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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,447

An Interview with Dr. Joan Mannick of resTORbio

A number of companies are studying and commercializing rapamycin and rapalogs, including resTORbio, a Boston-based company. Tam Hunt got in touch with Dr. Joan Mannick from the company to find out more about this promising anti-aging therapeutic.

Blagoskonny ([3], [4]) has suggested that rapamycin and rapalogs are effective anti-aging therapies today for humans as well as other animals because they arrest “quasi-programmed hypertrophy.” What are your thoughts on Blagoskonny’s theory?

I think Blagoskonny’s theory is very interesting. mTOR stimulates cell growth, and there is data that mTOR becomes hyperactive in some aging tissues. This may explain why TORC1 inhibitors have benefit in aging-related diseases.

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Drug-resistant bugs discovered in animal hospital prompts health warning

Pets in a British animal hospital have been found to be harbouring potentially lethal drug-resistant bugs that could be transferred to owners.

Tests by Public Health England (PHE) revealed three cats a dog were colonised by bacteria able to fend off Linezolid, a “last-resort” antibiotic used to treat superbugs such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).

No staff or owners are known to have been taken ill as a result, however the agency last night warned veterinary surgeries to enforce proper cleaning practices after this first discovery of its kind.

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DNA reveals origin of Stonehenge builders

The ancestors of the people who built Stonehenge travelled west across the Mediterranean before reaching Britain, a study has shown.

Researchers in London compared DNA extracted from Neolithic human remains found in Britain with that of people alive at the same time in Europe.

The Neolithic inhabitants appear to have travelled from Anatolia (modern Turkey) to Iberia before winding their way north.

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90 New Cases of Measles Reported in U.S. as Outbreak Continues Record Pace

The number of new measles cases in the United States rose again this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday, bringing the total number to 555 in 2019. This year’s outbreak is on course to be the worst since the country eliminated measles as an endemic disease in 2000.

Health authorities reported 90 additional cases as of April 11, with outbreaks in New York, Washington, California, New Jersey and Michigan, up from 78 the week before. Those cases were largely linked to travelers returning from countries seeing outbreaks of their own, including Israel, Ukraine and the Philippines.

The disease then spread through populations in which large numbers of people are unvaccinated, the C.D.C. said.

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Paul Greengard, 93, Nobel Prize-Winning Neuroscientist, Is Dead

Dr. Greengard’s research described how cells react to dopamine, an important chemical messenger in the brain. His work provided the underlying science for many antipsychotic drugs, which modulate the strength of chemical signals in the brain.

“Our work shows the details of how dopamine produces these effects — in other words, what’s wrong in these diseases and what can be done to correct them,” Dr. Greengard said.

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Scientists propose putting nanobots in our bodies to create ‘global superbrain’

A team has proposed using nanobots to create the ‘internet of thoughts’, where instant knowledge could be downloaded just by thinking it.

An international team of scientists led by members of UC Berkeley and the US Institute for Molecular Manufacturing predicts that exponential progress in nanotechnology, nanomedicine, artificial intelligence (AI) and computation will lead this century to the development of a human ‘brain-cloud interface’ (B-CI).

Writing in Frontiers in Neuroscience, the team said that a B-CI would connect neurons and synapses in the brain to vast cloud computing networks in real time.

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