Category Archives: Human Longevity

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Dr. Stephen Kritchevsky, Biomarkers of Human Longevity

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Age (Dordr). 2006 Dec; 28(4): 313332.

1College of Nursing, Okinawa Prefectural University, 1-24-1 Yogi, Naha City, Okinawa Japan 902-0076

2Pacific Health Research Institute, 846 South Hotel Street, Suite 301, Honolulu, HI 96813 USA

3Departments of Geriatric Medicine and Medicine, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, 1356 Lusitana Street, 7F, Honolulu, HI 96813 USA

4School of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, 74 New Montgomery Street, Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94105 USA

52200 Post Street, C433, San Francisco, CA 94143-1640 USA

6Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus, 207 Uehara, Nishihara, Okinawa, Japan

Received 2006 Jun 6; Revised 2006 Sep 30; Accepted 2006 Oct 1.

Centenarians represent a rare phenotype appearing in roughly 1020 per 100,000 persons in most industrialized countries but as high as 4050 per 100,000 persons in Okinawa, Japan. Siblings of centenarians in Okinawa have been found to have cumulative survival advantages such that female centenarian siblings have a 2.58-fold likelihood and male siblings a 5.43-fold likelihood (versus their birth cohorts) of reaching the age of 90years. This is indicative of a strong familial component to longevity. Centenarians may live such extraordinarily long lives in large part due to genetic variations that either affect the rate of aging and/or have genes that result in decreased susceptibility to age-associated diseases. Some of the most promising candidate genes appear to be those involved in regulatory pathways such as insulin signaling, immunoinflammatory response, stress resistance or cardiovascular function. Although gene variants with large beneficial effects have been suggested to exist, only APOE, an important regulator of lipoproteins has been consistently associated with a longer human lifespan across numerous populations. As longevity is a very complex trait, several issues challenge our ability to identify its genetic influences, such as control for environmental confounders across time, the lack of precise phenotypes of aging and longevity, statistical power, study design and availability of appropriate study populations. Genetic studies on the Okinawan population suggest that Okinawans are a genetically distinct group that has several characteristics of a founder population, including less genetic diversity, and clustering of specific gene variants, some of which may be related to longevity. Further work on this population and other genetic isolates would be of significant interest to the genetics of human longevity.

Key words: longevity, genetics, centenarians, Okinawa, longevity genes

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Increasingly, companies are able to incorporate performance technology and forecasting matrices into human resources (HR) planning. Larger companies tend to favor quantitative methods in their HR strategies, while smaller companies can more effectively use qualitative methods and managerial discretion. Everything from a company's mission statement to its use of enterprise resource technology can contribute to optimizing the productivity and longevity of its workforce.

The scope of HR planning tools has grown significantly since the last several decades of the 20th century. Much of this has to do with computing technology that has enabled firms to collect data, information and feedback; provide support; and create new incentives for performance. There are entire companies and new products devoted to improving job analysis and personnel development.

One example of a popular project management tool is SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The SWOT technique was developed by Albert Humphrey in the 1960s to help businesses use all forms of capital, including human labor, within a deliberately self-aware framework. The idea is to emphasize positives and work to reduce exposure to weaknesses, constantly encouraging growth. Similar techniques have followed in the footsteps of SWOT, leading to several competing projects and even organizational theories of development.

There are several pillars of successful HR planning, each of which has its own tools and techniques. Companies must be able to find and hire talented employees. Corporate cultures need to be cultivated in ways that encourage productivity and reduce unwanted turnover. Training and development programs should be in place, formally or otherwise, to improve workplace efficiencies. Anything that encourages the growth of output per labor dollar can be pursued.

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What tools do companies use in human resources planning?

San Diegos genome pioneer J. Craig Venter, co-founder and CEO of Human Longevity Inc., was among leaders in the field of genomics on hand at the White House on Friday as President Barack Obama outlined his Precision Medicine Initiative.

It is gratifying to see that the Obama Administration realizes the great power and potential for genomic science as a means to better understand human biology, and to aid in disease prevention and treatment, Venter said in a release. I was honored to participate in today's White House event outlining a potential new, government-funded precision medicine program.

Precision medicine aims to tailor medical treatments to an individual through gene mapping and the study of molecular structures.

The White House released a list of goals on Friday to be funded with an initial $215 million proposed in Obamas 2016 federal budget.

The money is to be distributed to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). Heres the breakdown:

$130 million goes to the NIH for a voluntary national research program of a million or more volunteers.

$70 million to the National Cancer Institute, part of NIH, to find genetic variants driving cancer and develop better therapies.

$10 million to the FDA to develop high-quality databases to support regulatory requirements for precision medicine.

$5 million to ONC to develop technology for securely and privately transmitting data across different network.

Venter, also founder and CEO of J. Craig Venter Institute, said there are still significant privacy issues that must be addressed in any individualized medicine program funded and led by the government.

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J. Craig Venter Joins Obama for Unveiling of Precision Medicine Initiative

LA JOLLA, Calif., Jan. 30, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --It is gratifying to see that the Obama Administration realizes the great power and potential for genomic science as a means to better understand human biology, and to aid in disease prevention and treatment. I was honored to participate in today's White House event outlining a potential new, government-funded precision medicine program.

Since the 1980s my teams have been focused on advancing the science of genomicsfrom the first sequenced genome of a free living organism, the first complete human genome, microbiome and synthetic cell to better all our lives.

We founded HLI in 2013 with the goal of revolutionizing healthcare and medicine by systematically harnessing genomics data to address disease. Our comprehensive database is already in place with thousands of complete human genomes, microbiomes and phenotypic information together with accompanying clinical records, and is enabling the pharmaceutical industry, academics, physicians and patients to use these data to advance understanding about disease and wellness, and to apply them for personalized care.

We envisioned a new era in medicine when we founded HLI in which millions of lives will be improved through genomics and comprehensive phenotype data.

Now, through sequencing and analyzing thousands of genomes with private funds with the goal of reaching 1 million genomes by 2020 we believe that we can get a holistic understanding of human biology and the individual.

It is encouraging that the US government is discussing taking a role in a genomic-enabled future, especially funding the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develophigh-quality, curated databases and develop additional genomic expertise. We agree, though, that there are still significant issues that must be addressed in any government-funded and led precision medicine program. Issues surrounding who will have access to the data, privacy and patient medical/genomic records are some of the most pressing.

We look forward to continuing the dialogue with the Administration, FDA and other stakeholders as this is an important initiative in which government must work hand in hand with the commercial sector and academia.

Additional Background on Human Longevity, Inc.

HLI, a privately held company headquartered in San Diego, CA was founded in 2013 by pioneers in the fields of genomics and stem cell therapy. Using advances in genomic sequencing, the human microbiome, proteomics, informatics, computing, and cell therapy technologies, HLI is building the world's largest and most comprehensive database of human genomic and phenotype data.

The company is also building advanced health centers called HLI Health Hubs which will be the embodiment of our philosophies of genomic science-based longevity care where we will apply this learning and deliver it to the general public for the greatest benefit. Individuals and families will be seen in welcoming environments for one-stop, advanced evaluations (advanced genotype and phenotype analysis including whole body MRI, wireless digital monitoring, etc.). Our first prototype center is slated to open in July 2015 in San Diego, California.

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J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO, Human ...

The United States has proposed analyzing genetic information from more than 1 million American volunteers as part of a new initiative to understand human disease and develop medicines targeted to an individual's genetic make-up.

At the heart of the initiative, to be announced on Friday by President Barack Obama, is the creation of a pool of people - healthy and ill, men and women, old and young - who would be studied to learn how genetic variants affect health and disease.

Officials hope genetic data from several hundred thousand participants in ongoing genetic studies would be used, and other volunteers recruited to reach the 1 million total.

The near-term goal is to create more and better treatments for cancer, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told reporters on a conference call on Thursday. Longer term, he said, the project would provide information on how to individualize treatment for a range of diseases.

The initial focus on cancer, he said, is due partly to the lethality of the disease and partly because targeted medicine, known also as precision medicine, has made significant advances in cancer, although much more work is needed.

The president has proposed $215 million in his 2016 budget for the initiative. Of that, $130 million would go to the NIH to fund the research cohort and $70 million to NIH's National Cancer Institute to intensify efforts to identify molecular drivers of cancer and apply that knowledge to drug development.

A further $10 million would go to the Food and Drug Administration to develop databases on which to build an appropriate regulatory structure; $5 million would go to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to develop privacy standards and ensure the secure exchange of data.

The effort may raise alarm bells for privacy rights advocates who in the past have questioned the government's ability to guarantee that DNA information is kept anonymous. They have expressed fear participants may become identifiable or face discrimination.

SEQUENCING 1 MILLION GENOMES

The funding is not nearly enough to sequence 1 million genomes from scratch. Whole-genome sequencing, though plummeting in price, still costs about $1,000 per genome, Collins said, meaning this component alone would cost $1 billion.

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U.S. proposes effort to analyze DNA from 1 million people

The United States has proposed analysing genetic information from more than 1 million American volunteers as part of a new initiative to understand human disease and develop medicines targeted to an individual's genetic make-up.

At the heart of the "precision medicine" initiative, announced todayby President Barack Obama, is the creation of a pool of people - healthy and ill, men and women, old and young - who would be studied to learn how genetic variants affect health and disease.

Officials hope genetic data from several hundred thousand participants in ongoing genetic studies would be used and other volunteers recruited to reach the 1 million total.

"Precision medicine gives us one of the greatest opportunities for new medical breakthroughs we've ever seen," Obama said, promising that it would "lay a foundation for a new era of life-saving discoveries."

The near-term goal is to create more and better treatments for cancer, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told reporters on a conference call on Thursday.

Longer term, he said, the project would provide information on how to individualize treatment for a range of diseases.

The initial focus on cancer, he said, reflects the lethality of the disease and the significant advances against cancer that precision medicine has already made, though more work is needed.

The president proposed $215 million in his 2016 budget for the initiative. Of that, $130 million would go to the NIH to fund the research cohort and $70 million to NIH's National Cancer Institute to intensify efforts to identify molecular drivers of cancer and apply that knowledge to drug development.

A further $10 million would go to the Food and Drug Administration to develop databases on which to build an appropriate regulatory structure; $5 million would go to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to develop privacy standards and ensure the secure exchange of data.

The effort may raise alarm bells for privacy rights advocates who have questioned the government's ability to guarantee that DNA information is kept anonymous.

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US launches precision medicine research project

Life expectancy is a statistical measure of how long a person may live, based on the year of their birth, their current age and other demographic factors including gender. At a given age (age x) is the average number of years that would be lived by a group of individuals (of age x) exposed to the same mortality conditions until they die. The most commonly used measure of life expectancy is life expectancy at age zero, that is, at birth (LEB), which can be defined in two ways: while cohort LEB is the mean length of life of an actual birth cohort (all individuals born a given year) and can be computed only for cohorts that were born many decades ago, so that all their members died, period LEB is the mean length of life of a hypothetical cohort assumed to be exposed since birth until death of all their members to the mortality rates observed at a given year.[1]

National LEB figures reported by statistical national agencies and international organizations are indeed estimates of period LEB. In the Bronze and Iron Age LEB was 26 years; the 2010 world LEB was 67.2. For recent years in Swaziland LEB is about 49 years while in Japan is about 83 years. The combination of high infant mortality and deaths in young adulthood from accidents, epidemics, plagues, wars, and childbirth, particularly before modern medicine was widely available, significantly lowers LEB. But for those who survive early hazards, a life expectancy of sixty or seventy would not be uncommon. For example, a society with a LEB of 40 may have few people dying at age 40: most will die before 30 years of age or very few after55. In countries with high infant mortality rates, LEB is highly sensitive to the rate of death in the first few years of life. Because of this sensitivity to infant mortality, LEB can be subjected to gross misinterpretation, leading one to believe that a population with a low LEB will necessarily have a small proportion of older people.[2] For example, in a hypothetical stationary population in which half the population dies before the age of five, but everybody else dies at exactly 70 years old, LEB will be about 36 years, while about 25% of the population will be between the ages of 50 and 70. Another measure, such as life expectancy at age 5 (e5), can be used to exclude the effect of infant mortality to provide a simple measure of overall mortality rates other than in early childhoodin the hypothetical population above, life expectancy at age 5 would be another 65 years. Aggregate population measures, such as the proportion of the population in various age groups, should also be used alongside individual-based measures like formal life expectancy when analyzing population structure and dynamics.

Mathematically, life expectancy is the expected (in the statistical sense) number of years of life remaining at a given age.[3] It is denoted by ,[a] which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged , according to a particular mortality experience. Because life expectancy is an average, a particular person may well die many years before or many years after their "expected" survival. The term "maximum life span" has a quite different meaning.

Life expectancy is also used in plant or animal ecology;[4]life tables (also known as actuarial tables). The term life expectancy may also be used in the context of manufactured objects,[5] although the related term shelf life is used for consumer products and the terms "mean time to breakdown" (MTTB) and "mean time between failures" (MTBF) are used in engineering.

Human beings are expected to live on average 49.42 years in Swaziland[6] and 82.6 years in Japan, although Japan's recorded life expectancy may have been very slightly increased by counting many infant deaths as stillborn.[7] An analysis published in 2011 in The Lancet attributes Japanese life expectancy to equal opportunities and public health as well as diet.[8][9]

The oldest confirmed recorded age for any human is 122 years (see Jeanne Calment). This is referred to as the "maximum life span", which is the upper boundary of life, the maximum number of years any human is known to have lived.[10]

The following information is derived from Encyclopdia Britannica, 1961 and other sources, some with a questionable accuracy. Unless otherwise stated, it represents estimates of the life expectancies of the world population as a whole. In many instances, life expectancy varied considerably according to class and gender.

Life expectancy at birth takes account of infant mortality, but not pre-natal mortality.

Life expectancy increases with age as the individual survives the higher mortality rates associated with childhood. For instance, the table above listed the life expectancy at birth in Medieval Britain at 30. Having survived until the age of 21, a male member of the English aristocracy in this period could expect to live:[23]

In general, the available data indicate that longer lifespans became more common recently in human evolution.[27][28] This increased longevity is attributed by some writers to cultural adaptations rather than genetic evolution,[29] although some research indicates that during the Neolithic Revolution natural selection favored increased longevity.[12] Nevertheless, all researchers acknowledge the effect of cultural adaptations upon life expectancy.[28]

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LA JOLLA, Calif., Jan. 14, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI), the human health information technology and health care company, today announced a multi-year agreement with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY), to conduct whole genome sequencing of tens of thousands of de-identified samples from Genentech. HLI, using proprietary tools and unique expertise, will sequence genomes to 30x coverage and analyze the data. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

"We are excited to be working with Genentech so that patient samples can be analyzed according to more precise genetic categories," said J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., HLI CEO and Co-Founder. "At HLI we have built unprecedented capabilities for whole genome sequencing and interpretation to enable a wide array of advances in health care. The application of our capabilities to discover new diagnostics and targeted therapies is one of the most relevant today."

HLI is focused on building the world's most comprehensive integrated human genotype and phenotype database, the HLI Knowledgebase. To achieve that, HLI has established the largest human genome sequencing center in the world, and is sequencing and analyzing complete, 30x coverage genomes using Illumina's HiSeq X Ten sequencing machines. HLI also utilizes Illumina HiSeq 2500 and Pac Bio RS II instruments.

"Genentech's goal is to harness the power of widespread whole genome sequencing to identify new therapeutic targets and diagnostic biomarkers," said James Sabry, senior vice president and global head of Genentech partnering. "We are pleased to join forces with HLI and leverage their expertise in DNA sequencing and analysis along with scientific expertise to accelerate our drug discovery efforts and ultimately bring to market promising new therapies for patients with serious medical conditions."

HLI and Genentech take the privacy and protection of individual's personal information very seriously. All sample and patient data elements are de-identified to remove all personally identifiable information.

About Human Longevity, Inc.HLI, a privately held company headquartered in San Diego, CA was founded in 2013 by pioneers in the fields of genomics and stem cell therapy. Using advances in genomic sequencing, the human microbiome, proteomics, informatics, computing, and cell therapy technologies, HLI is building the world's most comprehensive knowledge base of human genotypes and phenotypes as a basis for a variety of opportunities to help solve aging related disease and human biological decline. HLI will be licensing access to its Knowledgebase to pharmaceutical and biotech companies, academic institutions and medical centers, governments, insurers and physicians, and developing new diagnostics and therapeutics as part of their product offerings. For more information please visit, http://www.humanlongevity.com

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Human Longevity, Inc. Signs Agreement with Genentech for ...