ScienceDaily (Jan. 3, 2012) – Mice bred to age quickly seemed to have found the fountain of youth after scientists injected them with stem cells from the muscle of young, healthy animals. Instead of becoming infirm and dying early like the untreated mice, those that got the stem cells/progenitor cells showed better health and lived 2 to 3 times longer than expected, according to the study published in the January 3, 2012 edition of Nature Communications. The study was conducted by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

More detailed information about the study results can be found on ScienceDaily.com at https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120103135131.htm

The Tithonus Error is the belief that extending life means making people older for longer. Most people have an entirely justified horror of the later stages of degenerative aging, and so the idea of more of that just isn’t on the table. The rejection of more life under those terms is instinctive and visceral.

The goal of longevity science, is to enable people to be younger for longer, not older for longer. The medical control of aging and the defeat of all disease is an opportunity to be seized rather than a certainty already in the bag for those people in middle age today. Let’s stop confusing people with a term “life extension” and replace it with “youth extension” or “health extension” (with the former being far more descriptive, inspiring and marketable). People will be less likely to commit Tithonus Error if they are presented with terms that actually correctly label their intended meaning. I don’t think there would be many people who would reject “youth extension”.

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ScienceDaily (December 7, 2011) ? Using genetic manipulation of membrane voltage in Xenopus (frog) embryos, biologists at Tufts University’s School of Arts and Sciences were able to cause tadpoles to grow eyes outside of the head area. The researchers achieved most surprising results when they manipulated membrane voltage of cells in the tadpole’s back and tail, well outside of where the eyes could normally form. “The hypothesis is that for every structure in the body there is a specific membrane voltage range that drives organogenesis,” said Pai. “These were cells in regions that were never thought to be able to form eyes. This suggests that cells from anywhere in the body can be driven to form an eye.”

These findings break new ground in the field of biomedicine because they identify an entirely new control mechanism that can be capitalized upon to induce the formation of complex organs for transplantation or regenerative medicine applications, according to Michael Levin, Ph.D., professor of biology and director of the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts University’s School of Arts and Sciences.

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This study is interesting because it could lead to the ability to regrow lost limbs or damaged organs. The problem is it does not get around Hayflick’s limit / telomere loss so would likely not be entirely effective in adults, especially if they are older. So a large supply of young adult stem cells is needed.

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2011) ? A team of scientists from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and CellThera, a private company located in WPI’s Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center, have regenerated functional muscle tissue in mice, opening the door for a new clinical therapy to treat people who suffer major muscle trauma.

The team used a novel protocol to coax mature human muscle cells into a stem cell-like state and grew those reprogrammed cells on biopolymer microthreads. The threads were placed in a wound created by surgically removing a large section of leg muscle from a mouse. Over time, the threads and cells restored near-normal function to the muscle, as reported in the paper “Restoration of Skeletal Muscle Defects with Adult Human Cells Delivered on Fibrin Microthreads,” published in the current issue of the journal Tissue Engineering Part A. Surprisingly, the microthreads, which were used simply as a scaffold to support the reprogrammed human cells, actually seemed to accelerate the regeneration process by recruiting progenitor mouse muscle cells, suggesting that they alone could become a therapeutic tool for treating major muscle trauma.

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ScienceDaily (Nov. 23, 2011) – Scientists have successfully manipulated the life span of common, single-celled yeast organisms by figuring out how to remove and restore protein functions related to yeast aging.

A chemical variation of a “fuel-gauge” enzyme that senses energy in yeast acts like a life span clock: It is present in young organisms and progressively diminished as yeast cells age.

In a report in the September 16 edition of Cell, the scientists describe their identification of a new level of regulation of this age-related protein variant, showing that when they remove it, the organism’s life span is cut short and when they restore it, life span is dramatically extended.

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After six years the book “The China Study” is still making headlines. Written by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. and Thomas M. Campbell they extoll the virtues of a plant based diet. It is not about becoming a Vegetarian so much as about eating whole unprocessed foods and mainly from plants. Even former President Bill Clinton has modified his diet after reading it.

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In a study of more than 17,000 Canadians published in 2009 by Dr Peter Katzmarzyk and colleagues at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center they found?links between time spent sitting and mortality. “Individuals who sat the most were roughly 50% more likely to die during the follow-up period than individuals who sat the least, even after controlling for age, smoking, and physical activity levels…This suggests that all things being equal (body weight, physical activity levels, smoking, alcohol intake, age, and sex) the person who sits more is at a higher risk of death than the person who sits less.”

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Following is a link to an interview with Michael D. West, Ph.D. about a new life extension breakthrough published in the journal of Regenerative Medicine. “The paper reported the reversal of what Dr. West has called the ‘developmental aging’ of adult human cells in the laboratory dish. Utilizing genes that grant our reproductive cells the potential for immortal growth, the researchers showed that it was possible to turn back the clock in human body cells, enabling the potential for young patient-specific cells of any kind for use in regenerative medicine. ”

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California’s landmark stem cell research program made headlines nationally, but what is the latest story behind the science? QUEST investigates the potential for medical breakthroughs in the next decade and how the Bay Area is leading the way. Watch this video to learn more: Stem Cell Gold Rush