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The risk of age-associated diseases including heart disease and some types of cancers are more closely related to biological rather than chronological age,
European researchers have found, showing that telomere lengths depend on the presence of gene variants near a gene called TERC.
Researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have performed the first complete genomic sequencing of a brain cancer cell line, a discovery that may lead to personalized treatments based on the unique biological signature of an individual's cancer and to more effective and less toxic drugs.
Silicon Valley start-up Counsyl is selling a test that it says can tell couples whether they are at risk of having children for 100 inherited diseases, including rare inherited diseases.
Some genetic testing of prospective parents is done now, but only for a few diseases like cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs, and only for certain ethnic groups. Each test can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Counsyl's test costs $349 for an individual or $698 for a couple.
Exposure to a younger animal's blood somehow pushed the older animal's hematopoietic stem cells (which give rise to all the cells of the blood system) back to a more youthful state, in which they were fewer in number but recovered nearly all of their blood-cell-generating capacity.
Apple's "iTablet" could be destined to transform our care delivery system in a major way.
The promise of improved clinical information systems, based on real-time information updates across patient touchpoints could be a workflow game changer. If the tablet becomes the tool that is carried with a nurse or doctor on their travels from patient to patient, it will save time, money and lives by enabling the first "always updated" system.
researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College developed a simple way to increase production of endothelial cells -- which line the interior of blood vessels and give rise to blood vessels -- by more than 30-fold.
The cells might one day by used to create blood vessels in engineered tissue or administered to patients directly to repair injury after heart attack or stroke, resupplying blood to damaged organs.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota and the Minneapolis VA Medical Center have found a distinct pattern of brain activity among PTSD sufferers, using a brain imaging method called magnetoencephalography (MEG).
University of California, San Diego researchers and colleagues have genetically engineered bacteria that fluoresce in synchronised bursts.
Controlling synchrony between cells might lead to implants made of engineered cells that act as a periodic drug delivery devices, or provide new insights into sleep, learning and brain diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, which are thought to occur when synchrony between neurons is abnormal.
Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a molecule, DNMT1, that helps stem cells know whether to self-renew to create more stem cells, or to differentiate into specialized, non-dividing adult skin cells.
It's important because too much self-renewal can lead to cancer, and too little can inhibit wound healing.
Biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey expects many people alive today to live to 1000 years of age and to avoid age-related health problems even at that age. In this excerpt from his just-published, much-awaited book, Ending Aging, he explains how.
In a recent paper reporting on the National Cancer Institute study of multivitamin use and the risk of prostate cancer, the NCI authors cited several possible bias factors. An analysis by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman shows why the study’s biases should be considered before drawing conclusions.
The human brain faces a challenging future. To cope with accelerating nanotech- and biotech-based developments in an increasingly complex world, compete with emerging superintelligence, and maintain its performance and sustainability as people live longer, the fragile human brain will need major enhancements: a backup system, eliminating degenerative processes, direct mind-linkup to ubiquitous computing networks, error-correction for memory, and a global Net connection with remote neural access.
Radical nanotech-based human enhancements such as bionic implants and "respirocyte" artificial red blood cells will become technologically viable in the near future, raising profound ethical issues and forcing us to rethink what it means to be human. Recent pro-enhancement arguments will need to be critically examined and strengthened if they are to be convincing.
Scientists are now talking about people staying young and not aging. Ray Kurzweil is taking it a step further: "In addition to radical life extension, we’ll also have radical life expansion. The nanobots will be able to go inside the brain and extend our mental functioning by interacting with our biological neurons."
The ability to build complex diamondoid medical nanorobots to molecular precision, and then to build them cheaply enough in sufficiently large numbers to be useful therapeutically, will revolutionize the practice of medicine and surgery.
A cure for aging may be found in the next fifty years. The trick now is to live long enough to be there when it happens. In his two new books, Ray Kurzweil has painted a clear picture of the future and provided a blueprint for how to get there.
There are very few diseases or conditions--including infectious diseases--aside from physical brain damage, that cannot be cured using nanomedicine, says nanomedicine pioneer Robert A. Freitas Jr. He believes nanomedicine's greatest power will emerge in a decade or two as we learn to design and construct complete artificial nanorobots using diamondoid nanometer-scale parts and subsystems.
"What is your dangerous idea?" Over one hundred big thinkers answered this question, as part of The Edge's Annual Question for 2006. Ray Kurzweil's dangerous idea? We can achieve immortality in our lifetime.
Technology based on intentional, open-source biology is on its way, whether we like it or not. Distributed biological manufacturing is the future of the global economy and will occur as inexpensive, quality DNA sequencing and synthesis equipment becomes available to anyone. In 2050, garage biology hacking will be well under way. Fear of potential hazards should be met with increased research and education, rather than closing the door on the profound positive impacts that distributed biological technology will have on human health, human impacts on the environment, and increasing standards of living around the world.
