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A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in China and one in Korea has developed a micro-robot system that regenerated knee cartilage in rabbits. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their system and how well it worked.

In many developed countries, the population is growing older, which means aging-related health conditions are on the rise. One such ailment common in older people is degeneration of the in the knees and hips. When this happens, a common treatment is replacing the knee or hip joint with an artificial device. In this new effort, the researchers have found a better way to handle the problem—regrowing the cartilage.

Prior research has shown that found in and fat can be coaxed into growing into cartilage cells. And researchers have also found that stem cells can be used to repair damaged cartilage. The challenge is placing the cells in the body where they are needed and keeping them in place until they attach to the surrounding tissue. In this new effort, the researchers have created a system that was able to overcome these hurdles—at least in rabbits.

Early mammalian development is a highly complex process involving elaborate and highly coordinated biological processes. One such process is zygotic genome activation (ZGA) which occurs following the union of the sperm and egg, marking the beginning of life. The resultant early embryos, termed ‘zygotes’ are capable of generating the entire organism, a property known as totipotency.

Totipotent sit atop the developmental hierarchy and have the greatest potency of all cell types, giving it limitless therapeutic potential. Surpassing pluripotent embryonic stem cells, which are only able to differentiate into all within the embryo, the totipotent zygote loses its totipotency as it matures into pluripotency.

Scientists at the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine have now found a way to manipulate pluripotent cells into acquiring the totipotent capacity previously thought to exist only in the zygote. This not only provides key insights into how totipotency is formed and the earliest events in mammalian development, but opens new doors for potential cell therapies that were previously unexplored.

Recently, a team of researchers, including Professor Judy Campisi, has published an atlas charting the inflammatory senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) [1].

The nature of the SASP

As we grow older, increasing numbers of our cells enter a state known as senescence. Senescent cells no longer divide to support and help maintain the tissues that they are a part of and instead secrete a range of harmful inflammatory signals: the SASP.

We are delighted to announce that Dr. Brian Kennedy, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Physiology at the National University of Singapore (NUS) will be joining the LEAF scientific advisory board.

Professor Kennedy is an important figure in the research community, as he is internationally recognized for his research and efforts to translate those findings into therapies that could potentially slow, delay, or even prevent age-related diseases. He previously served as the President of the Buck Institute, where he still remains as a Professor.

At the NUS, he is developing therapeutic interventions that directly target human aging along with biomarkers that can validate if a therapy has worked or not. Professor Kennedy and his team have been exploring the epigenetic clock, a biomarker that measures methylation of the human genome to determine biological age. They are also investigating inflammatory biomarkers of aging using metabolomics, the study of chemical processes involving metabolites, the intermediates and products of metabolism.

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People have been trying to live forever… well forever. Joe Bereta is here to tell you everything you need to know in order to live as long as humanly possible.

Tell us in the comments what you want us to teach you next!

If you rely on the information portrayed in this video, you do so at your own risk and you assume the responsibility for the results. You hereby release Break, its parents, affiliates subsidiaries, and any person included in this programming expressly or implicitly from any and all actions, claims, or demands that you, your heirs, distributees, guardians, next of kin, spouse or legal representatives now have, or may have in the future, for injury, death, property damage, or any other liability that may result related to the information provided in this video.

Starring Joe Bereta — http://twitter.com/joebereta
Episode Animated by Andy Mogren — http://youtube.com/user/AndyMogren
Written by Matthew Brian Cohen
Produced by Joe Bereta and Michael Rainey — https://twitter.com/raineymichaelv
Executive Producer — Andy Signore — http://twitter.com/andysignore

Chip Walter discusses his book, “Immortality, Inc”, at Politics and Prose.

Living forever has always been a dream, but with today’s science, technology, and visionary billionaires, it may be a distinct possibility. At the very least, as Walter reports in this compelling investigation, immortality researchers are changing the way we view aging and death. Looking at the science, business, and culture of this radical endeavor, Walter, a science journalist, author of Last Ape Standing, and former CNN bureau chief, lays out the latest research into stem cell rejuvenation, advanced genomics, and artificial intelligence; talks to key thinkers such as Ray Kurzweil and Aubrey de Grey; and takes us into the Silicon Valley labs of human genomics trailblazer Craig Venter and molecular biologist and Apple chairman Arthur Levinson. Walter is in conversation with Hilary Black, executive editor at National Geographic Books.

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781426219801

CHIP WALTER is a science journalist, filmmaker, and former CNN bureau chief whose books include Last Ape Standing and Thumbs, Toes, and Tears. His writing has appeared in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, and National Geographic, to which he contributed the January 2015 cover story “The First Artists.” He has been interviewed on “All Things Considered” and Michio Kaku’s “Science Fantastic.”

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For those of you who are unaware of why David Sinclair is viewed with ambivalence. The headline seems complimentary, but the details paint a more complex picture that implies one shouldn’t take what Sinclair says and writes without a grain of salt.


Not yet­—but Harvard Medical School professor David Sinclair sure is getting rich, famous, and having a blast while trying.

If you are interested in superlongevity, I have a spectacular book for you: Lifespan — Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To, by David Sinclair PhD.

Sinclair has written a book about all the various ways in which humans can extend their lifespan and their healthspan.

One of the best aspects of this book is that Sinclair has a way of writing that is clear and insightful. It is so rare for me to read a book about scientific experiments in which it is easy to follow the methodology, but it is unique to also have an explanation of the application of the results that is crystal clear. Sinclair does both simply and easily.

Sinclair writes about all of the avenues that I’ve heard of for life extension. Metformin. NAD+. NMN. NR. Diet. Exercise. Resveratrol. Senolytics.

However, the most gripping aspect of this book is Sinclair’s Information Theory of Aging. Here is one excerpt from the book:

“…epigenetic noise causes the same kind of chaos. It is driven in large part by highly disruptive insults to the cell such as broken DNA…And this, according to the Information Theory of Aging is why we age. It’s why our hair grays. It’s why our skin wrinkles. It’s why our joints begin to ache. Moreover, it’s why each one of the hallmarks of aging occurs, from stem cell exhaustion and cellular senescence to mitochondrial dysfunction and rapid telomere shortening.”

Now, I have to admit that I know absolutely nothing about epigenetics. But if it could be this crucial to superlongevity, you better believe I’m going to start learning about epigenetics! And Sinclair does a good job of explaining how epigenetics is crucial in the aging process.