanism. This shift from physical to in silico screening has been underway for a while, for example at Insilico Medicine, ...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 5, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Cancer Organoids Offer Insights into Treatment Outcomes
Researchers at the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands have developed a biobank of cancer organoids using tissue samples obtained from head and neck cancer patients. So far, the team used the biobank to validate tumor biomarkers. Excitingly, they also correlated patient treatment responses with organoid treatment responses, suggesting that the organoids provide a good proxy for testing new treatments and for designing a personalized treatment plan for individual patients. The organoids also revealed that certain drugs work better or worse in combination with other techniques, such as radiotherapy, offering new insights i...
Source: Medgadget - May 26, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Medicine Oncology _Hubrecht organoid organoids Source Type: blogs
How biased language and stigmatizing labels affect patient care and treatment
During her treatment for acute leukemia, my friend Susan came to me for help and advice while she was in the hospital receiving chemotherapy. I also did her laundry. She went to one of the specialists at a major tertiary care center and had access to the lengthy consultation written by the oncologist. Susan had
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How biased language and stigmatizing labels affect patient care and treatment originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 23, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors: Joan Naidorf, DO Tags: Physician Primary Care Source Type: blogs
The Disease Killing Healthcare and Causing Physician Burnout
BY SCOTT MACDIARMID
We have a healthcare crisis . . . and the crisis is now. Costs are soaring out of control, threatening the financial health of individuals and our nation. Quality of care is deteriorating, in spite of “world class care” signs seemingly on every corner. And physicians are checking out and burning out. I believe it’s one of the greatest societal issues of our day.
So, you may be wondering: How in the heck did we get ourselves into such a mess? In the greatest country in the world who spends the most on healthcare and is regularly bragging on how great it is, what happened?
Experts and pun...
Source: The Health Care Blog - May 17, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Medical Practice Burnout Healthcare system Scott MacDiarmid Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 15th 2023
In this study, we examined the average telomere length and telomerase activity, as well as the formation of telomere associated foci (TAFs) and the mRNA expression levels of the shelterin components in cultured primary cells of Spalax, a long-lived, hypoxia-tolerant, and cancer-resistant blind mole-rat species.
We showed that with cell passages, Spalax fibroblasts demonstrated significant shortening in telomere length, similar to rat cells, and in line with the processes observed earlier in tissues. We also demonstrated that the average telomere length in Spalax fibroblasts was significantly higher than the average ...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 14, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Reviewing T Cell Immunotherapies to Treat Cancer
The use of immunotherapies will most likely replace chemotherapy and radiation therapy for the treatment near all cancers over the next twenty years, and has already done so for many types of cancer. We should expect immunotherapies to in turn be replaced by approaches that target the telomere lengthening essential to all cancers. The wheel turns slowly, but this progress will lead steadily to an end to the suffering and loss of life accompanying cancer. Cancer will become a mild, annoying but controllable condition within a matter of decades, within the lifetimes of most of those reading this now. The review paper noted h...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 10, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
I'm thinking about moving this blog...
...to another platform. Hi, it ' s been a while. I haven ' t written anything this year. My last post was December 31, 2022.The main reason is that I ' ve had to deal with more loss and grief in my life. Someone close to me was diagnosed with cancer, endured months of radiation and chemotherapy, and died anyway.1 I ' ve also had some deflating garbage to wade through at work. My enthusiasm for doing anything has been rather low.Besides all that, Blogger is aterrible platform for blogging. The interface changed a while a back and ever since then, composing in the little box has been unpleasant. It takes forever t...
Source: The Neurocritic - May 9, 2023 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Memora Health Announces $30M Investment to Scale Intelligent Care Enablement Platform With New Health System Partners
The strategic investment was led by General Catalyst and a cohort of leading health system partners and will enable care teams to give more patients a high-touch care experience
Memora Health, the leading intelligent care enablement platform, today announced a strategic investment of $30 million led by General Catalyst with participation from Northwell Holdings, the venture investment arm of Northwell Health, NorthShore – Edward-Elmhurst Health, PagsGroup, and other strategic investors. The funding also included follow-on investments from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Transformation Capital, and Frist Cressey V...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - May 1, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Andreessen Horowitz Care Delivery Chris Bischoff Dr. David Lubarsky Dr. Toby Cosgrove Edward Elmhurst Health Frist Cressey Ventures General Catalyst Health IT Funding Health IT Fundings Health IT Inv Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 1st 2023
In conclusion, frailty progression accelerates in males with one LTCs and females with two LTCs or more. Health providers should be aware of planning a suitable intervention once the elderly have two or more health conditions.
Plasma Transfer Lowers Epigenetic Age and Mortality in Rats
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/04/plasma-transfer-lowers-epigenetic-age-and-mortality-in-rats/
Plasma transfer from young to old individuals has produced mixed results in animals and little to no benefit in humans where assessed rigorously. These studies were driven by the hypothesis that young plasma contains m...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 30, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Netrin-1 Upregulation Restores Bone Marrow Niche Cells to Rejuvenate Aspects of Hematopoiesis
To what degree is the age-related decline in activity of important stem cell populations driven by intrinsic damage versus changes in the surrounding cells of the stem cell niche? Stem cells require the support of the niche, and there is evidence to suggest that the better studied types of stem cell (muscle, hematopoietic, neural) are more affected by the cell environment than by any damage to the stem cells themselves. Even so, it is quite clear that stem cells do suffer nuclear DNA mutations, as evidenced by the existence of somatic mosaicism. In that context, the research here is interesting: researchers find a way to r...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 25, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
