Category Archives: Longevity Medicine

From Singularity Hub: "In order to work in the human body, an artificial cornea has to meet some rather stringent requirements. First, it has to bond to the human eye around its edge, but stay unclouded by cells in its center. To that end, [researchers] took a widely used opthalmological polymer (found often in intraocular lenses) and adapted it with other special polymers around the edges. Combined with the application of a growth factor protein, the modified edge promoted cell growth around the periphery of the implant and secured it in place using the body's own cells. The center of the artificial cornea, however, does not promote cell growth and remains clear so that it can be seen through. The artificial cornea also has to move freely with the eyelid and balance moisture on its faces. The polymer [researchers] chose is hydrophobic, allowing tears to lubricate the surface and provide the correct moisture on both of its sides. ... The artificial cornea has passed clinical trials and is ready to see expanded use in patients this year."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://singularityhub.com/2010/06/02/germanys-artificial-cornea-getting-ready-to-restore-sight-to-thousands/

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

Researchers are turning up new longevity genes at a fair rate these days, and this latest discovery is illustrative of the methods used - start with what you know, and compare and contrast: "A major challenge in translating the positive effects of dietary restriction (DR) for the improvement of human health is the development of therapeutic mimics. One approach to finding DR mimics is based upon identification of the proximal effectors of DR life span extension. Whole genome profiling of DR in Drosophila shows a large number of changes in gene expression, making it difficult to establish which changes are involved in life span determination as opposed to other unrelated physiological changes. We used comparative whole genome expression profiling to discover genes whose change in expression is shared between DR and two molecular genetic life span extending interventions related to DR, increased dSir2 and decreased Dmp53 activity. We find twenty-one genes shared among the three related life span extending interventions. One of these genes, takeout, thought to be involved in circadian rhythms, feeding behavior and juvenile hormone binding is also increased in four other life span extending conditions: Rpd3, Indy, chico and methuselah. We demonstrate takeout is involved in longevity determination by specifically increasing adult takeout expression and extending life span. These studies demonstrate the power of comparative whole genome transcriptional profiling for identifying specific downstream elements of the DR life span extending pathway."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20519778

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

Researchers are turning up new longevity genes at a fair rate these days, and this latest discovery is illustrative of the methods used - start with what you know, and compare and contrast: "A major challenge in translating the positive effects of dietary restriction (DR) for the improvement of human health is the development of therapeutic mimics. One approach to finding DR mimics is based upon identification of the proximal effectors of DR life span extension. Whole genome profiling of DR in Drosophila shows a large number of changes in gene expression, making it difficult to establish which changes are involved in life span determination as opposed to other unrelated physiological changes. We used comparative whole genome expression profiling to discover genes whose change in expression is shared between DR and two molecular genetic life span extending interventions related to DR, increased dSir2 and decreased Dmp53 activity. We find twenty-one genes shared among the three related life span extending interventions. One of these genes, takeout, thought to be involved in circadian rhythms, feeding behavior and juvenile hormone binding is also increased in four other life span extending conditions: Rpd3, Indy, chico and methuselah. We demonstrate takeout is involved in longevity determination by specifically increasing adult takeout expression and extending life span. These studies demonstrate the power of comparative whole genome transcriptional profiling for identifying specific downstream elements of the DR life span extending pathway."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20519778

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

Accelerated aging conditions may result from individual aspects of "normal" aging run wild and out of control. This means we can potentially learn more about those mechanisms. For example: "a gene shown to play a role in the aging process appears to play a role in the regulation of the differentiation of embryonic stem cells. ... researchers identified a protein interaction that controls the silencing of Oct4, a key transcription factor that is critical to ensuring that embryonic stem cells remain pluripotent. The protein, WRNp, is the product of a gene associated with Werner syndrome, an autosomal recessive disorder hallmarked by premature aging. ... We showed that the depletion of WRNp blocked the recruitment of Dnmt3b to the Oct4 promoter, and resulted in reduced methylation. The reduced DNA methylation was associated with continued Oct4 expression, which resulted in attenuated differentiation. ... These results reveal a novel function of WRNp, and demonstrate that WRNp controls a key step in pluripotent stem cell differentiation. Our data support the emerging hypothesis that attenuated stem cell differentiation is involved in aging. This lack of differentiated cells may contribute to failure to maintain organ or tissue function in the later stages of life."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://sify.com/news/aging-related-gene-plays-role-in-stem-cell-differentiation-news-international-kgfnOiabcdj.html

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

While we're on the subject of the importance of the brain to engineered longevity, here is news of an infrastructural advance from EurekAlert!: "The Allen Institute for Brain Science announced today that it has launched the Allen Human Brain Atlas, a publicly available online atlas charting genes at work throughout the human brain. The data provided in this initial data release represent the most extensive and detailed body of information about gene activity in the human brain to date, documenting which genes are expressed, or 'turned on' where. In the coming years, the Atlas will be expanded with more data and more sophisticated search, analysis and visualization tools to create a comprehensive resource useful to an increasingly wide range of scientists and research programs worldwide. The Allen Human Brain Atlas, available at http://www.brain-map.org, is a unique multi-modal atlas of the human brain that integrates anatomic and genomic information to create a searchable, three-dimensional map of gene activity in the brain. Data modalities in this resource include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and histology - providing information about gross neuroanatomy, pathways of neural connections, and microscopic anatomy, respectively - as well as gene expression data derived from multiple approaches."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-05/aifb-aif052410.php

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

Here is a presentation given by researcher Anders Sandberg for Google's Tech Talk series: "The idea of creating a faithful, one-to-one computer copy of a human brain has been a popular philosophical thought experiment and science fiction plot for decades. While computational neuroscience and systems biology are currently very far away from this goal, the trends towards large-scale simulation, industrialized neuroinformatics, new forms of microscopy and powerful computing clusters point in this direction and are enabling new forms of simulations of unprecendented scope. In this talk I will discuss current estimates of how close we are to achieving emulated brains, technological requirements, research challenges and some of the possible consequences." A little while back the Future of Humanity Institute published a roadmap to whole brain emulation. This topic is of interest to supporters of engineered longevity as a part of the very long term goal of incrementally replacing the vulnerable biology of the brain with something more robust and damage-resistant. Such as, for example, clusters of diamondoid nanomachines designed to emulate the functions of neurons.

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2010/06/whole_brain_emulation_the_logical_endpoint_of_neuroinformatics.html

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/