Category Archives: Immortality Medicine

The highest-paid female CEO in America used to be a man.

Martine Rothblatt, 59 who founded the $5 billion pharmaceutical firm United Therapeutics and also co-founded Sirius had sexreassignment surgeryin 1994.

I cant claim that what I have achieved is equivalent to what a woman has achieved. For the first half of my life, I was male, Rothblatt, who has four kids and is still married to her wife of more than 30 years, told New York Magazine.

Rothblatt made $38 million last year as head of United Therapeutics, which she launched to create medicine for her daughter, who suffers from primary pulmonary hypertension.

In addition to being uber-wealthy, the CEO is obsessed with artificial intelligence and has a lifelike talking robot modeled after her spouse.

Her book, Virtually Human: The Promise and Peril of Digital Immortality, is being released on Tuesday.

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Americas highest-paid female CEO was born a man

The death by a thousand cuts applies to aging. So I am working to kill aging with a thousand cuts.

During the dotcom boom, Dave Asprey made $6 million in one swoop. At the age of 26, in the rush of power and possibility that came with that sudden windfall of cash, he felt like nothing was beyond his reach, not even death. I decided that I was just not going to die, he tells me, with a smile. That would be my next challenge.

And, so, Asprey joined the age-old fight to conquer death.

Over the last 15 years, Asprey has been tinkering with technologies in the hopes of slowing the aging process in his own body. He describes this as bio-hacking, using the hacker mentality to turbocharge his own biochemistry. And to hear Asprey tell it, that's working: With a couple of scientific hacks, hes lost hundreds of pounds, increased his IQ, and improved the quality of his sleep. All these things, he says, are also prolonging his life-span. Hes now sharing these techniques with others through Bulletproof Executive, the company he founded that creates coffee and other products to spike bodily performance, and as the chairman of the board of the Silicon Valley Health Institute, a group that meets monthly to discuss the latest developments in the study of longevity.

The building that houses the SVHI, located just down the street from Googles campus, is a microcosm of a growing Silicon Valley trend. There, Asprey and others are trying to stop individual bodies from aging--starting with their own--and investment is pouring into a growing number of companies whose stated goal is to increase human longevity and, in some cases, even cure death. Asprey freely admits that these are grandiose, quixotic endeavors. But in a place where geeks have changed the world with previously unthinkable breakthroughs in science, nothing seems impossible. When youre young and youve just created something amazing that makes you a ton of a money, you do egotistical things, Asprey says. And Im not saying thats a bad thing: I want to swing for the fences. What is all of this cool technology were creating compared to getting an extra hundred years of life?

He's far from the only one dreaming of a home run. Last year Google launched Calico Labs, a medical company whose goal is to tackle aging and illness. While so far Calico is remaining fairly secretive about its projects (my requests for an interview were politely declined), experts believe its objective is to go beyond solving individual diseases the way most medical researchers have done until now. Instead, it will work on technologies that extend life through previously untapped means, like gene therapies and cryogenics. Earlier this year, Calico hired Cynthia Kenyon, an acclaimed geneticist from the University of California, San Francisco, who has been experimenting with tweaking genes in animals to slow aging. By disabling a gene called daf-2, she has doubled the life-span of roundworms, fruit flies, and mice. In her new role as VP of aging research at Calico, she will ostensibly be attempting to re-create these results in humans.

This year, another company, Human Longevity, joined the anti-aging quest. Founded by J. Craig Venter, another millionaire entrepreneur, its central goal involves understanding DNA. Felix Frueh, the chief scientific officer of Human Longevity, explains that in some ways, the goals of Human Longevity are in line with what medicine has been trying to do all along: cure illness, improve life quality, and extend the human life-span. The difference is that his company applies big-data tools to process vast quantities of information we now have about the human body. The organization will sequence 2 million human genomes in five years, gathering unparalleled insights into the causes of disease. Rather than tackling problems incrementally, he says it is possible to work on a bigger scale, yielding more dramatic results. One of them could be cheating death.

When I spoke to other members of the medical community--doctors and surgeons--they were largely skeptical about the anti-aging movement. Dr. Mark Shrime, a surgeon who serves as a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, says that radical life extension and curing death hardly ever comes up in hospitals or medical classes. He tells me that theories of longevity have been circulating for decades without any tangible results but outcomes seen in lab animals are rarely replicated on human bodies. The question is, are these things feasible in high-level organisms, like primates, he says. Shrime points out that there is already an immortal jellyfish. The steps to making humans immortal would be astronomical, he says.

Dr. Raghu Athre at Memorial Hermann Northwest Hospital in Texas says that in working with patients, it becomes immediately apparent that human bodies are complicated and often react in ways that we could never expect. Patients are not the same as test tubes and lab rats, he says. There are so many variables that are out of our control. Athre argues that tech entrepreneurs are used to creating things they can control and work with data that makes sense; doctors, on the other hand, realize that human beings often defy logic. While neck cancer is associated with smoking, there are also 29-year-old non-smokers who get neck cancer and die within six months, he says.

This is not to say that doctors believe life extension will never happen. We will probably get to a point where we know enough about aging to increase life-spans," Shrime says, "but if we are seeing breakthroughs in worms and jellyfish, this is still miles and miles away from anything tangible we can offer to patients.

Excerpt from:
The Eternal Problem Silicon Valley Can't Solve

S

A handful of girls seem to defy one of the biggest certainties in life: ageing. Virginia Hughes reports.

Richard Walker has been trying to conquer ageing since he was a 26-year-old free-loving hippie. It was the 1960s, an era marked by youth: Vietnam War protests, psychedelic drugs, sexual revolutions. The young Walker relished the culture of exultation, of joie de vivre, and yet was also acutely aware of its passing. He was haunted by the knowledge that ageing would eventually steal away his vitality that with each passing day his body was slightly less robust, slightly more decayed. One evening he went for a drive in his convertible and vowed that by his 40th birthday, he would find a cure for ageing.

Walker became a scientist to understand why he was mortal. "Certainly it wasn't due to original sin and punishment by God, as I was taught by nuns in catechism," he says. "No, it was the result of a biological process, and therefore is controlled by a mechanism that we can understand."

Medical science has already stretched the average human lifespan. Because of public health programmes and treatments for infectious diseases, the number of people over age 60 has doubled since 1980. By 2050, the over-60 set is expected to number 2 billion, or 22 per cent of the world's population. But this leads to a new problem: more people are living long enough to get chronic and degenerative conditions. Age is one of the strongest risk factors for heart disease, stroke, macular degeneration, dementia and cancer. For adults in high-income nations, that means age is the biggest risk factor for death.

A drug that slows ageing, even modestly, would be a blockbuster. Scientists have published several hundred theories of ageing (and counting), and have tied it to a wide variety of biological processes. But no one yet understands how to integrate all of this disparate information. Some researchers have slowed ageing and extended life in mice, flies and worms by tweaking certain genetic pathways. But it's unclear whether these manipulations would work in humans. And only a few age-related genes have been discovered in people, none of which is a prime suspect.

Walker, now 74, believes that the key to ending ageing may lie in a rare disease that doesn't even have a real name, "syndrome X". He has identified four girls with this condition, marked by what seems to be a permanent state of infancy, a dramatic developmental arrest. He suspects that the disease is caused by a glitch somewhere in the girls' DNA. His quest for immortality depends on finding it.

It's the end of another busy week and MaryMargret Williams is shuttling her brood home from school. She drives an enormous SUV, but her six children and their coats and bags and snacks manage to fill every inch. The three big kids are bouncing in the very back. Sophia, ten, with a mouth of new braces, is complaining about a boy-crazy friend. She sits next to Anthony, seven, and Aleena, five, who are glued to something on their mother's iPhone. The three little kids squirm in three car seats across the middle row. Myah, two, is mining a cherry slushy, and Luke, one, is pawing a bag of fresh crickets bought for the family gecko.

Finally there's Gabrielle, who's the smallest child, at just 12 pounds, and the second oldest, at nine years old. She has long, skinny legs and a long, skinny ponytail, both of which spill out over the edges of her car seat. While her siblings giggle and squeal, Gabby's dusty-blue eyes roll up towards the ceiling. By the calendar, she's almost an adolescent. But she has the buttery skin, tightly clenched fingers and hazy awareness of a newborn.

Back in 2004, when MaryMargret and her husband, John, went to the hospital to deliver Gabby, they had no idea anything was wrong. They knew from an ultrasound that she would have club feet, but so had their other daughter, Sophia, who was otherwise healthy. And because MaryMargret was a week early, they knew Gabby would be small, but not abnormally so. "So it was such a shock to us when she was born," MaryMargret says.

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How a Rare Medical Condition Could Help Extend All of Our Lives

BERKELEY

About 250 graduating seniors this year were eligible to compete for UC Berkeleys coveted University Medal, an honor which requires a minimum GPA of 3.96 and favors a packed resume along with a track record of overcoming challenges and making a difference in peoples lives.

Of that elite pool, 35 applied for the University Medal, established in 1871, and the Prizes Committee selected five finalists. Water policy warrior Rebecca Peters triumphed, but the four runners-up Kevin Kennedy, Brooke Liang, Rohin Shah and Sarah Mohamed are each exceptional in their own right. The finalists will each receive a $500 award and undoubtedly go on to great things. Here is a little background on who they are, the philosophy that got them this far and where theyre headed.

Kevin Kennedy

Guiding philosophy

We have an ethical responsibility to help the less fortunate, and that personal benefit at the expense of others in society or around the globe is immoral.

Lesson learned

Do not allow yourself to think that the purpose of learning, say, the enzymes involved in cellular respiration is to answer questions on an exam. Think of the broader picture: about how elusive, complex, and beautiful nature is, and how bizarre our own role in the universe is. I regret that it took me so long to figure this out.

Proudest achievement

I am proud to have made it through Berkeley while dealing with bad insomnia and related difficulties.

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University Medal runners-up find turning point at Berkeley

Sixty years on from the day Sir Roger changed athletics

9:30am Tuesday 6th May 2014 in News

Sir Roger Bannister will listen to todays tributes with his usual cheerfulness, happy to recount again the story of that day: how he had gone to the London hospital where he worked, sharp-ened his spikes in the laboratory before travelling to Oxford, ever fearful that the strong winds would ruin everything.

Oxford Universitys vice-chancellor Lord Patten will attend, along with college heads, university luminaries and Sir Rogers family and friends to remember the events of May 6, 1954.

That was the day the most iconic barrier in world sport was finally broken, when Sir Roger became the first human being to run a mile in under four minutes, crossing the line to enter sporting immortality.

For all his subsequent achievements as a distinguished neurologist and Master of Pembroke College, he has never resented the determination of his countryman to lock him in a moment of time burned into the nations consciousness. For three years now he has been suffering from Parkinsons Disease. A head-on crash in 1975, when his ankle was crushed, stopped him from ever being able to run again.

He would never stop trying, wearing orthopaedic supports, soft shoes, always on soft grass: he was still experimenting with Kenyan Masai-type shoes well into his sixties, always to be disappointed.

Now at the age of 85, Parkinsons Disease makes walking difficult, although his mind remains as sharp as ever.

I still have a walking group of 11 good friends. They go for a walk every month but these days I only go for the pub lunch afterwards, he chuckled, when we met at his North Oxford home. Decades of neurological training, clinical work and research at the National Hospital and St Marys Hospital in London made him an expert on Parkinsons many years before he was himself diagnosed with the disease.

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Sixty years on from the day Sir Roger changed athletics

Two separate research groups, publishing their results in Science and Nature Medicine today, found that transfusing young mouse blood into old mice can improve their cognitive and exercise capability, significantly reducing two major aspects of aging. When it comes to increasing human cognitive and physical performance and arresting the effects of aging, the researchers urge us to be cautious but given how important blood is to human life, and all of the medical processes that already rely on blood transfusions, I wouldnt be surprised if transfusing young blood into old people turns out to be the key to immortality. Maybe vampires were right all along. Well, kind of: Drinking the blood of the young and innocent probably wont do much, but transfusing it may actually improve your strength and intelligence.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and in this case, we have two reports backing up these claims, both from highly credible sources. The first, from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Stanford, found that young blood reverses age-related impairments in cognitive function and synaptic plasticity in mice [doi:10.1038/nm.3569]. The second study, this time from Harvard on the east coast, found that young mouse blood which has high levels of a protein called GDF11 improved cognitive and physical capabilities of older mice (which dont have high levels of GDF11 in their blood).

A vampire mouse. Because.

While both studies showed sensational restorative effects, the most striking thing for me is how simple the UCSF/Stanford approach was. They took some young mouse blood, spun it in a centrifuge to create blood plasma (basically white gooey stuff that contains all of the good proteins but none of the blood cells), and then injected it into an old mouse. That was all it took to improve the old mouses learning and memory. (In scientific terms, the process essentially restored the mouses hippocampus to a younger, more plastic state. This is particularly exciting because the human hippocampus is very important for the creation of memories when our hippocampus deteriorates, we get diseases such as Alzheimers.

Speaking rather frankly, the senior author of the report, StanfordsTony Wyss-Coray, said:We really dont know yet how this works. Harvard doesnt seem to be quite so nonplussed by its results: GDF11 appears to rejuvenate blood vessels in the brain, which get narrow and haggard as you get older and increasing blood flow to the brain is a very, very good thing.

Edward Cullen. Isnt he dreamy.

The big question now, of course, is whether these results will transfer over to humans. Given all the life-giving qualities of blood transfusions that we already know about, and the performance boosting effects of blood doping, it wouldnt be surprising if blood also played a key role in reducing the effects of aging. After all, blood is the way that proteins and hormones get around the body and most cells live and die based on the hormones and proteins that they receive. It stands to reason that if you switch in some new blood, the rest of your body would suddenly start behaving like its young again. A bit like changing the oil in your car.

For now, we only know that blood transfusions improve brain function. We have no idea how long the effects last, nor do we know whether these processes increase life span. If the price of immortality is the regular transfusion of blood harvested from children, then there could be some societal and ethical concerns. History is full of (in)famous types who believed that young blood was the key to immortality, fromPope Innocent VIII who hoped that the blood of 10-year-old boys would keep him from his deathbed, to vampires who feed off the life energy present in human blood. It was frowned upon back then, and itd probably be frowned upon today.

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New, young blood can reverse some signs of aging, improve cognitive abilities

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) May 03, 2014

Millions of people are searching for the secrets to longevity, wisdom and healing. The number 1 New York Times bestselling author and founder of Soul Mind Body Medicine, Dr. and Master Zhi Gang Sha, is leading a Divine soul healing movement around the world helping individuals to find a path to harmony with the universe, achieve balance in their lives, cleanse their karma, be of service to others, and live a life that fulfills their souls purpose. Being a miracle soul healer, Master Sha focuses on Soul Power, and delivers soul wisdom to enlighten the soul, and soul healing for the physical, mental, emotional and physical bodies. In an extraordinary opportunity in Ramsau, Austria, participants will meet the world renowned Dr. and Master Sha to learn how Tao IV and Tao V Retreats can transform their life and deliver the secrets to longevity and immortality. Register to hear Dr. and Master Sha discuss Introduction to Tao IV-V Retreats for Healing Rejuvenation and Longevity (May 11 in person & webcast). To receive high frequency blessings and powerful Tao Soul Power techniques to transform their physical journey and advance on their spiritual journey, participants are invited to attend the Tao IV Retreat (May 12 -14 in person & webcast) and the most anticipated and advanced Year V Tao Retreat for Longevity and Immortality (May 15-18 in person only). These three events are the perfect continuation to previous Tao I, II, III Retreats. For more information about the Introductory Tao Retreat Evening and to register for Tao IV and Tao V Retreats, please go to register at http://www.DrSha.com to attend in-person or via webcast.

Introduction to Tao IV-V Retreats for Healing, Rejuvenation and Longevity, May 11, 2014, 8pm-10:30pm European Central Time (in-person & webcast; honor fee 25 Euro) -- Meet Dr. and Master Zhi Gang Sha to experience invaluable wisdom for the soul journey and how to apply those gifts to each participants individual life. Dr. and Master Sha is the sole 373rd lineage holder of Peng Zu, teacher of Lao Zi (author of Tao Te Jing). He has the ability to help others open and develop spiritual channels and transform blockages on the level of soul, mind, and body. Dr. and Master Zhi Gang Sha will discuss Soul Power and deliver soul wisdom to every participant, plus explain the ancient history and benefits that will be gained by attending the advanced Tao IV Retreat and how one can attain admittance to the newest and most advanced Tao V Retreat.

Tao IV Retreat, May 12-14, 2014, 10am-10pm European Central Time (in-person & webcast; honor fee 150 Euro ) This is an advanced program open to those who have attended a Tao III Retreat. Participants will learn high-level, sacred Tao practices only previously granted to elite Taoist Masters now open to those seeking continued spiritual guidance and those that are committed to their personal soul journey. Dr. and Master Sha teaches the secret practices that will quickly help develop spiritual channels, and purify and rejuvenate soul, heart, mind, and body. Participants will gain knowledge and wisdom to serve their loved ones, humanity and Mother Earth. Pre-requisites apply.

Year V Tao Retreat for Longevity and Immortality Retreat with Dr. and Master Sha, May 15-18, 10am 10pm European Central Time (in-person only & by approval; honor fee 200 Euro) -- The Year V Tao Longevity and Immortality Retreat is the most anticipated, sacred and profound Tao teaching that Master Zhi Gang Sha has offered and can only be received on site and in person. These teachings will not be available by webcast or teleconference. Dr. and Master Sha is a direct channel of the Source. He receives and imparts sacred wisdom, knowledge and practices as given to him by Source. His chanting of sacred Tao text and Tao Songs carries Tao frequency and vibration with love, forgiveness, compassion and light to transform blockages on the level of soul, mind, and body. Those who are approved to participate in the Year V Tao Retreat will learn higher level practices and techniques to benefit every aspect of life. Registrants for the Year V Tao Retreat will have the opportunity to receive and benefit from: Highest Layer Divine and Tao Soul Downloads of Jing (Matter) Light Body, Qi (Energy) Light Body and Shen (Soul) Light Body Sacred Dong Gong (moving) and Jing Gong (quiet) longevity and immortality practices Soul travel to receive direct nourishment from Heaven, Mother Earth and Tao Divine and Tao Longevity Genes Packages Receive guidance on how to further your practice of Tao in your daily life Receive powerful Divine and Tao transmissions to bless your spiritual journey Plus so many more Tao blessings, treasures, teachings and gifts from the one true Miracle Soul Healer Dr. and Master Zhi Gang Sha

To register for these events or to connect with one of Dr. and Master Shas Worldwide Representatives in cities around the world visit http://www.DrSha.com. For personal consultations with Dr. and Master Sha in Austria May 6 18 call +49 (0) 69 - 59 77 21 790 for an appointment,

Dr. and Master Zhi Gang Sha is the world-renowned miracle soul healer. He has created thousands of soul healing miracles worldwide in the last ten years (http://www.youtube.com/zhigangsha). He is the founder of Soul Mind Body Medicine. He was trained as a conventional medical doctor in China and a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine in China and Canada. The founder of the Institute of Soul Healing and Enlightenment and the Love Peace Harmony Movement, Dr. and Master Sha is a grandmaster of many ancient disciplines, including tai chi, qigong, feng shui, and the I Ching. Master Sha is also an expert in the most advanced cellular healing science now occurring in China. In the West, he is involved in breakthrough research on the effects of spirit on the human system. Dr. Sha was named Qigong Master of the Year at the Fifth World Congress on Qigong. In 2006, he was honored with the prestigious Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Commission Award for his humanitarian efforts.

Dr. and Master Zhi Gang Sha has more than 100,000 followers on Facebook and an additional 250,000 devotees worldwide. The Soul Healing Miracles Chanting Channel fosters a soul healing community to learn and use chanting and soul songs for personal, spiritual, mental and soul development, 24/7. Dr. and Master Shas Soul Healing Miracles Daily Live TV airs everyday on Livestream, 9am PT, 12pm ET. Master Shas national television show, The Divine Soul Song Series airs several times each week across the US, as well as worldwide on on TelosTv.coms worldwide digital network and http://www.DrSha.com. Everyday people all over the world are experiencing personal Soul Healing miracles and sharing their video testimonials so that others can benefit from these powerful and life-changing results on http://www.youtube.com/zhigangsha.

Dr. and Master Sha is author of more than 10 books in the Soul Power Series published by Simon & Schuster (Atria Imprint), with each book reaching the New York Times bestselling list and four of them reaching #1. Master Shas new series, Soul Healing Miracles is published by BenBella with the first book entitled Soul Healing Miracles: Ancient and New Sacred Wisdom, Knowledge and Practical Techniques for Healing the Spiritual, Mental, Emotional and Physical Bodies. Released in November 2013, it was an instant national bestseller landing on the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestseller lists within days of publication.

In this groundbreaking book, Soul Healing Miracles, readers learn sacred wisdom, Source meditation and mantras to further their spiritual journey. Dr. and Master Sha is creating a global self-healing movement and his newest book empowers people to self-heal and to help others by using the healing energy from The Source Ling Guang (Soul Light) Calligraphy art printed in the book. The Source Ling Guang (Soul Light) Calligraphy art carries matter, energy, and soul of The Source, which can transform the matter, energy, and soul of the spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical bodies. The book is pre-programmed with tremendous healing energy from the Divine and offers soul healing possibilities to every person who holds the book, or meditates with the calligraphy inside the book. In Soul Healing Miracles, Master Sha shares the Four Power Techniques including Body Power, Soul Power, Mind Power and Sound Power to empower everyone to create their own soul healing miracles. His message in this series is: I have the power to create soul healing miracles to transform all of my life. You have the power to create soul healing miracles to transform all of your life. Together we have the power to create soul healing miracles for humanity, Mother Earth and countless planets, stars, galaxies, and universes.

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Do Not Miss the Secrets to Longevity, Healing & Immortality with Soul Miracle Healer Dr. and Master Zhi Gang Sha at ...

Sir Roger Bannister has Parkinson's Disease

8:30am Friday 2nd May 2014 in News By Alex Wynick, Reporter covering Blackbird Leys and Greater Leys. Call me on 01865 425403

SPORTING icon Sir Roger Bannister has revealed he has Parkinsons Disease, just days before the 60th anniversary of his breaking of the four-minute mile barrier.

The 85-year-old was yesterday reluctant to dwell on the subject, preferring to concentrate on the events planned for Tuesdays commemoration.

But he told the Oxford Mail that he does have this disability, particularly with walking, from Parkinsons but I make as light of it as I can.

Sir Roger achieved sporting immortality when he ran a mile on the Iffley Road track in three minutes 59.4 seconds on May 6, 1954.

Exeter College, where he studied medicine in 1946, will host a lunch in his honour on Tuesday, the anniversary, and he will also attend the opening of the refurbished Vincents Club on the same day.

Exeter Colleges rector, Frances Caincross, said: We at Exeter College are amazingly proud of him, its such a great achievement.

University spokesman Matt Pickles added: The vice chancellor and other guests that Sir Roger wants to see will join him and his family for the lunch, where we will show footage of his famous race.

We are looking forward to celebrating the 60th anniversary of Sir Rogers legendary athletic achievement with him.

More here:
Sir Roger Bannister has Parkinson's Disease

The evidence for what causes aging has typically been limited to the study of a single organism's lifespan; our cells divide many times throughout our lives and eventually cause organs and our bodies to age and break down. But new research from the UNC School of Medicine suggests that how we age might depend on cellular interactions that we inherit from ancestors throughout many generations.

By studying the reproductive cells of nematodes -- tiny worms found in soil and compost bins -- Shawn Ahmed, PhD, an associate professor of genetics, identified the Piwi/piRNA genome silencing pathway, the loss of which results in infertility after many generations. He also found a signaling pathway -- a series of molecular interactions inside cells -- that he could tweak to overcome infertility while also causing the worms to live longer adult lives.

The research, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Cambridge and described in a paper published in the journal Cell Reports, suggests that it's possible to manipulate the aging process of progeny before they're even born.

The finding gives scientists a deeper understanding of what may govern aging and age-related diseases, such as some cancers and neurodegenerative conditions.

Typically, nematodes produce about 30 generations in a matter of months and remain fertile indefinitely. Ahmed and colleagues found that a mutation in the Piwi/piRNA cellular pathway of germ cells gradually decreased the worms' ability to reproduce as the mutation was passed down through the generations and eventually caused complete sterility. But when Ahmed's team manipulated a different protein -- DAF-16/FOXO -- the nematodes overcame the loss of the Piwi pathway. The worms did not become sterile; generations of worms reproduced indefinitely, achieving a sort of generational immortality. Moreover, it has been well established that DAF-16/FOXO plays a role in nematodes living longer.

Achieving longer life suggests that there's an effect on the aging of somatic cells -- the cells that make up the body and organs of an organism.

"That's the really interesting thing about this," said Ahmed, a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. "What we've found implies that there's some sort of relationship between somatic cell aging and this germ line immortality process we've been studying."

What that relationship is, precisely, remains unknown. But so does the exact mechanism by which human somatic cells age as they divide throughout our lives. That is, exactly how we age -- at the cellular level -- is still not entirely understood.

"The field is fairly open in terms of what might cause aging of somatic cells," Ahmed said. "What makes our study unique is that we've found something that could be transmitted over many generations that could affect aging but is not necessarily a genetic mutation. Instead, whatever is being transmitted likely affects how a segment of the genome is silenced, and that genome segment can be modulated by a genetic mutation."

Think of it like this: when you were born, there could have been something in the reproductive cells of your parents that triggered how the somatic cells of your liver or kidneys would age after you were born.

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Aging linked to cellular interactions that occur across generations

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Newswise CHAPEL HILL, N.C. The evidence for what causes aging has typically been limited to the study of a single organisms lifespan; our cells divide many times throughout our lives and eventually cause organs and our bodies to age and break down. But new research from the UNC School of Medicine suggests that how we age might depend on cellular interactions that we inherit from ancestors throughout many generations.

By studying the reproductive cells of nematodes tiny worms found in soil and compost bins Shawn Ahmed, PhD, an associate professor of genetics, identified the Piwi/piRNA genome silencing pathway, the loss of which results in infertility after many generations. He also found a signaling pathway a series of molecular interactions inside cells that he could tweak to overcome infertility while also causing the worms to live longer adult lives.

The research, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Cambridge and described in a paper published in the journal Cell Reports, suggests that its possible to manipulate the aging process of progeny before theyre even born.

The finding gives scientists a deeper understanding of what may govern aging and age-related diseases, such as some cancers and neurodegenerative conditions.

Typically, nematodes produce about 30 generations in a matter of months and remain fertile indefinitely. Ahmed and colleagues found that a mutation in the Piwi/piRNA cellular pathway of germ cells gradually decreased the worms ability to reproduce as the mutation was passed down through the generations and eventually caused complete sterility. But when Ahmeds team manipulated a different protein DAF-16/FOXO the nematodes overcame the loss of the Piwi pathway. The worms did not become sterile; generations of worms reproduced indefinitely, achieving a sort of generational immortality. Moreover, it has been well established that DAF-16/FOXO plays a role in nematodes living longer.

Achieving longer life suggests that theres an effect on the aging of somatic cells the cells that make up the body and organs of an organism.

Thats the really interesting thing about this, said Ahmed, a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. What weve found implies that theres some sort of relationship between somatic cell aging and this germ line immortality process weve been studying.

What that relationship is, precisely, remains unknown. But so does the exact mechanism by which human somatic cells age as they divide throughout our lives. That is, exactly how we age at the cellular level is still not entirely understood.

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Researchers Link Aging to Cellular Interactions That Occur Across Generations