Cloudy With a Chance of Scientific Discoveries
The cloud. To many, it’s a mysterious black hole that somehow transports photos and files from their old or lost phone to their new one. To some researchers, though, it’s an invaluable resource that allows them access to data analytics tools they wouldn’t otherwise have.
Credit: iStock.
Scientists have begun using cloud computing to store, process, and analyze their data through online bioinformatics tools. Biological data sets are often large and hard to interpret, requiring complex calculating instructions—or algorithms—to understand them. Fortunately, these algorithms can run on local computers or remote...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - March 16, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Rachel Crowley Tags: Tools and Techniques Bioinformatics Computational Biology Cool Tools/Techniques Modeling Scientific Process Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 14th 2022
This study tests the feasibility of chronically elevating skeletal muscle NAD+ in mice and investigates the putative effects on mitochondrial respiratory capacity, insulin sensitivity, and gene expression. The metabolic effects of NR and PT treatment were modest. We conclude that the chronic elevation of skeletal muscle NAD+ by the intravenous injection of NR is possible but does not affect muscle respiratory capacity or insulin sensitivity in either sedentary or physically active mice. Our data have implications for NAD+ precursor supplementation regimens.
Muscle Strengthening Activities in Later Life Correlate ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 13, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Wanted: NIGMS Program Directors
We’re recruiting scientists for positions in our Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (GMCDB) and Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity (TWD). The successful applicants will be responsible for scientific and administrative management of a portfolio of research grants and/or research training and career development awards, and will stimulate, plan, advise, direct, and evaluate program activities related to their field of expertise.
The GMCDB positions support research grants focused on the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying inheritance, gen...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - March 11, 2022 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Job Announcements Source Type: blogs
Technological Capabilities to Accelerate the Growth of the Cryonics Industry
The cryonics industry, and cryopreservation as a technological capability, are important. Very important. The absence of a truly large scale cryonics industry means that more than a billion lives are lost permanently every two decades; intelligent, thinking, feeling minds vanishing into the abyss of non-existence in vast numbers. The world is that way, but it doesn't have to be. Given a better, more rational history of technological progress and patient advocacy, we could now be living in a world in which the funds presently spent on funerary arrangements and monuments would instead go towards the cryopreservation of the r...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 11, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Of Interest Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 7th 2022
This study estimates that prescreening with a 500 blood test could reduce by half both the cost and the time it takes to enroll patients in clinical trials that use PET scans. Screening with blood tests alone could be completed in less than six months and cut costs by tenfold or more, the study finds. Known as Precivity AD, the commercial version of the test is marketed by C2N Diagnostics. The current study shows that the blood test remains highly accurate, even when performed in different labs following different protocols, and in different cohorts across three continents.
xCT Knockout Modestly Extends Life in M...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 6, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Biomedical Researchers RISE From the University of Texas, San Antonio
“One thing that we try to develop in students is a sense of belonging and scientific identity,” says Edwin Barea-Rodriguez, Ph.D., the director of the Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (RISE) program at the University of Texas, San Antonio (UTSA). The program provides undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented backgrounds with research experiences, professional development opportunities, and faculty mentorships. The UTSA RISE program has helped hundreds of students build strong foundations for scientific careers over its more than 20-year history. Here, we share the stories of three st...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - March 2, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Profiles Training Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 28th 2022
In conclusion, as BMI and waist circumference are related to elevations of immune markers in the IL-6 pathway, chronic inflammation might be an important mediator of the relationship between BMI and frailty.
Fat Tissue Becomes Dysfunctional with Age as Mitochondria Falter
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2022/02/fat-tissue-becomes-dysfunctional-with-age-as-mitochondria-falter/
Mitochondria are effectively power plants, hundreds of them working in every cell to produce chemical energy store molecules to power cellular processes. Mitochondrial function declines with age, unfortunately, for underlying r...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 27, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Making Inroads into Better Understanding What Exactly Epigenetic Clocks are Measuring
While research never ends, more than enough is known about the mechanisms of aging to develop therapies that can potentially slow or reverse facets of aging. That said, establishing that a mechanism exists is one thing, but determining how important that mechanism is to aging or any specific age-related disease is quite another. Cellular metabolism is enormously complex and incompletely mapped. It is impossible to theorize effectively on whether mechanism A causes more dysfunction than mechanism B. In many cases it is even hard to comment on the degree to which mechanism A causes mechanism B, or vice versa.
There is...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 24, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 21st 2022
In conclusion, clinical trials targeting aging in humans have shown promising but limited results on biomarkers so far.
Mycobacterium Vaccae Immunization as an Anti-Inflammatory Strategy
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2022/02/mycobacterium-vaccae-immunization-as-an-anti-inflammatory-strategy/
In today's open access paper, researchers discuss immunization with Mycobacterium vaccae as an approach to reduce the inflammatory overactivity of the aged immune system. Researchers have made some initial inroads into studying the way in which this bacteria can alter the function of the immune system, and her...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 20, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Disaggregases as the Basis for Therapies to Remove Amyloids
A few proteins in the body are capable of misfolding or becoming otherwise altered in ways that encourage other molecules of the same protein to do the same. They can spread throughout a tissue and the body, given time, forming aggregates that precipitate into solid clumps and fibrils, surrounded by a halo of toxic biochemistry that harms cells. This is an age-related problem, likely because the systems of maintenance and recycling responsible for clearing aggregates falter with age, a victim of rising levels of molecular damage and the maladaptive reactions to that damage.
Amyloid-β, associated with Alzheimer's di...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 18, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
High Pyrimidine and Fatty Acid Metabolism Associated with High Regenerative Capacity
Researchers here report on an interesting work of comparative biology, looking for common metabolic factors in cells, tissues, and species that are capable of proficient regeneration such as regrowth of limbs and organs. Are there commonalities between the metabolism of deer antler regrowth and salamander limb regrowth, and can one follow those commonalities into the differences between stem cells and somatic cells? Perhaps. This work is a starting point, and it will be interesting to see where it leads.
From lower animals to humans, every species is endowed with a certain degree of regeneration. For example, axol...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 14, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 14th 2022
In conclusion, this first examination of the effects of age and the ageing process on the small intestinal microbiome demonstrates that the duodenal microbiome changes with increasing age, with significant decreases in duodenal microbial diversity due to increased prevalence of phylum Proteobacteria, particularly coliforms and anaerobic taxa. Given the key roles of small intestinal microbes in nutrient absorption and host metabolism, these changes may be clinically relevant for human health during the ageing process.
Naked Mole Rats Exhibit Minimal Cardiac Aging
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2022/02/nake...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 13, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 7th 2022
In this study, we used accelerometer measurements (1) to examine the association of physical activity and mortality in a population-based sample of US adults and (2) to estimate the number of deaths prevented annually with modest increases in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) intensity.
This analysis included 4,840 participants. Increasing MVPA by 10, 20, or 30 minutes per day was associated with a 6.9%, 13.0%, and 16.9% decrease in the number of deaths per year, respectively. We estimated that approximately 110,000 deaths per year could be prevented if US adults aged 40 to 85 years or older increased th...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 6, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Photographing the Physics of Cells
Dr. Melike Lakadamyali with a microscope. Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Lakadamyali.
“It would be a dream come true if I could look at a cell within a tissue and have a Google Maps view to zoom in until I saw individual molecules,” says Melike Lakadamyali, Ph.D., an associate professor of physiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Her lab is helping make part of that dream a reality by developing super-resolution microscopy tools that visualize cells at a near-molecular level.
Blending Physics and Biology
Science and math fascinated Dr. Lakadamyali since childhood, ...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - February 2, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Cells Tools and Techniques Cellular Imaging Cellular Processes Cool Tools/Techniques Profiles Source Type: blogs
Wanted: Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Division Director
GMCDB Search Committee Members:
Dorothy Beckett, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Chair
Celeste Berg, University of Washington
Orna Cohen-Fix, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
Tom Dever, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Dan Gallahan, National Cancer Institute
Anna Ramsey-Ewing, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
David Rice, Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, NIH
Laura Stanek, Office of Human Resources, NIH
With the selection of Dorit Zuk as the NIGMS deputy director, a search is open for an outstandi...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - February 1, 2022 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Job Announcements Source Type: blogs
