‘Remarkable’ Therapy Makes Old Mice Young, May Hit Clinic This Year by 1kiki

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‘Remarkable’ Therapy Makes Old Mice Young, May Hit Clinic This Year

POSTED BY: 1KIKI
UPDATED: Thursday, May 8, 2014 00:40
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Monday, May 5, 2014 5:46 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/articles/2014/05/%E2%80%98remarkab
le%E2%80%99-therapy-makes-old-mice-young-may-hit-clinic-year?et_cid=3922523&et_rid=366206770&type=headline

‘Remarkable’ Therapy Makes Old Mice Young, May Hit Clinic This Year

Mon, 05/05/2014 - 1:05pm
Cynthia Fox

This combination of images provided by Lida Katsimpardi in May 2014 shows 3-D reconstructions of brain blood vessels in, from left, a young mouse, an old mouse, and an old mouse who was exposed to the blood of a young mouse. Older mice got stronger, exercised longer and performed better mentally after they were injected with blood from young mice, or even just with a substance that's more abundant in younger blood according to three papers published online Sunday, May 4, 2014 by the journals Science and Nature Medicine. (AP Photo/Lida Katsimpardi)

A futuristic anti-aging approach, variously described and utilized by three different Harvard and Stanford groups this week, may hit the clinic by year’s end.

The research all began with “heterochronic parabiosis.” That is, old mice were hooked up to young mice via their circulatory systems— and experienced tissue rejuvenation. Harvard teams then winnowed out of young blood a protein called growth differentiation factor 11 (GDF11). In mice, this factor appeared to reverse aging in both mind and muscle; generated new blood vessels, muscles, and neurons; and boosted cognition.

“In terms of the neurogenesis, I was surprised, first of all, that parabiosis and GDF11 had any effect on the central nervous system (CNS),” Harvard University neuroscientist Lee Rubin told Bioscience Technology by email. Rubin was senior author on a Science paper this week detailing the effect of parabiosis and GDF11 on the brain. His crew found that GDF11, injected into the brain, improved rodents’ sense of smell following an increase in olfactory neurons and blood vessels.

“Because of the presence of the blood-brain barrier, there were no guarantees that circulating systemic factors would alter CNS function. In our studies, however, we showed that at least some of the effects are on the vasculature, and this doesn't require that the active factors enter the brain,” Rubin said.

The second great surprise, Rubin said, was the fact that “one single factor, GDF11, can improve the function of multiple tissues in the same mice. Most people, including scientists, would not have expected this, although researchers who study the aging process may not be as surprised by our findings.”

Finally, Rubin said, as someone who works on neurodegenerative disease, and whose lab focuses on preventing brain cells from malfunctioning and dying, “I found it remarkable that brain function can be improved even after degenerative processes associated with aging have occurred.”

Harvard stem cell researcher Amy Wagers started it all in recent years, working since 2000 with parabiotic mice to find GDF11. She told Bioscience Technology via email her group is now “trying to determine whether GDF11 serves as a ‘youth maintenance factor’ as well as a restoration factor for aged tissues. Do young animals need to maintain high levels of GDF11 to stay ‘young’?”

Harvard's Amy Wagers has been making old mice young for years. (Source: Harvard University)

Mechanism of action

Wagers wrote the second Science paper out this week on GDF11. Her team last year proved, with Harvard’s Richard Lee, that GDF11 reduces cardiac hypertrophy in mice. (See earlier Bioscience Technology story.) In the recent paper, she found GDF11 improved strength and endurance of skeletal muscles—again, after she found a similar effect via parabiosis.

Wagers told Bioscience that more than just new gene expression may be at work. DNA repair may be at work. “We are really just beginning to understand what's going on in terms of GDF11's effects on DNA repair,” she said. “We see evidence of increased damage to DNA in aged muscle stem cells (‘satellite cells’), and we see that damage resolved after exposure to GDF11. The resolution of the damage is associated with a restoration of the differentiation activity of the stem cells: they are more able to produce mature muscle cells needed for muscle regeneration. One possibility is the accumulated damage prevents muscle stem cells from differentiating, and GDF11-stimulated resolution of the damage allows it. Another is that accumulation of ‘damage’ is an indicator of stalled differentiation, and GDF11 overcomes this differentiation block and thus allows damage resolution. Our future experiments are aimed at distinguishing between these two possibilities, and will clarify GDF11's mechanism of action more completely.”

It is unknown if the approach extends lifespan. The group has not assessed that. “We are focused really on ‘healthspan,’ maintaining the healthy years of life,” Wagers said.

She wants to understand “why GDF11 is lost with age; where it is produced; whether its loss reflects a loss of the cells that make it, or a reduction in their production capacity.” This will help her determine the best way to target GDF11 for therapy.

The work is “aimed at both revealing fundamental mechanisms and pathways that control aging, and at developing treatments for age-related diseases (such as muscle wasting, neurodegeneration and heart disease), which we now appreciate could be aided by a common strategy to boost levels of GDF11 in the blood,” Wagers said.

Wagers is talking to venture capital firms. But before GDF11 hits the clinic, it needs modification, as too much of is needed per patient, she has reported.

Tony Wyss-Coray hopes to take young plasma to Alzheimer's patients by year end. (Source: Stanford University)

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Monday, May 5, 2014 5:55 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Almost makes one long for PIRATENEWS headlines.

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Monday, May 5, 2014 5:59 PM

MIKER

Once I found Serenity

If it works on old rats I'm in.

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Monday, May 5, 2014 6:02 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
If it works on old rats I'm in.

Old rats, maybe. Dirty rats ? Not so much.

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Monday, May 5, 2014 6:08 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
If it works on old rats I'm in.

I once told on a bully in Junior High, so I guess I'm a rat. Now I'm old.
I'm in too.

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Monday, May 5, 2014 7:22 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

more interesting than what's up top - the fountain of youth may exist

OONJERAH - We are too dumb to live and smart enough to wipe ourselves out.

"You, who live in any kind of comfort or convenience, do not know how these people can survive these things, do you? They will endure because there is no immediate escape from endurance. Some will die, the rest must live."

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Monday, May 5, 2014 7:39 PM

MIKER

Once I found Serenity

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
If it works on old rats I'm in.
I once told on a bully in Junior High, so I guess I'm a rat. Now I'm old.
I'm in too.

Correction, you once stood up to a bully by telling on him. Do not get caught up in the world of the street where that saying comes from. Those that claim to live by it are the first to give you up or run from trouble in the name of self preservation.

People who believe that are victims twice. Once with the violation and again by their own silence.

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Monday, May 5, 2014 7:41 PM

MIKER

Once I found Serenity

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
If it works on old rats I'm in.

Old rats, maybe. Dirty rats ? Not so much.

AH, Jimmy Cagney again. You know he never said that right?

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Monday, May 5, 2014 8:35 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
Correction, you once stood up to a bully by telling on him.

But nothing happened. I learned from this and took up martial arts. The next encounter months later resulted in me telling the bully he was an asshole, to which he responded, "You wanna fight?" I told him that was his call (with that steely cold Bruce Lee look. Okay, it was more probably a determined/confident geek look, but whatever). He didn't bother me again.

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Monday, May 5, 2014 8:47 PM

MIKER

Once I found Serenity

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
Correction, you once stood up to a bully by telling on him.
But nothing happened. I learned from this and took up martial arts. The next encounter months later resulted in me telling the bully he was an asshole, to which he responded, "You wanna fight?" I told him that was his call (with that steely cold Bruce Lee look. Okay, it was more probably a determined/confident geek look, but whatever). He didn't bother me again.

I see this as you standing up too him twice. Very cool, Sometimes they are pig headed and need a second spanking.

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Monday, May 5, 2014 9:08 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
I see this as you standing up too him twice. Very cool, Sometimes they are pig headed and need a second spanking.

Well, he never got a first. And his 'second' was more of a 'presence attack' (as in D&D).

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Monday, May 5, 2014 10:25 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
If it works on old rats I'm in.

Old rats, maybe. Dirty rats ? Not so much.

AH, Jimmy Cagney again. You know he never said that right?

And Sagan never said " Billions and Billions ", until appearing on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

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Tuesday, May 6, 2014 12:41 PM

FREMDFIRMA

I need some GDF11, some D-PDMP (See Also: Johns Hopkins) and a boatload of Reservatrol...
And bigger fangs, MUCH bigger fangs.

Muahahahahahahaha.

-F

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Tuesday, May 6, 2014 12:52 PM

MIKER

Once I found Serenity

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by MIKER:
If it works on old rats I'm in.

Old rats, maybe. Dirty rats ? Not so much.

AH, Jimmy Cagney again. You know he never said that right?

And Sagan never said " Billions and Billions ", until appearing on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

I'll let Jimmy explain it to you:

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Tuesday, May 6, 2014 2:45 PM

MIKER

Once I found Serenity

I am missing something here.

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Tuesday, May 6, 2014 5:28 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

I get it.

And Miker, I wasn't questioning so much as adding to your Cagney point. Lotta false quote out there, where folks THINK a person said something, and they really didn't.

Per the OT, I can't be the only one who sees this as something straight out the Joss 'verse. Maybe Wolfram & Hart doing legal work for a ring of powerful , influential old folks, who feed off the blood of the young, even babies, to cheat death and perpetually clench their money and power for as long as possible.

Too many possibilities.

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Tuesday, May 6, 2014 5:38 PM

MIKER

Once I found Serenity

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
I get it.

And Miker, I wasn't questioning so much as adding to your Cagney point. Lotta false quote out there, where folks THINK a person said something, and they really didn't.

I understand. Sometimes things go right past me. Especially some of the SYFY stuff. So much of it is garbage I haven't watched as much as many here. I see shit here I could not understand if I lived to be 100.

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Tuesday, May 6, 2014 7:30 PM

MAL4PREZ

Did anyone else think of this?

"One thousand years before the beginning of the movie, the urSkeks cracked the Crystal of Truth, and split into two races during the Great Conjunction of the three suns - the hunchbacked, gentle beings known as Mystics, and the vulture-like, cruel bipedal beings known as Skeksis..."

"The Skeksis require Gelflings to make their "everlasting essence", a potion that restores youth and strength. The emperor decides to regain his youth by draining Kira's life essence."

Yesssss. The circle is complete. Now the Kochs and Sterlings of the world need only drain the life essence (blood) from the multitudes of penniless youth and their reign can continue forEVER!! BWAH HAHAHAHA!!

I mean, really? Is this really happening? It's so comic book...

*-------------------------------------------------*
What trolls reveal about themselves when they troll:
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=57532
*-------------------------------------------------*

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Thursday, May 8, 2014 12:40 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Well ... when I posted it I thought about how hopeful - and how creepy - it was.

But barring unforeseen glitches in translating this to humans, it appears to be coming to a doctor's office NEAR YOU! in the next 3 - 5 years. It's real life. In all it's complex and terrible glory.

The distant future seems to be on us now.

OONJERAH - We are too dumb to live and smart enough to wipe ourselves out.

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