Lifeboat Foundation

Progress in real science is steady, follows proper methodology and respects engineering safety. We live in an amazing world where medical progress is advancing rapidly, sadly we also have those willing to jump the gun hawking unproven experimental therapies without sufficient data.

Unproven therapies and people jumping the gun to make a quick buck are a plague in the aging research field. Real science is slow and methodical but ultimately gets results that ensure safe therapies can be deployed in the healthcare arena. At Lifespan.io we are passionate about supporting the progress of science that is conducted properly.

“The life science community should embrace the discrediting of unproven therapies promoted without data for economic gain, and instead focus on the promise of research held to the highest standards.”

Continue reading “Reviving optimism for regenerative medicine” »

Chinese researchers, looking for a cure to lung cancer, inject the first ever Crispr-edited cells into a human being.

Harsh environment, less rain, and lack of infrastructure are among the many problems African countries face. Water scarcity and the lack of drinkable water, however, is a grave problem among all. It makes people use water from contaminated bodies which is the sole reason of water borne diseases like, diarrhea and typhoid.

Hundreds of organizations around the globe have taken this issue head-on. And Google, one of the most innovative companies of the planet, is in the league, too.

Google has launched multiple projects including Project Makani and Project Loon to resolve the power outages and connectivity issues in areas where they are most needed. Since the power and connectivity issues are already being worked upon, Google took another step to help these countries fight the water scarcity problem.

Continue reading “Google’s Water Harvesting Rafts Could Save Water Scarcity In Africa” »

In Brief:

• A drug already in use to treat chronic diseases like Multiple Sclerosis has been discovered to also effectively restore nerve function.
• The Department of Defense also has shown confidence in the drug by giving a million dollars to help fund research.

A new study led by the University of Rochester Medical Center suggests that a currently available drug may have properties that allow it to be used for the treatment of traumatic nerve injuries sustained in car accidents, sports injuries, or in combat.

Transfer printing microstructures onto novel hydrogel interfaces and customised composite electrodes could increase the compatibility and information transfer between body tissue and electronic devices.

Implantable devices such as pacemakers, cochlear implants, and deep brain stimulation devices enhance the quality of life for many people. Improving the integration of such devices with the body could enable the next generation of brain-machine interfaces (such as, implantable devices that can record and modulate neurological function in vivo) to monitor physiology, detect disease, and deploy bioelectronic medicines.

After 3D-printing a mouse thyroid gland and successfully transplanting it last year, Russia’s 3D Bioprinting Solutions is aiming to make a human kidney by 2030, the company’s scientists told Sputnik.

© Sputnik/ Sergey Guneev

Continue reading “Stamping Out Disease: Russian Scientists Aim to Bioprint Human Kidneys By 2030” »

As the year moves on and we look back at the achievements this year we would be remiss to not mention the fantastic result we got for the OncoSENS fundraiser hosted on Lifespan.io. We raised an amazing $72,002 for ALT cancer research thanks to the amazing supporters we have. Thank you to everyone who helped and donated to OncoSENS to make it another victory for SENS Research and for Science!

#aging #sens

Luv it! Wait until we make the marriage of QC meets Synbio — QC for the infrastructure and communications, and Synbio makes us all connected.

Cambridge, MA (Scicasts) — Synthetic biology allows scientists to design genetic circuits that can be placed in cells, giving them new functions such as producing drugs or other useful molecules. However, as these circuits become more complex, the genetic components can interfere with each other, making it difficult to achieve more complicated functions.

MIT researchers have now demonstrated that these circuits can be isolated within individual synthetic “cells,” preventing them from disrupting each other. The researchers can also control communication between these cells, allowing for circuits or their products to be combined at specific times.

Continue reading “Synthetic Cells to Isolate Genetic Circuits Created” »

Scientists have discovered an antibody produced by an HIV-positive patient that neutralises 98 percent of all HIV strains tested — including most of the strains that are resistant to other antibodies of the same class.

Due to HIV’s ability to rapidly respond to the body’s immune defences, an antibody that can block a wide range of strains has been very hard to come by. But now that we’ve found one, it could form the basis of a new vaccine against the virus.

Researchers from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that the antibody, called NG, was able to maintain its ability to recognise the HIV virus, even as the virus morphed and broke away from it.

Continue reading “Scientists Have Identified an Antibody That Neutralises 98% of HIV Strains” »