Lifeboat Foundation

Investigators who previously developed a recipe for turning skin cells into primitive muscle-like cells that can be maintained indefinitely in the lab without losing the potential to become mature muscle have now uncovered how this recipe works and what molecular changes it triggers within cells. The research, which was led by scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and is published in Genes & Development, could allow clinicians to generate patient-matched muscle cells to help treat muscle injuries, aging-related muscle degeneration, or conditions such as muscular dystrophy.

It’s known that expression of a muscle regulatory gene called MyoD is sufficient to directly convert skin cells into mature muscle cells; however, mature muscle cells do not divide and self-renew, and therefore they cannot be propagated for clinical purposes. “To address this shortcoming, we developed a system several years ago to convert skin cells into self-renewing muscle stem-like cells we coined induced myogenic progenitor cells, or iMPCs. Our system uses MyoD in combination with three chemicals we previously identified as facilitators of cell plasticity in other contexts,” explains senior author Konrad Hochedlinger, Ph.D., a principal investigator at the Center for Regenerative Medicine at MGH and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

In this latest study, Hochedlinger and his colleagues uncovered the details behind how this combination converts skin cells into iMPCs. They found that while MyoD expression alone causes skin cells to take on the identity of mature muscle cells, adding the three chemicals causes the skin cells to instead acquire a more primitive stem cell–like state. Importantly, iMPCs are molecularly highly similar to muscle tissue stem cells, and muscle cells derived from iMPCs are more stable and mature than muscle cells produced with MyoD expression alone.

“University Of The 3rd Age” — Seniors Staying Intellectually Challenged, Socially Engaged, And Physically And Mentally Healthy — Maya Abi Chahine, University for Seniors, American University of Beirut (AUB)

AUB (https://www.aub.edu.lb/seniors/Pages/default.aspx).

Continue reading “Maya Abi Chahine, Program Manager, University for Seniors, American University of Beirut” »

If you’ve ever seen a petunia with artfully variegated petals, then you’ve seen transposons at work. The flower’s showy color patterns are due to transposable elements, or DNA sequences that can move locations within a genome. Yet when it comes to transposons’ effects on humans, the results might not be as lovely or desirable.

As researchers learn more about these so-called mobile genetic elements, they’ve found increasing evidence that transposons influence and even promote aging and age-related diseases like cancer as well as neurogenerative and autoimmune disorders, says John Sedivy, a professor of biology and director of the Center on the Biology of Aging at Brown. Sedivy is the corresponding author of a new review article in Nature that discusses the latest thinking and research around transposons.

“Let’s put it this way: These things can be pretty dangerous,” said Sedivy. “If they are uncontrolled, and there are many examples of that, transposons can have profound consequences on most forms of life that we know of.”

The Conboys are looking at human trials soon but not with E5. it will be interesting to see how their trial compares to this E5 dog trial.

In this video Dr. Fahy shares his opinion on some of the up and coming anti-aging therapies, including NAD boosters, Hyperbaric Oxygen Chambers and senolytics.

Continue reading “E5 On Dogs Project: Validating The 54% Reduction In Epigenetic Age | Dr Greg Fahy Episode 8” »

Unlike humans, these eight-armed creatures can form crystal-clear memories even in their final weeks.

Immortal bacteria genetic mechanisms could be used in crispr to make humans truly Immortal: 3.

Researchers successfully resuscitated bacteria from the South Pacific Gyre that were buried under marine snow for 100 million years.

“So many genes are involved in DNA maintenance, FOXO3 for example, which is very interesting, but it cannot be a therapeutic target because it will trigger a lot of other things,” he explains. “SIRT6 is coding for only one protein and, because it’s a small protein, the cargo size is not too big and it can be easily delivered into cells, so it’s possible to use it as a gene therapy target.”

Some of the other factors that play in Genflow’s favour, says Leire, are that the world has reached a better understanding of the biology of aging, but also that gene therapy has also progressed well over the years.

Quick vid and a reminder of the 4th conference of Lifespan.io is this weekend.

Gene editing can make stem cells invisible to the immune system, making it possible to carry out cell therapy transplants without suppressing the patients’ immune response. Scientists in the US and Germany used immune engineering to develop universal cell products that could be used in all transplant patients. The idea is to create stem cells that evade the immune system; these hypoimmune stem cells are then used to generate cells of the desired type that can be transplanted into any patient without the need for immunosuppression, since the cells won’t elicit an immune response. They used CRISPR-Cas9 to knock out two genes involved in the major histocompatibility complex, which is used for self/non-self discrimination. They also increased the expression of a protein that acts as a “don’t eat me” signal to protect cells from macrophages. Together, these changes made the stem cells look less foreign and avoid clearance by macrophages. The team then differentiated endothelial cells and cardiomyocytes from the engineered stem cells, and they used these to treat three different diseases in mice. Cell therapy treatments using the hypoimmune cells were effective in rescuing hindlimbs from vascular blockage, preventing lung damage in an engineered mouse model, and maintaining heart function following a myocardial infarction. Immunosuppression poses obvious risks to a patient, and generating custom cells for transplant therapy is often prohibitively expensive. The development of universal donor cells that can be used as therapeutics could bring the cost down significantly, making cellular therapeutics available to many more patients in a much safer way.

Continue reading “CRISPR Development Makes Stem Cells ‘Invisible’ to Immune System Without Immunosuppressants” »

Alpha-ketoglutarate is a good example of a much more science-based substance to impact aging. But only using AKG is not enough to significantly slow down the aging process. There are many reasons why we age, and AKG can also address only a few of them, in a very specific way.

Note: Since I’m leaving on vacation tomorrow (Yellowstone baby!), we’ve got a special guest post for you this week from Dr. Kris Verburgh and the fine folks at Novos Labs; a longevity supplement startup targeting multiple aging hallmarks with different life-extending compounds. They’ve been featured on Longevity. Technology and also have a fantastic blog we’ll link to below that’s worth checking out. Since our next content block will be all about different anti-aging supplements and the science behind them, we thought this overview of Alpha-Ketoglutaric Acid (AKG) for longevity would serve as a nice teaser for when we finish up diet and nutrition in October and switch over. So without further ado, take it away, Kris!

In the last few years, we have seen the rise of more science-based supplements to slow down aging.

Continue reading “The Role of Alpha-Ketoglutaric Acid (AKG) in Longevity and Healthy Aging” »