Lifeboat Foundation

For more information on pancreatic cancer, please visit https://cle.clinic/3rvBj1a.

Pancreatic cancer accounts for about 3% of all cancers in the United States and about 7% of all cancer deaths. Because it’s hard to detect early, it’s important to recognize any symptoms that occur.
Find out what to look for and when you should talk to your provider with this helpful video from Cleveland Clinic.

Continue reading “6 Warning Signs of Pancreatic Cancer” »

A vaccine (DCVax-L), trialed at King’s College Hospital and other centers around the world, using patients’ immune cells to target brain cancer can extend survival by many months or, in some cases, years, the final unblinded results from a phase 3 clinical trial has shown. The final results were published on Thursday, November 17 in JAMA Oncology.

This is the first time in 17 years that such significant outcomes have been achieved in a phase 3 trial for a systemic treatment in newly diagnosed glioblastoma, and the first time in 27 years that any treatment has been shown to extend survival in recurrent glioblastoma.

The vaccine is created for each patient individually by isolating specific immune cells, known as dendritic cells, from their blood. These cells are then primed with biomarkers from a sample of the patient’s tumor. When the vaccine containing the cells is injected back into the patient, it shares that information so that the body’s entire immune system recognizes and attacks the target.

To observe living cells through a microscope, a sample is usually squeezed onto a glass slide. It then lies there calmly and the cells are observable. The disadvantage is that this limits how the cells behave and it only produces two-dimensional images.

Researchers from UiT The Arctic University of Norway and the University Hospital of North Norway (UNN) have now developed what they are referring to as the next generation microscope. The new technology can take pictures of much larger samples than before, while living and working in a more natural environment.

Sponsored by Kishore Tipirneni’s new book “A New Eden” available here: https://getbook.at/NewEden | Abiogenesis – origin of life. Living matter from non-living matter. The origin of living organisms from inorganic or non-living material is called abiogenesis. But abiogenesis is not evolution.

Despite the incredible variations of life we see today, at the fundamental level, all living things contain three elements: Nucleic acids, Proteins, and lipids. These three things had to have been present in order for life to start.

Continue reading “How did life begin? Abiogenesis. Origin of life from nonliving matter” »

Fasting database:

Recreates the immune system;…Prolonged fasting forces the body to use stores of glucose, fat and ketones, but it also breaks down a significant portion of white blood cells. Longo likens the effect to lightening a plane of excess cargo. During each cycle of fasting, this depletion of white blood cells induces changes that trigger stem cell-based regeneration of new immune system cells. In particular, prolonged fasting reduced the enzyme PKA, an effect previously discovered by the Longo team to extend longevity in simple organisms and which has been linked in other research to the regulation of stem cell self-renewal and pluripotency — that is, the potential for one cell to develop into many different cell types. Prolonged fasting also lowered levels of IGF-1, a growth-factor hormone that Longo and others have linked to aging, tumor progression and cancer risk.

Recreates the immune system (page loads slow)

Continue reading “Fasting triggers stem cell regeneration of damaged, old immune system” »

Lazarus, built by university students, made its longest flight time yet.

Students at the University of Southampton have a special project they have been working on for years together. That is, to power flight using only the muscle power of a single pilot, technically known as human-powered aircraft (HPA). Earlier this year, the team won their first Formula Flight competition with their design dubbed Lazarus.

Continue reading “Human-powered aircraft: A plane with ‘impossible engineering’ and no engine” »

A seven-year study reveals that variations in specific isotopes linked to magmatic ‘foams’ can be used to predict volcanic unrest.

Scientists have found a way to use the ratio of atoms in specific gases created by volcanic fumaroles (gaps in the Earth’s surface) to detect what’s happening to magma deep below.

Volcanic eruptions are dangerous and challenging to predict. Could the new findings change this?

Continue reading “A novel technique to predict volcanic eruptions now possible, thanks to magma ‘foams’” »

New research at the University of Chicago has found that the same machinery used by mammalian cells to drive cellular differentiation also plays a critical role in activating genes in yeast in response to environmental stress.

The results, which were published in Molecular Cell, suggest that these machines, known as transcriptional condensates, are an ancient, conserved tool used by eukaryotic cells to promote high level gene expression for over a billion years. The findings are helping to not only better explain how cells respond dynamically to environmental cues but also have implications for understanding human diseases such as cancer and neurodegeneration.

The study extends existing research on transcriptional condensates in mammalian cells into yeast and their heat shock response—how cells respond to high temperatures. “The heat shock response is ancient,” said David Pincus, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology at UChicago. “This response existed long before there were people—long before there were even yeast. It predates the split between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, so it’s a really fundamental and important cellular response.”

A research team has identified a molecular target that could open up new therapeutic options to treat aging-associated diseases like Parkinson’s. Scientists at the University of Cologne have discovered how cells can eliminate mutated mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Mitochondria are the powerhouses of our cells. Due to their evolutionary descent from bacteria, they still have genetic material packaged in chromosome-like structures (nucleoids). They convert the chemical energy in our food into a biologically usable form. A team of researchers from the University of Cologne’s Physiology Centre at the Faculty of Medicine, the Centre for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC) and the CECAD Cluster of Excellence for Aging Research has now shown that mutations of the mtDNA lead to a local rearrangement of proteins in the mitochondrial membrane. The mutated mtDNA is targeted, eliminated, and subjected to autophagy, the cellular ‘waste disposal’. The results have appeared in Nature Communications under the title ‘Mitochondrial membrane proteins and VPS35 orchestrate selective removal of mtDNA’.

In many tissues, mutations in mtDNA accumulate as a result of normal aging. These kinds of mutations are an important cause of many aging-associated diseases. There are thousands of copies mtDNA in every cell, so mitochondrial function is only impaired when the percentage of mutated mtDNA molecules exceeds a certain threshold value. It has long been established that mitochondrial damage, including acute mtDNA damage, triggers the process of mitophagy. In this process, dysfunctional mitochondrial parts are selectively degraded and recycled.

Dr David Pla-Martin, the lead author of the current study, explained the details: ‘What is new in our study is that this mechanism does not affect the cells’ endowment with mitochondria, but only clears out the damaged mtDNA. By labelling neighbouring proteins — so-called proximity labelling — we showed that mtDNA damage leads to the recruitment of endosomes in close proximity to nucleoids.’ Their removal is coordinated by the interaction of the nucleoid protein Twinkle and the mitochondrial membrane proteins SAMM50 and ATAD3 controls their distribution, SAMM50 induces the release and transfer of the nucleoid to the so-called endosomes. ‘This additionally prevents the activation of an immune response. The protein VPS35, the main component of the retromer, mediates the maturation of early endosomes into late autophagy vesicles, where degradation and recycling ultimately take place,’ said Pla-Martin.