Laser to Destroy Lipofuscin for Anti-Aging Purposes

Will researchers in the future use laser light for anti-aging purposes? It sounds like something out of crank alley, but there may actually be something to it. Lipofuscin is something that accumulates within the lysosomes of human cells. The lysosomes are small organelles that are located within every cell. They contain digestive enzymes and are able to break down several different products such as bacteria, viruses and food particles inside the cell. Thus the lysosomes are vital for clearing out waste products in the cell. Without them, molecules are more likely to build up within the cell causing further damage.

Lipofuscin may form due to the peroxidation of unsaturated fatty acids. Lipofuscin contains a variety of metals and also sugar. The accumulation of lipofuscin may be due the faulty cell disposal mechanisms. Lipofuscin accumulation may be a risk factor for a variety of different diseases. These diseases include Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and amyotrphic lateral sclerosis. Lipofuscin may actually even be a cause of aging. As lipofuscin increases in amount, the lysosomes are no longer able to breakdown the various products any more. Thus toxic stuff begins to accumulate to a greater degree inside the cell.

Now some researchers have proposed using Laser light to destroy lipofuscin. Doing this could in theory rejuvenate cells and make them less likely to age. This could be a method of slowing the aging process.

Here is our concept. Take a pulsed laser, hit a large portion of tissue with it, and only the cells which contain lots of lipofuscin will be affected. If we use our parameters right, only the lipofuscin granules themselves will be affected, and we could leave intact the things we do not want to get rid of, like neurons and cardiac myocytes. That is the general idea. Selective absorption means selective destruction. This has been shown in a number of papers if you want to search the literature.

It sounds like they have already had some preliminary success with doing this.

I would just like to leave you with a couple key points here. Initial results in our lab have shown that lasers can selectively affect the lipofuscin, so we are on the right track. It has been proven to penetrate several centimeters in soft tissue, at least. This is useful as a treatment in us, in mammals, in mice—very encouraging. It is proven to selectively destroy pigments, leaving the rest of the cells and tissues intact. I say “proven” because if you look at the literature, especially in ophthalmology and dermatology, and it is definitely there. To me, I think this has very exciting potential to postpone aging.

RNA Interference Markets Research

ReportBuyer.com has just recently published a new report that analyzes the market of RNA interference. RNA interference is a technique that uses small interfering RNA strands to knock down the functioning of specific genes. It can be used to reduce the amount of proteins that may be elevated in certain disease states. RNA interference has not actually be approved to treat any disease, and it may still be a while before it actually becomes useful. RNA interference has many problems associated with its use. A main problem is the delivery of the RNA strands to specific cell types without degradation by body processes. Researchers are developing a bunch of methods to deliver RNA interference to the right gene.

Here are some excerpts about the objectives of this specific report.

1) understand the different sectors of RNAi testing market and to look at a description of the instruments, reagents and supplies marketed by major companies in each segment;

2) obtain a complete understanding of the individual RNAi-testing platforms-from basic principles to clinical applications;

3) discover feasible market opportunities by identifying high-growth applications in different analytical diagnostic areas, with a focus on the biggest and expanding markets;

4) focus on global industry developments and trends through an in-depth analysis of the major world markets for RNAi measurement technology, including growth forecasts; and 5) present market figures related to the current value of RNAi testing, market projections, market share, key players and sector growth rates.

Mitochondria Cell Death Park2 Gene Prevention Parkinson's

Mitochondria are organelles that are found in almost all eukaryotic cells. They are often considered to be the power supplies for the cell. They provide energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and are vital for the functioning of a cell. Mitochondria are believed to be a cause of aging. Free radicals causes damage to mitochondrial DNA. As time goes on the mitochondria begin to spew out more free radicals themselves. They become bloated and inefficient and begin to cause more cellular damage. Eventually this may lead to cell death and subsequently death of the entire organism. So being able to rejuvenate damaged mitochondria may be key for anti-aging drugs that allow people to live longer.

Now a new study has come out by researchers that has looked into a gene that alters functioning of mitochondria. The gene is called Park2 and is related to Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's patients have a death of dopaminergic brain cells. This brain cell death leads to a reduction of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Low dopamine levels may lead to tremor and a slowing of movement. Parkinson's patients slowly become trapped in a body that no longer is able to function properly. The gene Park2 actually functions to help cells survive, particularly damaged mitochondria. Park2 prompts the clearance of the bloated and damaged mitochondria. This reduces free radical damage in the organism as the damaged mitochondria are no longer left.

In some patients with early onset Parkinson's disease, the Park2 gene does not function properly. This may lead to mitochondrial dysfunction and increased brain cell death. The scientists of this study have found that Parkin was located in the cytoplasm of almost all cells. It would then translocate to the mitochondria when they had undergone damage.

Damaged mitochondria may sometimes trigger the cell death pathway directly. So getting rid of these damaged mitochondria enables cell survival. In the future anti-aging drugs may increase the functioning of these specific gene/protein to enable brain cell survival.

Parkin is recruited selectively to impaired mitochondria and promotes their autophagy D. Narendra, A. Tanaka, D.-F. Suen, and R.J. Youle. Parkin is recruited selectively to impaired mitochondria and promotes their autophagy. J. Cell Biol., 2008; DOI: 10.1083/jcb.200809125

Obstacles to Regnerative Stem Cell Medicine

A recent article named "Blazing the trail from stem cell research to regenerative medicine", by Jane Bower of the ESRC Innogen Center and her colleagues discuss a few of the more recent advances and applications of stem cell science. They believe that while stem cells hold a lot of promise there are still a lot of ethical and technical issues that must be surmounted.

Stem cells are immature cells that can be derived from a variety of sources. They have the ability to be built into a variety of different tissues from basically any organ. While human embryonic stem cells are a main source for obtaining stem cells, they are also the most controversial. Here's the excerpt from the paper.

Stem cell research holds promise for applications in regenerative medicine. However many questions remain. For example, will it be possible to patent therapeutic products in this area? Will the necessary investment be forthcoming? In addition there are still many technical problems to be solved. Technical solutions may involve the use of human embryos and this has created barriers to the use of the technology in a number of countries. There is already a need for the progressive development of appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks to allow both the scientific and clinical research to move forward. Some countries are actively encouraging the developments, for example, the UK. In the USA, although the present government is opposed, State and charitable funding is flowing into this area. In this paper we briefly review the issues surrounding stem cell developments and discuss the possible implications of the trends in media coverage.

Telomeres and Haemopoetic Stem Cells

Stem Cells exhibit an extraordinary capacity for differentiation into other types of cells. They can practically any cell in the body with the proper treatment. However, the ability of stem cells to renew does decline as a person ages. A telomere is a specific region of DNA that repeats. It is located at the end of the chromosomes. Telomeres protect the end of the chromosomes from being destructed after a cell undergoes cell division. As time goes on and cells go through more division cycles, the telomeres begin to shorten. This limits a cells dividing capacity and this may be a cause of cell aging. Cells can no longer be replenished and the older ones die off, not to be replaced. Holmes et al. have recently investigated telemore dynamics in haemopoietic stem cells. Here is the abstract from the paper.

Telomere length dynamics differ in foetal and early post-natal leukocytes in a longitudinal study

Haemopoietic stem cells (HSC) undergo a process of self renewal to constantly maintain blood cell turnover. However, it has become apparent that adult HSC lose their self-renewal ability with age. Telomere shortening in peripheral blood leukocytes has been seen to occur with age and it has been associated with loss of HSC proliferative capacity and cellular ageing. In contrast foetal HSC are known to have greater proliferative capacity than post-natal stem cells. However it is unknown whether they undergo a similar process of telomere shortening. In this study we show a more accentuated rate of telomere loss in leukocytes from pre term infants compared to human foetuses of comparable age followed longitudinally for 8-12weeks in a longitudinal study. Our results point to a difference inHSC behaviour between foetal and early postnatal life which isindependent of age but may be influenced by events at birth itself.

European Regulation Against Stem Cell Patent

New European regulations of stem cells could have an impact on stem cell research in the future. On Thursday, European regulators made a new ruling. They ruled against allowing a specific patent that covered a topic about developing human embryonic stem cells. This is a change for the industry. If a company cannot get a patent protection for their products, then their may be less incentive to develop stem cell therapy research.

The patent that the European Patent Office rejected was a patent filed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation in 1995. James Thomson was the first person who was able to isolate embryonic stem cells way back in 1988. This patent had been held by the Wisconsin Foundation was challenged. This new development could lead some companies to not invest as much money in stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are controversial because they can destroy an embryo. The patent office has made this decision partly because of the controversial nature of embryonic stem cells.

Here is the statement from the European Patent Office.

Decisive in the EBoA ruling was the application's claim regarding human stem cell cultures. The EBoA decided that under the EPC it is not possible to grant a patent for an invention which necessarily involves the use and destruction of human embryos. The EBoA stressed, however, that its decision does not concern the general question of human stem cell patentability.

Nanoparticle Movement

Researchers from Penn State University have recently developed new tools which allow them to move nanoparticles through a liquid. This would allow scientists to deliver drug payloads to specific cells. In the future this may be used to deliver cancer killing drugs to cancer cells. The report was issued from the National Science Foundation. Here you can watch an interesting video of the swimming nanoparticles. I think eventually we will have nanorobots that will be able to swim inside a person's body and correct damage to cells. This research may be a step towards that ultimate goal.

Here is an excerpt from the article.

Sen's work is driven by catalysis, the chemical phenomenon whereby a substance accelerates a chemical reaction but emerges unchanged at the end of the process. He and his team of students and colleagues focus their efforts on redox (reduction-oxidation) chemical reactions, where electrons and protons are broken away from their parent atoms and pumped back and forth between substances, liberating energy.

In the context of nanomotors, that energy manifests itself as an electrical gradient in the fluid surrounding the tiny objects. For many of the team's experiments, the motors are platinum/gold nanorods only two millionths of a meter long, a length less than one hundredth the thickness of a human hair.

You can read the press release at this website.