Issue 1, 2007

Back to not having access to the full text on this issue.

"Old Rhesus Macaques Treated with Interleukin-7 Show Increased TREC Levels And Respond Well to Influenza Vaccination" by Richard Aspinall, Jeffrey Pido-Lopez, Nesrina Imami, Sian M. Henson, Pa Tamba Ngom, Michel Morre, Henk Niphuis, Ed Remarque, Brigitte Rosenwirth, and Jonathan L. Heeney. What it says on the title. TREC are T-cell receptor excision circles, wikipedia tells me, which are small circles of DNA created during the time the T-cell spends in the thymus while creating the huge variety of receptors, and are a marker for mature T-cells. Old here is 18.5 to 23.9 years.

"A Novel Possible Approach to The Creation of Genetically Personalized Human Embryonic Stem-Like Cell Lines" by Wenqing Fu. Proposal for a technique to create tailored hESCs by repeatedly merging a generic line of hESCs with the target human's line, growing it to a blastocyst, pulling hESCs from that and repeating the process. I'd think the invention of iPSCs obviated the need for doing this.

"Correction of Proliferation And Drug Sensitivity Defects in The Progeroid Werner's Syndrome by Holliday Junction Resolution" by Ana M. Rodriguez-Lopez, Matthew C. Whitby, Christine M. Borer, Marcus A. Bachler, and Lynne S. Cox. They insert a bacterial enzyme that removes Holliday junctions from Werner's syndrome cells. The cells do better afterwards.

"Impaired Mononuclear Cell Immune Function in Extreme Obesity Is Corrected by Weight Loss" by Luigi Fontana, J. Christopher Eagon, Marco Colonna, and Samuel Klein. Very small study on six extremely fat people. They had very low production of two immune-system stimulating factors. Losing 30% of their weight fixed that. The whys for the low immune system stimulation and recovery seem not to be known.

"Reactive Oxygen Species, Isotope Effect, Essential Nutrients, and Enhanced Longevity" by Mikhail S. Shchepinov. Change the carbons and hydrogens to heavier isotopes than normal to slow down ROS reaction and therefore live longer.

"Evidence That Aging And Amyloid Promote Microglial Cell Senescence" by Barry E. Flanary, Nicole W. Sammons, Cuong Nguyen, Douglas Walker, and Wolfgang J. Streit. Shorter telomeres in human microglia when demented. Shorter telomeres and lower telomerase activation in rat microglia with aging. Microglia dystrophy in demented and amyloidal humans compared to non-demented non-amyloidal.

"Cumulative Index of Elderly Disorders And Its Dynamic Contribution to Mortality And Longevity" by Anatoli I. Yashin, Konstantin G. Arbeev, Alexander Kulminski, Igor Akushevich, Lucy Akushevich, and Svetlana V. Ukraintseva. An absolute and relative risk function of age that I think I need to see to understand.

"Cellular Therapy Using Microglial Cells" by John Schloendorn, Sebastian Sethe, and Alexandra Stolzing. Sounds like a theoretical paper on what we could do to keep microglia functioning properly and also improve their function by inserting proteases from other species into precursors that can then cross the blood-brain barrier. Might have to look for it.

There's a summary of PhD dissertations there that would be interesting to see too.