Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: life extension – Page 626

Envisaging For-Profit Alternatives to Fight Aging! and Similar Initiatives

Reason at Fight Aging! discusses the need to fund and support advocacy as much as research. Ultimately profressional advocacy and marketing could help popularize the field. Currently advocacy is left to a handful of volunteers and zealous individuals and that is not an optimal strategy for growth.

Useful activities in our community can be powered either by zealotry or by money. Zealotry has the advantage of being cheap, but the profound disadvantages of being rare, unreliable, and never quite optimally opinionated for the task at hand. Set a zealot to a challenge and you get the output the zealot decides upon, and only for so long as he or she is suitably motivated by whatever internal alchemy is at work in that particular case. Sustainable, reliable, long-term zealots only exist in stories. Money, on the other hand, has the disadvantage of being expensive, but for for so long as income is greater than expenditure, it can be used to produce reliable, sustainable, long-term outcomes. Changing the world always starts with the zealots, but the whole point of the subsequent bootstrapping process is to transition to money rather than zealotry as a power source just about as rapidly as possible. The future is defined by the few visionaries who care greatly enough to set aside their lives to work upon it, but it is enacted by the vastly greater number of people who take a paycheck and go home at the end of the work day.

To the extent we agree that the advocacy, fundraising, and other matters accomplished via Fight Aging! are good things, we’d like to see more of this taking place. More of it, and not dependent on the fickle motivations of zealots. Ultimately that means finding ways to do what Fight Aging! does, but for profit, with money. In this I do not mean Fight Aging! itself, which will be powered by zealotry until such time as the alchemy fails, at which point it will vanish just like everything else does in time, but something like it, and preferably dozens of varied somethings. Experimentation and diversity drive progress, and we won’t find out exactly what it is that Fight Aging! is doing suboptimally without the existence of many other attempts at the same types of initiative.

In the years that I have been running Fight Aging!, I’ve seen many longevity science interest and news sites come and go. Zealotry has a short half-life. When it comes to the money side of the house, things haven’t been much better, however. The typical ad-supported sites roll over and die fairly quickly; there never was enough money in that to do it for a niche interest such as ours over the past fifteen years. Their business models fail, and they linger a little while on the fumes of zealotry until that also departs. The initiatives that try sponsorship from the “anti-aging” marketplace tend to last longer, but are so corrupted by that revenue that they quickly lose all possible usefulness and relevance. You can’t take money from people pushing interventions that do not work and still speak with correctness and authority.

Does the Fountain of Youth really exist?

Previously he said 10 years and that was 2016 where he said 2 years until phase 1 human trials.

Is it an impossible dream to find Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth? No! I’ve just attended my 67th reunion at The Harvard Medical School (HMS) and, while interviewing Dr. George Church, I discovered it is no longer science fiction.

Dr. Church, Professor of Genetics at HMS, one of the world’s great scientists, predicts we are about to end the aging process. In the next five years no less! That’s why I say — damn it! I was born too soon.

Is Church too optimistic? Maybe, but when you see his 6-foot 5 inch body towering over you, with his white beard, it’s like talking to Charles Darwin or even Jesus Christ.

Cell Functional Age Shows How Old You Really Are

A new aging biomarker system has been published and it looks pretty robust.

Chronological age is now generally accepted by academics as being a poor means to identify how a person is aging. Far more useful is a person’s biological age in evaluating how fast someone is aging.

Biological age is assessed using indicators known as aging biomarkers, and as rejuvenation biotechnology draws ever nearer, there is an urgent need for more effective biomarkers. As well as finding effective biomarkers, another challenge in the field of aging research is seeking consensus among academics as to which biomarkers are the best ones to use.

Ok, but why does that matter?

Being able to accurately assess how someone is aging could help them and their healthcare provider to optimize their personal health strategy. It could help to highlight potential problem areas of health before they become serious, for example.

Rejuvenation is good for society

The benefits of rejuvenation biotechnologies would extend to the whole human society. #aging

Rejuvenation isn’t good just for individuals and the people close to them. It is good for society as a whole, for a number of reasons. These reasons—which I will now proceed to discuss—should be enough make rejuvenation research a top priority for humanity in its entirety.

Ever heard anyone lamenting that the great minds of history are no longer with us? That we could certainly do with all the Einsteins, Montalcinis, Fermis, Curies, etc, living longer? And have you ever felt saddened when a great mind of our time died? You probably did, or at the very least know someone who did.

Just imagine how much faster would science and progress march if our greatest physicists, doctors, engineers, philantrophists, etc, could live an indefinitely long life. Remember that we’re not talking about a longer life spent in decrepitude and sickness: We’re talking about a 200-year-old Einstein with the experience of two centuries but the physical and mental agility of a 25-year-old. If he was still alive, maybe he could’ve figured out how to unify general relativity with quantum mechanics—something that has been eluding all efforts for decades. Every time a great person (or any person, for that matter) dies, their particular experience is lost forever. Never mind that there are other experts, or that similar knowledge is found in books; it’s not even remotely the same. Rejuvenation would allow us to benefit from the knowledge and wisdom of the best among us for centuries on end.

Using Macrophages to Reverse Atherosclerosis

Increasing the level of autophagy might be the key to effective treatment of heart disease.

Today we will be looking at a new study that is attempting to treat atherosclerosis, one of the biggest age-related killers globally. As we age, our risk of developing atherosclerosis rises along with related conditions, such as hypertension.

We will be taking a look at new research that has reversed atherosclerosis in mice and is on the road to clinical trials in the future. Before we do that, let’s talk a little bit about how the disease develops and how macrophages work.

What is Atherosclerosis?

Atherosclerosis is an age-related disease where toxic, oxidized cholesterol deposits in the blood stream causes inflammation in the artery wall. This causes macrophages to swarm to the toxic cholesterol deposits, and become either M1 inflammatory or M2 healing cell types depending on the signals there.

Rejuvenation is good for your loved ones

An article discussing the benefits of rejuvenation for your friends and family.

Rejuvenation biotechnologies would bring significant benefits to individuals, but these benefits would indirectly extend to their families and friends too. The ways they can benefit from the rejuvenation of others might be not so obvious, so let’s have a look at them together.

Nearly everyone knows how terrible it is to lose people dear to you. Maybe your grandparents died when you were a child, and that might have been your first encounter with death, at an age when you still couldn’t properly comprehend it. Maybe it happened suddenly, or maybe your grandparents have suffered for long before passing away. Eventually, the moment comes when you start thinking that the same fate awaits your parents, your siblings, your friends. Rejuvenation would spare you seeing your elderly relatives and friends wilt away, suffer and die, because none of that would happen to them. Of course, rejuvenation would spare this pain to your friends and relatives too. Your children and grandchildren would never have to see you become sicker and sicker as you age, and would never—in principle—have to bury you. Today, being 80 means you often have to attend the funeral of a dear friend who passed away. People who have been important parts of your life just keep dying.

Synergy Between Torah and Science: How Far is TOO Far?

This is one of the first articles I’ve seen specifically on #Judiasm and #transhumaism, with input by rabbis. Naturally the article is cautious, but interesting too.

Transhumanism, an intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities, a concept once limited to the realm of science-fiction, is now becoming more of a reality than ever before. The once outlier philosophy is quickly becoming mainstream, an accepted part of the social conscience that is the new religion for the anti-religious, including its own Messianic vision.

There are many aspects to the transhumanism philosophy, often abbreviated as H+ or h+, including physical longevity through medical breakthroughs and/or merging mankind with machines. Many transhumanists advocate transferring the sum total of a person’s knowledge and experiences into a computer and recreating the individual as a form of artificial intelligence ( AI ) in order to extend an individual’s life.

In its most extreme form, transhumanism advocates limiting human population. This extreme philosophy is criticized for being eugenicist master-race ideology and infringing on basic reproductive rights.

Rabbi Avraham Arieh Trugman, director of Ohr Chadash Torah Institute, noted that as in any social reform, the driving intention behind the movement is the key element, the factor that decides whether it will be a positive or negative influence on human history.

Revita Life Sciences Continues to Advance Multi-Modality Protocol in Attempt to Revive Brain Dead Subjects

Rudrapur, Uttrakhand, India — July 02, 2017

Revita Life Sciences, (http://revitalife.co.in) a biotechnology company focused on translational regenerative therapeutic applications, has announced that it is continuing to advance their novel, multi-modality clinical intervention in the state of brain death in humans.

“We have proactively continued to advance our multi-modality protocol, as an extended treatment before extubation, in an attempt to reverse the state of brain death” said Mr.Pranjal Agrawal, CEO Revita Life Sciences. “This treatment approach has yielded some very encouraging initial outcome signs, ranging from minor observations on blood pressure changes with response to painful stimuli, to eye opening and finger movements, with corresponding transient to permanent reversal changes in EEG patterns.”

This first exploratory study, entitled “Non-randomized, Open-labelled, Interventional, Single Group, and Proof of Concept Study with Multi-modality Approach in Cases of Brain Death Due to Traumatic Brain Injury Having Diffuse Axonal Injury” is ongoing at Anupam Hospital, Rudrapur, Uttrakhand. The intervention primarily involves intrathecal administration of minimal manipulated (processed at point of care) autologous stem cells derived from patient’s fat and bone marrow twice a week.

This study was inappropriately removed from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) database. ICMR has no regulatory oversight on such research in India.

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), Drug Controller General of India, had no objection to the program progressing. Regulatory approval as needed for new drugs, is currently not required when research is conducted on the recently deceased, although IRB and family consent is definitely required. CDSCO, the regulator of such studies, clearly states that “no regulatory requirements are needed for any study with minimal manipulated autologous stem cells in brain death subjects”.

Death is defined as the termination of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Brain death, the complete and irreversible loss of brain function (including involuntary activity necessary to sustain life) as defined in the 1968 report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School, is the legal definition of human death in most countries around the world. Either directly through trauma, or indirectly through secondary disease indications, brain death is the final pathological state that over 60 million people globally transfer through each year.

“We are in process of publishing our initial retrospective results, as well ongoing early results, in a peer reviewed journal. These initial findings will prove invaluable to the future evolution of the program, as well as in progressing the development multi-modality regenerative therapeutics for the full range of the severe disorders of consciousness, including coma, PVS, the minimally conscious state, and a range of other degenerative CNS conditions in humans,” said Dr. Himanshu Bansal, Chief Scientific Officer, Revita Life Sciences and Director of Mother Cell.

With the maturation of the tools of medical science in the 21st century, especially cell therapies and regenerative medicines, tissues once considered irretrievable, may finally be able to be revived or rejuvenated. Hence many scientists believe that brain death, as presently defined, may one day be reversed. While the very long term goal is to find a solution for “re-infusing life”, the short term purpose of these types of studies is much less dramatic, which is to confirm if the current definition of brain irreversibility still holds true. There have been many anecdotal reports of brain death reversal across the world over the past decades in the scientific literature. Studies of this nature serve to verify and establish this very fact in a scientific and controlled manner. It will also one day give a fair chance to individuals, who are declared brain dead, especially after trauma.

About Revita Life Sciences

Revita Life Sciences is a biotechnology company focused on the development of stem cell therapies and regenerative medicine interventions that target areas of significant unmet medical need. Revita is led by Dr. Himanshu Bansal MD, who has spent over two decades developing novel MRI based classifications of spinal cord injuries as well as comprehensive treatment protocols with autologous tissues including bone marrow stem cells, Dural nerve grafts, nasal olfactory tissues, and omental transposition.

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