Improved Manipulation of " Eat Me " and " Don't Eat Me " Markers in the Context of Cancer
One of the more interesting discoveries of the past few decades in cancer research has been the identity of surface markers such as CD47 that normally act to protect important cells from being attacked and destroyed by immune cells - a "don't eat me" signal. Cancers abuse such mechanisms in a variety of ways, both directly, in cancerous cells, and indirectly, via subversion of regulatory immune cells that are protected by such surface markers, in order to suppress the immune response to the cancer. Targeting CD47 has proven a promising approach to the treatment of cancer, but it has side-effects. There are always necessary...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 19, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Do Senescent Cells Have Sufficiently Distinct Surface Markers to be Targeted for Destruction?
Many of the approaches to selective cell destruction pioneered in the cancer research community distinguish target cells from bystander cells via cell surface markers. Do senescent cells have a sufficiently distinct set of surface markers to safely employ this strategy to reduce the burden of cellular senescence in old tissue, and thereby produce rejuvenation of tissue function? Almost certainly yes, as the immune system uses exactly this approach to identify and kill senescent cells. Identifying the surface markers involved is a plausible goal, presently underway. Several biotech companies work on forms of senolytic immun...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 17, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Continued Discussion of the Ability of Immunotherapies to Remove Amyloid- β from the Brain
Is amyloid-β aggregation an important cause of Alzheimer's disease, or is it a side-effect of other, more important mechanisms? Near all age-related conditions are complex, with multiple interacting mechanisms involved. Absent a way to remove just one of those mechanisms, it is quite hard to say which are more or less important. In Alzheimer's disease this is made worse by the fact that the animal models are very artificial: few shorter lived mammals naturally develop anything even remotely resembling the biochemistry of Alzheimer's disease. Thus whether or not a treatment produces benefits in animal models is a poor indi...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 16, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 16th 2021
In conclusion, cancer survivors, especially older individuals, demonstrate greater odds of and accelerated functional decline, suggesting that cancer and/or its treatment may alter aging trajectories.
Linking Particulate Air Pollution and Dementia in a Small Region of the US
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2021/08/linking-particulate-air-pollution-and-dementia-in-a-small-region-of-the-us/
It is fairly settled that evident particulate air pollution, such as daily exposure to smoke from wood-fueled cooking fires, has a strongly detrimental effect on long-term health. The mechanisms involved are inflam...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 15, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
A Worse Functional Decline with Age is Observed in Cancer Survivors
In conclusion, cancer survivors, especially older individuals, demonstrate greater odds of and accelerated functional decline, suggesting that cancer and/or its treatment may alter aging trajectories. (Source: Fight Aging!)
Source: Fight Aging! - August 12, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 9th 2021
In conclusion, the present study supports that some age-related diseases as well as education are causally related to longevity and highlights several new targets for achieving longevity, including management of venous thromboembolism, appropriate intake of sugar, and control of body fat. Our results warrant further studies to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of these reported causal associations.
Pol III Inhibition Extends Longevity in Short-Lived Species
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2021/08/pol-iii-inhibition-extends-longevity-in-short-lived-species/
As this paper notes, Pol III is downstrea...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 8, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Senescent T Cells in the Context of Cancer
Cells become senescent in response to potentially cancer-inducing stresses and damage, to tissue injury, or when they reach the Hayflick limit on cellular replication. Senescent cells cease to replicate and secrete pro-inflammatory, pro-growth signals. They are cleared by the immune system or via programmed cell death mechanisms. Their presence is beneficial in the short term, an important part of the panoply of mechanisms devoted to, separately, cancer suppression and regeneration. When senescent cells begin to linger, however, their secretions become highly disruptive to normal tissue function. Senescent cell accumulatio...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 4, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 2nd 2021
This study aimed to determine the association between: (i) cognitive decline and bone loss; and (ii) clinically significant cognitive decline on Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) over the first 5 years and subsequent fracture risk over the following 10 years. A total of 1741 women and 620 men aged ≥65 years from the population-based Canadian Multicentre Osteoporosis Study were followed from 1997 to 2013. Over 95% of participants had normal cognition at baseline. After multivariable adjustment, cognitive decline was associated with bone loss in women but not men. Approximately 13% of participants experienced sign...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 1, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
BAFT Upregulation Makes T Cells Resistant to Exhaustion
When faced with long-lasting challenges, such as cancer or persistent infections that the immune system struggles to clear, T cells of the adaptive immune system can become exhausted. The exhausted cells lose function, diminishing both the immediate immune response and the ability to form immune memory that will enable a robust future response to the same threat. Researchers see this in the engineered T cells used in chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies, and there is thus a strong incentive to find ways to address the issue by identifying important causes or regulators of T cell exhaustion, and interfering to p...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 28, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 19th 2021
In this study, we developed the first epigenetic clock for domesticated sheep (Ovis aries), which can predict chronological age with a median absolute error of 5.1 months. We have discovered that castrated male sheep have a decelerated aging rate compared to intact males, mediated at least in part by the removal of androgens.
Furthermore, we identified several androgen-sensitive CpG dinucleotides that become progressively hypomethylated with age in intact males, but remain stable in castrated males and females. Comparable sex-specific methylation differences in MKLN1 also exist in bat skin and a range of mouse tissu...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 18, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Is Depletion of Soluble Amyloid- β the Reason Why Amyloid is Important in Alzheimer's Disease?
The long years of failure to improve outcomes in Alzheimer's disease patients via the development of immunotherapies targeting amyloid-β has provoked a great deal of alternative theorizing and new exploration regarding the causes of the condition. The amyloid cascade hypothesis of the progression of Alzheimer's disease is being modified in numerous ways. In its original form, the formation of deposits of misfolded amyloid-β causes inflammation and other forms of disarray that sets the stage for later aggregation of tau into neurofibrillary tangles, which leads to the widespread death of neurons.
Some researchers b...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 12, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 12th 2021
In conclusion, our study demonstrated that elevated cumulative SBP or DBP was independently associated with increased risk of CVD in the Chinese population. Among participants with 15-year cumulative BP levels higher than the median, that is, 1970.8/1239.9 mmHg-year for cumulative SBP/DBP, which was equivalent to maintaining SBP/DBP level higher than 131/83 mmHg in 15 years, the CVD risk would increase significantly irrespective of whether or not the BP measurements at one examination was high. Our findings emphasize the importance of cumulative BP level in identifying individuals with high risk of CVD in the future.
...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 11, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Applying Chimeric Receptor Antigens to Natural Killer Cells to Target Solid Cancers
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) technology was first applied to T cells of the adaptive immune system. A patient's T cells are extracted, engineered to express a surface feature that matches to the patient's cancer cells, expanded in culture, and introduced back into the body. This has proven to be highly effective against forms of leukemia. Researchers are attempting to apply this approach to other varieties of immune cell, and thus allow a greater range of efficacy against various classes of cancer. Here, researchers report on their efforts to engineer natural killer cells to recognize patient cancers.
Modified ...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 7, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 5th 2021
In conclusion, the findings suggest that DNAm GrimAge is a strong predictor of mortality independent of genetic influences.
Heart Failure Correlates with Increased Cancer Risk
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2021/07/heart-failure-correlates-with-increased-cancer-risk/
Age-related disease results from the underlying cell and tissue damage that causes aging. Different people accumulate that damage at modestly different rates, the result of lifestyle choices and exposure to infectious disease. Thus the presence of a sufficient burden of damage to produce one age-related disease will be accompanied by a...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 4, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
More Alzheimer's Immunotherapies Improve Biomarkers But Not Patient Outcomes
In this study, 52 patients were randomized to gantenerumab, which led to a reduction in the amount of amyloid plaques in the brain, and lowered soluble tau and phospho-tau, and slowed the rise of neurofilament light chain levels in the cerebrospinal fluid. Neurofilament light chain is a marker that reflects neurodegeneration. Overall, gantenerumab's safety profile in this trial was consistent with that from other clinical trials of the investigational medicine, and no new safety issues were identified.
The primary endpoint of the DIAN-TU study was the prevention or slowing of cognitive decline in people who are near...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 28, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
