Lifeboat Foundation

I remember years ago when researchers identified that families with high rates for severe allergies also had high rates of cancer. Today, we talk about cancer and immunology as an intertwined dependency. Just means we’re still understanding cancer, genetic mutations, and the trigger/s in causing cancer among families and individual.

Scientists say the NLCR5 gene allows cancer cells to escape the immune system. A test for the biomarker may predict how long a cancer patient can survive.

Crowdfunding Campaign: https://www.lifespan.io/campaigns/the-major-mouse-testing-program/

We are testing a combination of compounds which clear out dysfunctional cells in the body, called Senolytics, to see if we can extend maximum lifespan and healthspan in mice. Please subscribe, share, and fund our Lifespan.io campaign today!

Continue reading “MMTP — Major Mouse Testing Program — Interview with Brian Kennedy” »

The community has the power to direct science and we no longer have to accept the traditional path of state funded science. We have the power to choose the direction science takes!

The cadence of SENS rejuvenation research fundraising this year will be a little different from that of past years. There will be more groups involved and more smaller initiatives running through existing crowdfunding sites for a start. The first of these fundraisers for 2016 has launched at crowdfunding site Lifespan.io, and is definitely worthy of our support. The Major Mouse Testing Program is a new non-profit group of researchers and advocates, who have spent the last six months making connections and laying the groundwork to run more animal studies of SENS-relevant prototype therapies focused on health and life span. This is an important gap in the longevity science community as it exists today: consider the painfully slow progress in organizing animal studies in senescent cell clearance over the past five years, for example. Given more enthusiasm and more funding, that could have happened a lot faster. Consider also that the research mainstream — such as the NIA Interventions Testing Program — carries out very few rigorous health and life span studies of potential interventions for aging in mice, and of those almost none are relevant to the SENS approach of damage repair, the only plausible path to radical life extension within our lifetimes.

Animal studies are vital; not just one or two, here or there, but a systematic approach to generating rigorous supporting data, establishing dosage, and uncovering unexpected outcomes. The Major Mouse Testing Program can do a great deal to fill this gap for our community, and has the potential to be an important supporting organization for the SENS Research Foundation, for startups working on SENS technologies such as Oisin Biotechnologies, and for labs involved in SENS research. The more diversity the better. The only thing that the Major Mouse Testing Program lacks today is the initial funding and support that we can provide to give them a good start on their plans for the future. With clever organization, a non-profit organization allied with established labs can carry out solid animal studies at a cost low enough for people like you and I to fund the work via fundraisers, and that is exactly what we should do.

Continue reading “Help Crowdfund Senescent Cell Clearance as a Therapy for Aging at the Major Mouse Testing Program” »

University of Oxford scientists have developed a gene therapy that has shown promise in treating choroideremia, a rare disorder that causes progressive vision loss, mostly in males.

Doctors tested the treatment method on six patients with choroideremia by injecting numerous healthy genes into the eye to replace missing ones in the retina. The purpose of this therapy is to hinder or prevent loss of sight, according to Oxford’s announcement.

Results varied for each participant. Two patients experienced a big improvement in vision that lasted for four years, but a decline occurred in the other untreated eye. Three separate patients maintained their vision in the treated eye over four years whereas the sixth recipient who was given a lower dose succumbed to vision decline in both eyes.

Continue reading “Gene Therapy to Treat Progressive Vision Loss” »

Hmmm; I see a bright future for this. No more surgeries by plastic surgeons? possibly?

Scientists at MIT, Massachusetts General Hospital, Living Proof, and Olivo Labs have developed a new material that can temporarily protect and tighten skin, and smooth wrinkles. With further development, it could also be used to deliver drugs to help treat skin conditions such as eczema and other types of dermatitis.

The material, a silicone-based polymer that could be applied on the skin as a thin, imperceptible coating, mimics the mechanical and elastic properties of healthy, youthful skin. In tests with human subjects, the researchers found that the material was able to reshape “eye bags” under the lower eyelids and also enhance skin hydration. This type of “second skin” could also be adapted to provide long-lasting ultraviolet protection, the researchers say.

Continue reading “Invisible ‘second skin’ polymer material temporarily tightens skin” »

I do love and believe in the benefits of 3D printing; however, as a technologist and concerned informed citizen I do worry about this technology getting the hands of drug lords, terrorists, and other criminals. With Medical 3D printing; illegal drug manufacturing can change overnight and expanded to new levels of mass production. Also, illegal weapon production can be enhanced as well with 3D printing.

At this point, law enforcement in 1st and 2nd world countries are going to face harder times than they ever have in the recent past and before. 3D Printing and AI are truly going to take an already difficult situation for government and their law enforcement teams extremely tough in the coming 3 to 5 years; and hope they and tech come together to figure out a good go forward plan to ensure right benefits are received and progress not slowed down while keeping everyone safe.

Materialise incorporates more than 25 years of 3D printing experience into a range of software solutions and 3D printing services, which together form the backbone of the 3D printing industry. Materialise’s open and flexible solutions enable players in a wide variety of industries, including healthcare, automotive, aerospace, art and design, and consumer goods, to build innovative 3D printing applications that aim to make the world a better and healthier place.

Continue reading “Materialise CEO on medical 3D Printing” »

By David Glance Director of UWA Centre for Software Practice, University of Western Australia

Pharmaceutical companies typically develop new drugs with thousands of staff and budgets that run into the billions of dollars. One estimate puts the cost of bringing a new drug to market at $2.6 billion with others suggesting that it could be double that cost at $5 billion.

Continue reading “Garage Biotech: New drugs using only a computer, the internet and free online data” »

Interesting approach.

If you’re at all interested in your health, it’s likely you’ve joined the 20 percent of Americans who’ve incorporated fitness trackers into their daily ensemble. From monitoring steps and daily activity to sleep, an ever-growing number of devices are tracking and analyzing our body’s data in an effort to make us better.

But how good is this tracking? Despite noble intentions, the scientific reality is that much of the data these trackers provide is insufficient and inaccurate — and in turn, are not as effective as they promise.

Continue reading “Use Your Brain. Ditch Your Fitness Tracker” »

Today, we’re announcing a new series of workshops and an interagency working group to learn more about the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence.

There is a lot of excitement about artificial intelligence (AI) and how to create computers capable of intelligent behavior. After years of steady but slow progress on making computers “smarter” at everyday tasks, a series of breakthroughs in the research community and industry have recently spurred momentum and investment in the development of this field.

Today’s AI is confined to narrow, specific tasks, and isn’t anything like the general, adaptable intelligence that humans exhibit. Despite this, AI’s influence on the world is growing. The rate of progress we have seen will have broad implications for fields ranging from healthcare to image- and voice-recognition. In healthcare, the President’s Precision Medicine Initiative and the Cancer Moonshot will rely on AI to find patterns in medical data and, ultimately, to help doctors diagnose diseases and suggest treatments to improve patient care and health outcomes.