Lifeboat Foundation

CRISPR gene editing already promises to fight diseases that were once thought unassailable, but techniques so far have required injecting the tools directly into affected cells. That’s not very practical for some conditions. However, there’s just been a breakthrough. NPR reports that researchers have published results showing that you can inject CRISPR-Cas9 into the bloodstream to make edits, opening the door to the use of gene editing for treating many common diseases.

The experimental treatment tackled a rare genetic disease, transthyretin amyloidosis. Scientists injected volunteers with CRISPR-loaded nanoparticles that were absorbed by the patients’ livers, editing a gene in the organ to disable production of a harmful protein. Levels of that protein plunged within weeks of the injection, saving patients from an illness that can rapidly destroy nerves and other tissues in their bodies.

The test involved just six people, and the research team still has to conduct long-term studies to check for possible negative effects. If this method proves viable on a large scale, though, it could be used to treat illnesses where existing CRISPR techniques aren’t practical, ranging from Alzheimer’s to heart disease.

When an 87-year-old Californian man was wheeled into an operating room just outside Phoenix last year, the pandemic was at its height and medical protocols were being upended across the country.

A case like his would normally have required 14 or more bags of fluids to be pumped into him, but now that posed a problem.

Had he been infected with the coronavirus, tiny aerosol droplets could have escaped and infected staff, so the operating team had adopted new procedures that reduced the effectiveness of the treatment but used fewer liquids.

Now, in a medical first, researchers have injected a CRISPR drug into the blood of people born with a disease that causes fatal nerve and heart disease and shown that in three of them it nearly shut off production of toxic protein by their livers.

Novel treatment using messenger RNA sharply cuts production of mutant liver protein, although it’s too early to show patients with rare condition benefit.

👏😄We are rapidly approaching — from multiple directions of attack (pharmaceutical, nanotechnology, gene manipulation, etc) — the end of all forms of cancer, inherited diseases, even aging itself. It’s a great time to be alive IF you can live long enough to live forever(ish)! Which makes EVERY death that occurs in the meantime to be all the more of a punch to the gut and slap to the face. PARTICULARLY the 600 000 + people here in the US alone! It’s also another reason t… See More.

If the gene-editing tool CRISPR/Cas9 continues to show such promise it will herald a new era for the treatment of many genetic diseases.

In August last year, Unity released interim results showing that its drug was probably ineffective in treating study patients suffering from osteoarthritis.

Its stock price plummeted as a consequence, but Dr de Grey remains hopeful that “soon we might have drugs that actively cause these cells to die”.

While Dr de Grey is excited to see much of the life extension research he helped develop come to fruition, some thinkers are raising concerns about the implications of an extended human lifespan.

Scientists successfully treated a rare disease with the experimental gene-editing technique. It could open the door to new ways of treating more common disorders in the future.

Artificial kidneys, powerful batteries and efficient water purification are some of the future applications of a group of ultrathin materials known as MXenes. This opinion is expressed in an article in the journal Science, whose authors include one from Linköping University.

Materials that have a cross-section as thin as one or a few layers of atoms possess unusual properties due to their thickness. These properties may be high electrical conductivity, high strength or an ability to withstand heat, giving ultrathin materials a great potential for use in future technology. The most well-known material is graphene, and the hunt for other ultrathin materials, also known as two-dimensional materials, has increased in intensity since its discovery.

Graphene and many other two-dimensional materials are either semiconductors, semimetals or polarized insulators. The lack of an ultrathin metal conductor is an obstacle in the development of components based exclusively on two-dimensional materials.

Mesenchymal stem cells derived from adipose tissue appear to reverse some effects of aging in nearby somatic cells.

A new study published in the FASEB Journal shows how mesenchymal stem cells derived from adipose tissue (ADSCs) reverse some effects of aging in nearby cells.

It’s not the cells themselves, it’s what they secrete

Continue reading “How Stem Cells Promote the Health of Nearby Cells” »

Still the comic relief til about December 31, 2024. By 2035 curing everything, already in the early stages towards that.

Giovanni Traverso, an MIT assistant professor of mechanical engineering, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and also the senior author of the study said, that they were actively working on robots that can help provide health care services to maximize the safety, of both the patients and the health care workforce.

Traverso and his colleagues after the Covid-19 began last year, worked towards reducing interaction between the patients and the health care workers. In this process, they collaborated with Boston Dynamics in creating mobile robots that can interact with patients who waited in the emergency department.

Continue reading “Robot Doctors to Provide Health Care Services Soon” »