Monthly Archives: November 2007

Anti-Aging Drug Going into Human Trials

Back in 2004 I predicted that we’d have life extension by 2014. I have on several occasions reaffirmed this prediction. Last year I added:

This idea – that progress in life extension science continues regardless of its description – is part of the reasoning behind my prediction that we will have some form of life extension by 2014. Perhaps I should modify this prediction to say that it will be an off-label treatment – something gerontologists know extends life, but won’t publicly admit extends life.

I was responding to the timidness of some gerontologists to admit that the they are engaged in life extension science. But there’s more than timidness at work here. Life extension will, I think, turn out that the best treatment for a host of diseases. What physical problem would not benefit from a younger biochemistry?

Phil said in our most recent FastForward Radio show that solutions for diseases will “come along for the ride” when we get life extension. It could also work the other way around. Especially with the earliest incarnations, life extension could come along for the ride while we are searching for treatments for specific diseases. Case in point:

Human clinical trials to test [SIRT1 activating] compounds in diabetes are slated to begin early next year, according to Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, based in Cambridge, MA, which developed the drugs. “As far as I’m aware, this is the first anti-aging molecule going into [testing in] man,” says David Sinclair, a biologist at Harvard Medical School, in Boston, and cofounder of Sirtris. “From that standpoint, this is a major milestone in medicine.”

If these trials prove this drug to be effective, it will be marketed as a drug for diabetics and people who are at risk of diabetes. But the truth is that it could be good for everybody because it will duplicate the chemistry of caloric restriction for those of us who would perfer not to live on starvation rations.

For several years, scientists have been on the hunt for a drug that could bring the benefits of caloric restriction without the strict diet. Last fall, Sinclair and his colleagues took a first step when they showed that mice given resveratrol, a molecule that activates SIRT1, stayed healthy when fed high-fat foods. But there was a catch: mice were dosed with the human equivalent of more than 1,000 wine bottles’ worth of the compound, an amount not possible for humans to imbibe or take in pill form.

Now a team at Sirtris, led by CEO Christoph Westphal, has identified a group of compounds that activate SIRT1 1,000 times more potently than resveratrol does. According to findings published today in the journal Nature, the compounds bind to the enzyme and dramatically increase its activity. Because the new compounds are more powerful, much lower doses are likely needed to achieve the same beneficial effects. “We believe doses needed in humans for the novel compounds are probably on the order of hundreds of milligrams, similar to many marketed drugs,” says Westphal.

Possible Evidence for Parallel Universe

Let’s have no more of this nonsensical talk about banning astronomy:

Evidence for a parallel universe?

Last August, astronomers working on the analysis of data being acquired by NASA’s WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) satellite announced that they found a huge void in the universe. A void is a region of space that has much less material (stars, nebulae, dust and other material) than the average. Since our universe is relatively heterogeneous, empty spaces are not rare, but in this case the enormous magnitude of the hole is way outside the expected range. The hole found in the constellation of Eridanus is about a billion light years across, which is roughly 10,000 times as large as our galaxy or 400 times the distance to Andromeda, the closest “large” galaxy.

The dimension of the hole is so big that at first glance, it results impossible to explain under the current cosmological theories, although scientists put forward some explanations based on certain theoretical models that might predict the existence of “giant knots” in space known as topological defects.

However, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill physics Professor Laura Mersini-Houghton made a staggering claim. She says, “Standard cosmology cannot explain such a giant cosmic hole” and goes further with the ground-breaking hypothesis that the huge void is “… the unmistakable imprint of another universe beyond the edge of our own“.

I’m not astrophysicist, so I will take it as a given that there can be something remarkable about a large piece of open space out in…space. I mean, isn’t that what we expect to find out there? But okay, granted.

Mersini-Houghton is a proponent of a theory of entangled universes. Her ideas about parallel universes are testable, so we should know in time whether this hole is just a big hole or evidence of something more. According to the theory, there should be a second void like this one in another section of the universe.

If such a void is, in fact, found, it still won’t be proof positive that we have discovered a parallel universe, but it will certainly add credibility to the argument.

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To me, there’s something very odd about the idea of evidence of parallel universes in this universe. If we have some common context with another universe, isn’t that context the real universe? How can two parallel things be connected to each other? Similarly, Max Tegmark talks about the great physical distance one would have to travel to get from this universe to another universe. (I can’t find the exact reference; somebody help me out if you know what I’m looking for.)

Maybe I’m just playing word games, but it seems to me that if you can get there from here, then it’s not a different universe.

Is It Time to Ban Astronomy?

Before it, you know, wipes out the universe?

Could humanity’s observation of dark energy have shortened the life span of the universe? The answer is “yes” according to the author of a new scientific paper that has recently come to light. Featured in the latest edition of New Scientist magazine, the subscriber-only story, “Has observing the universe hastened its end?”, discusses the paper and its claims.

It’s the old principle that you can’t observe a phenomenon without affecting it. But can it really be dangerous, existentially dangerous, for us to observe some the building blocks of the universe in action?

Maybe.

Once again, this is territory ably covered by Greg Egan in his novel Quarantine, wherein aliens essentially wall off the solar system so that we can’t make any more universe-limiting observations of quantum phenomena.

Anyhow, if we really are at risk, this might be a job for the Lifeboat Foundation.

Also, I wonder if MDarling will consider this proof that there really is a God? And an angry, vengeful one at that…

FastForward Radio

Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon are back with an interview of Dave Gobel. Dave cofounded with Aubrey de Grey the Methuselah Foundation. This is the nonprofit charity that is behind the Methuselah Mouse Prize – a prize for proving life extension technologies in mice.

This interview explains why developing life extension matters more, fundamentally, that almost anything else we can put our efforts into. It’s also a fascinating glimpse into how the efforts of a few people can be leveraged to change the world. You’ll want to hear this one for sure.

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Click “Continue reading” for listening options and the show notes:

Big Bugs!

Here’s an attention-getter:

Ancient Scorpion Was Bigger Than Car

Nov. 21, 2007 — This was a bug you couldn’t swat and definitely couldn’t step on. British scientists have stumbled across a fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature the biggest bug ever.

How big? Bigger than you, and at 8 feet long as big as some Smart cars.

The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of the study’s three authors.

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The story goes on to talk about how these scorpions lived in a world that was also home to mega-millipedes and giant dragonflies. Not that we would really want them around, but one has to wonder what fate befell the big bugs. What’s the difference between the world that we live in and the world they called home?

Well, not to put too fine a point on it: we’re the difference. Not just human beings. Lions, tigers, bears, oh my. Also sharks. And crocodiles. And while they were here, dinosaurs. As fierce as the prehistoric giant bugs were (and as scary as we would find them if we encountered one today) they ultimately couldn’t compete with vertebrates.

So bugs stuck around, and stayed competitive by being small.

A Better Illness

On Sunday I told the FastForward Radio audience that I had a cold. I was sure I was going to go into a coughing fit during the show. The show went fine but this cold got worse over the next couple of days. Today’s Wednesday and I’m thankful to be feeling better, but the last couple of days have been miserable. It’s the sort of thing we all get to go through about once a year. The runny nose, the cough… the works.

My doctor assured me that what I have is almost certainly viral. Antibiotics won’t help. “Don’t go to work,” he said. “Go home, take it easy, drink plenty of fluids and get rest.” How old fashioned is that advice? I’ll bet my grandparents got the same advice 50 years ago.

So, with time on my hands the last couple of days, I got to daydreaming about what kind of care would be ideal for these minor – or not so minor – colds and flus. When we understand how to combat these illnesses, how would the treatment work?

Sunday Morning, November 20, 2016

I awaken with the realization that the illness I’ve been fighting has gained the upper hand. My throat is sore and I’ve got the beginning of a runny nose. No problem. After a light breakfast I call my doctor’s office.

Of course the doctor himself is not in on Sunday morning, but it hardly matters. The call is forwarded to the local hospital’s 24/7 clinic. The attending doctor writes down my name and symptoms and asks that I come in as soon as possible. “Can you get here this morning?”

“Yes, I’ll be right there.” I make myself as presentable as possible and drive down to the hospital.

Once I arrive I’m taken quickly to an examination room. Doctors have decided that packed waiting rooms full of sick people is bad practice. If there’s not an exam room available, patients are encouraged to sit in their cars and wait for the call to walk in.

In the exam room the nurse asks me my symptoms again. She writes it up on her medical PDA. She then takes a swab culture from the back of my throat. She takes the culture down the hall to a flash sequencer. This DNA machine doesn’t require that the culture be grown any larger. The little swab in the bottom of the Petri dish is sufficient. The machine is a powerful AI that knows more medicine than most doctors. But it is not considered self-aware.

The machine dutifully goes to work. It has received the symptom reports from both the attending doctor and the nurse. It already expects what it will find, but it goes through a full screening. First, it detects my own DNA. After a brief search for genetic abnormalities it continues. It detects the DNA of several bacterial species – two of which are beneficial for healthy oral hygiene, one of which is unhealthy and is responsible for tooth decay. The machine makes a note of that, but keeps looking. Then it finds what it’s looking for. A viral infection – Strep type 10237a. It goes to the online database to determine how widespread this virus is.

Since the virus is already common in this region, and easily treated, the machine will not recommend quarantine. It reports this new case for the database and backs out of the network. It completes its search by looking for markers for cancer. There are none.

The machine produces a report for the doctor. It recommends prescriptions for two drugs – an anti-viral medication developed specifically for this virus, and a mouthwash to fight the harmful oral bacteria. The mouthwash is not an antiseptic. It is an active culture of beneficial bacteria – reinforcements for the good guys.

A doctor gets this report on his prescription pad PDA. He signs it almost perfunctorily and walks in to see me. He tells me what they found and asks me which pharmacy to send the prescription to. He forwards it electronically. My pharmacy’s AI will call as soon as the prescription is ready.

I know that the pharmacy is fast so I don’t go back home. Thirty minutes later I’m leaving the pharmacy with my prescriptions. The doctor has encouraged me to begin taking the medicine immediately. I do. The doctor tells me to expect feeling better by the evening. He’s right.

By Monday morning I feel 100%.

Embryonic Stem Cells From Adult Skin Cells

Scientists have been excited about the possibilities of embryonic stem cells at least since they were isolated in 1998. These cells are the root of the tree. We start as a handful of these cells and grow into a full individual. These cells can – and do – differentiate to become all parts of the body. If we could harness this capability, theoretically we could grow entire replacement organs. Or we could treat diseases like diabetes and heart disease noninvasively.

That’s been the hope. But in order for embryonic stem cells to help a particular patient, they need to be a match for that patient. Up until now, the only way to get a perfectly matching stem cell line was by cloning. First, a human egg was harvested painfully from a woman. Then the egg donor’s genetic material would be removed and the patient’s genetic material would be added. After the resulting embryo had divided a few times, stem cells could be harvested – killing the embryo.

If that sounds labor intensive, it is. If it sounds expensive, it is. If it sounds ethically questionable – well, you’re not alone in thinking that. Some question the destruction of the embryo; others see the potential of exploiting women for their eggs. For embryonic stem cells to move beyond the lab to produce therapies for patients, we needed a better way to produce embryonic stem cells. It looks like we got it:

Scientists have made ordinary human skin cells take on the chameleon-like powers of embryonic stem cells, a startling breakthrough that might someday deliver the medical payoffs of embryo cloning without the controversy.

Laboratory teams on two continents report success in a pair of landmark papers released Tuesday. It’s a neck-and-neck finish to a race that made headlines five months ago, when scientists announced that the feat had been accomplished in mice.

…

“People didn’t know it would be this easy,” Thomson said. “Thousands of labs in the United States can do this, basically tomorrow.”

And we need thousands of labs. We need the stem cell lines for research, and we also need for this method to be perfected. At present the method disrupts the skin-cell DNA too much to be safe. It is thought that as this procedure is refined, the risk of creating cancer instead of stem cells will be reduced.

Glenn Reynolds remarked that if this pans out, it will be the biggest story of the year. I think it will pan out. There’s essentially no chance that this could be hoax – as with Dr. Hwang back in 2005. This research was accomplished independently by teams on two continents. And since it can be easily reproduced, this is likely to become accepted science very soon.

But this probably won’t be the biggest story of this year. This is the sort of story that only excites those who understand the implication. It’s likely to be a bigger story in a few years when medical breakthroughs start disrupting medicine-as-usual. When that happens researchers can point back to this moment as the watershed – the point at which it all began.

More Thoughts on Human Augmentation

From Brian Wang, our guest on Sunday’s FastForward Radio. Additionally, Brian presents some other ideas about how we go about getting to the kind of future we’re looking for, including this analogy that he referenced on the show:

I think of the Tom Hanks character in Saving Private Ryan on the opening Omaha beach sequence. Some soldiers mistakenly believed it was better to hide behind the steel crosses on the beach or to not creatively attack the pill boxes that had them pinned down. I think of the difficult goals of getting space colonized in a major way or conquering diseases and making significant progress against age deterioration as pill boxes that have us pinned down on a dangerous beach. Just because the time has been stretched out to decades, centuries, millenia does not mean that we are not collectively on a dangerous beach. We can and should do a lot over the next 50 years and beyond.

Read the whole thing.

Cooking Cancer… With Bubbles!

An Oxford University team is developing a new cancer fighting technique that is noninvasive, does not use toxic chemicals, or radioactivity. It is called Hifu – High Intensity Focused Ultrasound.

This is the same principle behind burning leaves with a magnifying glass. But here, instead of focusing light, they are focusing ultrasound. When the ultrasound focuses, bubbles are generated within the body. When the bubbles pop, sufficient heat is released to kill surrounding cells – which, hopefully, are cancer cells.

But the existing Hifu technique has two important limitations compared with surgery that are hindering its clinical uptake. First, it is very slow: it takes up to five hours to treat a 10cm tumour, compared with the 45 minutes or so it takes a surgeon to cut the tissue out.

Secondly, clinicians are working in the dark: without invasive surgery, the results can only be assessed after the treatment is over.

Why not use an MRI to see exactly what you’re cooking… as you’re cooking it? Right now they are monitoring the progress of these treatments only by monitoring the temperature of the tissue and by sound. The have a sensor that actually hears the bubbles pop. Still, that doesn’t tell you what tissue the bubble killed.

[Oxford University researcher] Dr Coussios commented: “If we can use cavitation to accelerate the treatment, better localise the treatment – meaning that you will never get pre-focal damage – deliver the treatment at a lower frequency so you can go deeper in the body, and if we can also use these bubbles to monitor the treatment in real time, we have solved all the major limitations of Hifu in one go.”