Category Archives: Longevity Medicine

From the SENS Foundation: "Progress toward the goal of tissue rejuvenation via stem cells and tissue engineering ("RepleniSENS") is badly hampered by the surprising fragility of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) relative to mouse ESC (mESC). Unlike their murine counterparts, hESC undergo extensive cell death following enzymatic single-cell dissociation; as a result, researchers are forced to rely on laborious mechanical microdissection, or on narrowly-control enzymatic dissociation that ensures that hESC remain above a minimum cluster size. These requirements make their expansion extremely tedious and inefficient. The reasons for the intolerance of hESC to full dissociation - and the development of means to ameliorate it - are therefore of considerable biomedical as well as scientific interest. This month, researchers [report] that they have at once apparently provided the detailed molecular basis for this frustrating anomaly, and its abrogation using either modified culture protocols or either of two small molecules. ... Injected into an area that already enjoys a high level of government and industry investment, these tools bring us closer to realizing the promise of cell therapies and tissue engineering for the treatment of a range of age-related and traumatic diseases and disorders, as well as for the rejuvenation of aging tissues."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.sens.org/node/763

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

Accelerating Future notes an example of Alcor's work in cryonics provision. We only tend to hear about the times when unusual obstructions crop up, and so it's worth a reminder that Alcor's staff and volunteers regularly make the difficult organization of a cryosuspension look routine: "This past month, Alcor was faced with three members who were admitted to hospice with end-stage conditions. On back-to-back days, two of our members were cryopreserved while the third member's condition has temporarily improved. Through careful planning, we were able to have two members admitted into the same Hospice of the Valley facility, literally across the hall from each other. This allowed Alcor's Arizona team to carefully monitor both members' conditions simultaneously, 24 hours a day. Having three team members and Alcor's Rescue Vehicle on site, we were able to provide immediate stabilization and cool down procedures and exceptionally quick transfer from time of pronouncement to Alcor's surgery suite in 40 minutes and 32 minutes, respectively. These cases were very important as they tested numerous benchmarks of Alcor's abilities ... The real benefit of all of our preparations, training and planning is to our members, who reportedly received excellent perfusions."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2010/05/alcors-93rd-and-94th-patients-cryopreserved-back-to-back/

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

Accelerating Future notes an example of Alcor's work in cryonics provision. We only tend to hear about the times when unusual obstructions crop up, and so it's worth a reminder that Alcor's staff and volunteers regularly make the difficult organization of a cryosuspension look routine: "This past month, Alcor was faced with three members who were admitted to hospice with end-stage conditions. On back-to-back days, two of our members were cryopreserved while the third member's condition has temporarily improved. Through careful planning, we were able to have two members admitted into the same Hospice of the Valley facility, literally across the hall from each other. This allowed Alcor's Arizona team to carefully monitor both members' conditions simultaneously, 24 hours a day. Having three team members and Alcor's Rescue Vehicle on site, we were able to provide immediate stabilization and cool down procedures and exceptionally quick transfer from time of pronouncement to Alcor's surgery suite in 40 minutes and 32 minutes, respectively. These cases were very important as they tested numerous benchmarks of Alcor's abilities ... The real benefit of all of our preparations, training and planning is to our members, who reportedly received excellent perfusions."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2010/05/alcors-93rd-and-94th-patients-cryopreserved-back-to-back/

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

From the SENS Foundation: "To date, the dominant therapeutic strategy for both specific age-related diseases and (to the extent that it has been contemplated) the degenerative biological aging process itself, has been based on altering metabolic pathways. Biomedical research has centered on the detailed understanding of pathways seen to be contributing to disease etiology or pathogenesis, and the identification of putatively dysfunctional components hormones, receptors, enzymes, cytokines, etc), which are then targeted for manipulation by small molecules or other means in hopes of normalizing function and thereby alleviating symptoms or slowing progression of pathology. ... there is a critical flaw in the unconsciously-drawn analogy between its use in the development of therapies to manage specific diseases, and its potential for the treatment of the degenerative aging process. Unlike most non-communicative diseases, degenerative aging is not the result of the dysfunction of metabolic pathways, but of the the undesirable long-term side-effects of their normative biochemistry. Put another way: biological aging is the pathological result of perfectly-functioning, [healthy] metabolic processes. ... Thus, transposing the conventional drug-development pathway onto the aging process necessarily entails interfering with the normal metabolism - and doing on an indefinite basis, from the day that a 'patient' first begins therapy until his or her death. But of course, those same pathways evolved to ensure survival and fitness, and their existence and the normal mode of regulation are the very basis of ordinary health and function. We interfere with the intrinsic operation of such pathways at our peril."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.sens.org/node/747

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

A detailed examination of recent progress from the SENS Foundation: "Recent years have seen both substantial progress, and significant frustration, in the preferred regenerative engineering approach to the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and the eventual regeneration of genuinely youthful cognitive function: immunotherapeutic clearance of beta-amyloid (AmyloSENS). ... results appear to many to commend an earlier window of opportunity for intervention, before concomitant [damage] and neuronal losses have made the removal of beta-amyloid alone insufficient for cognitive rescue. Early intervention might also maximize the therapeutic window for vaccination, preventing the burden of beta-amyloid neuropathology from ever reaching levels so high as to interact with other forms of aging damage in already frail and immunosenescent people." Present work on immune therapies for clearing unwanted biochemical junk from the body looks promising - there is every sign that today's advances will broaden into a general technology platform for this purpose. Researchers will be able to develop therapies that can be applied incrementally throughout life to remove the age-related gunk like beta-amyloid before it rises to dangerous levels.

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.sens.org/node/757

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

A detailed examination of recent progress from the SENS Foundation: "Recent years have seen both substantial progress, and significant frustration, in the preferred regenerative engineering approach to the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and the eventual regeneration of genuinely youthful cognitive function: immunotherapeutic clearance of beta-amyloid (AmyloSENS). ... results appear to many to commend an earlier window of opportunity for intervention, before concomitant [damage] and neuronal losses have made the removal of beta-amyloid alone insufficient for cognitive rescue. Early intervention might also maximize the therapeutic window for vaccination, preventing the burden of beta-amyloid neuropathology from ever reaching levels so high as to interact with other forms of aging damage in already frail and immunosenescent people." Present work on immune therapies for clearing unwanted biochemical junk from the body looks promising - there is every sign that today's advances will broaden into a general technology platform for this purpose. Researchers will be able to develop therapies that can be applied incrementally throughout life to remove the age-related gunk like beta-amyloid before it rises to dangerous levels.

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.sens.org/node/757

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