Longevity science

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown they can coax cells to move toward a beam of light. The feat is a first step toward manipulating cells to control factors such as insulin secretion or heart rate using light.

Their research is published April 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We have succeeded in using light as a kind of on-off switch to control cells’ behavior,” says principal investigator N. Gautam, PhD, a professor of anesthesiology. “Much of the way cells behave is due to their ability to sense signals in the environment. In these experiments, what the cells sense is the presence of light.”

Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have claimed a first by successfully using a single session of gene therapy to cure dogs of type 1 diabetes. The work has shown that it is possible to cure the disease in large animals with a minimally-invasive procedure – potentially leading the way to further developments in studies for human treatment of the disease.

Metabolites from the break-down of resveratrol have been shown to come together and regenerate the compound inside living cells, leaving researchers questioning whether worries over bioavailability are relevant.

"We actually delayed the onset of aging and extended the healthy lifespan," Zhou said of the mice.

Mice with progeria lived 30 percent longer when fed with resveratrol compared with progerial mice not given the compound.

Asked if their study supported the notion that drinking red wine delays aging and reduces the risk of heart disease, Zhou said the alcohol content in wine would cause harm before any benefit could be derived.

Surgeons from the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences Systems Neurosurgery Department view a simulation of the human brain vasculature and

Women with higher circulating levels carotenoids are at a significantly lower risk of breast cancer, according to new research.

Carotenoids are the compounds that make many fruits and vegetables colorful. These pigments have been studied repeatedly for their health benefits, including anti-cancer properties.

There is a large body of evidence to suggest that omega-3s are beneficial for brain health and heart health. A new study evaluated omega-3 supplements and their effect on cognitive performance. The findings supported established health benefits of these supplements.

The researchers concluded that supplementation with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) could postpone the onset of metabolic disorders and associated declines in cognitive functioning.

Researchers have deciphered the neural code used by mouse ganglion cells, and used it to create a prosthesis that reportedly restores normal vision to blind mice.

They have additionally deciphered the neural code of monkeys, which is close to that used by humans, so a device for use by blind people could also be on the way.

This snapshot is the result of using an Imagejs module to determine how fast brain cancer cells are growing.

A University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) team has developed ImageJS, a free app system that analyzes tissue images.

ImageJS is the first in a serie

Scientists have long suspected that metabolic disorders, such as type 2 diabetes and obesity, could be linked to our circadian rhythm or biological clock. For example, laboratory mice with altered biological clocks often become obese and develop diabetes.

Now biologists at UC San Diego have discovered that a chemical, which affects the activity of a key protein that regulates our biological clock, can repress the production of glucose by the liver, offering a promising new direction for the development of a new class of drugs to treat diabetes.

A team headed by Steve Kay, dean of the Division of Biological Sciences at UC San Diego, had previously found that altering the levels of a key protein, called cryptochrome – which regulates the biological clocks of plants, insects and mammals and also regulates glucose production in the liver – could improve the health of diabetic mice.

Building on that research...

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) are recruiting a million participants to join a decade long heart health study. The enabling factor? Smartphones. It’s a great example of information technology bleeding into other fields and speeding their progress. 

If all goes to plan, the UCSF study (dubbed Health eHeart) will be the broadest such study ever completed.

Scientists from a British cancer charity are teaming up with technology gurus from the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google to design and develop a mobile game aimed at speeding the search for new cancer drugs.

The project, led by the charity Cancer Research UK, should mean that anyone with a smart phone and five minutes to spare will be able to investigate vital scientific data at the same time as playing a mobile game.

The European Commission will award a total of 2 billion euros for research into brain disease and into the "miracle material" graphene which could be used to make flexible electronic devices and could lead to superfast Internet speeds.

A daily multivitamin does not increase the risk of death, says a new meta-analysis from Australia that supports the safety of the supplements and challenges previous controversial analyses.

Getting neurons from cells discarded in urine, may one day help develop therapies for neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's disease (credit: Lihui

Data from randomized trials support the ability of co-enzyme Q10 (CoQ10) to improve heart function in people with congestive heart failure (CHF), say scientists from Tulane University in New Orleans.

The authors caution that the results are based on a small number of clinical trials, and that the benefit may be greatest for less severe cases of heart failure.

Researchers have discovered a chemical that makes cells in the retinas of blind mice sensitive to light, temporarily restoring some vision.

They are working on an improved compound that they hope could one day be used to restore sight in human patients suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, the most common form of inherited blindness, and macular degeneration, the most common cause of acquired blindness in the developed world.