Lifeboat Foundation

A team of researchers from the University of New South Wales in Australia have discovered a key molecular process in DNA repair that could stop cells from ageing and help DNA to reverse damage.

Nice summary from Wired on Liz.

After her son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, Elizabeth Parrish began researching gene therapy treatments. She then started testing them on herself.

Scientists in Germany have discovered a protein that can prompt the body’s blood stem cells to act young again, potentially reversing some of the bad aspects of the aging process.

The suggestion that young blood may be the key to reversing some of the negative aspects of aging sounds like the setup to a horror movie. In reality, however, it refers to some groundbreaking work being carried out by scientists at the University of Ulm in Germany.

They’ve been examining the ways that old blood can be made young again, and they hypothesize that it might help fight some of the effects of aging. To achieve this, they’ve discovered a protein capable of boosting blood stem cells, which prompt them to act like the stem cells of younger people.

I was under the impression that human trials were already underway, but this says they will start in 6 months.

UNSW researchers have made a discovery that could lead to a revolutionary drug that actually reverses ageing, improves DNA repair and could even help NASA get its astronauts to Mars.

In a paper published in Science today, the team identifies a critical step in the molecular process that allows cells to repair damaged DNA.

Continue reading “Scientists unveil a giant leap for anti-aging” »

Should these results prove to be accurate, it means that scientists have actually managed to create a way to reverse aging.

Longevity news from Sweden.

More pressure to include aging as a disease from a number of important scientists. This time Sweden is the focus for the push to have aging included in their disease classification.

In a world without ageing, our idea of family will likely change—for the better.

So it would, and I’m looking forward to it.

As things stand, this is what happens to a human family in a nutshell. Two people start dating. If things go well, they may want to live together and have kids. The kids grow up and do the same, eventually, and the original parents become grandparents, generally around the time they start being elderly. Unfortunately, this means they are less and less able to take care of themselves (let alone their grandchildren), and thus are more of a burden than a helping hand. (Talk to people who are around 60 and have kids, and you’ll find out their worst concern is being a burden to their families the moment they’re no longer able to take care of themselves.)

Grandparents eventually die. Repeat the process for enough generations, and eventually the members of the original family will all have died—the family is dismantled. Maybe other families originated from it, but it is irrelevant. The people are what matters to us, not their genes. Genes will be passed on, but all the people in the process will die, and become just a carrier for the genes. Looks like we really should have read the fine print before signing up for life, eh?

Continue reading “Rejuvenation would change our concept of family” »

A popular science article discussing the imminent arrival of senescent cell removing therapies.

Imagine a world where you could take just a single pill for the treatment or prevention of several age-related diseases. Although still in the realms of science fiction, accumulating scientific data now suggests that despite their biological differences a variety of these diseases share a common cause: senescent cells. This has led scientists to find drugs that can destroy these cells.

When cells become damaged, they either self-destruct (apoptosis) or they lose their ability to grow and remain stuck within the body. These are the non-growing senescent cells that no longer carry out their tasks properly. They spew out chemicals that cause damage to cells nearby, sometimes turning them into “zombies” – hence why they are sometimes referred to as “zombie cells”. Eventually, the damage builds up so much that the function of bodily organs and tissues, such as skin and muscle, becomes impaired. At this point, we identify the changes as disease.

Continue reading “Killing ‘zombie’ cells to improve health in old age” »

61 points and so far on reddit.