Lifeboat Foundation

Just as plastic tips protect the ends of shoelaces and keep them from fraying when we tie them, molecular tips called telomeres protect the ends of chromosomes and keep them from fusing when cells continually divide and duplicate their DNA. But while losing the plastic tips may lead to messy laces, telomere loss may lead to cancer.

Salk Institute scientists studying the relationship of telomeres to cancer made a surprising discovery: a cellular recycling process called autophagy—generally thought of as a survival mechanism—actually promotes the death of cells, thereby preventing cancer initiation.

The work, which appeared in the journal Nature on January 23, 2019, reveals autophagy to be a completely novel tumor-suppressing pathway and suggests that treatments to block the process in an effort to curb cancer may unintentionally promote it very early on.

Continue reading “In surprising reversal, scientists find a cellular process that stops cancer before it starts” »

A new study has outlined the age-related changes of the gut microbiome, showing a correlation between the microbiome’s composition and overall health.

The gut microbiome

The microbiome describes a varied community of bacteria, archaea, eukarya, and viruses that inhabit our gut. The four bacterial phyla of Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteria comprise 98% of the intestinal microbiome.

Continue reading “The Gut Microbiome of Healthy, Long-Lived People” »

With the dramatic demonetization of genome reading and editing over the past decade, and Big Pharma, startups, and the FDA starting to face aging as a disease, we are starting to turn those answers into practical ways to extend our healthspan.

Here, in Part 2 of a series of blogs on Longevity & Vitality, I explore how genome sequencing and editing, along with new classes of anti-aging drugs, are augmenting our biology to further extend our healthy lives.

In this blog I’ll cover two classes of emerging technologies:

Continue reading “Longevity & Vitality Part 2: A Renaissance of Drugs and Genomics” »

The intercom in Death’s office buzzes. With a slightly frustrated sigh, Death lifts his skeletal head from the newspapers he was reading, takes a puff of his cigar, stretches out a little, and presses a button on the intercom.

— I swear, all this work is going to kill me one day. I said I didn’t want to be interrupted, Miss Coffins; what is it?

— I’m sorry, Mr. Death, but Mr. Aging insists that he needs to see you right now. He says it’s urgent.

Over the past 100 hundred years, the average human lifespan has increased dramatically, thanks to exponential advancements in science and technology. While living to 80, 90, and even 100 is a possibility, humans have long been in search of the ultimate discovery – immortality.

In order to achieve immortality, scientists have identified four key issues that must be overcome. These include telomere shortening, chronological aging, oxidative stress, and glycation. If these could be drastically reduced or even eliminated, immortality may just be in our reach. However, there are some promising technologies that are prolonging the human lifespan right now, and could eventually lead us to immortality.

It is definitely a creepy a concept to think about, but studies have shown that regular blood transfusions sourced can extend the human lifespan by 10–20 years. Scientists have found that a protein called GDF11 is very common in the blood of young mice, and has been shown to increase skeletal muscle and increase heart strength. This protein has been deemed to have anti-aging properties, making it a promising technology in extending human lifespan.

Continue reading “How Close are We to Achieving Immortality?” »

Scientists from global biopharmaceutical company MSD will come to the Crick next year to tackle a range of conditions associated with ageing such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease.

A new team of around 15 MSD chemists and pharmacologists will be based at the Crick over the next five years, working to develop new understandings of diseases that affect the UK’s ageing population.

The scientists will be based at the Crick while MSD establishes their new discovery science centre and UK headquarters in London, the location of which is being finalised. Their work will complement the MSD neuroscience cell biology team already established at the London Bioscience Innovation Centre, and both teams will eventually move to MSD’s new centre.

Continue reading “MSD scientists to tackle diseases of ageing at the Crick” »

Early Bird ends soon!

Have you got your tickets yet? If not, then you just have a few days to do so and save €200.

After the incredible success of the 2018 Undoing Aging Conference with 350 participants from 36 countries and over 40 brilliant speakers,\xA0 SENS Research Foundation \xA0and Michael Greve’s\xA0 Forever Healthy Foundation \xA0 are pleased to announce that Undoing Aging 2019 will take place in Berlin at the Umspannwerk Alexanderplatz from March, 28 to 30.\xA0.

Continue reading “The 2019 Undoing Aging Conference” »

Researchers at UCLA have managed to guide pluripotent stem cells into becoming adult T cells, the cells that patrol the body to kill cancer and other diseases and that are trained in our thymi.

The study, published in Cell Stem Cell, was led by senior author Gay Crooks, M.D., a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and of pediatrics. Dr. Crooks is the co-director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.

Biological life extension may hit limits. “Clearly, there are biological reasons for each species’ average lifespan, so why would anyone think that people could live for much longer than we do now?” Perhaps new breakthroughs will nudge lifespans upwards, but maybe these scientists are correct. This is why I still work on artificial death (non biological uploading to MVT awareness engines). Even if average ages go up many folks will still become terminally ill, and apart from MVT artificial death (second best to life) they will only have expensive cryogenics or doubtful religious faith as alternatives.

The average age of people over 110 has not increased for nearly 50 years.