This month, there’s been plenty of exciting news in the world of research and development, and there’s good news about our recently completed crowdfunding campaign and upcoming conference. Here’s what’s happened in the month of June.
LEAF News
Join Us for the Ending Age-Related Diseases Conference!: August 19-22 sees the arrival of the annual Ending Age-Related Diseases conference, where we will discuss progress in the development of diagnostics for aging along with drugs and therapies for healthy life extension. The conference will be virtual this year due to the current global pandemic, which means you can join us from the comfort of home.
Every year, we bring you an amazing selection of the best speakers from our industry, and this year will feature Eric Verdin (The Buck Institute for Research on Aging), Aubrey de Grey (SENS Research Foundation), Joao Pedro de Magalhaes (University of Liverpool), Irina Conboy (UC Berkeley), Jacob Kimmel (Calico), Michael Snyder (Stanford University School of Medicine), Lorna Harries (Senisca), Steve Horvath (UCLA), and many other aging researchers.
PEARL Is Funded, Rapamycin Longevity Clinical Trials Begin: Today is a doubly important day: it marks the final day of the PEARL campaign and it is a celebration of another victory for the life extension community. PEARL smashed its initial fundraising goal and sailed through its two stretch goals, raising just under $183k thanks to the generous support of the community.
The PEARL trial is now accepting participants for enrollment! If you wish to learn more about this upcoming trial, visit the PEARL website. If you want to be part of the PEARL trial, get started by filling out the application form.
Dr. Zalzala: PEARL Trial Could Advance the Longevity Field: Dr. Zalzala, one of the leading researchers of the upcoming PEARL trial, answers questions about what it is and what it intends to accomplish.
Party for Health Research Announces Election Year Fundraising Campaign: The German Party for Health Research is engaging in a fundraiser to get on the ballot for the upcoming election on September 26. This party believes that 10% of the German budget should be invested in the development of interventions against age-related diseases.
SENS is hiring! SENS Research Foundation is hiring for the following positions: Research Assistant, Postdoctoral Fellow, and a Research Lab Manager. For more information about the requirements for each position and how to apply, please visit https://www.sens.org/get-involved/work-with-us/
Journal Club
Exploring How Rapamycin Improves How Our DNA Is Stored: This month, Journal Club takes a look at rapamycin, a drug that has long been believed to slow down aging, and how it changes the way DNA is stored inside cells to support gut health and longevity.
LifeXtenShow
Overpopulation and Near-Future Tech: Nicola describes how, even if longevity does lead to a global rise in population, near-future technologies may support this growing population.
Critiquing the Hallmarks of Aging: LifeXtenShow and the Sheekey Science Show collaborate to explain a recent critique of the Hallmarks of Aging, which holds that it lacks explanatory power and has unspoken assumptions.
Fewer Births or More Deaths?: In the final episode of X10’s overpopulation series, Nicola discusses why it would be enormously unethical to stop the progress of life extension to hope to stop overpopulation.
Your Real Age: Your chronological age might not match your biological age according to your epigenetics; you might be physically older or younger than your date of birth says you are.
A World Without Aging: On this episode, we discuss how the demographics and population of a world in which age-related diseases simply didn’t exist and what effects that would have on our planet.
Lifespan News
Overwork and Heart Attacks: Overwork is linked to heart attacks and stroke, cytosolic dsDNA as a senescence marker, and a method of ‘rejuvenating’ the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
Alcoholism and Aging: A new study involving alcohol intake and aging, a twin study that shows that diet and exercise lower biological age, and the effects of sauna use on health and longevity.
COVID and Inflammation: The COVID-19 spike protein and inflammation, a NASA challenge for engineering human tissue, and the complete sequencing of the human genome.
Multiple Cancer Detection: A test for multiple types of cancer, restricting blood flow in the brains of mice looks like brain aging, and a new, safer method of cellular reprogramming developed by Calico scientists.
Lifespan Docs
300 Years of Saving Animals, a Wildlife Guardian’s Wish: Simon Cowell, the CEO and founder of the Wildlife Aid Foundation (WAF), does not want aging to impede his valuable work in this new Lifespan Docs episode by Tim Maupin.
Rejuvenation Roundup Podcast
Ryan O’Shea of Future Grind hosts this month’s podcast, showcasing the events and research discussed here.
Advocacy and Analysis
Saunas for a Personal Health and Longevity Strategy: High temperature causes stress to the body, which triggers a thermoregulatory response that seeks to restore homeostasis.
Life Extension – Humanity or Individuals First?: Preserving individual lives automatically preserves the human species because the species only exists as long as there are humans.
The “Death is Inevitable, Why Bother?” Argument: The questions “Why rejuvenate your body if it’s going to die anyway one day?” and “Why clean your house if it’s going to crumble to dust one day?” are similar.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: A recent survey of adults in the US found that only about one-third would take a life extension pill if one were available.
Starting Your Personal Longevity Strategy: It is estimated that a relatively complete system of controlling biological aging is at least 20 years away, so your goal should be to live at least that much longer. What can be done to extend a healthy life today?
Evolution Won’t Stop Aging Any Time Soon, but Medicine Might: A new study about the ‘invariant rate of ageing’ has led to reports that aging is unstoppable and that we cannot cheat death. This is based on a misunderstanding of what the study actually says.
Education
This month, we have created four useful and informative articles on supplements and what they do. While we do not endorse any specific supplement, many of our readers are very interested in studies that show their effects.
Apigenin: This common flavonoid has been used in folk medicines for centuries as a way to treat anxiety and inflammation.
Fisetin: Commonly found in strawberries, this flavonoid is known to have antioxidant properties and demonstrates the specific biological activity of protecting functional macromolecules against stress
Creatine: This widely known supplement has enjoyed great popularity as a supplement with athletes and bodybuilders in order to gain muscle, boost strength and increase exercise performance.
Pterostilbene: Studies have demonstrated that this polyphenol has antioxidant and anticarcinogenic effects.
Events
Kitalys Institute Names 12 Key Challenges to Increasing Healthy Longevity: These challenges fall into the categories of evidence, policy, commercialization, and behavior.
Big Data, A.I. and Healthy Longevity: This conference aims to create a system that uses health data for scientific research, and no other purpose, in order to help people live longer.
Research Roundup
Twin Study Shows That Diet and Exercise Lower Biological Age: Scientists have performed a study on homozygous twins to determine how lifestyle factors affect biological age according to two biological age clocks.
Removing and Replacing Mitochondria in Human Cells: A new study details how cells can have their damaged mitochondria destroyed and replaced with healthy ones
Transcriptomic Aging Clock Measures More Than Just Age: This new clock incorporates information about biological pathways, allowing a better understanding of genetics and aging.
The Two Kinds of p21 Expression: Researchers have noted two different genetic loci that produce the same p21 protein, and one is much more affected by age than another.
COVID-19 Spike Protein Shown to Increase SASP: The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, causes senescent cells to secrete more of the senescence-associated secretory phenotype.
Calico Scientists Develop Safer Cellular Reprogramming: In a preprint paper, scientists from Calico suggest that, contrary to our previous understanding, transient reprogramming of cells using Yamanaka factors involves suppressing cellular identity.
Rapamycin Improves How Our DNA Is Stored: Rapamycin, a drug that has long been believed to slow down aging, changes the way DNA is stored inside cells to support gut health and longevity.
Exercise Decreases Circulating Senescence Proteins: A 12-week program of structured exercise lowers the activity of the inflammatory SASP in people in their mid-60s.
Brain Blood Flow Restriction Resembles Brain Aging in Mice: A mouse study has outlined the similarities between artificially restricted cerebral blood flow and the reduced blood flow associated with aging.
The Aged Microenvironment Linked to Sarcopenia: Muscular degradation with age isn’t the result of a decline in the intrinsic regenerative ability of muscles, according to new research.
A Look at Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis: A new review discusses the causes of, and potential treatments for, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), which is ultimately caused by cells other than fibroblasts.
How Stem Cells Promote the Health of Nearby Cells: Due to intercellular communication, mesenchymal stem cells derived from adipose tissue (ADSCs) reverse some effects of aging in nearby cells.
Grey Hair Can Change Back to Original Color: Researchers have recently released a preprint that suggests that sometimes greying hair can revert back to its original color.
Life Extension Drug Discovered by Accident: Zoledronate, a drug used to protect bones from osteoporosis, has been shown to extend life in ways that are unrelated to the skeletal system.
The CALERIE Study on Caloric Restriction: Two years of reduced-calorie eating is shown to remove more subcutaneous fat than lean tissue.
Green tea consumption is associated with annual changes in hippocampal volumes: A negative association between green tea consumption and annual hippocampal atrophy was observed in community-dwelling middle-aged and older individuals.
Astaxanthin supplementation enhances metabolic adaptation with aerobic training in the elderly: AX supplementation increased the preference for fat oxidation, increased exercise efficiency, and reduced carbohydrate oxidation, primarily in older males.
Higher diet quality relates to decelerated epigenetic aging: Higher diet quality is associated with slower epigenetic age acceleration, which partially explains the beneficial effect of diet quality on the lifespan.
Apigenin restores endothelial function in aging: Murine and in vitro experiments have shown that apigenin aids the arteries in multiple ways, including elasticity, foam cells, and reduced inflammation.
Systemic GLP-1R agonist treatment reverses mouse glial and neurovascular cell transcriptomic aging signatures: Exenatide treatment partially reverses age-related transcriptomic changes in brain endothelial cells.
Senolytics alleviate the degenerative disorders of temporomandibular joint in old age: Biweekly administration of dasatinib and quercetin improves subchondral bone turnover, alleviates cartilage degeneration and pathological conditions, and increases bone volume in TMJs from old mice.
Senolytics improve bone forming potential of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells from aged mice: Dasatinib and quercetin are the senolytics in question, and they are shown to restore the ability of these cells to restore bone and bone marrow.
Senolytics reduce coronavirus-related mortality in old mice: This research shows that removing senescent cells reduces senescence, inflammation, and mortality following pathogen exposure.
Systemic Transplantation of Adult Multipotent Stem Cells Functionally Rejuvenates Aged Articular Cartilage: This research shows the molecular, tissue, and functional outcomes of systemic muscle-derived stem/progenitor cell transplantation on aged articular cartilage.
Systemic transplantation of adult multipotent stem cells prevents articular cartilage degeneration in a mouse model of accelerated ageing: These results highlight the therapeutic potential of systemically delivered multipotent adult stem cells to prevent age-associated articular cartilage degeneration.
Bone mesenchymal stem cell derived exosomes alleviate high phosphorus-induced calcification of vascular smooth muscle cells: This paper identifies the specific molecular pathway that is utilized during calcification.
Does the epigenetic clock GrimAge predict mortality independent of genetic influences?: This twin study shows that GrimAge is a good predictor of mortality even when comparing people with identical genetics.
Expression profiling reveals putative genes involved in Turritopsis dohrnii’s life cycle reversal: This study identifies the genetic system involved in this organism’s return to a youthful state, and it provides a path for research on using it for cell reprogramming.
Environmental enrichment preserves a young DNA methylation landscape in the aged mouse hippocampus: This study gives molecular insights into the specific aspects of brain aging that can be counteracted by lifestyle interventions.
News Nuggets
Human Genome Fully Sequenced: In a preprint paper, scientists have announced the completion of the first full, telomere-to-telomere, sequencing of the human genome.
First Multi-Cancer Blood Test Available Now: Biotech company GRAIL made history earlier this month when it introduced the first commercially available multi-cancer blood test.
Can Quantum Computing Help Discover New Drugs?: With a new announcement from IBM and Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute, the era of quantum computing has finally arrived in Europe, potentially speeding up drug discovery.
Intellia Shows CRISPR Gene Editing in Humans Has Arrived: Intellia has released clinical data for NTLA-2001, a gene therapy for hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis, which has similarities to senile systemic amyloidosis.