Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 8

As the population ages, multimorbidity, or when a patient has multiple diseases at once, is becoming increasingly common. The onset of one disease increases the risk of developing other diseases, making it necessary to investigate how a range of risk factors together affect such accumulation. Prior studies have focused on individual risk factors and related individual diseases.

A study explored how the risk factors measured from birth to middle age and unmeasured, or latent, factors covering the entire lifespan predict and explain the incidence of chronic diseases in eight organ systems from middle to old age: the cardiovascular, metabolic, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, respiratory, neurological and psychiatric systems, and the sensory organs.

The study, published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity journal, analyzed 22 risk factors, including age, sex, (e.g., size at birth, early childhood growth, childhood wartime evacuee status), socioeconomic factors (e.g., socioeconomic status in childhood, income in adulthood), lifestyle factors (e.g., smoking, , , diet), clinical measurements and biomarkers (e.g., body mass index, , blood glucose).

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The process of necrosis, a form of cell death, may represent one of the most promising ways to change the course of human aging, disease and even space travel, according to a new study by researchers at UCL, drug discovery company LinkGevity and the European Space Agency (ESA).

In the study, published in Oncogene, an international team of scientists and clinicians explore the potential of —when cells die unexpectedly as a result of infection, injury or disease—to reshape our understanding and treatment of age-related conditions.

Challenging prevailing views, the paper brings together evidence from cancer biology, , kidney disease, and space health to argue that necrosis is not merely an endpoint, but a key driver of aging that presents an opportunity for intervention.

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Metalenses represent a revolutionary advancement in optical technology. Unlike conventional microscope objectives that rely on curved glass surfaces, metalenses employ nanoscale structures to manipulate light at the subwavelength level. Thanks to their ultrathin, lightweight, and flat architectures, metalenses can overcome the bulkiness of traditional lenses, making them ideal candidates for integration in electronic devices and compact imaging systems.

Despite their promising attributes for next-generation , metalenses face significant challenges in practical microscopy applications. Off-axis aberrations, which severely restrict metalens field of view (FOV) and resolution capabilities, are primary limitations.

The inherent trade-off between imaging resolution and FOV has prevented metalenses from achieving performance comparable to conventional microscopes. Although some prior metalens designs have achieved submicron resolution, they operated with an extremely restricted FOV, limiting their practical utility.

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A US startup is looking to our closest satellite to fill a resources gap here on Earth. Helium-3 is rare on terra firma, but is thought to be abundant in the regolith of the Moon. Interlune has now revealed a full-scale excavator prototype that forms a key component of its lunar Harvester.

The shortage of helium-3 – a stable isotope of helium important for applications ranging from energy production to medical research – was first identified in the US toward the middle of 2008. The US government officially recognized the issue in early 2009, and mitigation efforts put in place.

“The United States supply of 3He comes from the decay of tritium (3H), which the Nation had in large quantities because of our nuclear weapons complex; however, the tritium stockpile has declined in recent years through radioactive decay and is expected to decline in the future because of reduced demand for tritium,” read the intro to a National Isotope Development Center newsletter from 2014.

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Neuralink did not immediately return requests for comment outside regular business hours.

Semafor’s report corroborates earlier reporting from Bloomberg, which noted in April that the startup was looking to raise $500 million at an $8.5 billion pre-money valuation.

Neuralink last year received “breakthrough device” clearance from the U.S. FDA. Three people have so far received implants made by Neuralink. Earlier this month, a nonverbal patient posted a video about how he uses a Neuralink implant to edit and narrate YouTube videos with just his brain signals.

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Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have identified a new biomarker, TTF-1, that was predictive of survival outcomes for patients with advanced KRAS G12C-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), following treatment with the KRAS targeted therapy sotorasib.

Results from the study, published in Nature Medicine, found patients with that express low TTF-1 levels responded poorly to sotorasib—with a median progression free survival (PFS) of 2.8 months and a (OS) of 4.5 months—whereas patients with tumors expressing high TTF-1 levels had a median PFS of 8.1 months and a median OS of 16 months.

“Since TTF-1 testing is routinely performed in lung cancer diagnosis, it gives physicians an immediate tool to help identify those patients who may benefit from sotorasib and those who may need an alternative or intensified treatment approach,” said lead author Ferdinandos Skoulidis, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology.

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This randomized clinical trial examines the efficacy and safety of zilebesiran vs placebo when added to a standard antihypertensive medication in adult patients with uncontrolled hypertension.

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Genetic studies can offer powerful insights for the development of disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer’s disease. Protective genetic variants that delay the onset of cognitive impairment have been found in people with sporadic Alzheimer’s disease and in carriers of mutations that usually cause autosomal-dominant Alzheimer’s disease in mid-life. The study of families who carry autosomal dominant mutations provides a unique opportunity to uncover genetic modifiers of disease progression, including rare variants in genes such as APOE and RELN.

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