October was the month of MitoMouse, our second successful campaign with MitoSENS, and we also focused on releasing our Ending Age-Related Diseases 2019 talks to the general public. As always, there’s plenty of research and related news that happened this month, bringing us ever-closer to a world without age-related diseases.

LEAF News

Team and activities

The MitoMouse campaign is a success! This project builds upon the previous research that we had helped fund for the MitoSENS team through Lifespan.io. This new study aims to bring a mitochondrial gene into the nuclei of mice whose mitochondria do not express it, testing the viability of this approach for rescuing mitochondrial function. This is the largest crowdfunding campaign that we have completed; congratulations to everyone involved!







Special thanks to everyone who donated, particularly John Saunders, who donated $25,000, the Foster Foundation, which donated $10,000, our volunteer Patrick Deane, who donated $9,177.26, and LongeCity, which donated $10,000 to take us directly from our first stretch goal of $65,000 to our final goal of $75,000!

LifeXtenShow

Immortal Dictators?: Debunking the idea of indefinite dictatorships, Nicola explains the tyranny of aging itself along with why waiting for dictators to die of old age is not the best strategy.

How Well Does Giuliano Know João Pedro de Magalhães?: On this quiz episode of X10, Giuliano answers questions about a researcher that he’s unfamiliar with.

The Hallmarks of Aging: Genomic Instability: As promised in X10’s overview of the hallmarks of aging, we’re now going into the details of each specific hallmark, starting with genomic instability.







Rejuvenation Roundup Podcast

Ryan O’Shea of Future Grind hosts this month’s podcast, showcasing the events and research discussed here.

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EARD2019 Videos

This month, we’ve made nearly all of EARD2019 available to the public, and we strongly urge everyone to watch these videos, as they represent possibly life-extending research and critical investment information.







Qingsong Zhu: Dr. Zhu, the COO of Insilico Medicine, had plenty to say about using deep learning to create biomarkers for aging, and he showed that smoking does, in fact, hasten the processes of aging.

Peter Fedichev: Dr. Fedichev, the co-founder of GERO, also approached biomarkers, but in a different way; he discussed the Deep Frailty Index and went into detail about frailty as a biomarker for human aging.

Andrei Gudkov: Dr. Gudkov of the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center discussed the retrobiome, which is a subset of genetics that differs from mammal species, and how it relates to aging.

James Peyer: Dr. Peyer, Founder and Managing Partner of Kronos BioVentures, gave an investment-focused speech, discussing the population pyramid and the need for investment into rejuvenation biotechnology.

Huda Suliman: Dr. Suliman of Icaria Life Sciences gave a presentation on small molecules, drug discovery, and irreproducibility in the literature, and she went on to discuss species differences and the critical differences between longevity-focused research and conventional medical research.







Jared Fischer: Dr. Fischer of Oregon Health & Science University discussed senescent cells and how they relate to both cancer and obesity, and he discussed the use of mouse models in their study.

Vadim Gladyshev: Dr. Gladyshev of Harvard Medical School based his talk on ways to find longevity interventions, including the study of long-lived species and data analysis of epigenetic clocks.

Joe Betts-LaCroix: Joe Betts-LaCroix explained the role of startups in rejuvenation biotechnology and explained what criteria his organization, YCombinator, uses to determine whether or not applicants receive seed funding.

Kevin Strange: Dr. Strange of Novo Biosciences has brought mammalian regeneration to the table with MSI-1436, a compound that has been shown to reverse ischemic heart disease and skeletal muscle degeneration in early trials.

Lifespan.io Interviews







Justin Rebo: Dr. Rebo, vice president of in-vivo biology at BioAge, answered questions about data-driven analysis and his company’s work.

Amutha Boominathan: Dr. Boominathan discussed her work in MitoSENS, including allotropic expression, xenotropic expression, the Maximally Modifiable Mouse, and how mtDNA and nuclear DNA relate to one another.

Ronald Kohanski: Dr. Kohanski is the Deputy Director of the National Institute on Aging, and he discussed the hallmarks of aging, how aging affects the incidence of cancer, and the systems biology of aging.

Events







MitoSENS Q&A Webinar: In this illuminating Q&A session, Aubrey de Grey, Amutha Boominathan, and Matthew “Oki” O’Connor of the MitoSENS team answered audience questions about MitoMouse and SENS in general.

Research Roundup

The Gut Microbiome Affects Muscle Strength in Older Adults: Michael Lustgarten explains research that shows the relationship between athleticism in mice and the prevalence of certain bacterial species in their gut flora.

Positive Results for Senolytics in Human Trial: Mayo Clinic researchers report that the combination of dasatinib and quercetin is effective against senescent cells.







Circulating Glucuronic Acid Is a Potential Aging Biomarker: Glucuronic acid is vital for destroying harmful foreign chemicals in the human body. It tends to increase with age, and while the mechanisms are not yet understood, it might be a useful aging biomarker in the future.

GenSight Biologics Releases Further Trial Data: GenSight Biologics offers further evidence that its treatment affects both eyes despite being only administered to one; because patients’ untreated eyes are used as the control, this has been confounding their results.

DNA Damage Leads to Epigenetic Alterations: A team of researchers, including Dr. David Sinclair, has discovered that epigenetic alterations can be caused by the natural cycle of DNA breaks and repair.

Nanoparticles Enhance Quercetin to Selectively Destroy Senescent Cells: As a plant polyphenol, quercetin has problems that make this natural senolytic difficult to administer; attaching it to nanoparticles can work around these problems.

Mice with hyper-long telomeres show less metabolic aging and longer lifespans: Dr. Mario Blasco and her fellow researchers have discovered that mice with unusually long telomeres live considerably longer than their unmodified counterparts.







A CellAge epigenetic clock for expedited discovery of anti-aging compounds in vitro: CellAge has developed a biomarker that makes it easier to test compounds in the lab before preclinical animal studies begin, making it considerably easier to screen interventions more quickly.

New Player in Human Aging: The Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School has discovered that a protein called REST is responsible for preventing overexcitation of neurons – and its absence causes increased brain activity along with more rapid aging.

TAME: a genuinely good use of 75 million dollars: Dr. Aubrey de Grey weighs in on whether it’s a good idea to spend so much money in determining whether or not metformin is effective.

Senescent cells feed on their neighbors: A study in Nature shows that senescent cells do even more damage than originally thought, as they engulf and destroy neighboring healthy cells.







News Nuggets

SM08502 Targets Gastrointestinal Tumors (PDF): By targeting CLK2 and CLK3, which are part of the Wnt signaling system, Samumed’s new drug directly targets tumors in the GI tract.

Longevity Vision Fund Invests in Juvenescence: Juvenescence, an investment company that is focused on developing rejuvenation biotechnology therapies, has received its own investment funding from Sergey Young’s Longevity Vision Fund. This gives it considerably more resources to use in its mission.

LyGenesis Closes $4 Million Deal for Liver Regeneration Technology: By securing $4 million from Juvenescence and Longevity Vision, LyGenesis can fund a phase 2a trial for its new approach to liver regeneration.







Coming up in November

Investing in the Age of Longevity: This one-day class from Master Investor will teach investors of all kinds how and where to invest in rejuvenation biotechnology.

The Longevity Forum: Featuring a great many speakers from across the longevity spectrum, this meeting will discuss the potential near-term prospects of a world with extended lifespans.

Thank you for reading and sharing our articles; your continued support, in whatever form it may come, is what keeps us going. As usual, special thanks go to the Lifespan Heroes, who allow our organization to stay in business and carry out its activities through their generous donations. Conferences, webinars, YouTube shows, news reports—none of these would be possible without your help. If you’d like to be a Lifespan Hero, visit lifespan.io/hero to make your monthly pledge.





