Several leaps have been made this February: Leap Year’s Day, leaps in rejuvenation biotechnology development, and a leap of our own in bringing our two websites together into one.
If you want to help us and the world of rejuvenation biotechnology leap into the public consciousness and into the clinic, become a Lifespan Hero today.
LEAF News
Team and activities
Our annual conference series, Ending Age-Related Diseases: Investment Prospects & Advances in Research, will continue for its third year, featuring researchers at the forefront of rejuvenation biotechnology. Hosted at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City on August 20-21, 2020, this event promises to be enlightening and informative for professionals and laypeople alike.
LEAF and Lifespan.io Have Merged Into a Longevity Hub: The merger of our blog site, Leafscience.org, and our fundraising and advocacy site, Lifespan.io, has been completed! All of our blog content will continue to be posted on the merged Lifespan.io site.
New Team Members: We are growing! LEAF is proud to announce that we have signed on two new members to be part of the Lifespan.io team: Arkady Mazin and Sedeer el-Showk.
Accelerating Rejuvenation Research Through Public Advocacy: This article discusses the role of advocacy in bringing us closer to a world in which age-related diseases are a thing of the past.
Personal Story: Entering the Field of Rejuvenation Biotechnology: Victor Bjoerk shares his thoughts regarding what steps people should take, including college courses and self-study, in order to directly get involved in the field.
LifeXtenShow
Loss of Proteostasis: As part of LifeXtenShow’s ongoing series on the hallmarks of aging, Giuliano discusses how this particular hallmark can lead to age-related brain diseases and other serious problems.
Will Life Extension Be Only for the Rich?: Veera explains the costs of rejuvenation biotechnology development and what needs to happen for it to become widely available.
Journal Club
Gamma Stimulation Ameliorates Alzheimer’s-Associated Pathology: Gamma stimulation is induced by visual and auditory stimuli as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
Interviews
Irina & Michael Conboy – Resetting Aged Blood to Restore Youth: The Conboys discuss their past work along with apheresis as a potential method of filtering out the overexpressed factors that occur as the result of aging – and cause further age-related diseases.
Hanadie Yousef – Embryonic Proteins for Tissue Regeneration: Juvena Therapeutics is discovering proteins found in the embryonic environment that cause muscle and other tissues to regenerate, potentially leading to therapies for sarcopenia and age-related brain degeneration.
Lewis Gruber – Senotherapeutics: Alongside his wife Misty, Lewis Gruber discusses what SIWA Therapeutics is doing to address the problem of senescent cells by using monoclonal antibodies, which are used for cancer immunotherapies.
Rejuvenation Roundup Podcast
Ryan O’Shea of Future Grind hosts this month’s podcast, showcasing the events and research discussed here.
Research Roundup
Refining the Allotopic Expression of Mitochondrial Genes: There are significant differences in the codons used by mitochondria and nuclear DNA, and understanding these differences is critical for expressing mitochondrial DNA in the nucleus, which is the core goal of MitoSENS.
Macrophages Become Scars in the Heart: Rather than just summoning fibroblasts to the site of injury, macrophages extrude their own fibers, thus leading to scars forming in place of healthy tissue. A therapy that targets macrophages may be the first step towards giving adults the regenerative capabilities of young children.
What Do DNA Smiley Faces Have to Do With Cancer Research?: A technique called DNA origami can be used to make tiny boxes that open with molecular keys, offering new opportunities for targeted drug delivery and other medical uses.
Skin and Mouth Biomarkers More Predictive Than Gut: The gut microbiome is not as tightly predictive of aging as the microbiota of the skin and mouth – which is good news for people seeking effective biomarkers as well as people attempting to improve their gut flora.
NMN Rejuvenates the Mitochondria of Old Mice: The well-known supplement NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) has been shown to improve the mitochondria of mice, offering them healthy blood flow and better neurovascular health.
Sirtuins Mitigate Chronic Inflammation and Insulin Resistance: A mouse study has shown that sirtuins remove an acetyl group that is responsible for dangerous cytokines, halting chronic inflammation and reducing insulin resistance, which is a key part of diabetes.
Young Bone Marrow Preserves Cognition in Mice: Blood factors change as we age, and bone marrow is the source of blood; having young bone marrow has been shown to encourage neurons to grow new synapses.
Cancer Drug Delays Cellular Senescence: HDAC inhibitors, a class of cancer drugs, were shown to revert senescent cells back into a youthful shape – although these drugs have serious side effects.
Boosting NAD+ Levels Restores Fertility in Old Mice: NAD+ restores the ability of oocytes (egg cells) to properly undergo meiosis, reducing the risk of chromosomal problems that harm viability and may lead to developmental disorders.
The Most Promising Biomarkers of Aging: This review shows what kinds of biomarkers are most likely to see clinical use in diagnosing age-related diseases and ascertaining the effectiveness of rejuvenation interventions.
CRISPR Edited Immune Cells Successful in First U.S. Clinical Trial: In this first-of-its-kind safety trial, T cells were taken from cancer patients, edited to better attack cancer cells, and returned to the patients with positive results.
An epigenetic clock for human skeletal muscle: Focusing on dinucleotide methylation that is specific to human muscle, this clock offers more accuracy than clocks that analyze all tissues.
Two conserved epigenetic regulators prevent healthy ageing: These regulators diminish the nuclear expression of mitochondrial proteins, promoting age-related problems such as cognitive decline.
Hematopoietic stem cell transplants increase lifespan in mice: Avoiding the need for irradiation as in a marrow transplant, this study showed that transplanting HSCs increased healthy lifespan without side effects in a mouse model.
Neural precursor cell transplants promote motor recovery after stroke: This mouse study showed that reprogrammed neural precursor cells help the brain regenerate synapses and restore function.
Depleting microglia improves traumatic brain injury recovery : After a traumatic brain injury, the brain’s immune cells often become neurotoxic. This mouse study showed that killing most of these cells and allowing them to recover alleviates these effects.
Eating a Mediterranean diet for a year promotes a healthy gut microbiome: Featuring 612 human volunteers, this study showed that a Mediterreanean diet promoted the growth of health-associated bacteria and limited the amounts of frailty-associated bacteria.
Caloric Restriction Reprograms the Single-Cell Transcriptional Landscape of Rattus Norvegicus Aging: This atlas shows exactly what happens to the cell during caloric restriction in a rat model.
A Deep Learning Approach to Antibiotic Discovery: A deep learning algorithm identified many compounds that show antibiotic effects, including eight that do not resemble known antibiotics. One of these, halicin, is effective against strains of bacteria that are widely considered dangerous.
Age Reversal and Pluripotency Induced in Supercentenarian Cells: This study shows that it is possible to use OSKM to induce pluripotency in cells from people who are over 110 years old.
News Nuggets
Why Life Expectancy Could Rise Significantly in the Near Future: Originally published by the German magazine Monat, this article offers an introduction to rejuvenation biotechnology.
Longevity Investment Take-Off Salon: Foresight Institute and 100 Plus are offering a discussion salon about longevity investment, introducing financiers to the world of rejuvenation biotechnology.
King’s College to Test Senolytic for Heart Repair: With a government grant, King’s College in London, UK has announced its plans for testing the effectiveness of a senolytic compound for cardiac injuries.
Aubrey de Grey on the Joe Rogan Experience: Joe Rogan, a well-known interviewer of a great many celebrities, interviews Dr. de Grey, who discusses the possibilies of a repair-based approach to gerontology.
JangoBio Creating First Organoids for Complete Hormone Restoration: In this press release, JangoBio announces that it has restored hormone production through the use of organoids created with stem cells.
Coming Up
The Longevity Leaders Congress: Held on April 21-22 in London, UK, this event will focus on aging science, assistive technologies, and risks relating to retirement funds. Use the code LEAF15 for a 15% discount.
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