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Study: Telomeres Don’t Shorten with Age in Longest-Lived Bats

The longest-lived bats—those belonging to the Myotis genus—may have their telomeres to thank for their slow aging process, according to a study published yesterday (Feb 7) in Science Advances.

“In the longest-lived species of bats telomeres don’t shorten with age,” study coauthor Emma Teeling, a professor of biology and environmental science at University College Dublin, tells The Irish Times. “Whereas in other bats species, humans and other animals they do, causing the age-related breakdown of cells that over the course of a lifetime can drive tissue deterioration and ultimately death.”

Teeling and her colleagues conducted wing biopsies on close to 500 bats of four different species at field sites across Europe. Tissue analysis revealed that while the telomeres shortened with age in two bat species, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum and Miniopterus schreibersii, no such change occurred in species belonging to Myotis, the bat genus with the greatest longevity.

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Potential New Aging Biomarker in Urine

A potential new biomarker of aging has been discovered by researchers. This substance, found in urine, indicates oxidative damage that could be used to determine how much someone has aged biologically.

Why do we need biomarkers of ageing?

It is important for us to develop accurate and reliable biomarkers of aging, as these can show us how much we have aged biologically rather than chronologically. If we know how we are aging on a biological level, it can help to inform our healthcare strategy.

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What’s All The Buzz? BioViva’s Platform For Expedited Drug Development

BioViva is a platform to expedite the development of drugs and treatments that affect human healthspan. To achieve this goal BioViva has developed a comprehensive set of biomarkers of aging, which include molecular, physiological, anatomical, clinical, and qualitative markers. BioViva also collaborates with clinicians, biomedical scientists, and statisticians to develop innovative protocols for adaptive clinical trials for gene and cells therapies. Finally, BioViva has built a bioinformatics pipeline to analyze the data generated from the biomarkers of aging in human trials, and validate the treatments that are effective for treating the aging process.

BioViva has recently partnered with a paid-for clinical trial company Integrated Health Systems (IHS). IHS connects doctors with patients who want to take part in paid-for clinical trials. During our collaboration with IHS they will utilize our adaptive clinical trial protocols to conduct gene and cell therapy trials. All patients will undergo pre- and post testing using BioViva’s comprehensive biomarkers of aging platform. Treatment efficacy, and patient well being will be assessed using our bioinformatics pipeline…

The goal of BioViva is to accelerate the development of products that will effectively, and cost-efficiently treat biological aging. Our platform is designed to provide expedited and reliable feedback to our clinical and manufacturing partners, so that they may rapidly iterate their products and services to help patients improve the quality and quantity of life.

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Precision cancer treatment effective in treating tumors

Summary: Researchers who just finished a precision cancer treatment trial at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles just reported that three out of four adult and child cancer patients responded favorably to a new precision therapy which targets a gene mutation. [This article first appeared on LongevityFacts. Author: Brady Hartman. ]

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) reports that three-fourths of adults and children with a variety of advanced cancers in different sites of the body responded to a novel therapy called larotrectinib that targets a specific genetic mutation.

The researchers published the results of this phase 1/2 trial on February 22, 2018, in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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Company wants to bioprint new beating hearts to replace our diseased ones

Summary: A startup wants to develop bioprinted beating hearts using stem cells from a patient’s own body using a special 3D bioprinter. [This article first appeared on LongevityFacts. Author: Brady Hartman. ]

A startup called BioLife4D wants to develop bioprinted beating hearts using a patient’s own cells as solution for patients seeking heart transplants.

As first reported on USAToday, Steven Morris, the CEO founding partner and of BioLife4D says that if the bioprinted heart is successful, the company hopes to expand to other organs including the pancreas or the kidneys.

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These cancer vaccines to prevent tumors

Summary: Cancer vaccines could prevent around 1,000,000 cancer deaths each year, according to a report by the World Health Organization this month. [This article first appeared on LongevityFacts. Author: Brady Hartman. ]

In a Feb 2018 report, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that infectious diseases cause 15% of all cancer deaths, and universal vaccination could prevent around one million cancers annually, saying.

“Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally, and was responsible for 8.8 million deaths in 2015.” Adding “Globally, nearly 1 in 6 deaths is due to cancer.”

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Predicting our body’s biological age with a pee test

Summary: Aging biomarkers found in a simple urine test can potentially measure how much our body has aged and could predict our future health. [This article first appeared on LongevityFacts. Author: Brady Hartman. ]

Determining our biological age and future risk of ill health may be as simple as a urine test one day.

In a new study, a team of researchers led by Jian-Ping Cai in the MOH Key Laboratory of Geriatrics at Beijing Hospital discovered two new aging biomarkers in urine that come from the oxidation of RNA and DNA. The new markers could potentially help predict our risk of developing an age-related disease, and even our risk of death.

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Researchers Discover How to Supercharge Stem Cells

Researchers at the School of Molecular Sciences at Arizona State University have discovered a potential way to supercharge our stem cells and reverse some aspects of cellular aging.

The Hayflick limit

Normal cells cannot divide indefinitely; they have a built-in replicative limit, which is often called the Hayflick limit after its discoverer, Leonard Hayflick. This Hayflick limit means that regular human cells are unable to replicate forever; once they reach their replicative limit, they cease to divide and enter senescence, a nondividing state in which the cell destroys itself.

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