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Another Candidate for Lynchpin Gene Controlling Calorie RestrictionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
One of the better research outcomes a biologist can hope for is to find that a particular mechanism, disease, or benefit has a single point of control somewhere in its web of interlinked genes and feedback loops. A single gene or protein that acts as a switch or a dial, and has no or few entanglements with other biological systems. That lack of entanglements is important - a switch that turns one thing off and three other things on isn't of much use, at least for those of us who like our medicine without potentially lethal side-effects, but human biochemistry contains far more multi-switches than examples of any simpler co...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 19, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Genzyme Drops Kidney-Drug Plans Amid Pileup of Bad NewsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The bad news is coming in clumps for biotech company Genzyme. The company today said it has scrapped development plans for a stronger version of its Renvela kidney-failure product after a later-stage trial showed the proposed drug wasn’t more effective than Renvela. Sales of Renvela and its predecessor Renagel rose 6% in the third quarter to $181.7 million. Here’s the company’s statement and a Reuters story. The company has been plagued by a string of manufacturing-related problems of late. On Monday, Genzyme said the FDA wouldn’t approve its application for a drug to treat the muscle disorder Pompe...
Source: WSJ.com: Health Blog - November 18, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: James A. White Tags: Biotech Drugs FDA Research Source Type: blogs

The Benefits of Increased PGC-1alpha ExpressionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A short introduction to the gene PGC-1alpha: this is one of a number of genes of interest involved in the biochemical changes, resistance to age-related disease, and extended healthy life span brought about by calorie restriction (CR). It favorably changes the operation of mitochondria, and based on the effects of other genes and proteins involved in these mechanisms, I would expect enhanced expression of PCG-1alpha to have at least some modest beneficial effect on life span. That said, I'm not aware of any life span studies involving PCG-1alpha manipulation, but there is a fair amount of published research out there on it...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 18, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Human Calorie Restriction Studies Continue ApaceEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In this study we evaluated body composition, glucose, and insulin responses to an oral glucose tolerance test and serum adipokines levels in 28 volunteers, who had been eating a CR diet for an average of 6.9 +/- 5.5 years, (mean age 53.0 +/- 11 years), in 28 age-, sex-, and body fat-matched endurance runners (EX), and 28 age- and sex-matched sedentary controls eating Western diets (WD). We found that the CR and EX volunteers were significantly leaner than the WD volunteers. Insulin sensitivity [was] significantly higher in the CR and EX groups than in the WD group (P = 0.001). Nonetheless, despite high serum adiponectin ...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 16, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Genome 10K Project To Sequence 10000 SpeciesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Out of the 60,000 vertebrate species still in existence an international group of scientists wants to sequence 10,000 of them. Scientists have an ambitious new strategy for untangling the evolutionary history of humans and their biological relatives: a genetic menagerie made of the DNA of more than 10,000 vertebrate species. The plan, proposed by an international consortium of scientists, is to obtain, preserve, and sequence the DNA of approximately one species for each genus of living mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. A bigger effort is needed to collect samples from many individual animals of each species s...
Source: FuturePundit - November 16, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Biotech Advance Rates Source Type: blogs

Myostatin, Muscle Loss, and Patching the SymptomsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In conclusion, a lack of myostatin appears to reduce age-related sarcopenia and loss of muscle regenerative capacity. Satellite cells are progenitor cells that build muscle when activated, and their activity declines with age. There is an ongoing debate as to whether this decline - and resulting loss of muscle mass and strength - is due to a reduction in the size of the satellite cell population, or whether the population is still large and capable of action, but other age-related changes in biochemistry block the activation of these progenitor cells. Or both. If the latter situation is largely the case, then manipulation...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 12, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Digging Deeper Into p66Shc and Enhanced LongevityEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Mitochondria, you will recall, are the power plants of our cells, churning out stored energy in the form of ATP molecules, and pollution in the form of damaging free radicals or reactive oxygen species (ROS). Mitochondria have their own DNA, separate from the DNA in the nucleus of our cells, a legacy of their origin as free-roaming bacteria. Free radicals are very reactive, which means that they can tear apart the biochemical machinery of cells by reacting with crucial components. This free radical pollution is at the heart of the mitochondrial free radical theory of aging, which presents a large component of the aging pro...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 11, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

The Prospects for Engineering Enhanced MemoryEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
As researchers uncover the mechanisms by which memories are formed and the structures within which they are stored, the day on which memory can be artificially enhanced grows nearer. Just as important as increasing the ability to remember in healthy, young people, however, is the ability to halt and reverse the decline of memory in the old and the frail. Some earlier posts from this year's archive illustrate the sort of investigations and theorizing presently taking place: Failing Memory and the Failing Immune System: Reversible? Stem Cell Transplants Can Restore Lost Memory For my money, some of the most interesting res...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 10, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

November Man of the Month – Patrick F. TerryEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This month, Disruptive Women welcomes Patrick F. Terry, a self-proclaimed “JAD” (Just A Dad), as our Man of the Month. Q: So, where should we start? You have been involved with founding a number of ground breaking biotechnology companies, life science research foundations, trade associations, philanthropic groups, and a whole host of public policy organizations. A: I enjoy thinking ahead and trying to do the next new thing to advance science, biomedical research, and the business of patient-centered health care. I’m very impatient for change. I consider myself an unrepentant insurgent, renegade, and rabble ...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - November 6, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Man of the Month genetics biomedical research biotech biotechnology breast cancer genetic disease Genomic Health genomics life science patient-centered health care Personalized Medicine public policy Source Type: blogs

The Search For Genetic Polymorphisms of Human LongevityEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Some people have better genes than other people; such is the luck of the draw. The effects of most genetic differences on human longevity appear to be small in comparison to the effects produced by lifestyle choices, however. You are still the master of your own destiny in that regard. Time wasted in wishing you had a better variant of FOXO3A would be better spent exercising. A great deal of modern life science research is focused on deciphering the operation of our genes and metabolism. Along the way, researchers are digging up many statistical associations between human life span and specific genetic polymorphisms, such...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 6, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Genome Sequencing Cost Drops Below $5000Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Futuristic speculative questions sometimes become present day practical questions. Have you asked yourself what price you'd be willing to pay to get your genome fully sequenced? Complete Genomics, a start-up based in Mountain View, CA, has again lowered the stick in the financial limbo dance of human genome sequencing, announcing in the journal Science that it has sequenced three human genomes for an average cost of $4,400. The most recently sequenced genome--which happens to be that of genomics pioneer George Church--cost just $1,500 in chemicals, the cheapest published yet. This doesn't mean you can get your genome seque...
Source: FuturePundit - November 6, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Biotech Advance Rates Source Type: blogs

Matters DietaryEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
On the whole, a good 99% of discussion on the topic of the human diet is nonsense - that marketplace of ideas and goods is just as bad as the anti-aging marketplace. If you pick out a group at random, the odds are very good that you'll be pointing to a coven of fools who have found ways to make money from ignorance and hope. There are always potential customers whose desire for immediate solutions and answers overwhelms their desire for actually working solutions and correct answers. The areas where science has robust things to say about diet, advice proven beyond any reasonable doubt, largely revolve around levels of cal...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 4, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

A Glance at Recent Autologous Transplant Research and ApplicationsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Much of modern stem cell research and clinical application is focuses on autologous therapies: extracting useful cells from the patient, such as stem cells, culturing the cells to multiply their numbers, potentially altering or reprogramming them for better therapeutic effect, and then returning them to the body to spur regeneration. The use of the patient's own cells circumvents almost all of the biggest issues surrounding transplants between people - such as rejection by the immune system, and the need for potentially dangerous drugs to suppress that rejection. This is all foundation work that may later become important...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 3, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

On The Couch… A Little Weekend ReadingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Such a busy pharma world and so little time to keep up, yes? Like you, we always poke around for items of interest, and so we thought we would point out a few you may enjoy from the past week. Think of it as a little bit of catching up. Meanwhile, we hope your weekend is enjoyable and look forward to seeing you again tomorrow… Amylin Pharmaceuticals and Lilly announced Byetta was approved as a stand-alone med, along with diet and exercise, for type 2 diabetes. Until now, the drug was approved only for patients taking other common diabetes treatments. Tucked away in their statement, they disclosed safety warnings relating...
Source: Pharmalot - November 1, 2009 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Ed Silverman Tags: Uncategorized Amylin Pharmaceuticals Byetta Eli Lilly Nigeria Pfizer Stryker Biotech Trovan Source Type: blogs

House Bill Would Allow Feds to Negotiate Medicare Drug PricesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
When Congress added prescription drug coverage to Medicare a few years back, the drug industry won a huge victory: The new law barred the federal government from negotiating on the prices Medicare pays for prescription drugs. The big House health-care bill that landed yesterday would reverse that, and give the HHS secretary the authority to haggle for a better deal. That’s just one of several ways in which the House bill would be tougher than the Senate Finance bill on the drug industry, the WSJ reports this morning. The House bill would also mandate rebates from the industry for drugs sold to elderly people eligible...
Source: WSJ.com: Health Blog - October 30, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Jacob Goldstein Tags: Biotech Congress Drugs Medicaid Medicare Health-Care Overhaul Source Type: blogs

The “Tootsie Roll” Recipe: Biotech Managers Charged With FraudEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
What is it with bone-growth products? Over the past year, we’ve seen the federal probe into Medtronic’s Infuse implant, and allegations of faked research on the product by an Army doc. Then, yesterday, the feds said that Stryker’s biotech unit, along with the unit’s former president and current sales managers, had been indicted on charges of fraud for off-label marketing of OP-1, Stryker’s own bone-growth product. OP-1 was approved by the FDA for a very narrow use. But the feds say the company encouraged unapproved use by giving surgeons “recipies” for combining OP-1 with another...
Source: WSJ.com: Health Blog - October 29, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Jacob Goldstein Tags: Biotech Legal Medical devices Source Type: blogs

Manipulation of Heat Shock Proteins as the Next Big ThingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The biotechnology that spirals out from the study of calorie restriction and metabolic determinants of longevity is growing in breadth. Sirtuins and companies like Sirtris are (unfairly or not) yesterday's news already - the big deals are done, and now it's down to the very unromantic grind of pushing an incrementally better drug for an age-related disease through the horror show that is FDA approval. Beyond sirtuins lie investigations of autophagy, of fat metabolism, and of course the heat shock proteins (HSPs), amongst other items. Looking ahead, I think there's a fair case to be made for the next Sirtris to be a company...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 29, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Lab toys on display, please!Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Laboratory equipment for rats or mice have begun to fascinate me more and more. Not in the way the rat guillotine was fascinating, but more in the way of how lab equipment can show so many things about biomedical practices, contexts and knowledge production. The picture above is from an article in the October issue of The Scientist, which Thomas has referred me to, called ‘Lab Toys – How does cage enrichment affect rodents?’. It is a really interesting article (as he knew I would think) about, well, lab toys – and their consequences for lab practices. For instance the article illustrates one of the ...
Source: Biomedicine on Display - October 27, 2009 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Morten Tags: acquisition biotech general history of science medical technology pharma industry recent biomed Source Type: blogs

Medical museums and the Janus-faced future of synthetic biologyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Part of the fun of being involved in a medical museum these days is that the notion of ‘biomedicine’ is so much broader than traditional medicine and health care taught in faculties of medicine and health science. As a university institution for biomedical science communication we are, by default as it were, confronted with some of the most fundamental issues in the world today. Financial crisis, atomic weapon threats and global warming aside — the rapid technical development in biology and biomedicine raises some pretty hefty social, political and ethical questions which we, as a museum, can...
Source: Biomedicine on Display - October 21, 2009 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Thomas Tags: biotech general medical technology museum and knowledge politics public outreach recent biomed social criticism Source Type: blogs

Parkinson's Disease and the Way Exercise Slows DegenerationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study was aimed at investigating this possibility and at examining how exercise protects neural mitochondria." ... At the end of the study, the exercise-trained Parkinson's mice had significantly higher brain dopamine content and exhibited greater brain mitochondrial activity than the sedentary mice. They also performed better in a test that assessed their balancing abilities. "This research provides scientific evidence that long-term endurance exercise protects brain mitochondria and dopamine-producing neurons from undergoing progressive degeneration as demonstrated in the chronic mice model of Parkinson's disease...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 20, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Longevity Advocacy at TEDMED 2009 and BIL PILEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
TEDMED 2009 and the BIL:PIL unconference will be held at the end of this month in San Diego, California: The fifth in a series created by Marc Hodosh and Richard Saul Wurman, TEDMED celebrates conversations that demonstrate the intersection and connections between all things medical and healthcare related: from personal health to public health, devices to design and Hollywood to the hospital. ... The BIL:PIL 2009 Healthcare Innovation Conference will bring together over 200 entrepreneurs, health professionals, technologists, and laypeople to describe the future of healthcare. BIL:PIL will be held in the unconference fo...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 19, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Attacking Cytomegalovirus With RNAiEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is one of the herpesvirus group, viruses that are extremely hard or impossible for the body to clear. They lurk and return time after time. CMV doesn't cause immediate issues in healthy people, but over time it becomes one of the principle causes of the characteristic failure of the immune system with aging: Your immune system is capped in its use of resources; it can only have a set number of T cells in operation at one time. ... chronic infections by the likes of cytomegalovirus (CMV) cause too many of your immune cells to be - uselessly - specialized. ... because you cannot clear it from your syst...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 18, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Biotech and NMEsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In a post called Banning Biotech Paul Kedrosky points to a slide from a presentation he gave last week. The slide compares the number of approved New Molecular Entities (NME’s) to pharma spending over a period of time. As you can see, the chart shows that all that spending has not necessarily resulted in new drugs. I don’t know the gist of the entire presentation, but he writes In short, the mapping of the genome, and other such inflection points in this failure-prone industry, has done nothing to accelerate news drugs, while causing costs to escalate dramatically. That’s success? I would have expected bett...
Source: business|bytes|genes|molecules - October 17, 2009 Category: Bioinformaticians Authors: Deepak Singh Tags: Biotech Business Source Type: blogs

Genentech Surges in U.S. — At Least in NameEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
When Roche bought the balance of Genentech for nearly $50 billion, sentimental souls lamented that the Genentech name, which went way back to the 1970s and dawn of the biotech era, might disappear. Instead, it’s the name “Roche” that will start to vanish, at least in the U.S. — to be replaced with a blue Genentech logo. Roche is rebranding all its medicines in the U.S. as Genentech. That includes non-biotech drugs like Boniva, the osteoporosis drug pitched by Sally Field. The drugs’ individual Web sites will eventually transfer over as well. The move excludes Tamiflu until after the flu season...
Source: WSJ.com: Health Blog - October 16, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Gryta Tags: Biotech Drugs M&A Source Type: blogs

Russian Metabolic Manipulation Research in a NutshellEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The community of Russian researchers interested in engineered longevity bears many resemblances to the English-speaking longevity research community more familiar to you or I. You'll find ties to transhumanist pro-longevity advocacy groups and cryonics organizations, for example. Both communities have been largely working on metabolic manipulation to slow aging for the past ten years, and the older scientists have been involved in the field of aging research for decades - well back into the depths of the cold war, in fact. These days - days in which a great deal of investment is flowing into metabolic manipulation researc...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 15, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Breast Cancer DNA Completely SequencedEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Scientists have begun doing complete genome sequencing of tumor cells from cancer patients. Scientists have sequenced the genomes of two tumors from the same breast cancer patient--a primary tumor and... (Source: FuturePundit)
Source: FuturePundit - October 15, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Biotech Cancer Source Type: blogs

Is Epigenetic Disarray a Cause of Aging?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Your DNA is a blueprint for the protein components of the machinery of your metabolism and structure as a living organism. Gene expression is the process by which a part of the DNA blueprint is interpreted into instructions to build a protein, and epigenetics is the study of ways in which things other than changes in DNA can cause changes in gene expression. The blueprint may be the blueprint, but the execution of that blueprint is a shifting and very complicated process. Epigenetics, it has to be said, is an unfolding and early-stage field. It's poorly understood. People are still arguing over whether accumulated nuclear...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 13, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

The Prospects for Liver Tissue Created on DemandEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It is interesting that heart and bladder tissue engineering have been consistently ahead of work on liver tissue these past years, because the liver is the vital organ most capable of regeneration in humans - as much as three quarters of a lost liver can grow back. In theory, then, the additional effort needed to spur full liver regrowth is less than for other internal organs. From a position of knowledge a decade ago, one might have wagered money on progress in liver tissue engineering leading the pack - but that was not to be. The advent of induced pluripotency is in the process of leveling the tissue engineering playin...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 11, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Liver Cells Made From Skin CellsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We keep getting closer to being able to make needed replacement parts.Researchers converted human skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells and then converted the stem cells into liver cells... (Source: FuturePundit)
Source: FuturePundit - October 11, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Biotech Stem Cells Source Type: blogs

Steady Advances in Tissue EngineeringEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Tissue engineers are, as one might expect, steadily becoming better at building comparatively simple forms of human tissue - not that any tissue is actually simple. Even straightforward muscle like heart tissue is formed of layered types and laced with tiny blood vessels. A great deal of money and expertise is involved these days, however, and challenges will be overcome step by step: University of Washington (UW) researchers have succeeded in engineering human tissue patches free of some problems that have stymied stem-cell repair for damaged hearts. The disk-shaped patches can be fabricated in sizes ranging from less th...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 8, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Tissue Engineers Develop Implantable Heart Muscle PatchesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The reason cars can keep running indefinitely is because their worn out parts can be replaced. By contrast, we have very limited abilities to replace worn out human parts. The... (Source: FuturePundit)
Source: FuturePundit - October 7, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Biotech Tissue Engineering Source Type: blogs

Nanotech, health and longevity — who makes the predictions?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Last week, Computerworld carried an interview with futurist Ray Kurzweil, who predicts that in 30 or 40 years from now nanomachines will travel through our bodies, repairing damaged cells and organs, effectively wiping out diseases: The full realization of nanobots will basically eliminate biological disease and aging. I think we’ll see widespread use in 20 years of [nanotech] devices that perform certain functions for us. In 30 or 40 years, we will overcome disease and aging. The nanobots will scout out organs and cells that need repairs and simply fix them. It will lead to profound extensions of our health and lon...
Source: Biomedicine on Display - October 6, 2009 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Thomas Tags: biotech general medical technology social criticism Source Type: blogs

Attention Paid to AutophagyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Autophagy is good for you. You should be doing more of it. Autophagy is, put simply, the process by which cells recycle damaged components. Of course like all cellular processes the reality on the ground is anything but simple, and autophagy interacts with all sorts of other processes in ways that can produce counter-intuitive results. But the weight of evidence points to more and better autophagy as beneficial overall, most likely because it leads to fewer lingering damaged components inside a cell. Repeated throughout all your cells, this should result in better functioning tissue, fewer errant biological systems, and a...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 5, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Added Genes Stimulate Stem Cells At Injury SitesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Blood vessel growth at sites of injury can be stimulated with stem cells combined with genes that stimulate blood vessel growth. Results: MIT engineers have boosted stem cells' ability to... (Source: FuturePundit)
Source: FuturePundit - October 5, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Biotech Stem Cells Source Type: blogs

A Very Safe PredictionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This, I think, is a very safe prediction by Vaupel et al.: If the pace of increase in life expectancy in developed countries over the past two centuries continues through the 21st century, most babies born since 2000 in France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the USA, Canada, Japan, and other countries with long life expectancies will celebrate their 100th birthdays. Although trends differ between countries, populations of nearly all such countries are ageing as a result of low fertility, low immigration, and long lives. A key question is: are increases in life expectancy accompanied by a concurrent postponement of functional l...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 1, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Pathway Suppresses Muscle Repair As We AgeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
As we age changes in factors excreted by muscle cells suppress stem cells to make them do less repair. So our muscles decay. A change in biochemical signaling can activate... (Source: FuturePundit)
Source: FuturePundit - October 1, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Biotech Stem Cells Source Type: blogs

And Now a Female-Only Longevity Mutation in MiceEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Back in June, I pointed out a longevity mutation that only extends healthy life span in male mice. By way of a bookend to that discovery, here is a mutation that extends healthy life span by 20% or so in female mice only. Researchers have identified a genetic tweak that can slow aging in mice: Caloric restriction has long been known to extend lifespan and reduce the incidence of age-related diseases in a wide variety of organisms, from yeast and roundworms to rodents and primates. Exactly how a nutritionally complete but radically restricted diet achieves these benefits has remained unclear. But recently several studies ...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 30, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Fat, Death, and Other Correlated ItemsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Humans are not laboratory mice, whose lives can be styled to best eliminate confounding factors from studies aiming to demonstrate a nice, neat correlation between cause A and result B. So when you study humans for decades, living their complicated and individualistic lives, you get all the confounding factors you can handle and then some. Take studies of fat, for example, and the strong correlation between extra body fat carried over the years, age-related illness, and a shorter life: American researchers observed more than 17,000 female nurses with an average age of 50 in the U.S. All of the women were healthy when the ...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 29, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

It’s Hard to Make Vaccines. Sometimes That’s a Good Thing.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In the shorthand of the drug business, biotech is sexy and vaccines are boring. But both fields, broadly considered, are “biologicals” — products created with living organisms, as opposed to the mere chemicals that make up traditional drugs. Manufacturing biologicals is much more complicated than manufacturing traditional drugs. That can sometimes be a headache for manufacturers (as Merck’s rash of vaccine manufacturing troubles reminded us a while back). But for those already in the business, it can also be a useful barrier to entry against new competition — particularly in an era when aggre...
Source: WSJ.com: Health Blog - September 29, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Jacob Goldstein Tags: Biotech Global M&A Vaccines Source Type: blogs

Sk-interfaces in extended continuation — now in LuxembourgEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Later today, the art exhibition SK-INTERFACES — originally displayed in Liverpool in 2008 (see earlier post here) — opens in “extended continuation” form (what others would call perpetual beta :-) at Casino Luxembourg in Luxembourg. The opening event features Kira O’Reilly (inthewrongplaceness), Yann Marussich (Bleu Remix), Paul Vanouse (Relative Velocity Inscription Device) and Jun Takita (Light, only light!). The show, which is curated by Jens Hauser, is running until January 10, 2010. Contributing artists include: Art Orienté objet, Maurice Benayoun, Zane Berzina, Critical Art Ensemble, Wim De...
Source: Biomedicine on Display - September 25, 2009 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Thomas Tags: art and biomed biotech displays/exhibits Source Type: blogs

Heat Shock Proteins and Exercise in HumansEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are increasingly seen as important players in the response of our biochemistry to stresses and damage. HSPs are fundamentally chaperones and monitors: they look for damaged proteins that can compromise cellular functions and help to ensure that those proteins are rapidly recycled. When events - such as exposure to heat, hence the name - cause damage in our cells, HSP activity increases for a while to compensate. This is one basis for the phenomenon of hormesis, wherein a little damage applied regularly results in a better, longer lasting biological system: the HSPs are overcompensating. Since ag...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 23, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Accelerated Immune System Aging That Illustrates Normal Immune System AgingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The study of forms of accelerated aging often provides insight into the biochemical processes of normal (and equally undesirable) degenerative aging. Here, we'll look at the aging of the immune system, a comparatively structured form of degeneration that might be viewed as the natural consequence of evolutionary selection: Evolution is a harsh but efficient mistress; you can consider yourself surprisingly well optimised as a piece of machinery, but your warranty only goes so far as the number of years in which your recent ancestors contributed to the success of their offspring. After that, you're on your own - biochemical...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 22, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

The Failure to Account For ProgressEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Much of what passes for debate over organization and policy these days completely ignores progress. It is, in effect, debate over what to do if nothing ever changed - if all availabilities remained constant, if prices never changed, if new resources where not developed, if existing technologies where not improved. This is completely irrational - everyone knows that this is an age of change and progress - but yet it is commonplace, yet another aspect of the phobia of change that seems hardwired into human nature. Take this op-ed, for example: Imagine that someone invented a pill even better than the one I take. Let’s ca...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 21, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Industry watching: The future of pharma is small?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Anyone who reads bbgm knows that I am not a fan of bureaucratic big companies and the current pharma model. So this bit from a talk by Stefan Loren and reported by In the Pipeline piqued my interest Break up large pharma into therapeutic areas and build shared networks between distinct entities. Small organizations can operate far more efficiently in decision making about research directions – use the network to maintain manufacturing efficiencies. Small focused companies will revitalize the industry and offer opportunities for scientists coming out of academia. This is not dissimilar to the model I have thought abou...
Source: business|bytes|genes|molecules - September 20, 2009 Category: Bioinformaticians Authors: Deepak Singh Tags: Biotech Industry Watching Pharma Source Type: blogs

Induced Stem Cells Retain Some Original Cell Type MemoryEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A continuing series of improvements in how to make cells revert to pluripotent (highly flexible) state open up the possibility of stem cell therapies for a large assortment of disorders... (Source: FuturePundit)
Source: FuturePundit - September 19, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Biotech Stem Cells Source Type: blogs

Sarcopenia is an Inflammation-Related Issue?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In conclusion, the observations made in this study have identified low grade inflammation as an important target for pharmacological, nutrition and lifestyle interventions that aim to limit sarcopenia and muscle weakness in the rapidly growing elderly population in Europe and North America. Turning back to calorie restriction once again, you might recall that reduced calorie intake does in fact reduce the level of inflammation suffered with advancing age, an effect possibly achieved though loss of visceral fat tissue. Taken together, all of this is one more reason to take better care of your health, and keep up with those...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 16, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Gene Therapy Fixes Color Blindness In Squirrel MonkeysEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
All male squirrel monkeys are naturally red-green color blind. Gene therapy has successfully restored vision of 2 male squirrel monkeys. Researchers have used gene therapy to restore colour vision in... (Source: FuturePundit)
Source: FuturePundit - September 16, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Biotech Gene Therapy Source Type: blogs

The MethuselarityEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A recent issue of Studies in Health Technology and Informatics includes a number of interesting papers on longevity science, or that relate to developing the tools and research community to enable engineered longevity. You might start with an essay by Aubrey de Grey, in which he coins a new term for an aspect what has in the past been called actuarial escape velocity - the point at which steadily increasing life expectancy rises by more than one year with each passing year: Aging, being a composite of innumerable types of molecular and cellular decay, will be defeated incrementally. I have for some time predicted that thi...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 13, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

$20000 Per Genome Sequencing For 8 At A TimeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Just a month ago Stephen Quake sequenced his genome for $50000. That represents a drop of 80% from the $250k cost of a year ago and orders of magnitude lower... (Source: FuturePundit)
Source: FuturePundit - September 10, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Biotech Advance Rates Source Type: blogs

SENS4 Notes at Ouroboros, Part 2Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
You'll find a few more posts on SENS4 conference sessions at the group science of aging blog Ouroboros, to go along with the other coverage from previous days: SENS4 Conference Converage From Ouroboros More SENS4 Conference Coverage Links to the latest Ouroboros posts follow, starting with a clever use of modern abilities in nanotechnology: if you can somehow tag cells (such as age-damaged immune cells) with a magnetic nanoparticle, then you can use a magnetic field to selectively remove them from a fluid environment: SENS4, Session 15: Rejuvenating the immune system Justin Rebo spoke about some initial experiments th...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 9, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs