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Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 1928

Jun 13, 2018

Lentils significantly reduce blood glucose levels, study reveals

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, health

Replacing potatoes or rice with pulses can lower your blood glucose levels by more than 20 per cent, according to a first-ever University of Guelph study.

Prof. Alison Duncan, Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences, and Dan Ramdath of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, found that swapping out half of a portion of these starchy side dishes for can significantly improve your body’s response to the carbohydrates.

Replacing half a serving of rice with lentils caused to drop by up to 20 per cent. Replacing potatoes with lentils led to a 35-per-cent drop.

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Jun 13, 2018

Review current and up-coming rejuvenation therapies

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Really excited to announce our new initiative to make early-stage rejuvenation therapies more accessible.


Our mission is to enable people to vastly extend their healthy lifespan and be part of the first generation to cure aging.

We support the development of rejuvenation therapies that undo the damage of aging by funding basic research, bringing together the world’s leading scientists at our annual Undoing Aging conference and helping startups that work on actual therapies for human use.

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Jun 13, 2018

Juvenescence Completes $50 Million Series A Financing Round

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business, life extension

We were interested to learn that Juvenescence Limited, a biotech and development company involved in the development of therapies that target the aging processes, has successfully raised $50 million in a series A financing round.

Jim Mellon, the chairman of Juvenescence Limited, said, “We are delighted with the progress we have made and the faith that investors have placed in us to build a world-class company, one that we hope will lead the field in longevity science for the benefit of humanity as well as yield superb returns for our shareholders. Our company ethos is to advance the science that will add years of healthy life to every human being, and that is exactly what we are executing on at record speed.”

Juvenescence has raised $63 million from various international investors since its creation in October 2016 and is now moving forward with a number of key projects. The company is comprised of a number of industry leaders in business as well as a solid scientific team led by Dr. Declan Doogan and Dr. Annalisa Jenkins.

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Jun 12, 2018

Major research reveals CRISPR gene-editing could increase cancer risk in cells

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics

Two recently published studies are raising new concerns that the breakthrough CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system could potentially trigger an increased cancer risk in cells edited using the technique. With human trials using the gene-editing technique set to commence this year, the scientists behind these new studies urge researchers to be aware of this newly discovered and dangerous cancer-driving mechanism.

It has been less than a decade since the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique was discovered, allowing scientists an unprecedented way to accurately edit DNA. For the most part, the technique has proved promising, safe and effective. Last year, a controversial study was published claiming the technique could introduce unintended, off-target mutations, but after a flurry of criticism attacking the veracity of the work it was ultimately retracted.

These two new studies raise entirely new concerns regarding the technique’s potential for triggering cancer in edited cells. One study comes from a collaboration between the University of Cambridge and the Karolinska Institutet, while the other is led by a team of researchers at pharmaceutical company Novartis.

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Jun 12, 2018

Starch can replace normal plastic in food packaging

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, food

Eventually all petroleum-based material in food packaging will have to be replaced with bio-based material. Research done at Karlstad University shows that a mixture of starch and other polymers forms an equally effective protective barrier.

“Food packaging has to protect and extend the of food, and should also work during transport,” says Asif Javed, doctor in Chemical Engineering at Karlstad University. “To meet these demands, a protective barrier is needed in paper-based packing such as those used for juice or dairy.”

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Jun 12, 2018

Is Inflammaging Started by Microbial Burden?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Today we are going to take a look at the emerging theory that inflammaging, a chronic, age-related background of inflammation, is caused by alterations to the populations of intestinal microbes.

What is inflammaging?

Inflammaging is a term coined to describe the chronic, smoldering background of inflammation that accompanies the aging process. It is constant, low-grade inflammation that interferes with stem cell mobility, cellular communication, and the immune system’s ability to operate correctly.

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Jun 11, 2018

Lasik’s Risks Are Coming Into Sharper Focus

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Some patients who undergo the eye surgery report a variety of side effects. They may persist for years, studies show.

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Jun 11, 2018

Drug-free bandage heals diabetic wounds faster

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Because diabetics often have both nerve damage and poor circulation, they will often not notice when they receive skin wounds, which proceed to heal very slowly. Those wounds can thus become chronic, sometimes even leading to amputations. A new regenerative bandage, however, could help keep this from happening.

Led by Prof. Guillermo Ameer, a team from Illinois’ Northwestern University started with a protein known as laminin. Found in the skin and most of the body’s other tissues, it communicates with cells, prompting them to differentiate, migrate and adhere to one another.

The scientists were able to identify a specific segment of the protein, which plays a key role in the wound-healing process. That segment is made up of just 12 amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), and it’s called A5G81. Because A5G81 is so much smaller and simpler than the entire laminin protein, it’s much cheaper and easier to synthesize in the lab.

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Jun 11, 2018

Bioquark Inc. — “Living Forever” — Future Sandwich Podcast — Ira Pastor

Posted by in categories: aging, bioengineering, biotech/medical, cryonics, DNA, futurism, genetics, health, life extension, Peter Diamandis

Jun 11, 2018

I was going blind

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Blind Man

I was going blind which is not a good thing when you need to see to run a growing nonprofit. Luckily, it is 2018 and technology is advancing at an exponential rate so I had some options. Following is my story which is relevant for many reasons including that we virtually all develop eye problems over time and the state of the art available is constantly changing.

MY STORY

I finally couldn’t read text at normal resolution on my 60″ monitor which is about 4 feet from my face (and normally at 1600×900 resolution to make the text bigger) so it was time to go to the optician again. The optician considerably upgraded my prescription to −17.25 diopters on my left eye and −12.25 diopters on my right eye but warned me that this might not improve my vision much due to the beginning of cataracts in my eyes. So unlike in the past where I bought my glasses from outside the country due to restrictions on being able to purchase thin lenses in the U.S. that were implemented during the Nixon administration, I ordered glasses locally so I could speed up the process.

I was unable to see well with the new glasses so it was time to visit an ophthalmologist that my optician recommended. The ophthalmologist had the following assessment:

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