Lifeboat Foundation

DNA replication is a process of critical importance to the cell, and must be coordinated precisely to ensure that genomic information is duplicated once and only once during each cell cycle. Using super-resolution technology a University of Technology Sydney led team has directly visualized the process of DNA replication in single human cells.

This is the first quantitative characterization to date of the spatio-temporal organization, morphology, and in situ epigenetic signatures of individual replication foci (RFi) in single human cells at the nanoscale.

The results of the study, published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) give new insight into a poorly understood area of DNA replication namely how replication origin sites are chosen from thousands of possible sites.

Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway, is currently spearheading a project to convert part of the old New Hampshire textile plant into a factory for lab-grown lungs, livers, and other organs for transplantation — and he doesn’t think it’ll take long to do it.

The nonprofit is like a club for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine researchers. Groups must have something to offer in order to join (money, equipment, experience), but once a part of ARMI, they gain access to the other members’ research and resources.

Scientists identify an important protein that increases “bacterial virulence,” when mutated, changing harmless bacteria to harmful ones.

As far as humans are concerned, bacteria can be classified as either harmful, pathogenic bacteria and harmless or beneficial non-pathogenic bacteria. To develop better treatments for diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria, we need to have a good grasp on the mechanisms that cause some bacteria to be virulent. Scientists have identified genes that cause virulence, or capability to cause disease, but they do not fully know how bacteria evolve to become pathogenic.

To find out, Professor Chikara Kaito and his team of scientists from Okayama University, Japan, used a process called experimental evolution to identify molecular mechanisms that cells develop to gain useful traits, and published their findings in PLoS Pathogens. “We’re excited by this research because no one has ever looked at virulence evolution of bacteria in an animal; studies before us looked at the evolution in cells,” said Prof Kaito.

Fat cell aspirste can be part of regenerative medicine treatments for degenerated body tissues such as joints, muscles, tendon and ligaments.

Three studies showing large DNA deletions and reshuffling heighten safety concerns about heritable genome editing.

While there are ways to alleviate some symptoms, there is currently no way to prevent or cure Parkinson’s disease, so the prospect of a one-off treatment that completely eliminates it is certainly an exciting one. While such a therapy remains a while off, scientists have demonstrated an exciting proof of concept in mice, whereby inhibiting a single gene as a one-time treatment eradicated the disease entirely, and kept it at bay for the remainder of their lives.

The research was carried out at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and centers on a protein called PTB, which plays a role in which genes are switch on and off in a cell. The team was experimenting with techniques whereby the gene that encodes for PTB is switched off so researchers can determine the flow-on effects of a reduction in the that protein on other cell types, and found peculiar results when working with connective tissue cells called fibroblasts.

In one experiment, the team created a cell line that was permanently lacking PTB, and after a couple of weeks found that there was only a small amount of fibroblasts remaining in the dish, which was brimming with neurons instead. Building on this, the team was able to use a single treatment to inhibit the activity of PTB in mice, which reprogrammed support cells in the brain called astrocytes into neurons that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Leading futurist Tracey Follows has written an article at Forbes on #transhumanism documentary IMMORTALITY OR BUST. Check it out!

Zoltan has a more radical idea of change than almost anything else you are seeing on your TV screens today but the mainstream media continue to miss him. That’s why it’s good to see he has made his own documentary film explaining to a broader audience what he’s doing, how it all works, and why they should be interested in transhumanism at all.

Continue reading “Immortality Or Bust: Transhumanism In The White House” »

Tweaking an immune protein called interleukin-18 can overcome tumors that lure it into binding with a decoy receptor protein and render it harmless to cancer cells, new research in mice shows. In conjunction with the paper, published Wednesday in Nature, a company founded by senior author Aaron Ring announced $25 million in initial financing to create and commercialize a drug based on the discovery.

The approach adds another weapon to an immunotherapy arsenal that activates immune responses hijacked by cancer. Checkpoint inhibitors, for example, take the brakes off immune cells that should battle invaders. IL-18 is a cytokine that normally activates T cells and natural killer cells, two immune forces that fight infection, but it’s disarmed by the decoy wielded by tumors.

Approach could lead to new ways to treat epilepsy, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease.