Technology & Society
The DOD is funding a lot of great work in regenerative medicine. Here’s yet another example developed at the University of Georgia’s Regenerative Bioscience Center. Thanks, DOD (and the folks over at DARPA).
Here’s a great article from PandoDaily discussing what gene sequencing companies like Halcyon might do now that another company (Oxford Nanopore) has managed to do cheap, fast, sequencing first. Halcyon board member Elon Musk has this to say: Halcyon has
A 30-year old man in Baltimore had his cancerous trachea taken out and replaced with one grown for him in the lab. Now, he has a second chance at life and his 4-year-old daughter will have her father around. Scientists
From the NYT: Medical researchers in Britain have successfully treated six patients suffering from the blood-clotting disease known as hemophilia B by injecting them with the correct form of a defective gene, a landmark achievement in the troubled field of
This is important news: Researchers have shown they can reverse the aging process for human adult stem cells, which are responsible for helping old or damaged tissues regenerate. The findings could lead to medical treatments that may repair a host
Aaron Saenz at Singularity Hub writes a thoughtful review of 100+: What would you do with another 75 years on this Earth? Not as a pain wracked wizened elder in a nursing home, but as a vibrant super-centenarian with the
This is an excellent article from the NYT about how gene therapy has been used to kill cancer. Dr. Carl June at U Penn is really a leader in this field.
Researchers funded by the UK-based Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have discovered a new mechanism controlling ageing in white blood cells. The research, published in the September issue of the Journal of Immunology, opens up the possibility of
A Swedish hospital recently announced that a cancer patient was saved after doctors grew him a new windpipe in the lab using a synthetic structure and the man’s own stem cells. That might have sounded like science fiction just a
Here’s an interview I did with Rick Docksai, assistant editor for THE FUTURIST. We talk about longevity and my upcoming book, 100 Plus.
Dr. Atala of Wake Forest University is one of the leaders in the field of regenerative medicine — a true hero. Here’s a recent op-ed he wrote for CNN on the topic.
The headline of this USA Today story is somewhat misleading, since the trachea that was created using an artificial scaffold was made with the patient’s own cells. It’s a sort of artificial/biological mix of a trachea. In any case, the
From Nature News: Scientists have developed a gene-repair kit that treats the blood-clotting disorder haemophilia in mice. The technique replaces genes in targeted organs without removing cells from the body, simultaneously correcting multiple mutations. It broadens the range of diseases
This is super-interesting. From the Independent: “The controversial test measures vital structures on the tips of a person’s chromosomes, called telomeres, which scientists believe are one of the most important and accurate indicators of the speed at which a person
Great work from Canadian-based researchers. See full study here.
This is a fascinating story about a woman named Deepa Kulkarni who accidentally cut off the top of her pinky finger. After being told by regular doctors that they have to cut even more of it to make her better
From the WSJ: In a study being published Friday in the journal Cell Stem Cell, scientists at Stanford University describe how they got muscle tissue in mice to regenerate, essentially re-awakening an ability that had been thought lost over evolutionary
This is an amazing article about (70 year old!) Harvard Professor George Whitesides. He’s working to create cheap diagnostics for developing countries and he tells the reporter this: My view of the health care worker of the future is not
It’s always annoying to me when I hear people talk about how new advances in medicine are always going to cost more. In many cases the opposite is true. Here’s a well-written article from the NYT explaining why robotic surgery
This is super-interesting and the researchers say they could be testing it in humans within a year. From the press release: “Researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center created a large, well armed battalion of tumor-seeking immune system cells and