Microfluidic Device Mimics Embryonic Heartbeat to Stimulate Stem Cell Development
Scientists at the University of New South Wales in Australia have developed a method to produce human blood stem cell precursors from human pluripotent stem cells. The method may have use in treating cancer patients who require high doses of such blood stem cells to help replenish endogenous populations that have been destroyed by chemotherapy. The researchers exploited the tendency of cells to respond to mechanical stimuli and cultured the pluripotent stem cells in a microfluidic device that mimicked the pulsatile flow of the embryonic heartbeat. Given that human blood stem cells naturally form during embryonic develo...
Source: Medgadget - September 26, 2022 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Genetics Oncology UniSouthWales UNSW Source Type: blogs

Weekly Overseas Health IT Links –24th September, 2022.
This article makes the case and explains what will be required to make it happen.We hear a lot about “digital health” these days. As data about our health piles up — thanks to sources like electronic health records, personal fitness apps and gadgets, and home genome test kits — weshould understand a lot more than we used to about what ’s wrong with our health and what to do about it. But having a lot of data is not enough. We have to be aware of what we have, understand what it means, and act on that understanding. While the challenges are in some ways more acute in the United States because of its fragmented sys...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - September 24, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, September 19th 2022
Conclusion Use of the Khavinson peptides and melatonin in combination in this way, at this dose, negatively impacts the thymus, producing a reduction in active tissue and increase in atrophy to fatty tissue. The degree to which this atrophy occurred is greater than one would expect to take place over nine months of aging at this stage of life. Why did this outcome occur, given the animal studies showing thymic regrowth, and the studies showing reduced later life mortality following use of thymogen? We can only speculate. Firstly, the dose makes the poison, and the dosing here may have been too high, too frequ...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 18, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

The One-Two Punch of Cancer Therapies Plus Senolytics
There is considerable enthusiasm in the cancer research community regarding the prospects for improved patient outcomes via the use of senolytics to clear senescent cells from tissues. It seems fairly clear that an increased burden of senescent cells results from the use of traditional cancer therapies, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and that this is most likely the cause of a large fraction of the greater risk of age-related disease and shorter remaining life expectancy in cancer survivors. Undergoing those forms of cancer therapy is literally a matter of signing up for accelerated aging - and still the preferable alterna...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 15, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, September 12th 2022
Discussion of Present Drug Development to Target Senescent Cells Targeting Senescent Cells to Better Address Cancer and Consequences of Cancer Therapy Calorie Restriction Suppresses Generation of Immune Cells via Changes to the Gut Microbiome Arguing for an Expansion of the Hallmarks of Aging https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2022/09/arguing-for-an-expansion-of-the-hallmarks-of-aging/ The hallmarks of aging form a catalog of largely better studied changes in cells and tissues considered relevant, and possibly more important, in the onset and development of age-related degeneration and disease. Thi...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 11, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Targeting Senescent Cells to Better Address Cancer and Consequences of Cancer Therapy
The goal of cancer therapies is to kill cancerous cells or force those cells into the state of senescence, to shut down their uncontrolled replication. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy do harm non-cancerous cells as well, however, and can create further senescent cells in this way. It is thought that a substantial fraction of the increased mortality and risk of age-related disease seen in cancer survivors is due to the increased burden of senescent cells produced by the treatment of cancer. That is obviously preferential to death by cancer, but it is a concern, with a significant negative impact to remaining life expectancy. ...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 9, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, September 5th 2022
Conclusion Coupled with the animal data, and the existing human trial data for safety, the results here suggests that someone should run a formal, controlled trial of flagellin immunization in older people, 65 and over. The goal would be to see whether (a) this sort of outcome holds up in a larger group of people, and (b) there is a meaningful impact on chronic inflammation and other parameters of health that are known to be affected by the aging of the gut microbiome. The most interesting part of the data is perhaps the decline in microbial diversity, when considered against the gains elsewhere. Microbial dive...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 4, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Senolytics, a Promising New Field of Medicine in the Treatment of Aging
It is becoming harder for the world at large to ignore the field of senolytics, the large number of research groups and companies working towards therapies that clear a fraction of senescent cells from aged tissues. Senescent cells accumulate in later life, likely because the immune system becomes less able to remove them promptly. Lingering senescent cells actively disrupt normal tissue function and provoke chronic inflammation, thus contributing to age-related degeneration. Scores of mouse studies conducted over the last decade demonstrate that senolytic treatments produce rapid, reliable reversal of many age-related con...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 1, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

The Macro View – Health, Economics, and Politics and the Big Picture. What I Am Watching Here And Abroad.
August 25, 2022 Edition-----The big story this week has been the multiple PM story in Australia with ScoMo. What an amazing saga!In the UK there seems to be an impending collapse of the economy coming unless some-one takes some really smart steps real soon now.Relatively the US has seemed pretty calm this week – just waiting for an impending recession – along with China and Europe.Fair to say things globally are pretty messy!-----Major Issues.-----https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/every-investing-trend-misfires-as-stock-bears-are-crushed-20220814-p5b9o2Every investing trend misfires as stock bears are crushedD...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - August 25, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs

Case of the Week 693
 This week ' s case was kindly donated by Dr. Mike Mitchell and his laboratory. The patient is a middle-aged man with fever, intermittent cough, headache and mental status changes. He had a history of lymphoma and was receiving maintenance immunosuppressive chemotherapy. Of note, he had several episodes of bacteriemia and progressively worsening pulmonary infiltrates. He was originally from Sub-Saharan Africa but had been living in the United States for several decades. The following are images from a duodenal aspirate:What is your diagnosis? (Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites)
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - August 22, 2022 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 18th 2022
In conclusion, we show that PVS morphology in mice is variable and that the structure and function of pia suggests a previously unrecognized role in regulating CSF transport and amyloid clearance in aging and disease. Reversing Ovarian Fibrosis in Mice https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2022/07/reversing-ovarian-fibrosis-in-mice/ Researchers here provide evidence for ovarian fibrosis to be an important mechanism in limiting the age at which female mammals can remain fertile. Interestingly, existing antifibrotic drugs can produce some reversal of this fibrosis, enough to restore ovulation in mice. Fibro...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 17, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Discussing the Accelerated Aging of Cancer Survivors
It is well known that cancer survivors who underwent chemotherapy or radiotherapy exhibit a shorter life expectancy, greater chance of unrelated cancer incidence, and greater risk of age-related disease. The most reasonable hypothesis at present is that these undesirable outcomes are the result of an increased burden of senescent cells. Historically, cancer treatments have been in large part designed to force cancerous cells into senescence, those that are not killed outright by the therapy. Since these cancer therapies are toxic to cells, they also tend to cause off-target cell death and senescence. It is possible that si...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 12, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 11th 2022
In this study we employ a transcriptome-wide and multi-tissue approach to analyze the influence of both LTDR and short-term DR (STDR) at old age on the aging phenotype. We were able to characterize a common transcriptional gene network driving inflammaging in most of the analyzed tissues. This network is characterized by chromatin opening and upregulation in the transcription of innate immune system receptors and by activation of interferon signaling through interferon regulatory factors, inflammatory cytokines, and Stat1-mediated transcription. We also found that both DR interventions ameliorate this inflammaging phenotyp...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 10, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

As cancer patients wait, states play favorites
Cancer patients soon will have new treatment options in Connecticut. Health care providers recently received regulatory approval for a joint venture that will allow them to open the state’s first proton therapy center. The lifesaving technology, which uses laser beams as a safer and more effective alternative to chemotherapy, is urgently needed. So the announcementRead more …As cancer patients wait, states play favorites originally appeared inKevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 5, 2022 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/post-author/jaimie-cavanaugh-and-daryl-james" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" > Jaimie Cavanaugh, JD and Daryl James < /a > < /span > Tags: Policy Public Health & Source Type: blogs

Cancer Survivors Exhibit a Significantly Higher Risk of Cardiovascular Disease
The dominant cancer therapies of chemotherapy and radiotherapy have not yet been replaced by immunotherapies for more than a handful of cancer types. These classes of therapy produce a significantly increased burden of senescent cells in patients; one of the goals of cancer therapy is to drive cancerous cells into senescence, those that cannot be killed. These additional senescent cells in turn accelerate the progression of degenerative aging. The advent of senolytic therapies to clear senescent cells from aged tissues will make a sizable difference to these patients. More effort should be undertaken today to enable patien...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 4, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs