Lifeboat Foundation

What would you say if I told you that aging happens not because of accumulation of stresses, but rather because of the intrinsic properties of the gene network of the organism? I’m guessing you’d be like: surprised .

So, here’s the deal. My biohacker friends led by Peter Fedichev and Sergey Filonov in collaboration with my old friend and the longevity record holder Robert Shmookler Reis published a very cool paper. They proposed a way to quantitatively describe the two types of aging – negligible senescence and normal aging. We all know that some animals just don’t care about time passing by. Their mortality doesn’t increase with age. Such negligibly senescent species include the notorious naked mole rat and a bunch of other critters like certain turtles and clams to name a few. So the paper explains what it is exactly that makes these animals age so slowly – it’s the stability of their gene networks.

What does network stability mean then? Well, it’s actually pretty straightforward – if the DNA repair mechanisms are very efficient and the connectivity of the network is low enough, then this network is stable. So, normally aging species, such as ourselves, have unstable networks. This is a major bummer by all means. But! There is a way to overcome this problem, according to the proposed math model.

Continue reading “Hacking Aging” »

My 4 min interview on transhumanism and longevity with BuzzFeed came out as a stand-alone video. About 800 comments under the YouTube video:

Because we all deserve a chance at immortality!

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Dr DePinho released a paper in 2012, this builds on previous papers and his theory of the “telomere-p53-PGC axis”. This is a big reason along with the work of Dr Michael Fossel I believe telomerase therapy is probably the best chance of radical life extension in the near future. This is one of a number of papers that implicate dysfunctional telomeres in a cascade that causes mitochondrial dysfunction and various other aging consequences.

ABSTRACT Telomere dysfunction activates p53-mediated cellular growth arrest, senescence and apoptosis to drive progressive atrophy and functional decline in high-turnover tissues. The broader adverse impact of telomere dysfunction across many tissues including more quiescent systems prompted transcriptomic network analyses to identify common mechanisms operative in haematopoietic stem cells, heart and liver. These unbiased studies revealed profound repression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma, coactivator 1 alpha and beta (PGC-1α and PGC-1β, also known as Ppargc1a and Ppargc1b, respectively) and the downstream network in mice null for either telomerase reverse transcriptase (Tert) or telomerase RNA component (Terc) genes. Consistent with PGCs as master regulators of mitochondrial physiology and metabolism, telomere dysfunction is associated with impaired mitochondrial biogenesis and function, decreased gluconeogenesis, cardiomyopathy, and increased reactive oxygen species. In the setting of telomere dysfunction, enforced Tert or PGC-1α expression or germline deletion of p53 (also known as Trp53) substantially restores PGC network expression, mitochondrial respiration, cardiac function and gluconeogenesis. We demonstrate that telomere dysfunction activates p53 which in turn binds and represses PGC-1α and PGC-1β promoters, thereby forging a direct link between telomere and mitochondrial biology. We propose that this telomere-p53-PGC axis contributes to organ and metabolic failure and to diminishing organismal fitness in the setting of telomere dysfunction.

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An interesting paper that uses ALA to shore up telomerase activity, loss of telomeres inhibition of P53 expression and mitochondrial dysfunction in one go. They use ALA (alpha lipoic acid) to induce PGC-1α in this case though PGC1-alpha seems to be a potential target for intervention as I understand that ALA is difficult to deliver to cells. In this case this involves the vascular system and atherosclerosis.

http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/abstract/S2211-1247(15)00825-6

Short telomeres and Mitochondrial dysfunction are increasingly implicated as being closely linked as this 2012 Dephino paper demonstrates in the aging heart:

Continue reading “PGC-1α Modulates Telomere Function and DNA Damage in Protecting against Aging-Related Chronic Diseases” »

A new story on transhumanism from Tech Insider which is Business Insider’s new tech site:

This presidential candidate wants you to live forever.

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A new article from The Daily Dot on transhumanism and my campaign:

The Daily Dot is the hometown newspaper of the World Wide Web, reporting on Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and more.

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Stem cells are a daily feature of science news nowadays and related fields are creating an astonishing array of advancements within regenerative medicine. Unfortunately unlesss you have a scientific background the differences between types can be terribly confusing. We are here to help.

The term stem cell can encompass:

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It’s not every day you get to sit down and have a one-on-one conversation with a United States presidential candidate, let alone one who is also a Transhumanist. TechEmergence recently had the opportunity to do just that during an interview with Zoltan Istvan, the 2016 presidential candidate for the newly formed Transhumanist party and author of the 2013 published The Transhumanist Wager.

If you follow the emerging trends in artificial intelligence, then you have already likely heard of “Transhumanism.” Oxford’s Nick Bostrom, in his 2003 book Ethical Issues for the 21st Century, defined Transhumanism as “a loosely defined movement…that promotes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and evaluating the opportunities for enhancing the human condition and the human organism opened up by the advancement of technology.”

This philosophy could be a turning point in human evolution. But like all great movements, this one is seemingly slow to pick up a serious following (though perhaps in retrospect, we will comment on how quickly this direction moved society forward). Regardless, Zoltan Istvan is determined to usher in this transitional philosophy as a political player and advocate for human enhancement.

Fighting for Our Lives

How do you get the populace, and other governments, to listen to ideas that, by mainstream standards, buck tradition and fall on the extreme side of the socially-acceptable spectrum?

Continue reading “Transhumanist Party Brings Life Extension Front and Center — an Interview with Zoltan Istvan” »

As regenerative medicine expands, our ability to engineer organs is growing with it. Researchers can now grow a number of so called ‘organoids’ — mini-organs which can teach us more about developmental biology and enable vastly improved testing. In the latest addition to the bunch, a team from Ohio State University has successfully engineered the most complete model yet of a human brain, with a similar maturity to a 5 week old fetus.

Containing 99% of the genes present in the human fetal brain, and about the size of an eraser, the organoid was developed from transformed adult human skin. This method could allow more ethical and precise clinical trials, both speeding up and enabling more rigorous, personalized testing. As animal testing frequently fails to predict varied human responses, these organoid models offer an alternative approach which could revolutionize clinical trial methodology.

“It not only looks like the developing brain, its diverse cell types express nearly all genes like a brain. We’ve struggled for a long time trying to solve complex brain disease problems that cause tremendous pain and suffering. The power of this brain model bodes very well for human health because it gives us better and more relevant options to test and develop therapeutics other than rodents.”

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