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What's the key to living a long life? Is it all in the genes, or are there anti-aging strategies that might make a difference?
Join Science magazine for a live chat on anti-aging research, Thursday, January 26 at 3 pm EST. We'll chat with experts Aubrey de Grey and S. Jay Olshansky on the science of aging. They'll answer your questions on a variety of topics, including whether human lifespan will continue to increase, what impact antiaging research could have on global demographics, and what the latest research says about what you can do to combat the ill effects of growing older.
Heart failure occurs when a damaged heart is weakened
and unable to pump enough blood around the body
(Photo: ALAMY)
For the first time in human history, cardiac stem cells were used to repair the severely damaged hearts of 16 patients in a trial conducted by researchers from the University of Louisville in the US. "It could offer an entirely new option and a potential cure for patients who are now dying from heart failure," said study author Dr. Roberto Bolli, director of cardiology at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. "The results are striking. While we do not yet know why the improvement occurs, we have no doubt now that ejection fraction increased and scarring increased."
The ejection fraction or "pumping efficiency" of the hearts of eight patients had improved by more than a whopping 12%. These results tripled the 4% improvement the researchers were expecting to see.
"If these results hold up in future studies, I believe this could be the biggest revolution in cardiovascular medicine in my lifetime, " said an impressed Professor Bolli.
The "Schipio" trial included a total of 23 patients, all of whom suffered heart failure due to a previous heart attack. Seven of these received standard care while the other sixteen were assigned to stem cell therapy. The groundbreaking treatment involved extracting cardiac stem cells (CSCs) from patients during bypass surgery. CSCs are self-renewing cells that rebuild hearts and arteries. After a purification process and a period of growth in the laboratory, the cardiac stem cells are then injected back into damaged regions of the patient's hearts four months later. A million of these CSCs were injected into each patient via a balloon catheter, an expandable device used to open up arteries.
Interestingly, this small Phase I study was primarily designed to assess safety rather than effectiveness of the new, cutting-edge treatment. At the start of the study, the patients had an average left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) of 40% or lower. Normal LVEF is 50% or higher. Over a period of 4 months, patients who received the treatment saw an 8.5% improvement in LVEF, increasing to 12.3% after one year. LVEF did not change in the seven patients of the "control" group who did not undergo the cardiac stem cell therapy. MRI scans conducted on number of patients revealed that cardiac scarring had been reduced.
"Michael Jones, our first patient, could barely walk 30 feet [before treatment]," Dr. John H. Loughran said. "I saw him this morning. He says he plays basketball with his granddaughter, works on his farm, and gets on the treadmill for 30 minutes three times a week. It is stories like that that makes these results really encouraging."
These findings are published in the online edition of The Lancet medical journal and will be presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions meeting in Orlando, Florida. Now, Professor Bolli and his team intend on applying for funding a much bigger, multi-centre Phase II trial.
Professor Gerd Heusch from the University School of Medicine in Essen, Germany commented on the study in The Lancet: "The results from Scipio raise new optimism because the study is based on rigorous quality standards and the reported benefits are of an unexpected magnitude... we will have to see whether the further data will meet the promises of the present study. More patients will need to be followed up over a longer period."
Reference:
"Stem Cell Test Is 'biggest Breakthrough in Treating Heart Attacks for a Generation'" The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group Limited, 14 Nov. 2011. Web. 14 Nov. 2011.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8889031/Stem-cell-test-is-biggest-breakthrough-in-treating-heart-attacks-for-a-generation.html.
 Researchers led by Dr. Yoshiki Sasai from the RIKEN Centre for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan constructed retina-like structures from cultured mouse embryonic stem cells last Spring. Their achievement this week is truly an amazing feat-- constructing a pituitary gland from mouse stem cells.
The pituitary gland is a pea-sized endocrine gland at the base of the brain that secretes hormones like Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) that play key roles in human growth, pregnancy, blood pressure, and thyroid function. It's especially crucial during early development, so armed with the ability to simulate the formation of the pituitary gland could help researchers better understand how these developmental processes function. Hormone disorders result from inadequate release of certain hormones like these by the pituitary gland. Growth disorders such as gigantism, vision problems, and even blindness are also associated with disruptions in the pituitary.
This study, published in this week's issue of Nature, is a crucial step forward in medical science's ability to bioengineer complex organs for human transplantation.
Using a three dimensional culture, the team placed the mouse stem cells in a manner that mimics the way a pituitary gland naturally grows in the embryo. The gland is naturally made up of two different tissue types in the brain. The culture in the study was set up so that these two tissues would come together as they do in the brain. After 13 days in culture, mouse embryonic stem cells
had self-assembled the precursor pouch, shown here,
that gives rise to the pituitary gland.
Nature
"Using this method, we could mimic the early mouse development more smoothly, since the embryo develops in 3-D in vivo," says Yoshiki Sasai, the lead author of the study.
Rathke's pouch - a fold of tissue - formed naturally and grew into the pituitary gland after about two weeks. Prior to this, the researchers only had a vague sense of the signaling factors necessary to form a pituitary gland, but after trial and error, the winning combination involved two main steps, requiring the addition of two growth factors and a drug called "sonic hedgehog" to stimulate a developmental protein. Then, the researchers tested the functionality of their synthesized organs by transplanting the tissue into mice with pituitary dysfunction. The transplants were a success! Levels of glucocorticoid hormones in the blood and behavioral symptoms such as lethargy were stabilized. The mice's hormone levels soon returned to normal.
"This is just an initial step toward generating viable, transplantable human organs, but it's both an elegant and illuminating study," says Michael G. Rosenfeld, a neural stem-cell expert at the University of California, San Diego.
Next, Sasai and colleagues will be attempting the experiment with human stem cells. Sasai suspects it will take them another three years to synthesize human pituitary tissue and perfecting the transplantation methods in animals might take another few years. Still, researchers in the stem-cell field and biomedical researchers on the whole are impressed with what Sasai's team has accomplished. Yet another small victory aimed for the big win!
Reference:
Westly, Erica. "Researchers Create a Pituitary Gland from Scratch." Technology Review. MIT Technology Review, 9 Nov. 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2011. http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/39108/?p1=A1.
 The October 28, 2011 issue of the journal Cell reports that researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have uncovered the biochemical signals in mice that trigger generation of new lung alveoli, the countless tiny champagne grape-like sacs within the lung where oxygen exchange takes place. The team claim that they have taken an important step forward in their quest to "turn on" lung regeneration. This research may effectively treat millions suffering from respiratory disorders.
It's common knowledge in the biomedical industry that mice have the ability to regenerate and even expand the capacity of one lung if the other is missing--this study identifies the specific molecular triggers behind this adaptive process. The researchers believe these findings are quite relevant to human beings.
Dr. Shahin Rafii, the Arthur B. Belfer Professor of Genetic Medicine and co-director of the Ansari Stem Cell Institute at Weill Cornell Medical College and this study's lead investigator said "Several adult human organs have the potential upon injury to regenerate to a degree, and while we can readily monitor the pathways involved in the regeneration of liver and bone marrow, it is much more cumbersome to study the regeneration of other adult organs, such as the lung and heart."
"It is speculated, but not proven, that humans have the potential to regenerate their lung aveoli until they can't anymore, due to smoking, cancer, or other extensive chronic damage," says Dr. Rafii, who is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "Our hope is to take these findings into the clinic and see if we can induce lung regeneration in patients who need it, such as those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)."
Dr. Rafii and his colleagues previously uncovered growth factors that control regeneration in the liver and bone marrow. In both cases, they found that endothelial cells produce the key inductive growth factors, described as "angiocrine factors". The current lung study revealed the same phenomenon: Blood vessel cells in the lungs jump-start alveoli regeneration. "Blood vessels are not just the inert plumbing that carries blood. They actively instruct organ regeneration," says Dr. Rafii. "This is a critical finding. Each organ uses different growth factors within its local vascular system to promote regeneration."
In the study, the left lungs of mice were removed for Dr. Bi-Sen Ding to examine the biochemical process of the remaining lung's regeneration. According to a prior investigation by Dr. Crystal, once the left lungs were removed, the right lungs regenerated by 80%. It replaced the majority of the lost alveoli. They discovered that when the left lung is removed, receptors on endothelial cells in the lung that respond to basic fibroblast growth factor and vascular endothelial growth factor is triggered.
Research lead Dr. Shafin Rafii explained: "Several adult human organs have the potential upon injury to regenerate to a degree, and while we can readily monitor the pathways involved in the regeneration of liver and bone marrow, it is much more cumbersome to study the regeneration of other adult organs, such as the lung and heart [...]"
Co-author Dr. Ronald G. Crystal said "There is no effective therapy for patients diagnosed with COPD. Based on this study, I envision a day when patients with COPDD and other chronic lung diseases may benefit from treatment with factors derived from lung blood vessels that induce lung regeneration."
Reference:
Rattue, Grace. "Lung Regeneration May Be A Reality Soon." Medical News Today. Medical News Today, 1 Nov. 2011. Web. 2 Nov. 2011. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/236928.php.
 In what is the first conviction under the U.S. federal statute outlawing black-market organ sales, a Brooklyn man named Levy Izhak Rosenbaum pleaded guilty Thursday to brokering three illegal kidney transplants for at least $120,000 each (a huge markup) and conspiring to arrange yet another sale. He boasted on tape that he actually handled "quite a lot" during the decade-long scheme.
At 60 years of age, Rosenbaum is but one of 46 people arrested in 2009 in a massive federal corruption probe dubbed "Operation Big Rig" that ensnared dozens of officials, politicians, community and religious leaders involved in organ sales, money laundering, and political corruption over an investigative period of 10 years.
From January 2006 to February 2009, Rosenbaum conspired to obtain kidneys from paid donors in exchange for payments of $120,000, $150,000 and $140,000 from three recipients of the organs.
"Rosenbaum admitted he was not new to the human kidney business when he was caught brokering what he thought was a black-market deal," U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a release.
"A black market in human organs is not only a grave threat to public health, it reserves lifesaving treatment for those who can best afford it at the expense of those who cannot [...] We will not tolerate such an affront to human dignity."
Rosenbaum faces up to 20 years in prison when he's sentenced February 2. He agreed to forfeit $420,000 he received in connection with the three transplants and admitted that he invented cover stories and fictitious relationships between donors and recipients so doctors wouldn't know a kidney was being sold.
His black market involvement was exposed with the help of Solomon Dwek, a cooperating criminal defendant who helped prosecutors develop charges against defendants in the "Operation Big Rig" case. Posed as an employee of Dwek and claiming that her uncle needed a transplant, an undercover agent met with Rosenbaum in mid-February 2008. He told them that it was illegal to buy and sell organs but that he had been "doing this a long time" and explained that he would help the recipient and donor concoct a false story to support the appearance of a legitimate donation, Fishman said. Rosenbaum also claimed he would be in charge of "babysitting" the donor after the person arrived from overseas.
"I am what you call a matchmaker," he told the snitch. "I've never had a failure."
During Thursday's plea, Rosenbaum admitted that he typically located Israelis who were willing to be paid for giving up their kidneys and that he was responsible for travel arrangements for the donor to the United States along with their accomodations pre- and post-operation. He arranged for blood samples and helped each paid donor and recipient fabricate stories to fool hospital staff. His lawyers noted that the surgeries took place in "prestigious American hospitals and were performed by experienced and expert" surgeons. He remains free on bail and under house arrest pending sentencing scheduled for February 2, 2012.
Methuselah Foundation's New Organ Prize not only serves to catalyze progress in tissue and organ regeneration but it also aims to make the crimes of the black market a thing of the past. In a future where an individual in need of an organ can have one made with their own cells, the market for organs exploited from the disadvantaged and weak will eventually shrink and disappear altogether.
We at Methuselah Foundation echo the words of Attorney Fishman: "We will not tolerate such an affront to human dignity."
Reference:
Golson, Jennifer. "Brooklyn Man Who Sold Kidneys on Black Market Pleads Guilty." Thomson Reuter News and Insight. Thomson Reuters, 28 Oct. 2011. Web. 28 Oct. 2011.
http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2011/10_-_October/Brooklyn_man_who_sold_kidneys_on_black_market_pleads_guilty/.
Photo Credit: Tony Kurdzuk | The Star-Ledger
When you think about old age, what comes to mind? Most people associate old age with disability and cognitive and physical impairment but researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC have found that old age is not synonymous with impairment and disability. According to the study published by the Public Library of Science in the online journal PLoS ONE, exceptional cognitive and physical function in old age leaves behind a tell-tale immunologic fingerprint.
"Our study indicates that getting older does not necessarily mean that the immune system gets weaker, as many of us assumed," says lead investigator Abbe N. de Vallejo, Ph.D., associate professor of pediatrics and immunology at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "The immune system is dynamic, and the changes it undergoes over time very much influence function."
Previous studies showed that immune cells called T-cells become more like natural killer (NK) cells, which typically targets virus-infected cell and tumor cells. For this new study, the team collected blood samples from a body of 140 participants who had been followed in the Cardiovascular Health Study for nearly 20 years and were 78-94 years old. Only two were younger than 82--the average age of the group was 86. The researchers gathered information about the participants' health and function, medical history, hospitalizations, self-rated health, and cognitive and physical function assessments via standardized tests.
A closer look at the new study revealed that those who were most physically and cognitively resilient had a dominant pattern of stimulatory NK receptors on the surface of the T-cell. These unusual T-cells can be activated directly through these NK receptors in a manner independent of the conventional ones. The functionally resilient elders also have a distinct profile of blood proteins called cytokines that reflect an immune-enhancing environment.
The group that showed mild health impairment had a dominant pattern of inhibitory NK receptors on their T-cells, with a cytokine profile indicating a pro-inflammatory environment. Both of these immunologic features might suggest greater susceptibility to illness.
"These findings indicate that there is remodeling or adaptation of the immune system as we age that can be either protective or detrimental," Dr. de Vallejo said. "Now we have an immunological fingerprint that can identify individuals who are more likely to stay physically and cognitively well."
References:
"Exceptional Cognitive and Physical Health in Old Age Leaves Immunologic Fingerprint, Study Finds." Science Daily. Science Daily, 21 Oct. 2011. Web. 25 Oct. 2011. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111021125808.htm.
Abbe N. Vallejo, David L. Hamel, Robert G. Mueller, Diane G. Ives, Joshua J. Michel, Robert M. Boudreau, Anne B. Newman. NK-Like T Cells and Plasma Cytokines, but Not Anti-Viral Serology, Define Immune Fingerprints of Resilience and Mild Disability in Exceptional Aging. PLoS ONE, 2011; 6 (10): e26558 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0026558
"We are at the cusp of a revolution in medicine and biotechnology that will radically increase not just our life spans but also, and more importantly, our health spans. That is, we will live longer and with a higher quality of life. [We] will examine the fascinating new technologies that will allow doctors to repair or replace worn-out body parts, re-engineer our bodies, and take preventative measures that will radically lengthen our lives." -Sonia Arrison, 100+ Chapter 2: How Science and Technology Will Increase Life Span
 With her new book 100 Plus, Sonia Arrison introduces us to the people and the innovations that are transforming our lives while bringing to the fore a very comprehensive picture of how life-extending discoveries will impact our personal, social, and economic spheres. After a decade of research and writing experience on the breakthrough advances in science and biotechnology, Arrison's wide-angle approach to healthy life extension is both sparklingly informative and thought-provoking.
What will your life look like after reaching your 100th year? Will over-population be a major issue? How will living longer and with more vigor affect your family life, your personal belief system, even your finances? Her work is a fantastic attempt in addressing these questions.
Peter Thiel graces 100 Plus with the following words in his foreward:
"Arrison's book begins with a history of the many great men and women of the past who sought human longevity. She surveys he current generation of scientists and technologists who promise to usher in a new era, demonstrating that aging is a foe that can be hobbled and potentially even beaten. From here Arrison goes to the heart of things by directly confronting opposition to longer and healthier lives and outlining the extraordinary economic, social, and cultural changes that will happen as the world wakes up from history..."
The Methuselah Foundation team is voraciously reading 100 Plus with growing excitement for Arrison's well-informed candor and refreshing perspective on the advances of healthy life extension technologies that cover a wide range of angles.
And as if you needed more reason to go read this book as soon as you can get your hands on it, CEO Dave Gobel had this to say about it from his Amazon review:
"The best thing about 100+ is that it documents the increases in healthy longevity that are already happening right now. Refreshingly, it treats widely held cultural and religious values with legitimate respect, without resorting to the typical elitist/dismissive tone others have taken. 100+ carefully covers new ground on topics that I've not seen covered in detail before - such as how longevity will affect the future of childbearing and the family - based on little known trends and science happening right now. This book is also the best survey of the field of life extension to date, giving useful and actionable insights on such topics as population growth, the environment, economics, medical trials and advances in biotech without burdening the reader with red-herring issues like immortality or demonizing the "opposition". The book is an easy and compelling read and even though I've read extensively on the subject, each page of 100+ offers up new facts with real value - no filler or arm waving here! Highly recommended."
Now how's that for a review? Pick it up, read it, think about it, and tell us how it's affected the way you think about living to see a healthy 100... and beyond!
Reference:
Arrison, Sonia. 100 Plus. New York: Basic, 2011. Print.
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