July 2008

Announcements

Upcoming announcement: BGRF’s first support of research

Details will follow in due course, but even though the BGRF is in its early days, we are already setting up an arrangement whereby we will be funding the support of a colony of aged mice. This will be in the spirit of supporting a common good associated with ageing research, and is a small but concrete step on our path.

Press release to follow.

Digest

Digest: Scientific

Pfizer Bets on Stem-Cell Cures

http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/06/21/pfizer-blindness-research-biz-health-cx_rl_0623stemcell.html

Pfizer, the major pharmaceutical company based in New York, is betting that a radical new adult stem-cell treatment may be able to stave off diabetes-induced retina damage, a leading cause of blindness. This is interesting for two reasons: it represents ‘Big Pharma’ investment in radical regenerative medicine of the type championed by the BGRF; and the funding route shows that people are willing to think in innovative ways on how to get regenerative medicine treatments developed.

Cancer Patient Cured by Injecting His Immune Cells

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/06/18/scicanc118.xml

A cancer patient experirenced a full recovery following the injection of his own immune cells in a ground-breaking treatment. Although the research is in its early stages, melanoma is one of the best targets for immunotherapy and these results are highly promising. Moreover, immunotherapy is an appealing approach for many future age-related therapies, and data from studies like this will feed this field in general.

Red Wine’s Longevity Benefits Spur Research

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/health/research/04ageing.html

Further evidence of the beneficial effects of resveratol on extending healthspan. Equally interesting is the effect that such research is having on research into longeveity drugs, which may in time provide routes to the rejuvenation therapies we are ultimately seeking.

Regular Exercise Keeps Heart Disease At Bay

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/conditions/heart/prevention_activity.shtml

“Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness,” as Edward Stanley put it back in 1873, and this article details simple ways to enhance quality of life. This is deferment of ageing rather than rejuvenation, but the article is interesting for anyone interested in extending healthspan. More importantly, the interest here is what just exercise and similar lifestyle factors do, and whether we can in time harness those mechanisms to help people who, for instnce, cannot exercise.

Researchers Convert One Cell Type to Another

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/06/18/scistem118.xml

Bodily damage can be repaired by use of stem-cell-based “biological alchemy” as reported in the UK’s Daily Telegraph.

Ageing: Causes and Solutions

http://www.fightageing.org/archives/001503.php

Another interesting article for anyone sharing the BGRF’s outlook: a take on just what ageing is caused by, and how we could tackle each aspect in turn. Specifically, the article does not just put across the the view that ageing is due to the biochemical damage our body undergoes during our lifetime, but it lists out what the areas of damage are. The author also draws a clear distinction between ageing, as a positive process of maturation, and the negative impacts that ageing has on our bodies – a distinction we heartily share.

Interview with Aubrey de Grey

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2008/06/methuselah

Among the most optimistic of those who share the BGRF’s belief in rejeuvanation as the best approach for combating ageing is Aubrey de Grey. This article in Wired magazine covers not just de Grey’s thoughts on the subject, but also some of the other organistaions and research programmes which have a similar philosophy.

Digest: Economic, Political and General

Loss of Function in the Elderly Predicts Death

http://pub.ucsf.edu/newsservices/releases/200806241/

Loss of function may be a more accurate predictor of lifespan than disease, according to a new study. This article discusses the implications of this finding on those who evaluate heath-care and effects on heathspan

BGRF Press Release

July 2008

The Biogerontology Research Foundation to support an aging resource at UCL University College London

Reading, UK – The Biogerontology Research Foundation to support an aging resource at UCL (University College London)

The study of mammalian aging in model systems in a controlled laboratory environment is essential if we are to evaluate experimental interventions designed to postpone or alleviate aging when begun late in life. Such studies are rare at present, not least because of the scarcity of suitable experimental material, yet they clearly have far more biomedical relevance and potential than interventions begun early in life or by germ-line genetic manipulation. The BGRF hopes that its support for this resource will be the first step towards elevating work on late-onset interventions in aging to the prominence that it merits within gerontology and within biology as a whole.

The UCL resource is under the expert management of Dr. Raya Al-Shawi, Senior Research Fellow and facility manager at the UCL Medical School . The BGRF is already discussing with Dr. Al-Shawi the prospects for expansion in the future as and when additional funds become available. Dr Al-Shawi said “Our interests are in understanding the processes of normal aging. The support provided by BGRF is most welcome, and in the future we hope to be able to share an expanded resource with other academics to further studies of aging”.

About the Biogerontology Research Foundation:

The Biogerontology Research Foundation is a registered UK charity # 1124054. The BGRF seeks to fill a gap within the research community, whereby the current scientific understanding of the ageing process is not yet being sufficiently exploited to produce effective medical interventions. The BGRF will fund research which, building on the body of knowledge about how ageing happens, will develop biotechnological interventions to remediate the molecular and cellular deficits which accumulate with age and which underlie the ill-health of old age. Addressing ageing damage at this most fundamental level will provide an important opportunity to produce the effective, lasting treatments for the diseases and disabilities of ageing, which are required to improve quality of life in the elderly. The BGRF seeks to use the entire scope of modern biotechnology to attack the changes that take place in the course of aging, and to address not just the symptoms of age-related diseases but also the mechanisms of those diseases.