Lifeboat Foundation

It tells us something important about cancer.

A mysterious cell process named anastasis (Greek for “rising to life”) challenges our idea of life being a linear march towards death, and suggests that cell death can actually be reversed under certain conditions—essentially allowing cells to un-die.

Even as the cell is shrivelling up in response to radiation, toxins, or other stresses, it can in some cases undo the dying process and repair itself if the stress is taken away before the cell is completely gone, said cell biologist Denise Montell of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Continue reading “Cell Death Might Be Reversible, and Scientists Are Trying to Find Out Why” »

Thanks to 3D printing, scientists can now recreate any organ in the human body.

In Brief:

Researchers found that an Antarctic sea sponge produces a compound that can effectively kill 98.4% of MRSA cells. The compound has been patented and is now undergoing lab synthesis in order to develop a treatment for the life-threatening infection.

Research published in Organic Letters shows a compound that can successfully kill Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been found, a mutated strain of Staphylococcus aureis that has developed resistance to most available antibiotics used in treatment of common staph infections.

Steven Pinker claims that will speed up progress.

It looks like Self Driving cars may create a US organ shortage that finally acts as the Kick in the Ass to force stem cell generated organs on to the market. Enough of the ‘in the future’ we might have these Nonsesne.

Science, however, can offer better a better solution.

The waiting lists for donor organs are long — 120,000 people on a given day — and ever increasing. With fewer donor organs to go around, researchers are working on other ways to get people the parts they need. With help from 3D printing and other bioengineering technologies, we will eventually be able to grow our own organs and stop relying on donors.

Continue reading “Self-driving cars will create organ shortage — can science meet demand?” »

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, launched in September 2016 and run by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, pediatrician Priscilla Chan, set out with the ambitious goal “to cure, prevent or manage all disease during our children’s lifetime”.

As part of the US$3 billion initiative, the organisation created an independent nonprofit Biohub, which on Wednesday said it committed US$50 million to 47 scientists, technologists, and engineers working at UCSF, Stanford, and UC-Berkeley.

The 47 investigators are working on a wide range of projects, but there was one central thesis the Biohub tried to keep in mind when picking from the 700 applicants.

Continue reading “The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative Is Giving $3 Billion to Cure, Manage, or Prevent ‘All Disease’” »

In Brief:

Regenerative dental fillings that allow teeth to heal themselves have been developed by researchers, potentially eliminating the need for root canals. The treatment earned a prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry after judges described it as a “new paradigm for dental treatments.”

No one in their right mind would ever look forward to a filling at the dentist. Why can’t our teeth fix themselves? Maybe they can. At long last, scientists from the University of Nottingham and Harvard University may have revolutionized the way we look at treating dental issues. Their regenerative dental fillings allow teeth to heal themselves—potentially eliminating the need for the high-pitched drilling inherent in root canals.

Continue reading “Stem Cell Fillings Allow Teeth to Heal Themselves” »

Finding out which microbes dealt it.