Lifeboat Foundation

Nice discovery.

Why are pancreatic tumors so resistant to treatment? One reason is that the “wound”-like tissue that surrounds the tumors, called stroma, is much more dense than stromal tissue surrounding other, more treatable tumor types. Stromal tissue is believed to contain factors that aid tumor survival and growth. Importantly, in pancreatic cancer, its density is thought to be a factor in preventing cancer-killing drugs from reaching the tumor.

“You can think of a pancreas tumor as a big raisin oatmeal cookie, with the raisins representing the cancer cells and oatmeal portion representing the dense stroma that makes up over 90% of the tumor,” says David Tuveson, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Cancer Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). Tuveson leads the Lustgarten Foundation Designated Lab in Pancreatic Cancer Research at CSHL, and his team today reports an important discovery about stromal tissue in the major form of pancreatic cancer, called pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, or PDA.

Continue reading “Why is pancreatic cancer so hard to treat? Stroma provides new clues” »

Interesting find on hippocampus and ingestive control.

In animals, a Western style diet–high in saturated fat and added sugar–causes impairments in hippocampal-dependent learning and memory (HDLM) and perception of internal bodily state (interoception). In humans, while there is correlational support for a link between Western-style diet, HDLM, and interoception, there is as yet no causal data. Here, healthy individuals were randomly assigned to consume either a breakfast high in saturated fat and added sugar (Experimental condition) or a healthier breakfast (Control condition), over four consecutive days. Tests of HDLM, interoception and biological measures were administered before and after breakfast on the days one and four, and participants completed food diaries before and during the study. At the end of the study, the Experimental condition showed significant reductions in HDLM and reduced interoceptive sensitivity to hunger and fullness, relative to the Control condition. The Experimental condition also showed a markedly different blood glucose and triglyceride responses to their breakfast, relative to Controls, with larger changes in blood glucose across breakfast being associated with greater reductions in HDLM. The Experimental condition compensated for their energy-dense breakfast by reducing carbohydrate intake, while saturated fat intake remained consistently higher than Controls. This is the first experimental study in humans to demonstrate that a Western-style diet impacts HDLM following a relatively short exposure–just as in animals. The link between diet-induced HDLM changes and blood glucose suggests one pathway by which diet impacts HDLM in humans.

Citation: Attuquayefio T, Stevenson RJ, Oaten MJ, Francis HM (2017) PLoS ONE 12: e0172645. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0172645

Continue reading “A four-day Western-style dietary intervention causes reductions in hippocampal-dependent learning and memory and interoceptive sensitivity” »

Well, in my immediate family; we get science, math, and futurists talents from my dad. And, there does seem to be a pattern in my immediate family with this; not sure about others. Would love to know though.

SALT LAKE CITY — Most kids say they love their mom and dad equally, but there are times when even the best prefers one parent over the other. The same can be said for how the body’s cells treat our DNA instructions. It has long been thought that each copy — one inherited from mom and one from dad — is treated the same. A new study from scientists at the University of Utah School of Medicine shows that it is not uncommon for cells in the brain to preferentially activate one copy over the other. The finding breaks basic tenants of classic genetics and suggests new ways in which genetic mutations might cause brain disorders.

In at least one region of the newborn mouse brain, the new research shows, inequality seems to be the norm. About 85 percent of genes in the dorsal raphe nucleus, known for secreting the mood-controlling chemical serotonin, differentially activate their maternal and paternal gene copies. Ten days later in the juvenile brain, the landscape shifts, with both copies being activated equally for all but 10 percent of genes.

Continue reading “Playing favorites: Brain cells prefer one parent’s gene over the other’s” »

BMI is coming fast and will replace many devices we have today. Advances we making in deep brain development are huge markers that pushes the BMI needle forward for the day when IoT, Security, and big data analytics is a human brain’s and a secured Quantum Infrastructure and people (not servers sitting somewhere) owns and manages their most private of information. I love calling it the age of people empowerment as well as singularity.

Small study in 16 people suggests technique is safe and might help improve mood, anxiety and wellbeing, while increasing weight.

Deep brain stimulation might alter the brain circuits that drive anorexia nervosa symptoms and help improve patients’ mental and physical health, according to a small study published in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Continue reading “Deep brain stimulation for patients with chronic anorexia is safe and might improve symptoms” »

A new day for imaging.

Optical microscopes that use lenses to bounce photons off objects have trouble distinguishing nanometer-scale objects smaller than the imaging beam’s wavelength, such as proteins and DNA. An innovative ‘hyperlens’ designed at A* STAR can overcome optical diffraction limits by capturing high-resolution information held by short-lived or evanescent waves lurking near a target’s surface.

Hyperlens devices — composed of thin stacks of alternate metal and plastic layers — have raised prospects for capturing living biological processes in action with high–speed optics. Key to their operation are oscillating electrons, known as surface plasmons, that resonate with and enhance evanescent waves that appear when photons strike a solid object. The narrow wavelengths of evanescent beams give nanoscale resolution to images when the hyperlens propagates the images to a standard microscope.

Continue reading “Spiky Nanostructures Capture Life’s Fine Details” »

For all of my friends working in the fight for the cure for cancer; meet the world’s oldest full blown research institute on cancer. Oak Ridge Associate University (ORAU) was established in 1946 to study the fall out of the A-Bomb — its labs, its workers, and its victims in Japan. Many private citizens living in the surrounding areas of Oak Ridge TN, Los Alamos NM, Hanford WA where the enrichment and testing existed where also (unfortunately) exposed, and as a result ORAU’s research was expanded in the late 40s to including civilians living in these regions.

Fast forward to today, ORAU has one of the world’s most extensive set of records on cancer, cancer fallout, treatments, etc. in the world. I highly encourage many research medical teams and labs who are working to reverse aging, precision medicine, etc. that is also targeting cancer that you may wish to connect with ORAU as they do share insights with other researchers often. I often consider ORAU like the world’s library on cancer, carcinogen, etc. that are tied to cancer.

My own family has been working with the team at ORAU since 1949. Sharing for awareness in hopes that it helps their own efforts in anti-aging, precision medicine, Quantum Biology/ Biosystems, etc.

Continue reading “The history of ORAU” »

For over a year Elina Berglund nuclear physicist has been fighting authorities and malicious headlines. Now her app will be the first in the world to be approved as a contraceptive.

“It feels incredibly exciting that there is now an approved alternative to conventional pregnancy prevention methods, and that it’s possible to replace medication with technology,” says a more than satisfied Elina Berglund, who founded Natural Cycles together with her husband Raoul Scherwizl.

The latest on Liz Parrish. This is a real reporter in Australia and he does ask her a few hard questions on using white blood cells, showing results, being the only patient and so on.

Jeremy Fernandez speaks to Liz Parrish, the CEO of BioViva — an American biotech developing treatments to slow the ageing process in humans.

Innovations in medical science are gooing to allow for greater technological utility for our surgeries. We will see more robotics and AI assistance.