Rejuv-N-Nation

10,000,000 SET TO LIVE TO 100

2006-02-16T14:11:00.000-08:00

The following article concerns the UK but it should also have ramifications for the rest of the modern world. However, some of the conclusions rely a bit heavily on old tech and older paradigms for considering these issues. It probably is as a matter of consequence that they could not consider more progressive paradigms. I'll point a few of these issues out below where a newer higher technology considered paradigm changes certain premises considerably. However, I wish to point out that all issues aside I consider this to be enormously welcome good news!

10,000,000 SET TO LIVE TO 100

By Bob Roberts Deputy Political Editor

MORE than one million people now in their 30s could live to be 100, according to the latest official estimates.

The population of centenarians could soar from the current 10,000 to 1.2 million by 2074, the Government Actuary Department said.

People in their 30's could have a one in eight chance of living to be 100, while thousands could live to be 110 or more.

The figures, based on the most optimistic life expectancy trends, have dramatic implications for pensions.

Indeed but what is not considered as the reader will see is that they fail to consider that technology will make it so those aging pension aged individuals will not necessarily need to be decrepit. They might then choose to work beyond the age of retirement and this has bearing on pension expenditures.

Their longevity would have a big impact on the size of the population, with the number of people living in the country growing to 75 million by 2074.

It could soar further, to 90 million, if the highest projections for fertility rates and immigration are included.

This is true in one sense but again fails to take other possibilities into account. A key word here is immigration. If not for immigration the population growth rates for most modern industrialized countries would be negative. People tend to have fewer children as women get reproductive rights in their own hands and as a society becomes more affluant.

The best thing governments can do right now is put billions in funding toward anti aging and Life Extension science as these necessarily ameliorate the decrepitude of aging. Thus all the fears over bankrupt pension funds could be for not. How many people would trade getting feeble and old and waiting to die on a pension for being young for longer and taking no pension as they can still work? Or they could retire on personal funds allowed to accrue over longer periods with compound interest that soon overtake their expense needs. This way people that so choose could live enormusly long lives of leisure and travel or engage in perpetual altruistic pursuits at home or abroad.

Please view the rest of the article here.

New study on humans suggests eating less may delay aging

2006-01-17T21:32:00.000-08:00

Well you sure don't need to tell our April Smith at Mprize this news. See her blog here: She's been following a youth extending caloric restriction diet for a while already. Many people have for years simply based on results for other mammals. The Mprize gave one of it's first prizes to a study on mice.

Look it's all good no matter what your goal. Less food means less bulk and more energy. This is because like a light weight race car you need less ummph to push it down the road. So less toxic exhaust in the air, equate that to less junk in your cells helping to age you. So go to it people, eat less, eat right to live better and longer!

Study: eating less may delay human aging

Jan. 15, 2006
Courtesy American College of Cardiology and World Science staff

A new study is the first to associate a low-calorie diet with delayed signs of aging in humans, its authors say.

The hearts of people who follow a low-calorie, yet nutritionally balanced, diet resemble those of younger people when examined by sophisticated ultrasound function tests, the study found. They also tend to have more desirable levels of some markers of inflammation and excessive fibrous tissue, it concluded.

The study appears in the Jan. 17 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

“Eating less, if it is a high-quality diet, will improve your health, delay aging, and increase your chance of living a long, healthy and happy life,” said Luigi Fontana of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri and the Italian National Institute of Health in Rome, Italy.

“This is the first report ever to show that calorie restriction with optimal nutrition may delay primary aging in human beings.”

Please see the original article here.

Maybe The Most Exciting Breakthrough Yet! The Magic Mouse

2006-01-16T01:05:00.000-08:00

This is so excitng I'm simply hopping! Here we go people! If this get's developed further and in human beings, well it's almost incalculable the number of good things it will do. Imagine losing a limb to an accident and rather than long and painful rehabilitation and then getting fit for a prosthetic device, even the really cool new bionic limbs in development, you instead have your limb regrown!

Oh don't stop there! Got a bad kidney, a liver rotted to the core, panacreas gave you diabetes? Grow new ones! I'll go so far as to hazard a guess that one could grow the new one along side the old -- how else would it work for certain organs after all that you can't live without-- and if so then maybe to catch up on health one could have two of something. That may be wild speculation but so was even considering this just a few years ago. It might be possible to target areas of an organ and therby rejuvenate the old ones like maybe the heart. Sound good? I can't wait for it myself.

The Sunday Times - Britain

August 28, 2005

'Miracle mouse' can grow back lost limbs

Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

SCIENTISTS have created a “miracle mouse” that can regenerate amputated limbs or badly damaged organs, making it able to recover from injuries that would kill or permanently disable normal animals.

The experimental animal is unique among mammals in its ability to regrow its heart, toes, joints and tail.

The researchers have also found that when cells from the test mouse are injected into ordinary mice, they too acquire the ability to regenerate.

The discoveries raise the prospect that humans could one day be given the ability to regenerate lost or damaged organs, opening up a new era in medicine.

Please visit here for the rest of this excellent article.

I happen to be a quadriplegic and I also just happen to suffer the world's worst case of a very rare bone disease. That disease has totally destroyed my pelvic area, hip joints and heads of my femurs. For that matter both my legs are pretty much shot from this disease. It is called Heterotrophic Ossification where bone material just goes nuts and deposits everywhere randomly but mostly in the joints locking them up solid. My right knee is shot too from it so basically. If there ever is a cure for spinal injury it won't likely immediately help me walk. In fact though I'd want to try it just to get my fingers and hands back and control of certain daily needs, it might actually make the chronic pain I already suffer much worse.

However, maybe one day there'll be a way to regrow all these areas so badly damaged and give me a shot at regaining the life I lost. I can't wait to run pell mell through a field as fast as I can and feel the wind rush past my face once again.

Exciting Yet Cautious Hope For Parkinson's Sufferers

2006-01-16T00:25:00.000-08:00

We are beginning to see the very first attempts at gene manipulation therapies for curing dieases. It this therapy for Parkinson's a retro virus, sort of an intelligent nanoscopic pair of scissors, find's it's way into the exact correct spot to alter a gene. Let's hope it works. Parkinson's is an age related disease but can affect the young. Michael Jay Fox is widely known to suffer from the disease.

Gene-Therapy Tried for Parkinson's

BY LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer

4 hours ago

WASHINGTON - Mike Castle lay motionless as surgeons drilled two holes into his skull and injected a virus deep into his brain. The virus carries a gene and a tantalizing hope: that just maybe it could stall the Parkinson's disease slowly crippling him.

The Illinois man is among a few dozen patients enrolling in the first attempts at gene therapy for Parkinson's, a milestone in the quest to better treat the degenerative brain disease.

It's a time of mixed excitement and caution: These first three studies are to see if gene therapy is safe to try, not to prove whether it works. Yet studies in monkeys suggest at least one of the approaches has the potential to finally target the underlying disease, not merely tame its symptoms.

"It's this delicate balance between giving (patients) hope but making it clear to them, and to the world, that this is still highly experimental," says Dr. William J. Marks Jr. of the University of California, San Francisco, who is leading the most closely watched approach _ using a nerve growth factor to rescue dying brain cells.

"It's a gamble," agrees Dr. Leo Verhagen of Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, a co-researcher in the project who treated Castle.

"This is the first trial that, if it works, could slow down the disease's progression," he explains.

Yet to stress the experiment's unknowns, he bluntly told Castle, "We are happy if we don't make you worse."

Parkinson's disease gradually destroys brain cells that produce dopamine, a chemical crucial for the cellular communication that controls muscle movement. As dopamine levels drop, symptoms increase: tremors in the arms, legs and face; periodically stiff or frozen limbs; slow movement; impaired balance and coordination. It afflicts about 1.5 million Americans.

Please visit here for the rest of the original article.

Gene therapies remain controversial and may for quite some time. It's partly from misunderstanding the science and partly from personal differences held regarding what is ethical to do in changing genes that could possibly affect future generations. This is not that kind of therapy as I understand it. Hopefully people will reserve judgment until some positive results may be witnessed spread large and wide. Perhaps then people will calm down some and consider the fact that there but for the grace of chance or whatever, they too could need such a radical intervention. It's always easy to pontificate while one is young or healthy and the bad things only happen to others.

Old news is good news and come around again

2006-01-04T13:38:00.000-08:00

I've reported in Rejuvenation Engineering News a couple of times before, once for heart attack victims and once for children, about the benefits of cold for preserving the brain and other tissues. It halts damage and increases the span of the "Golden Hour" spoken of for trauma victims that best recover if dealt with promptly within the first hour from injury.

Minn. Hospitals Chill Heart Attack Victims

Wed Jan 4, 10:14 AM ET

MINNEAPOLIS - A handful of Minnesota hospitals are now chilling some heart attack patients in an effort partly to protect their brains, a therapy that has produced results one doctor called "breathtaking."

Take the case of Robert Kempenich, 52, of Little Falls. On Dec. 5, he collapsed at a SuperAmerica store and was rushed to a St. Cloud hospital where he was hooked up to a machine that lowered his body temperature to 92 degrees.

Under normal circumstances, only about 5 percent of patients who collapse after a sudden heart attack survive. Even if emergency workers get the heart started again, the brain damage is often permanent.

Yet two days after Kempenich collapsed he awoke from a coma and gave the "thumbs up" sign. His wife, Mary, was there. The sign meant, "He knows," she said. "He knows what he's doing."

Less than a week later, Kempenich went home from the hospital. He was back at work at the SuperAmerica last week. His doctors say there are no signs of lasting brain damage. (cont.)

It is wonderful to see a good idea spreading across the country. Hopefully soon every hospital will get on the bandwagon and be better prepared for cool measures that save clever brains and their owners. See the rest of the article here.

Unlocked mysteries of premature-aging syndrome may provide clues to aging

2005-12-15T12:35:00.000-08:00

Some exciting news for a few precious little tikes around the world that deserve it very much and so much more. It might also be exciting for the rest of us as well!

Mysteries of early-aging syndrome unlocked, researchers say

Dec. 13, 2005

Courtesy American Society for Cell Biology and World Science staff

Scientists say they are unraveling a longstanding mystery of how a rare syndrome causes its victims to die in their early teens, apparently of old age.

The answer could do more than help those children, researchers say. It could also lead to a better understanding of how normal aging happens, and what if anything one could do to stop it.

An estimated one in 8 million children are born with the condition, called Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome. They start life in apparent good health but by six to 18 months develop signs of premature aging, including hair loss, stiff joints, osteoporosis and atherosclerosis. Typically, they die by 13, finished by heart attacks or strokes.

No effective treatments are known, although scientists reported last September that a drug currently being tested against cancer might help the patients.

The cause of the condition, too, remains unknown. But researchers reported one breakthrough in 2003. They traced the condition to a spontaneous mutation in a gene encoding a component of the cell nucleus, the compartment of a cell that stores our genes.

Megan Nighbor, 5, a progeria patient. Her family, which has been appointed as the U.S. Progeria Research Foundation's Ambassador Family for progeria outreach, describes her as a bundle of energy who loves horses. (Photo courtesy of the Markesan Regional Reporter and the Progeria Research Foundation)

See the rest of the story continued here.

Progeria is a despicable disease. I would have to say that in fact it exceeds normal aging in loathsomeness. It robs beautiful children of their lives and time to enjoy life as much as they deserve. Their inner beauty always out-shining their outer, if you've ever had occasion to become familiar with them -- perhaps through a Discovery Channel documentary, they sparkle with joy and hope and love of life, what little of it this terrible disease affords them. We could all take lessons from them on how to appreciate the magical thing that mere existence is.

Let's hope this disease is soon to meet the dustbin of history and along with it that other thief of life that unfortunately plagues everyone plain-old every day aging itself. For even for these precious children, if they were to be cured of their premature aging, that old Dragon-Tyrant awaits them still.

This just in -- U.S. Life Expectancy Hits All-Time High

2005-12-09T04:15:00.000-08:00

In one respect this is very good news indeed, but stay tuned.

U.S. Life Expectancy Hits All-Time High

By MIKE STOBBE, Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA - U.S. life expectancy has hit another all-time high _ 77.6 years _ and deaths from heart disease, cancer and stroke continue to drop, the government reported Thursday.

To put this in the shortest and sweetest terms, this is exactly the result of Rejuvenation Engineering. However, due to human nature there is a catch.

Still, the march of medical progress has taken a worrisome turn: Half of Americans in the 55-to-64 age group _ including the oldest of the baby boomers _ have high blood pressure, and two in five are obese. That means they are in worse shape in some respects than Americans born a decade earlier were when they were that age.

The health of this large group of the near-elderly is of major concern to American taxpayers, because they are now becoming eligible for Medicare and Social Security.

"What happens to this group is very important because it's going to affect every other group," said Amy Bernstein of the National Center for Health Statistics, which put out the new report.

As I alluded to above human nature disrupts a very good thing. So the way I see it what must be done is to kick this horse in the flanks with sharper spurs than have been used in the past. By sharper spurs I mean of course a lot more money. All the effort to raise the life expectancy until now has been a happy accident. I mean it is the result of blind efforts to simply fight disease, repair injury and improve the human condition.

As many are catching onto it's time now to take the more direct approach and actively fund research efforts toward the ends of curing aging. Along the way many of these problems spoke of in this article will be addressed directly because different remedies for aging will cross apply. The problems caused by lazy human nature such as obesity and lack of care for optimum health are in part caused by apathy toward life that until now has been seen as short and aging inevitable. These will be addressed by a change in public attitude toward living longer, a change that will come when they realize the goal is possible when it is accomplished in a an animal model such as promoted by the Mprize. When this happens the general public will come onboard in droves.

Please read the original report available here. It goes on to talk about differences in generations ten years apart, those born in the 30's compared to those born in the 40's, the so called baby boomers. The inference in the entire report is that Social Security and Medicare will be strained by people living longer so efforts are being made to encourage better health to assuage the cost.

As those in the Life Extension movement know quite well, the best answer to fixing the woes of Social Security and Medicare are to cure aging, period. For one, people won't need to retire if they are youthful for longer or rejuvenated to restored youthful health. They will then have the time and mental maturity to better handle finances and place themselves in positions of safer long term compound interest investment that allow them to not need government or even industry retirement pension plans.

If you like these ideas and like the possibility to live to see many generations of grand children and the wonders that a vastly more technical and connected world may offer in the future, then please by all means possible step up and help us fund the effort to first garner wider public support for Life Extension via the animal model I spoke of above. Currently the Methuselah Mouse Prize is in my mind the best prospect for this. You may click the mouse logo in the upper right of my blog to go directly to the donation page. Do consider a long term commitment that cost merely the same as a cup of coffee a day, consider joining The Three Hundred a group of highly motivated forward thinking smart people pioneering a brighter path for us all.

The promise of Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine

2005-12-08T04:00:00.000-08:00

I've talked about the wonders of Nanotechnology before both here and in the Rejuvenation Engineering News section of the Mprize website. A recent post here left you all with a promise to make more sense foor you what this Nanotech is all about. This is the fulfillment of that promise.

I've posted but a few articles in RE News that show only the tip of the iceberg of what we hope to see coming down the pike. The following article is not about nanomedicine per se but it can give us a glimpse of what is hoped for. See the picture of the little, I mean, tiny tiny little car they made with but a very few atoms! Well one day we hope that tiny robots somewhat bigger than the little car but still way smaller than human cells will be able to move around inside and outsdide of cells and work on them to keep them healthy. They will be directly applicable to Aubrey de Grey's SENS theory for curing aging. In fact not only that but they will, as theorized and dreamed, be capable of what in past times would be considered magic!

As Isaac Asimov once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Nanotechnology promises to give us the power over matter itself... such power as to bend matter to our will down to the single atom. Ability like that would surely seem as though magical if one could be witnessed by someone from a former era. Nanomaterials and Molecular Manufacturing hold great promise and fill the dreams of many an innovator and futurist. At some level or other all these concepts, Nanomaterials, Nanomedicine and Molecular Manufacturing are all currently in extremely rapid development.

When you can place individual atoms in precise location or martial tiny robots around within the body to affect repairs, or even changes, you then have the abilty to do some very interesting things indeed. Imagine being able to change your hair color by thinking about it. Imagine tiny scrubbers keeping toxic buildup flushed out and artificial immunity devices keeping harmful bacteria and viruses at bay. Or how about automatic nail clipping?

I know I've dreamt up some pretty silly applications and some perhaps a bit practical here but my purpose is to spur the imagination. If something so mundane as hair color and nail length can be done what else may be possible? Robert Freitas, who wrote the book on Nanomedicine, figuratively and literally has dreamed up quite a few not so mundane uses. One is called Respirocytes, bascally tiny canistors of oxygen acting as artificial blood cells. See the image here below right:

With these little gems running around in your blood stream you might be able to hold your breath longer than a whale. You could have a heart attack and have it completely stop and yet go have a sandwich before worrying too much about getting to the hospital. The Respirocytes would keep your brain going and all your tissues well oxygenated and alive for several hours.

Getting back to the little nanocar, what we believe possible and one should see as such from the little car is the ability to make tiny little robots to do all these things and so many many more that I have mentioned above. Read the article I've exerpted below and visit the links I have listed further below to get a good look at the current boon in Nanotechnology going on and that is only getting more exciting and faster in pace as every day passes.

"World's smallest car" built

Oct. 22, 2005

Courtesy Rice University and World Science Staff

Humvee, move over.

Scientists say they have made the world's smallest car--a single-molecule "nanocar" that has wheels, axles and a chassis. They describe the device in a paper due to appear in an upcoming issue of the research journal Nano Letters.

Building such machines is a step toward regularly manufacturing things of this size, which could be useful for many purposes, said James M. Tour of Rice University in Houston, Texas, one of the developers.

"We'd eventually like to move objects and do work in a controlled fashion on the molecular scale, and these vehicles are great test beds for that. They're helping us learn the ground rules."

The nanocar has a pivoting suspension and freely rotating axles, the researchers said. The wheels are buckyballs, spheres of pure carbon containing 60 atoms apiece.

"Nanoscale" objects like this reported car are objects whose sizes are measured in nanometers, or millionths of a millimeter.

The car is just 3 or 4 nanometers wide, making it slightly wider than a strand of DNA, the researchers said. A human hair, by comparison, is about 80,000 nanometers wide.

Other research groups have created nanoscale objects that are shaped like automobiles. But study co-author Kevin F. Kelly, also of Rice, claimed Rice's vehicle is the first that actually functions like a car, rolling on four wheels in a direction perpendicular to its axles.[continued]

See the link embedded in the article title for the original and rest of the article. Below you will find more information to become more aquainted with the world of Nanotechnology.

The shear frantic pace of nanotechnology development: Viewing the shear volume of articles at the two following links will give the reader a good idea why those watching this speak in terms of exponential growth and development.

Nanotech News Net

SmallTimes

The concept for nanomedicine as seen by one of the primary designers and conceivers: Check out Robert Freitas' two books regarding proposed designs for nanotechnological medical devices.

Nanomedicine

Examples of the pace of nanomedical device development: Well over 1000 articles!

Nanotech Web

Businessweek

SmallTimes

The Future of Teeth and Dental Medicine

2005-12-07T23:51:00.000-08:00

At the RE News section for the Mprize website I have in the past introduced a several new dental procedures that promise to keep us in teeth during longer years of life lived through the auspices of Life Extension technologies. There is the article, "New jaw bone grown in back of man", which one could apply to the rebuilding of damaged jaw bones when the worst happens or peridontal disease takes it's toll on teeth and their substructure. There is also, "[Magic] Toothpaste fixes cavities as they appear", which better than ever controls cavities keeping teeth from decay and loss for far lobger. And finally there is, "Research fills dental need", about newer improved filling methods. One may also have heard of Stem Cell technology for producing "Tooth Buds" for replacing lost teeth. Those should replace the technology that is now replacing dentures -- the implants mentioned in this article below.

Imagine a world without dentures...

By Debra McCown, USA TODAY Mon Dec 5, 7:23 AM ET

There are people out there who don't floss their teeth.

Shocked? Some of them don't brush, either. Some damage their teeth by smoking. And some never go to the dentist.

Even so, oral health is improving.

A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health found that oral health has improved among all age groups, all racial groups, and all income levels. It also found that the proportion of adults over 60 who have lost all their teeth has dropped from one-third to one-fourth over the past decade.

The non-brushing minority aside, nowadays most people know how to take care of their teeth, and in addition to toothpaste and fluoridated water, today's young people are experiencing the benefits of advances such as dental sealants, which help prevent teeth from decaying.

Consequently, there are those, including Richard Price, spokesman for the American Dental Association, who can see the day when people don't have to wear dentures anymore.[continued]

Coming down the pike: Nano-based antiradiation drug

2005-12-02T05:13:00.000-08:00

I swear I'm not trying to turn this blog into a Nanotech blog. There certainly are plenty of those! But in reality Nanotech will come to dominate the medical field as we forge our way into this fabulous future to come and unfolding as we watch innovation after innovation occurring between eye blinks. It is only natural that it do so because working at the smallest scale possible, so to speak, from the bottom up -- brick by brick (in this case molecule by molecule and atom by atom), is the best possible method of fine tuning the processes of life. For the human body his will have enormous impact! Hehe, tiny things having "enormous" impact, truly ironic , is it not?

I have more nano based articles yet to post. Before that I beleieve I will in my next post, in order to better initiate my readership, cover the concept of Nanomedicine by introducing the size of the nano world and the interesting possibilities because of it via a neat little (no pun intended) demonstration recently achieved. Stay tuned!

Nano World: Nano-based antiradiation drug

By Charles Q. Choi

Nov 29, 2005, 23:46 GMT

NEW YORK, NY, United States (UPI) -- Balls of carbon atoms called buckyballs only a nanometer or billionth of a meter in diameter could serve as future antiradiation drugs to help protect against the side effects of cancer therapies or against dirty bombs, experts told UPI`s Nano World.

Radiation therapy and chemotherapy are the standard treatments for cancer, but they each take a toll on the body. Radiation damages skin, mouth, throat and bowel cells and can lead to fatigue, nausea, diarrhea and permanent hair loss, while chemotherapy can produce hearing loss and damage a number of organs, including the heart and kidneys.

Article continues at original website, see link above.

Study: Exercise Can Add 3 Years to Life

2005-12-02T02:32:00.000-08:00

This article regarding the life extending benefits of exercize might at first seem to not really fit the criterion for RE News but I think it can come pretty close if we consider a few things unique about our times. Consider that we nowadays have the ability to use high tech engineered methods to get exercise that in the past we instead crudely got daily through hard work. In fact time constraints sometimes force us to use these more concentrated methods than working all day, so to speak, "on the back forty" because fewer people in developed nations are farmers or work other close to nature type occupations these days.

However, that being said it must also be noted that high tech exercise methods are far superior to the daily grind that ground most people down literally to their graves in the past despite the health benefits. Injuries were common as was stress damage. Today we have controlled weight lifting, for instance, that can protect one's back not to mention the knowledge to greater understand what we're doing. Also no one 100 years ago and beyond ever heard the word aerobics. We have also have the benefit of low impact running capabilities with special machines. If we consider "Sports Medicine" and the high tech exercise and study done there then we truly are encroaching Rejuvination Engineering protocols. That is part of why I felt this warranted mentioning here on the Rejuv-N-Nation Blog but not necessarily on the Mprize website proper Rejuvination Engineering News section.

Here's the first part of the article. I hope the link stays current. If not I'll look into caching it perhaps on the Mprize website.

Study: Exercise Can Add 3 Years to Life

By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO - People who exercise can add three years to their life, and their hearts reap benefits from something as simple as brisk walking a half-hour a day, two studies suggest.

"Three years of extra life: It's a very clear message that makes it easy to grasp what might be the consequences of a sedentary lifestyle," said Dr. Oscar Franco, co-author of one of the studies and a researcher at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Do check out the original article.

More on the Nanotech attack on Cancer

2005-11-18T08:59:00.000-08:00

At the Mprize website section on Rejuvenation Engineering News I have reported several times before on the use of nanoparticles to reach deep within the body and specifically target individual cancer cells killing g them before enough of them propagate to cause harm and leaving healthy tissue well alone. The following blog article I found and excerpted below goes into much greater detail. Be sure to visit here for the whole interesting article. Don't forget to visit the Mprize website to donate to end the disease we call aging.

Nanoparticles, Nanoshells, Nanotubes: How Tiny Specks May Provide Powerful Tools Against Cancer

November 17, 2005

PHILADELPHIA - They're but a tiny speck, existing in a variety of forms: particles, tubes, shells, even a soccerball-like shape. They also share a common prefix: "nano", connoting their size, a billionth of a meter or roughly 25-millionth of an inch.

Today, cancer researchers are exploring the potential of such nanostructures to exquisitely target cancer cells without harming surrounding tissue, and to image the formation of tumors long before they have a chance to become life-threatening.

While diagnostics and approved therapies are years away, several are nearing clinical studies, while a few already are being tested in patients.

A press conference on "Advances in Nanotechnology for Cancer Diagnostics and Treatment" is being featured at the "Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics" International Conference here.

Research highlights from this session include:

A nanotube, combined with monoclonal antibodies, is detecting cancer cells, offering a potential cost-effective way to diagnose whether cells are cancerous or not in a matter of minutes versus hour or days with current methods.

Nanoshells, filled with gold particles, are destroying tumor cells when heated with laser light. What's more, these nanoshells interact with light in specific ways, and can be "tuned" to discrete destructive wavelengths by varying the size of the core and the shell.

A nanoparticle combined with a hormone and cell-killing peptide is being tested to image, target and destroy primary and metastatic breast cancer cells.

A novel kind of "nanocomplex" consisting of a microscopic, lipid-based liposome and an antibody along with gene therapy is entering clinical studies, in an approach that scientists hope will both detect and target metastatic cancer cells for destruction.

As you can see there's a plethora of valuable information available from that article. Each one of the above bullet points is expanded and delt with in greater detail in the original article.

Drugstore Cancer Tests

2005-11-09T15:49:00.000-08:00

This will fit well with the last article I posted about my friend's blog article lauding the National Cancer Institute's foray into Nanotechnology for cures for cancer. In the following excerpted article , from MIT's nationally recognized magazine Technology Review, we learn about new nanotech powered devices that could empower everyone to test early for cancer. It would mean testing early enough to prevent health degradation. They would be cheap and readily available from your local drugstore. That is the goal.

Drugstore Cancer Tests

A new nano-device could eventually find its way to a pharmacy aisle near you.

By Kevin Bullis

October 31, 2005

Biomedical researchers have been discovering more and more proteins that reveal the presence of a cancer before its symptoms appear -- and while its treatment success rate is still high. Yet turning these findings into quick, accurate, and inexpensive diagnostic tests has proven difficult.

Recent advances in nanotech devices, however, point to new ways for developing inexpensive and effective cancer-screening devices.

One of the most promising of these new detectors is being built by Charles Lieber, a chemist at Harvard University. In an article this month in Nature Biotechnology, he announced a highly-sensitive detector that can simultaneously find multiple cancer markers.

According to Lieber, the device, which uses nanowires to detect telltale cancer proteins, could lead to inexpensive and highly-accurate tests -- people could even buy them in a local drugstore and perform the testing themselves. "We can take a very small amount of blood and with a very simple filtration step get an answer within five minutes," Lieber says, adding that the device has "a sensitivity a thousand times better" than in a lab.

Well that is only a taste so be sure to follow this link to see the rest.

Won't it be great to be able to head off cancer well before it can even effect your health? Think of how many lives that will save! It will mean more people surviving long enough to reach escape velocity as put forth in the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) approach to curing aging by Aubrey de Grey and so be able to take full advantage of the soon coming cures for aging and more.

Check out my friend Jan-Willem's blog

2005-11-09T14:56:00.000-08:00

My Dutch friend Jan-Willem Bats recently posted an excellent article on his blog about the National Cancer Institute's projects with Nanotechnology seeking actual cures, not just treatments, for cancer... all cancers. He notes that NCI claims it could end cancer by 2015, I think he's right. I won't steal his thunder so go see why he thinks this audacious claim is true!

But stop by the NCI and see this video first and get it straight from the folks that support those working on it directly.

Of course I have posted news articles about NCI's use of nanotech some time ago on the Rejuvenation Engineering News section at the Mprize website. But it is good to know work has progressed since those articles and what were once only hoped for's are now sure of's. Enjoy the empowerment this information provides and share the hope with your loved ones that suffer the insults to life cancer causes. I know I am not going to stop bugging my uncle Carlos until he gets his doctors to put him in touch with someone that can get him involved with the early trials.

Welcome to the Rejuvenation Engineering News Adjunct blog for Mprize.org

2005-11-07T03:42:00.001-08:00

This blog is meant to be a supplement to the Rejuvenation Engineering News section at the Mprize website for the Methuselah Fondation. The Methuselah Fondation is a non profit organization created to promote the science and technology of engineering the human body for agelessness and robust health. The Methuselah Fondation's chief vehicle for promoting such science for now is the Methuselah Mouse Prize or Mprize for short. Here you will find all the stuff that is coming down the pike for rejuvenation strategies for engineering the human body away from aging and decrepitude, sickness and yes even death, that doesn't quite meet the parameters for posting at the Mprize website. There the breakthroughs for Rejuvenation Engineering News must be available within 2 years for at least Phase III human trials.

Here I'll be a little less restricted and talk about the hope given us by really cool science and tech stuff coming down the pike in a farther flung future timeline useful for creating a world where human aging is nil and death rare for those that choose to take part in the science and technologies involved.

Individual choice is a big thing to the advocates of these technologies. Most take a laissez faire position towards government, life, society and interactions between individuals, a basically "live and let live" approach, allowing people to make their own choices about what to do with their own bodies and lives. Few, and I dare say probably none, would ever advocate refusing people their choice in availing themselves or not of Physical Immortality science.

Now what do we mean by Physical Immortality? We mean non magical extreme robustness of physical life spans. We mean you won't survive a ground zero bomb or being flattened by a pavement roller or some such extreme violence, but aging will soon be cured and most diseases will have been someday soon cured and/or some means, which I'll explain later, will have been designed to make any insult to the molecular integrity of human cells rapidly repairable invivo... on the hoof, so to speak.

In other words we aren't saying that if you take advantage of these sciences and technologies that you can never ever die. So we aren't competing with religion, although sometimes it's difficult to convince some folks of that. The question, "what comes after final death", will ever be a question that each and every individual someday must find the answer to completely on their own when all attempts to dodge such an event ultimately fail. The foolish say in complete seriousness, "I'll live forever", for on the day the universe ends they'll discover how wrong they were.

Could we individually or as a species live to see that end? Well that will be a topic of discussion for a later time, I don't wish to play all my cards in this intro. However, in very practical terms, notwithstanding discussion of exotic extreme solutions, the scientist that leads the Mprize and that developed the theory for how to re-engineer the human body for agelessness, Aubrey de Grey, developer of SENS -- Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senesence, believes mishap will statistically limit ageless life spans to about 5000 years.

Well, I'll take what I can get!, how about you? And when the year 7005ce rolls around maybe we'll have developed something really exotic for living another 5k or beyond! I often say to those that just don't quite get it right away, "Do you like taking that next breath and what the taking of that breath allows you to do, chiefly be with loved ones, appreciate art, beauty, watch grand children develop, etc., etc., ...all life offers?", and then follow with, "So if yes, then if you have a perpetual physical health of a 25-30 year old, what would make you wish not to take that next breath?". Folks then often get it when put that way.

Ok well that's basically it in a nutshell so I'll get to posting some neat things that science is on the cusp of soon and we'll get this party started!! Oh, by the way, I forgot to introduce myself, my name is James Swayze, and if you see a picture of me when I was a little younger than nowadays you'll probably be compelled given my name to ask, "are you related to...?", and I'll say, yes we're distant cousins! Anyway, I have been a volunteer for the Mprize since about when it started and I administrate the Rejuvenation Engineering News portion of the website there. I decided there was a need for some public interactivity and discussion of what might be possible so here we are. -- James

Welcome to the Rejuvenation Engineering News Adjunct blog for Mprize.org

2005-11-07T03:42:00.000-08:00