The Longevity 2020 Online Conference, to be Held April 27th to May 1st 2020
All of the longevity industry and gerontology conferences in coming months have been cancelled or rescheduled as a result of the present mix of COVID-19 pandemic and hysteria. An equal mix of both, perhaps. The best data to date puts the mortality rate at 0.66% or so, meaning about six yearly flu seasons worth of risk, and even that number is most likely still overstating the risk, as it misses the presently unknown count of infections that result in only minor symptoms. An article from earlier in the month on the uncertainties in all published numbers remains one of the more sane pieces written on the topic. Still,...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 2, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 30th 2020
This study, for the first time, shows that transplantation of non-autologous mitochondria from healthy skeletal muscle cells into normal cardiomyocytes leads to short-term improvement of bioenergetics indicating "supercharged" state. However, over time these improved effects disappear, which suggests transplantation of mitochondria may have a potential application in settings where there is an acute stress. Outlining Some of the Science Behind Partial Reprogramming at Turn.bio https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/03/outlining-some-of-the-science-behind-partial-reprogramming-at-turn-bio/ Turn.bio is ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 29, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Natural Killer Cells May Act to Reduce Neuroinflammation
Researchers here provide evidence for natural killer cells to act to reduce inflammation in the brain. This is of interest because chronic inflammation in brain tissue, neuroinflammation, is a prominent feature of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. If a natural mechanism that suppresses inflammation can be harnessed, it might be possible to slow or reverse neurodegenerative conditions, given that inflammation appears to play such a significant role in their progression. That said, recent work on cellular senescence in the supporting cells of brain suggests that selectively elimi...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 26, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 23rd 2020
Fight Aging! publishes news and commentary relevant to the goal of ending all age-related disease, to be achieved by bringing the mechanisms of aging under the control of modern medicine. This weekly newsletter is sent to thousands of interested subscribers. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter, please visit: https://www.fightaging.org/newsletter/ Longevity Industry Consulting Services Reason, the founder of Fight Aging! and Repair Biotechnologies, offers strategic consulting services to investors, entrepreneurs, and others interested in the longevity industry and its complexities. To find out m...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 22, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

TREM2 Antibodies as an Immunotherapy for Alzheimer's Disease
Researchers here report on preliminary evidence that antibodies binding to TREM2 can enhance the ability of the immune cells known as microglia to clear out debris and metabolic waste in brain, particularly the amyloid-β plaques thought to contribute to the progression of the condition. Given the unremitting record of failure to date for amyloid-β clearance approaches to produce material benefits in patients, it is something of a question as to whether more and better clearance is what is needed right now. From a reductionist point of view, amyloid-β aggregates should indeed be removed, as their presence is a material d...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 16, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 24th 2020
In conclusion, taller body height at the entry to adulthood, supposed to be a marker of early-life environment, is associated with lower risk of dementia diagnosis later in life. The association persisted when adjusted for educational level and intelligence test scores in young adulthood, suggesting that height is not just acting as an indicator of cognitive reserve. A Comparison of Biological Age Measurement Approaches https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/02/a-comparison-of-biological-age-measurement-approaches/ Researchers here assess the performance of a range of approaches to measuring biologica...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 23, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

An Interview with Lewis Gruber of SIWA Therapeutics
SIWA Therapeutics is one of the few senolytics biotech companies founded prior to the past few years, invigorated with new funding now that the clearance of senescent cells as a basis for rejuvenation is an area of intense interest for the research and development community. The company is also, I believe, running the only senolytics program based the use of monoclonal antibodies. This is a way to encourage the immune system to destroy cells bearing specific surface markers, in this case a form of advanced glycation endproduct that is found on cancerous, senescent, and otherwise dysfunctional cells. Many of our re...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 19, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 17th 2020
Discussion of the Evolutionary Genetics of Aging Thymic Involution Contributes to Immunosenescence and Inflammaging The Potential for Exosome Therapies to Treat Sarcopenia Correlations of Mitochondrial DNA Copy Number and Epigenetic Age Measures Evidence for PASK Deficiency to Reduce the Impact of Aging in Mice The Aging Retina, a Mirror of the Aging Brain Evidence for Loss of Capillary Density to be Important in Heart Disease Aspects of Immune System Aging Proceed More Rapidly in Men Deacetylation of the NLRP3 Inflammasome as a Way to Control Chronic Inflammation Transplantation of Senescent Cel...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 16, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Notes on the 2020 Longevity Therapeutics Conference in San Francisco
I recently attended the 2020 Longevity Therapeutics conference in San Francisco. I presented on the work ongoing at Repair Biotechnologies, but as is usually the case the more important parts of the visit took place outside the bounds of the conference proper. Longevity Therapeutics is one of the four or five core conferences for the longevity industry, at which you'll meet many of the early participants - a mix of scientists, entrepreneurs, and investors, and patient advocates. As such, most of the conference goers have already seen my updates, or are otherwise aware of the Repair Biotechnologies programs aimed at thymic ...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 10, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs

Newer skin cancer treatments improve prognosis for those with cutaneous melanoma
Cutaneous melanoma, also called malignant melanoma, is the type of skin cancer that is most likely to spread to other parts of the body. Though melanoma accounts for only about 1% of skin cancers, it is responsible for more than 90% of skin cancer-related deaths. But thanks to developments in skin cancer treatment (mostly in the last decade), patients with melanoma have much better chances of living longer. What is a melanoma? Melanoma involves the uncontrolled growth of a type of cell known as a melanocyte. One of the most important functions of a normal melanocyte is to protect your skin from the sun’s damaging ultravi...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 3, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Dominic Wu, MD Tags: Cancer Skin and Hair Care Source Type: blogs

New Technology to Destroy Cancer Cells, Oncotripsy, May Offer Promise
Many of the readers of this blog will be familiar withlithotripsy which involves the use of shock waves to disintegrate stones in the kidneys, bladder, and ureter (see:Lithotripsy). Scientists are now experimenting with the use of ultrasound to selectively kill cancer cells (see:Ultrasound selectively damages cancer cells when tuned to correct frequencies). They have called this type of treatment oncotripsy. Below is an excerpt from the article:A solid mechanics lab at Caltech first developed the theory of oncotripsy, based on the idea that cells are vulnerable to ultrasound at specific frequencies —like how ...
Source: Lab Soft News - January 28, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Innovations Medical Research Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 27th 2020
Fight Aging! publishes news and commentary relevant to the goal of ending all age-related disease, to be achieved by bringing the mechanisms of aging under the control of modern medicine. This weekly newsletter is sent to thousands of interested subscribers. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter, please visit: https://www.fightaging.org/newsletter/ Longevity Industry Consulting Services Reason, the founder of Fight Aging! and Repair Biotechnologies, offers strategic consulting services to investors, entrepreneurs, and others interested in the longevity industry and its complexities. To find out m...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 26, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

MR1 as a Broad Signature of Cancer, Suitable for T Cell Targeting
Meaningful progress towards the control of cancer, ending it as a major threat to life and health, will be led by programs that can produce very broadly applicable treatments. That means therapies that can be applied to many (or even all) cancers with minimal differences in configuration or need for further per-cancer development. There are hundreds of cancer subtypes, but only so many researchers, and only so much funding for research and development: development of highly specific therapies is just not an effective path forward. Examples of the most promising lines of work with broad application include the OncoSe...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 22, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 20th 2020
This study provides strong evidence that following a healthy lifestyle can substantially extend the years a person lives disease-free." Commentary on Recent Evidence for Cognitive Decline to Precede Amyloid Aggregation in Alzheimer's Disease https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/01/commentary-on-recent-evidence-for-cognitive-decline-to-precede-amyloid-aggregation-in-alzheimers-disease/ I can't say that I think the data presented in the research noted here merits quite the degree of the attention that it has been given in the popular science press. It is interesting, but not compelling if its role is ...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 19, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Cancer Mortality Rates Continue to Fall
That cancer mortality is declining at a time in which the aged segment of the population is growing, and ever more people are overweight and obese, is a testament to (a) improved prevention (largely fewer people smoking, which has a sizable impact on lung cancer incidence and severity) and (b) the ever increasing efficacy of modern cancer treatments, particularly immunotherapies. These newer cancer therapies are still in the comparatively early stages of evolution as a technology platform, and we should expect these gains to continue. The immunotherapies of the 2030s will be very impressive in comparison to those deployed ...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 17, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs