Lifeboat Foundation

Aubrey De Grey discusses the progress and potential of therapies related to his ideas on anti-aging medicine, including the four therapies that will be tested in a mouse rejuvenation trial. He also shares his thoughts on partnering with organizations and individuals in the field, integrating AI into his work, and the importance of structure in maximizing impact. Aubrey de Grey discusses the potential for Yamanaka factors to be used in organ rejuvenation, and the role of transcription factors in creating induced pluripotent stem cells. He also provides advice for those interested in getting involved in the field and shares his views on time management and productivity. Aubrey De Grey discusses the potential for reversing the pathology of aging to address mechanical issues and mentions promising research being conducted by MAIA Biotechnology on cancerous cells that express telomerase. He also expresses his optimism about the possibility of reaching “longevity escape velocity” within the next 15 years.

Youtube:
Aubrey De Grey links.
https://twitter.com/aubreydegrey?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctw…r%5Eauthor.
https://www.levf.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aubrey-de-grey-24260b/

Continue reading “Aubrey De Grey: longevity escape velocity, longevity, mouse rejuvenation, Altos Labs, Yamanaka factor” »

The reason your three-pound brain doesn’t feel heavy is because it floats in a reservoir of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which flows in and around your brain and spinal cord. This liquid barrier between your brain and skull protects it from a hit to your head and bathes your brain in nutrients.

But the CSF has another critical, if less known, function: it also provides immune protection to the brain. Yet, this function hasn’t been well studied.

A Northwestern Medicine study of CSF has discovered its role in cognitive impairment, such as Alzheimer’s disease. This discovery provides a new clue to the process of neurodegeneration, said study lead author David Gate, assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

A new study by Burke Neurological Institute (BNI), Weill Cornell Medicine, finds that activation of MAP2K signaling by genetic engineering or non-invasive repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) promotes corticospinal tract (CST) axon sprouting and functional regeneration after spinal cord injury (SCI) in mice.

RTMS is a noninvasive technique that evokes an electrical field in brain tissue via electromagnetic induction. While an increasing body of evidence suggests that rTMS applied over motor cortex may be beneficial for functional recovery in SCI patients, the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie rTMS’ beneficial effects remains unclear.

A new study published in Science Translation Medicine showed that high-frequency rTMS (HF-rTMS) activated MAP2K signaling and enhanced axonal regeneration and functional recovery, suggesting that rTMS might be a valuable treatment option for SCI individuals.

Exercise and physical activity reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). It has been observed that an active individual is at a 30% to 40% lower risk of CVD. However, previous cross-sectional studies have failed to determine whether exercise has a significant impact on expediting coronary atherosclerosis and plaque morphology. A recent Circulation journal paper has focused on investigating the relationship between exercise volume and intensity and the progression of coronary atherosclerosis in middle-aged and older male athletes.

Study: Exercise Volume Versus Intensity and the Progression of Coronary Atherosclerosis in Middle-Aged and Older Athletes: Findings From the MARC-2 Study. Image Credit: sciencepics / Shutterstock.

People age at different rates due to a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, which can affect their biological age and their risk of developing diseases or experiencing early death. This is why two individuals who are both 50 years old may not have the same level of biological aging, despite having lived for the same number of years.

Lifestyle choices, such as diet and smoking, and illness all contribute to accelerating biological age beyond one’s chronological age. Researchers have discovered that grip strength, a measure of overall muscle strength, is linked to biological age in this way. In particular, the study, which was published in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia, and Muscle, found that people with weaker grip strength had older biological ages.

Researchers at Michigan Medicine modeled the relationship between biological age and grip strength of 1,274 middle-aged and older adults using three “age acceleration clocks” based on DNA.

Doctors should be on the lookout for three types of fungi that, when inhaled, can lead to serious infections, researchers say.

This past year, global attention has been focused on geo-strategic issues, such as the devastating war in Ukraine, which has dislocated many and caused immense suffering. Attention has also been focused on the recovery from the COVID pandemic, which was the overriding concern over the past three years. And finally, the economic destruction wrought by rapidly ramped interest rates which have targeted all sectors of the economy, particularly technology. But despite all this negativity, the business of building the future continues. There has been progress across major axes of computing, from visualization to AI and new types of processors (quantum).

With immense progress in technology, what might we look forward to in 2023?

Though it is a cornerstone of virtually every process that occurs in living organisms, the proper folding and transport of biological proteins is a notoriously difficult and time-consuming process to experimentally study.

In a new paper published in eLife, researchers in the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Computer Science have shown that AF2Complex may be able to lend a hand.

Building on the models of DeepMind’s AlphaFold 2, a machine learning tool able to predict the detailed three-dimensional structures of individual proteins, AF2Complex—short for AlphaFold 2 Complex—is a deep learning tool designed to predict the physical interactions of multiple proteins. With these predictions, AF2Complex is able to calculate which proteins are likely to interact with each other to form functional complexes in unprecedented detail.

This week our guest is business and technology reporter, Peter Ward. Earlier this year, Peter released his book The Price of Immortality: The Race to Live Forever, where he investigates the many movements and organizations that are seeking to extend human life, from the Church of Perpetual Life in Florida, to some of the biggest tech giants in Silicon Valley.

In this episode, we explore Peter’s findings, which takes us on a tour from cryonics to mind uploading, from supplements to gene editing, and much more. Along the way, we discuss the details of how one might actually achieve immortality, the details of senescent cells and telomeres, whether it’s better to live healthy than to live long, the scams and failures that seem to dominate the space, as well as the efforts that seem most promising.

Continue reading “The Failures and Opportunities of Immortality | Peter Ward, Feedback Loop, ep 75” »