Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells as a Treatment for Fibrosis
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies are used to treat cancer, engineering T cells to be more aggressive towards cancer cells. The approach has proven quite effective in comparison to past treatments for a number of cancer types. In principle this CAR-T immunotherapy can be used to target any cell population that has distinct surface markers, not just cancer cells. Here, researchers demonstrate the ability to destroy the fibroblasts responsible for generating fibrosis in the aging heart. Fibrosis is a form of dysregulated tissue maintenance, in which cells build up scar-like deposits of collagen that degrade ti...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 18, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
TWiV 565: Karolinska Virology
From the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Vincent speaks with Niklas Björkström, Ali Mirazimi, and Matti Sällberg about their work on the impact of chronic hepatitis C virus infection on NK cells, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus vaccines, and immunotherapy to block entry of hepatitis B and D viruses. Click arrow to play Download TWiV 565 (52 MB .mp3, […] (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - September 15, 2019 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus dna vaccine hepatitis b virus hepatitis C virus hepatitis D virus immunotherapy Karolinska Institute NK cell T cell exhaustion treatment interruption viral viruses Source Type: blogs
Save the trees, prevent the sneeze
When I worked at Greenpeace for five years before I attended medical school, a popular slogan was, “think globally, act locally.” As I write this blog about climate change and hay fever, I wonder if wiping off my computer that I’ve just sneezed all over due to my seasonal allergies counts as abiding by this aphorism? (Can you clean a computer screen with a tissue?)
Come to think of it, my allergies do seem to be worse in recent years. So do those of my patients. It seems as if I’m prescribing nasal steroids and antihistamines, recommending over-the-counter eye drops, and discussing ways to avoid allergens much more...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - September 10, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Peter Grinspoon, MD Tags: Allergies Environmental health Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, September 9th 2019
We examined human lung tissue from COPD patients and normal control subjects, and found a substantial increase in p16-expressing alveolar cells in COPD patients. Using a transgenic mouse deficient for p16, we demonstrated that lungs of mice lacking p16 were structurally and functionally resistant to CS-induced emphysema due to activation of IGF1/Akt regenerative and protective signaling.
Fat Tissue Surrounds Skeletal Muscle to Accelerate Atrophy in Aging and Obesity
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2019/09/fat-tissue-surrounds-skeletal-muscle-to-accelerate-atrophy-in-aging-and-obesity/
Researchers he...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 8, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Destroying CD163 Tumor Associated Macrophages Allows the Immune System to Better Attack a Cancer
Cancers tend to subvert portions of the immune system into aiding and protecting growth of tumors. The innate immune cells known as macrophages are involved in growth and regeneration, and populations of macrophages resident in tumors become a part of the cancer process. Some of these macrophages have clear surface markers, and can thus be targeted for destruction. Researchers here demonstrate that doing this allows the rest of the immune system to more aggressively attack a tumor. This class of approach may turn out to be quite effective when combined with other forms of immunotherapy that are focused on making T cells mo...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 4, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 19th 2019
In conclusion, our data show how oncogenic and tumor-suppressive drivers of cellular senescence act to regulate surveillance processes that can be circumvented to enable SnCs to elude immune recognition but can be reversed by cell surface-targeted interventions to purge the SnCs that persist in vitro and in patients. Since eliminating SnCs can prevent tumor progression, delay the onset of degenerative diseases, and restore fitness; since NKG2D-Ls are not widely expressed in healthy human tissues and NKG2D-L shedding is an evasion mechanism also employed by tumor cells; and since increasing numbers of B cells express NKG2D ...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 18, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Support for LIfT Biosciences to Develop the LIFT Approach to a Universal Cancer Therapy
It is good to see that more of the promising technical approaches to aspects of aging, originally put forward by people in the SENS rejuvenation research network some years ago, are now making solid progress towards commercial implementation. The LIFT, or GIFT, approach to cancer therapy involves the transplantation of suitably aggressive leukocyte or granulocyte immune cells from a donor. At the time it was first demonstrated to be highly effective in mice, more than a decade ago, the underlying mechanisms were not well explored, and that always makes it hard to obtain further support from scientific funding institutions....
Source: Fight Aging! - August 15, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Improved Quality of Care as the Major Goal for the Merger of Pathology and Radiology
I recently returned to the topic of merging pathology and radiology after a thirteen year hiatus (see:Increasing Interest in Merging the Specialties of Pathology and Radiology). This caused me to reflect on the question of why this idea has remained dormant despite the fact that (I believe) it's worthy of serious consideration. This question, in turn, caused me to think about the factors that serve as incentives for major changes in hospitals and healthcare. I came up with the following four drivers for change emanating from either the C-suite or hospital physician leadership. These factors may operate singly or ...
Source: Lab Soft News - August 13, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Testing Diagnostics Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Business Healthcare Innovations Hospital Financial Lab Industry Trends Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
Jim Mellon Interviewed by Adam Ford at Undoing Aging 2019
Adam Ford of Science, Technology, and the Future carried out a number of interviews while at Undoing Aging in Berlin earlier this year. The interview materials are steadily being processed and uploaded, and that just recently included this interview with Jim Mellon, billionaire investor and philanthropist, cofounder of Juvenescence, and a very down to earth fellow who is interested in improving the human condition by targeting aging with new biotechnologies. Accordingly, he has used his resources to put himself into a position to talk up the longevity industry, move research forward, and attract a great deal more funding f...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 12, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs
Computational Simulations to Guide Cancer Therapy
Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago have developed a new supercomputer-based tool to model tumor progression and destruction by the immune system. Their work demonstrates that computational simulations of immune-tumor interactions can infer whether or not a given tumor can be destroyed with immunotherapy. This exciting development may one day curate personalized therapies for cancer based on a patient’s individual biology.
Cancer immunotherapies are able to significantly improve survival
in various cancer types, however, immunotherapies do not benefit all patients
equally: Only 10-2...
Source: Medgadget - July 31, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Siavash Parkhideh Tags: Informatics Oncology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 22nd 2019
This study elucidates the potential to use mitochondria from different donors (PAMM) to treat UVR stress and possibly other types of damage or metabolic malfunctions in cells, resulting in not only in-vitro but also ex-vivo applications.
Gene Therapy in Mice Alters the Balance of Macrophage Phenotypes to Slow Atherosclerosis Progression
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2019/07/gene-therapy-in-mice-alters-the-balance-of-macrophage-phenotypes-to-slow-atherosclerosis-progression/
Atherosclerosis causes a sizable fraction of all deaths in our species. It is the generation of fatty deposits in blood vesse...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 21, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
The Infection-Senescence Hypothesis of Alzheimer's Disease
With the continued failure of clinical trials of therapies for Alzheimer's disease, largely immunotherapies, that aim to clear amyloid-β, a growing faction of researchers are rejecting the amyloid hypothesis. In that mainstream view of the condition, the accumulation of amyloid-β causes the early stages of Alzheimer's, but in addition to disrupting the function of neurons, it also causes immune cells in the brain to become inflammatory, dysfunctional, and senescent. This in turn sets the stage for the aggregation of tau protein into neurofibrillary tangles, which causes widespread cell death and the much more severe mani...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 19, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 8th 2019
In this study, we identify a link between members of the genus Veillonella and exercise performance. We observed an increase in Veillonella relative abundance in marathon runners postmarathon and isolated a strain of Veillonella atypica from stool samples. Inoculation of this strain into mice significantly increased exhaustive treadmill run time.
Veillonella utilize lactate as their sole carbon source, which prompted us to perform a shotgun metagenomic analysis in a cohort of elite athletes, finding that every gene in a major pathway metabolizing lactate to propionate is at higher relative abundance postexercise. Us...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 7, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
LANDO Found to be Key to Microglial Clearance of Amyloid- β and Neuroinflammation
The consensus view on the progression of Alzheimer's disease is that it begins with rising levels of amyloid-β aggregates, misfolded proteins forming solid deposits to disrupt cellular behavior. This increase in amyloid-β might be due to persistent infection, as amyloid-β is an antimicrobial peptide, a part of the innate immune system. It might be due to failing drainage of cerebrospinal fluid, causing all molecular wastes to build up in the brain. There are other possibilities as well, such as progressive failure of the ability of immune cells to clear out amyloid-β.
In and of itself this rising level of amyloi...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 5, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 17th 2019
In this study, analysis of antioxidant defense was performed on the blood samples from 184 "aged" individuals aged 65-90+ years, and compared to the blood samples of 37 individuals just about at the beginning of aging, aged 55-59 years. Statistically significant decreases of Zn,Cu-superoxide dismutase (SOD-1), catalase (CAT), and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activities were observed in elderly people in comparison with the control group. Moreover, an inverse correlation between the activities of SOD-1, CAT, and GSH-Px and the age of the examined persons was found. No age-related changes in glutathione reductase activiti...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 16, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
