There will be about thirty speakers at the Understanding aging conference in UCLA this weekend
Here are links to the abstracts of the presentations and some of the highlighted presentations.
Zheng Cui will discuss his Natural Cancer Resistance in Mice and in Humans: basis for a novel cancer therapy (GIFT therapy was covered here) and if successful would be a significant advance in reducing cancer deaths. [possibly a high cure rate and preventing many cancers by helping people fight off early stage cancer]
A new clinical trial is underway at Wake Forest University to test this novel cancer therapy, termed “Leukocyte Infusion Therapy” or LIFT. This clinical trial has met all regulatory requirements including approval by the Wake Forest University School of Medicine’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) and been granted an IND (Investigational New Drug) status by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
B.N. Ames talks about delaying the Degenerative Diseases of Aging
I [B.N. Ames] propose that during evolution micronutrient shortages were very common, e.g. the 15 essential minerals, which are not distributed evenly on the earth. The consequences of this homeostatic response are, for example, DNA damage (future cancer), adaptive immune dysfunction (future severe infection), and mitochondrial decay (future cognitive dysfunction and accelerated aging). Much evidence supports this idea that micronutrient shortages accelerate aging.
Regenerative medicine is typically based upon the strategic use of undifferentiated stem and progenitor cells, inductive bioscaffolds, and appropriate micro-environmental cues that signal the need for tissue reconstruction. In many respects, the desired result is the recapitulation of developmental biology but limited to a specific tissue or organ. There are many fundamental questions yet to be answered with regard to implementation of such strategies in an aging population. Do aging cells have the same potential for regeneration as young cells? Are biologic scaffolds composed of extracellular matrix from fetal tissues more “instructive” than biologic scaffolds harvested from adult extracellular matrix? How does the micro-environment of aged tissues and organs differ from that or neonatal tissues and organs? These and other questions will be discussed.
L.A. Briggs will discuss the struggle to keep telomeres long
The purpose of this presentation will be to review the current progress [to keep telomeres long], including the recent discovery of several small molecules that induce telomerase activity in normal human cells.
J. Campisi will discuss New tricks for dealing with old cells?
Some senescent cells can escape immune killing by secreting very high levels of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). These enzymes likely destroy the ligand-receptor interactions that are needed for killing by natural killer cells. Moreover, the killing of senescent cells can be greatly enhanced by MMP inhibitors, which therefore hold promise for improving the clearance of senescent cells from aged or diseased tissues. We also find that the senescence-associated secretion of inflammatory cytokines is dependent on continuous DNA damage signaling, particularly signaling initiated by the ATM protein kinase. Ablation of ATM kinase activity by RNA interference markedly reduces inflammatory cytokine secretion, suggesting that ATM inhibition might also hold promise for reducing local inflammation caused by senescent cells
C. Gravekamp is working on an improvement of cancer vaccination for older people
FURTHER READING
Over twenty poster abstracts
The agenda of the conference with links to abstracts.
Pre-coverage of the conference
and coverage of Wired article on the conference
The new SENS projects AmyloSENS, ApoptoSENS, Glycosens, Oncosens and Replenisens
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