Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,529

Jared Isaacman’s privately funded trip to Earth’s orbit will raise money for St. Jude’s.

Inspiration4 will be motivated in part by Isaacman’s effort to raise more than $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a pediatric cancer research hospital that does not charge the families of children for their treatment. Isaacman pledged $100 million out of his own pocket.

“I’ve been very lucky in life; you really don’t get to a position that I’m fortunate enough to be in without the ball bouncing your way a couple times,” said Isaacman in an interview with Space.com. “These families [at St. Jude] were dealt horrible hands. They’re going through what no one should ever have to go through. It’s immense heartache, and the sad part is many of those kids will not grow up to have any of the experiences that I’ve been lucky enough to have in life. We’ve just got to do something about that.”

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Most deaths associated with lung cancer are due to the migration of cancer cells to other organs—a process called metastasis. Although cancer therapies have advanced, treatments for lung cancer metastasis continue to lag.

The root of red ginseng (Panax ginseng) has been used as food and herbal medicine for thousands of years globally and especially in Korea and China, owing to its medicinal properties. However, the composition and activities of red ginseng vary depending on the processing method. Recent studies have shown the efficacy of red ginseng against lung cancer metastasis.

A new study conducted by scientists at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) reports the successful use of a microwave processing method for ginseng that increases trace amounts of Rk1 and Rg5 ginsenosides—a class of natural steroid sugars found almost exclusively in plants of the genus Panax —that effectively inhibit the metastasis of lung cancer.

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After doubling its sample size, the largest study of genetic data from autistic people has identified 255 genes associated with the condition, an increase of more than 40 genes since the researchers’ 2019 update; 71 of the genes rise above a stringent statistical bar the team had not previously used. The new analysis also adds data from people with developmental delay or schizophrenia and considers multiple types of mutations.

“It’s a really significant step forward in what we do,” said Kyle Satterstrom, a computational biologist in Mark Daly’s lab at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Satterstrom presented the findings virtually on Tuesday at the 2021 International Society for Autism Research annual meeting. (Links to abstracts may work only for registered conference attendees.)

The team’s previous analyses used data from the Autism Sequencing Consortium, which enrolls families through their doctors. The researchers mainly scoured the genetic data to find rare, non-inherited mutations linked to autism.

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Researcher Professor Johann de Bono said: ‘There’s a lot of evidence that prostate cancer causes what we call immune tolerance — that the cancer suppresses the body from attacking it with its immune cells.

Scientists have discovered that a key protein may be the secret to treating prostate cancer patients with ‘miracle’ immunotherapy drugs.

Clinical trials have now begun – with the goal of unleashing cancer-killing white blood cells to attack the tumour.

Immunotherapies have had stunning results against some types of the disease.

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Implantable electronics are among the most promising healthcare technologies, as they can help to remotely monitor specific biological processes associated with a patient’s health. While researchers have developed a variety of implantable devices over the past decade or so, existing technologies have several limitations that can prevent their widespread use in clinical settings.

The first factor preventing the large-scale implementation of existing implantable technologies is the structural mismatch between these devices and most organs/tissues in the body, which typically have complex 1D or 3D structures. Secondly, reliably fixing soft electronic devices on organs that are moving or pulsating has so far proved to be highly challenging.

Researchers at Daegu-Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology (DGIST) in South Korea and ETH Zürich have recently developed a new fiber-based strain-sensing device that could overcome the limitations of existing implantable electronics. This sensor, presented in a paper published in Nature Electronics, comprises a capacitive fiber strain sensor with an inductive coil for wireless readout.

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People who reach a very old age may have their genes to thank. Genetic variants that help to prevent DNA mutations and repair any that do occur have been found in supercentenarians and semi-supercentenarians – people who reach the ages of 110 and 105, respectively.

“DNA repair mechanisms are extremely efficient in these people,” says Claudio Franceschi at the University of Bologna in Italy. “It is one of the most important basic mechanisms for extending lifespan.”

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That’s good funding.

Berlin, Gerrmany — Michael Greve, founder of the Forever Healthy Foundation and owner of Kizoo Technology Ventures, announced today that he will make available an additional €300 million to be invested in rejuvenation biotech.

The funds, to be deployed via Kizoo, will be used to create and support more startups in the rejuvenation space. They will also allow Kizoo to maintain a strong commitment to its key startups during follow-up rounds and to advance the therapies from clinical development to public availability.

With this €300 million commitment, Michael Greve and Kizoo double down on their mission to accelerate the advent of rejuvenation biotechnology by doing lighthouse investments in entirely new, repair-based approaches that treat the root causes of aging and thus overcome age-related diseases. Through the creation of successful companies, they seek to inspire scientists, investors, and the general public by demonstrating that human rejuvenation is not science fiction anymore and that the resulting therapies are affordable and uncomplicated.

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The human cells grew inside all 132 of the embryos after just 24 hours. After ten days, 103 chimeric embryos remained. By day 19, however, only three chimeras were left alive – and they were then terminated.

“This knowledge will allow us to go back now and try to re-engineer these pathways that are successful for allowing appropriate development of human cells in these other animals,” Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, genetics professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences in La Jolla, California and co-author of the study, told NPR.

“We are very, very excited,” he added.

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