When the first heart transplant was carried out it was a startling event. But fantastic as it was, the poor patient had to exist on immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of his life. Okay, he was still alive; but his immune system was severely compromised, making it difficult for him to cope with any infections.

In the meantime, more and more body parts have been produced using a patient’s own tissue, thus negating the need for immunosuppressant drugs.

Several wind pipes are now being grown from scratch and transplanted into patients using their own stem cells. These have produced dramatic improvements in health without any need for drugs to suppress the immune system. Similarly, the bladder and urethra have been grown using stem cells and transplanted into patient successfully.

Aubrey De Grey, anti-ageing specialist, recently commented: “We are seeing the emergence of a new area of medicine where the diseases of ageing can be blocked or even reversed. These therapies are mostly in research now but eventually they will be commonplace.”

Even a decade ago, these procedures were regarded as on the very margins of research. They are now rapidly becoming mainstream. Regenerating more complex organs is going to take longer – but they will be developed, it’s just a matter of time.

Hearts, kidneys and livers will be able to be grown, sooner than we think. And knees and hips will be regrown by using stem cell therapy. Even clinical trials for regeneration of spinal cells are under way.

Related articles

• American Receives Stem-Cell Built Trachea In Sweden (pinkbananaworld.com)

Transplants Extend Human Lives is a post from: Living To 150

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1. Incredible! The First Synthetic Windpipe
2. Trial Of Heart Attack Stem Cell Treatment
3. Stem Cells To Treat Burns

In world first, a baby boy in London was saved from death due to a virus affecting his liver, by having donor liver cells injected into his abdomen. These injected cells were able to perform many of the functions his stressed liver could not, enabling him to live long enough for his body to fight off the infection.

The liver cells were treated with an extract from algae to delay the body’s immune system in attacking the cells. After two weeks his own liver had started its recovery, and begun to resume its usual activity. Six months later his liver function was normal. Previously, the poor lad was on dialysis treatment and had to breathe with the help of a machine.

This is an incredible achievement and no doubt more trials are planned to try to extend this treatment method to other similar situations.

The alternative treatment – a transplant – would have been a very much less attractive option. This choice was less invasive, enabled near enough complete recovery, and did not rely on the hope that a liver donor was available.

Potentially, a huge step forward.

Related articles

• Pioneering liver treatment with donor liver cells saves baby’s life (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)
• Implanted liver cells acted like a temporary liver to save a boys life (nextbigfuture.com)

Viral Liver Failure Avoided By Injection is a post from: Living To 150

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1. Incredible! The First Synthetic Windpipe

The Black Death, which swept through London in the 14^th century, killed around 40% of the population. That was some epidemic.

In an effort to understand microbial development and behaviour, with a view to helping us to deal with future infections, the science of paleomicrobiology has developed: the piecing together of genetic evidence from centuries ago.

It is interesting to paleomicrobiologists just why the Black Death was so very virulent. The ability to sequence of the genome – to know the precise composition of a human individual’s DNA from end to end – has made the task of finding out this information much more possible. The ability for paleomicrobiologists and historians to work together will deepen our understanding of the migrating activity of microbes and the progress of pandemics. This can only help us to spot them early and to be able to deal with them.

Related articles

• Bubonic plague genome: The Black Death decoded (nature.com)
• ‘Black Death’ bacteria likely extinct, study finds – msnbc.com (news.google.com)

Identifying the Precise Genome of the Black Death is a post from: Living To 150

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1. Genome Sequencing Used For First UK Medical Diagnosis
2. What Use Is Genetic Testing?
3. Is The NHS Ready For Genetic Medicine?

Cost of Genome Sequencing Plunges (dullhunk, Flickr)

Genetic testing – sequencing the genome – will be used more and more for individuals – and health services – as the price comes down. The cost is now around $10,000, down from $100,000 only two years ago.  In a very few years the cost will be hundreds of dollars.

But what will we be able to use genetic testing for? Here are three areas.

Cancer

Knowing the genetic cause of a person’s cancer will become more and crucial to treatment. Already, research is being put into ‘smart drugs’ which work only when certain genetic mutations are present. This will make cancer treatment much more focused.

Infectious Diseases

Knowing the exact genome of a bacterium – such as MRSA – will enable treatment and prevention to be much more targeted. The sources of infections will be easier to find and deal with: and treatments will be more readily available, and more accurate.

Screening

Each year, hundreds of people die suddenly and prematurely from a variety of ailments including sudden heart attacks. Genetic screening will be able to identify those at risk, and preventive measures – of lifestyle and, perhaps, drugs – recommended.

In, five years, certainly, these measures will become commonplace in the Western world, as the cost of genetic testing continues to fall rapidly. More applications will be found, no doubt, for the insights genetic screening provides.

Related articles

• Do You Need Genetic Testing? (everydayhealth.com)
• Should You Get Colon Cancer Genetic Testing? (everydayhealth.com)
• Can genetic tests tell me if I have cancer? (zocdoc.com)
• Genetic and Blood Tests for Celiac Disease (everydayhealth.com)
• DNA-Based Medicine: Race Emerges in Debate (theroot.com)

What Use Is Genetic Testing? is a post from: Living To 150

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1. Genome Sequencing Used For First UK Medical Diagnosis
2. Is The NHS Ready For Genetic Medicine?

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In 2008, a woman in Italy with a windpipe ravaged by tuberculosis received a windpipe transplant. A donor windpipe was stripped of all cells, leaving just the cartilaginous framework, then the woman’s own stem cells were introduced to produce a complete windpipe.

The transplant was a success.

Then, in 2010, a child with a congenitally narrowed windpipe had the donor cartilage transplanted into his body along with a cocktail of growth factors plus his own stem cells. When it had grown, the new windpipe was swapped for the old one – and the child, at last, could breath properly.

Synthetic Windpipe

Now, in a further development, the donor is no longer needed. A completely synthetic windpipe has been grown at University College, London, exactly the same shape and size as a patient’s own, and seeded with stem cells. The whole growth process took around a week. The completely synthetic windpipe was then transplanted into the patient.

Being synthetic, no donor is needed and so the risk of rejection – a big problem with donor transplants – is zero. Because of this rejection problem a patient with a donated organ has to have their immune system heavily suppressed, increasing the chance of an life-threatening infection taking hold. In other words, with a synthetic transplant plus their own stem cells, patients will simply live longer.

A Massive Medical Breakthrough

This is a huge breakthrough. It is now only a matter of time before a large number of body parts will be able to be produced on request.

Does this seem just a little grotesque? In a sense, perhaps. But if you needed a replacement organ in a hurry I know most of us would be pleased one could be made this way.

Related articles

• Man Gets Windpipe Made From Stem Cells (abcnews.go.com)
• First transplant of a fully synthetic organ carried out (telegraph.co.uk)

Incredible! The First Synthetic Windpipe is a post from: Living To 150

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1. Stem Cells For Heart Attack
2. Stem Cells To Treat Burns
3. Stem Cell Research In The EU – An Old-School “Fluff”

Genome Sequencing (Image via Wikipedia)

The genetic code of a 4-year old girl has been read to enable doctors to identify the cause of learning difficulties. She is the first person in the UK to have her genetic code read – her “genome sequenced” – to aid a medical diagnosis.

To enable the diagnosis, her parents’ genomes were sequenced as well so the child’s could be compared.

The diagnosis showed that the little girl, Katie, had a mutation called HUWEI which was not present in either parent. This also confirmed that the mutation is unlikely to be in any siblings – present or future. (She has one brother at present.)

The girl’s parents did find the diagnosis helpful, in that they could be prepared to get the best for Katie, knowing exactly what the cause of her learning difficulties were. This would help in education, for example. Up until the diagnosis they knew something was holding back her learning: but they had no idea what it was. The sequencing does not in itself provide a guide to any treatment, but it does give 100% certainty of the diagnosis.

Katie was part of a research project run at Oxford University, which is sequencing the genomes of 500 people with serious diseases and their close relatives.

The Cost of Genome Sequencing

When the genome was first sequenced in 2001 it coast around $100m (£65m). Eight years later, in 2009, this cost had fallen a thousand fold, to $100,000. Today the same sequencing has fallen a further tenfold to $10,000.

It is still pricey: at this rate the $1,000 barrier will be smashed in 3 years – putting it within the reach of many more people, with further falls in cost to come.

(Source: The Times, UK, August 3rd 2011)

Related articles to Genome Sequencing

• Illumina Cuts Price of Whole-Genome Sequencing for Individuals by More than Half (benzinga.com)
• A New Device Makes Genomes Fast, Easy, And (Sort Of) Cheap To Read (fastcompany.com)
• Whole Genome Sequencing costs $2000 in research and $4000 commercially (nextbigfuture.com)
• Genome study solves twins’ mystery condition (nature.com)

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NXT Robot (Wikipedia)

The number of robots used in the electronics factories of Foxconn, China’s biggest employer, is planned to rise from 10,000 to 1,000,000 over the next two years. Foxconn counts Apple iPhone among its manufacturing projects.

At the same time, employees will be pushed up the value chain, wages rising by 20-30% per year – for the ones who stay.

I know – it’s “technology taking our jobs”: but the other side of the coin is a number of high profile suicides by oriental workers carrying out highly repetitive tasks day after day.

The massive increase in robots used is a reflection of the general trend. Robots are tireless, accurate, and will work for 24 hours a day. These are attractive features.

They can also be used to make… other robots!

On the face of it, this is a story about manufacture: but robots are clearly destined to penetrate every part of life, including healthcare.

For example, take doctors. We all know just how much data doctors have to master to do their job; in fact, it is much too much for one person. Hence patients get referred to one or more specialists during the course of diagnosis and treatment. The use of robots, especially when coupled with artificial intelligence, to augment the doctor’s skills will mean faster diagnosis and fewer trips to see other experts. And the diagnosis will be able to take more factors into account, and see relationships which one person working alone can easily miss.

We all know this is coming, it’s true. But what struck me about this story was the speed at which it is coming. That increase in Foxconn’s robot force is by a factor of 100 – in just 2 years. Stunning.

Related articles for Robots in Manufacturing

• Foxconn To Replace Human Workers With One Million Robots (spectrum.ieee.org)
• iPhone Manufacturer Foxconn To Employ A Million Robots By 2014 (wired.com)

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DARPA Grand Challenge 2005 (Wikipedia)

Significant artificial intelligence – “AI” – is just around the corner. 2011 has been a particularly good year for it: IBM computer Watson beat the two top Jeopardy! quiz show contestants in February. But some of the other milestones of AI have been particularly memorable.

The first major AI event many remember was when IBM’s Deep Blue computer beat chess master Gary Kasparov in a series of games. This was only in 1997. It was preceded by a number of attempts to beat a chess master – which failed.

Then in 2005, Stanford University produced a robot which drove alone along a desert trail for 131 miles. This was the DARPA challenge. Similarly, the previous couple of years saw attempts which failed.

Human ingenuity is such that we keep trying until we get there. And so with AI.

It’s been said that it’s about time that we started to focus the debate on how to deal with the emerging technology before it’s too late to influence it.

The Singularity Institute Is A Leader In Approaching AI

The Singularity Institute – whose leading light is brilliant inventor and thinker Ray Kurzweil – is pushing forward a programme of “Friendly AI”. They quote PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel who says:

“I’m interested in facilitating a forum in which there can be… substantive research on how to bring about a world in which AI will be friendly to humans rather than hostile… [The Singularity Institute represents] a combination of very talented people with the right problem space [they're] going after… [They've] done a phenomenal job… on a shoestring budget. From my perspective, the key question is always: What’s the amount of leverage you get as an investor? Where can a small amount make a big difference? This is a very leveraged kind of philanthropy.”

Donate To “Friendly AI” – And Double Your Effect

Thanks to benefactors, every pound you donate to the Singularity Institute for AI will be used to study and think through the important matters of how to keep AI safe and friendly.

They say: “…the Singularity Institute has been thinking about how to create safe and ethical artificial intelligence since long before the Singularity landed on the front cover of TIME magazine.”

We need to be thinking about this important matter now – and I have donated. I hope you will too – you can do so here:

http://singinst.org/2011summerchallenge

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• SIAI $125,000 Summer Singularity Challenge Launched (acceleratingfuture.com)
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We Need To Think Through Artificial Intelligence Now is a post from: Living To 150

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Ray Kurzweil’s assertion is that the progress of society is occurring at an ever faster and faster pace. This means that advances in technology are happening at a logarithmic rate of progression – they happen faster and faster.

Mankind’s early discoveries – using fire for cooking, the wheel, growing crops – took millions of years to evolve. Nowadays, evolution happens much faster.

I can remember thinking about early computers: “Well that’s interesting, but what can you do with it apart from play silly games?”

Then came Windows, and then the Internet – in rapid succession. Modems gave way to broadband: and now fibre optic is present for millions (and around the corner for the rest).

Just ponder the thought that 10 years ago we did not use search engines, – Google was not heard of.

In this video Ray Kurzweil expands on that vision and predicts what the next 10, 20, 30 or 40 years holds for us. It’s going to be an exciting ride.

Ray Kurzweil – Futurist

[Recorded July 13 2009] Ray Kurzweil is a 21st century scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, author, visionary and futurist. As a scientist and inventor he has pioneered work in optical character recognition (OCR), speech recognition and invented the first electric piano.

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Ray Kurzweil Predicts The Future is a post from: Living To 150

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The American Association for the Advancement of Science has said that a kind of “skin printing” technology is quite close which will  revolutionise treatment of burned skin.

The technology will measure the size of the damaged area of burned skin, and then create a replacement skin patch of the right size using printing techniques.

3D printing has come on tremendously in the last few years, enabling complete structures to be created  using printing processes – with a print head moving rapidly to produce the 3D structure..

The technology is a fairly early stage right now, but cell biologist Vladimir Warren of from the Medical University of South Carolina, said that he expected this printing technology to be used for burns within a few years, and to become “standard practice” within 20 years.

The advantages are a rapid repair for burn victims, and the quick way to stop fluid loss – which is one of the worst side-effects of serious burns.

As well as in hospital burns units, this technology would have a valuable application on the battlefield.

Full Story.

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• Printers to churn out skin grafts for burns victims (dailymail.co.uk)

Print Technology Will Provide Perfect Burn Repairs is a post from: Living To 150

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A new European stem cell trial starts this month. It is aimed at heart attack patients.

It has long been known that packing a person’s fat around damaged areas during an operation stimulates healing. It is now realised that this is related to the fact that fat contains many time more stem cells than bone marrow does.

In this trial a person’s fat cells will be harvested and packed around the damaged heart tissue. It is hoped that the heart will use the stem cells contained within the fat to repair some of the damage caused.

In time this process, or a variation of it will hugely reduce the additional damage which follows a heart attack, and help to repair some of the damage already caused too.

Clearly, it will not be long before stem cells are used regularly in this type of way to enhance healing dramatically.

Full article:

Technology review

Related article for Stem Cells and Heart Attack

• Man’s heart saved by his own stem cells (abclocal.go.com)

Stem Cells For Heart Attack is a post from: Living To 150

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Image via Wikipedia

Ray Kurzweil has produced a fascinating essay reviewing every prediction he has made over the past 25 years.

Ray Kurzweil is the brilliant inventor and futurist who invented the scanner, the electric piano, and dictation software.

His predictions make good reading, as do his assessments of where we are now. I have printed out the 100+ page document and look forward to reading it on a train journey.

A brilliant man – and a fascinating glimpse of the future.

You can get the essay here.

The singularity is a point around 2045 when computers will acquire full-blown artificial intelligence and technology will infuse itself with biology. So says Ray!

Related articles o Ray Kurzweil

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Image via Wikipedia

TA-65 is a ‘supplement’ extracted from the herb Astragalus which repairs the telomere – the straggly bits at the end of our DNA wich get shorted each time our cells divide. This process – the reducing of telomere length – eventually kills us off at the age of a maximum of 120. In other words, if we were healthy enough that nothing else killed us off, the shrinking of the telomere would do so at this age.

Well, companies are now finding out how to repair the telomere. And it is resulting in increasing health and wellbeing for hundreds of people. The leader in the field is TA Sciences, who licensed the research from Geron, a leading Californian anti-aging company, who discovered it. A study showed wide-ranging anti-aging benefits – in vision, skin condition, stamina and energy and sexual function. TA Sciences make TA-65 available to all employees over 40 years old.

The downside? There are no long-term studies on it yet, so its long-term effects are not known.

It is certainly an interesting one though – let’s face it, if you are 10-20 years from likely death anyway – what can you lose trying such a therapy – which at present looks pretty safe?

This blog is worth checking out for anti-aging information on TA-65. And Al Sears – anti-aging doctor and specialist – has a DVD on the topic which you can buy.

TA-65, Astragalus, telomere

What’s a Telomere and Why is it Important to the Aging Process

The following video is excerpted from Dr. Bill Andrew’s presentation at the Manhattan Beach Project Longevity Conference. Dr. Andrews leads the scientific research and development function of Sierra Sciences.

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This is an incredible transplant story.
Two years ago an Italian woman had part of her windpipe replaced using a transplant plus her own stem cells, after the windpipe had been eaten away by tuberculosis.
Last week a much more advanced operation was carried out on a 10-year old boy who had a congenitally narrowed windpipe; a new windpipe was grown for him – inside his own body.
The boy was having difficulties after a stent – a metal tube – was starting to malfunction. Once the new windpipe was introduced, the boy could already breath more easily than he ever had after just a few days.
How does it work? At present, a donor was needed for the ‘scaffolding’ of the windpipe. All the donor tissue is removed from the cartilaginous framework so that there is no rejection by the recipient. The windpipe was then transplanted together with a cocktail of ‘growth factors’ as well as about 30ml of the boys own stem cells – previously harvested. The body does the rest.
This is a very positve use of stem cells – and this boy and his family must be extremely happy.

BBC News – Windpipe transplant success in UK child

stem cells, windpipe, transplant

Stem Cells Grow Windpipe for 10-Year Old is a post from: Living To 150

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Ray Kurzweil says that scientific advances are happening faster and faster. He points out that whereas evolutionary changes used to be very slow, it is in their nature to accelerate. Ten years ago hardly anyone used search engines! Ten months ago hardly anyone used Twitter!

These accelerating changes will make for more dramatic changes in the next few decades than most of us can imagine. With Kurzweil’s help, we can get a flavour of what these changes will mean for us.

As always, this interview with Ray Kurzweil is fascinating.

Leave a comment with what you think!

Ray Kurzweil – Why The Future Is Coming Much Faster is a post from: Living To 150

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People who have been unfortunate enough to lose fingers or even a whole hand can now get a cutting edge prosthetic hand.

Scottish company Touch Bionics has designed and produced the first artificial hand on which all fingers and the thumb move independently. Touch Bionic’s hand is powered by five motors: other prosthetic hands generally use only two. This give the user much, much more freedom and possibility.

Once fitted, the hand (or fingers) can be used immediately: though delicate operations take a while to master. A user said:

“I found the trick is not to think what I was trying to do. ” In other words, let it become automatic.

From a standing start two years ago, the company is likely to sell 500 hands this financial year, 60% of them in the USA. The cost there is around $20,000 (£14,000) before fitting costs.

Cutting Edge Hand for Amputees is a post from: Living To 150

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Gosh – this is fantastic! Shades of ‘I, Robot’ or ‘Surrogates’.

This beast really is walking! It can even recover from a push.

You can only imagine the futher progress in, say, 25 years. This is such a great time to be alive!

Walking Robot Reality is a post from: Living To 150

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A great step forward (if you can have one of those in nanotechnology) has been made in molecular machinery. A cog has been made out of atoms, and rotated clockwise and anti-clockwise.

This was created by fixing a ‘stick’ like molecule onto the sides of a benzene ring, resulting in a 6-spoked cog. This was then rotated around the molecular fold occurring on a piece of gold.

This is a huge step forward, and an essential step, for molecular machines.

Now the method has been proved, more complex machines will be developed, enabling energy to be converted into work at the molecular level very efficiently.

Article

Nanotech Rotor Created is a post from: Living To 150

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This is a great ebook which does a good job of explaining where we are today with regard to healthy anti-aging strategies.

Best of all – it is completely free. David Kekich is doing all he can to publicize anti-aging, so is giving this book away. It’s a chunky tome – and packed full of information.

It tells you 7 steps to take to: “catch the emerging wave of medical breakthroughs…” for a healthy, extended life. I strongly recommend this book to help get you up to speed with the current state of anti-aging knowledge.

Also, follow author David Kekich on twitter @MaxLifeorg .

Free Longevity Book is a post from: Living To 150

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Gosh – I’d like to go to this – the Manhattan Beach Project, Los Angeles. It’s the conference I wanted to go to when I went to Convergence08 last November: because this on is focused specifically on longevity.

The field of longevity research is getting very exciting now. Aubrey de Grey is quoted as thinking there is a 50/50 chance of his living forever.  Now, if a conservative scientist says that, you have to take note.

Unfortunately, I cannot go – I have things booked for November and can’t get away. But it’s in the diary for next year.

Apparently there will be recordings of the speakers which can be watched for free.

“You’ll get to see all of the twenty minute presentations by world-leading researchers. Each one of the fifteen presenters will also answer up to ten minutes of questions.”

Sorry to miss it. The usual suspects – Aubrey de Grey and Ray Kurzweil – will be there (albeit Kurweil will be beamed in). The whole thing is hosted by David A Kekich and Greta Blackburn of Maximum Life Foundation, and sponsored by Life Extension Foundation. Should be very good.

Follow Maximum Life Foundation on Twitter @maxlifeorg .

Longevity Conference, November 2009 is a post from: Living To 150

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