Michael West wants to use stem cell technology to end aging.
Summary of his talk:
He starts with ancient myths, first written as Oris and Isis. Life is immortal. Some types of cells are immortal.
As multicelled organisms developed, cells began to specialize. The germ line retains its immortality. Other cells sacrifice themselves, becoming somatic cells which shield and protect the germ cells but in the process loose their immortality.
We start aging in the womb.
One of the keys is the telemeres, the bits at the end of the chromosone which somatic cells cannot fix. But germ cells can. An enzime, telemerease, can restore the telemeres. In fact, plant the nucleus of a somatic cell into an egg cell (the current tech behind cloning, aka Dolly) and the egg cell will repair the telemeres to even younger than birth.
He has successfully implanted newly young blood system generating cells into old cattle, giving them both a young immune system and their vascular walls begin to rebuild. This tech could end coronary heart disease. Further, he has re-grown heart tissue, repairing the damage of a heart attack.
Regarding the ethics: A fertilized egg does not become a biological individual until about 14 days after fertization.
Showing posts with label disease. Show all posts
Showing posts with label disease. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Dynamic network of disease phenotype-- Hidalgo 2009
Another pub from one of the kings of networks.
Has a huge clinical database. Makes a network of most stated diseases in database, where a link indicates that the two diseases occur in the same patient at a higher than chance frequency.
He uses two measures of association which have opposite biases.
Relative Risk (RR)-- overestimates relationships involving rare diseases while discounting common ones
Phi-correlation (phi) accurate for diseases with the same frequency, discounts comorbidity between rare and common disease
The network's predicitive power is on the same order as family studies and/or some genetic studies.
Some discussion on inferring directionality
Has a huge clinical database. Makes a network of most stated diseases in database, where a link indicates that the two diseases occur in the same patient at a higher than chance frequency.
He uses two measures of association which have opposite biases.
Relative Risk (RR)-- overestimates relationships involving rare diseases while discounting common ones
Phi-correlation (phi) accurate for diseases with the same frequency, discounts comorbidity between rare and common disease
The network's predicitive power is on the same order as family studies and/or some genetic studies.
Some discussion on inferring directionality
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Getting sick
A friend of mine was ill recently. He wrote
His opinion on disease is not uncommon. It is an echo of many thousands of years of human thought and tradition. Recall that the germ theory of disease, and even the contagion theory are relatively recent, and were all rather contentious at the time. The best explination, the best way to make sense of apparently random weakening and/or death is ill favor from the gods. This could be because the gods are whimsical, or it could be that one has displeased them, or failed to live up to their standards. Alternately, it could even be that the disease is God's way of bringing his faithful home, i.e. the Koran's statement that he who dies from disease is a martyr, or the tolerance, even embracing, of death from disease while on pilgrimage.
Right. So people are "the explaining animal," always looking for sense and meaning in a world which is in fact dominated by chance. That does not make the explination correct or true. And in this case, it is false false false.
Yes, a healthy body, good diet, fresh air, exercise, regular sex, all of that does contribute to a stronger immune system better able to ward off pathogens. But if this was enough, then European diseases would not have killed 90 FUCKING PERCENT of the population of the Americas. The natives ate only organic food, worked out all the time, didn't breath industrial pollutants, and, ok, so I don't know how often they got laid, but they pretty much lived the way the health gurus tell us we should. And they died in the millions from smallpox, measles, influenza.
We can beat these diseases. In fact, many of them have been beat, or are on their knees. But some are still with us. If we want to get rid of the little bastards, then it helps to put the blame on the right place. And we do want to get rid of them.
I believe that this type of disease, i.e. the common cold and similar afflictions are expressions of weakness and fundamentally psychosomatic...implying that illness was an expression of moral failure. I should add that this friend is really, really strong. He integrates strength of character, strength of morals, and strength of body.
His opinion on disease is not uncommon. It is an echo of many thousands of years of human thought and tradition. Recall that the germ theory of disease, and even the contagion theory are relatively recent, and were all rather contentious at the time. The best explination, the best way to make sense of apparently random weakening and/or death is ill favor from the gods. This could be because the gods are whimsical, or it could be that one has displeased them, or failed to live up to their standards. Alternately, it could even be that the disease is God's way of bringing his faithful home, i.e. the Koran's statement that he who dies from disease is a martyr, or the tolerance, even embracing, of death from disease while on pilgrimage.
Right. So people are "the explaining animal," always looking for sense and meaning in a world which is in fact dominated by chance. That does not make the explination correct or true. And in this case, it is false false false.
Yes, a healthy body, good diet, fresh air, exercise, regular sex, all of that does contribute to a stronger immune system better able to ward off pathogens. But if this was enough, then European diseases would not have killed 90 FUCKING PERCENT of the population of the Americas. The natives ate only organic food, worked out all the time, didn't breath industrial pollutants, and, ok, so I don't know how often they got laid, but they pretty much lived the way the health gurus tell us we should. And they died in the millions from smallpox, measles, influenza.
We can beat these diseases. In fact, many of them have been beat, or are on their knees. But some are still with us. If we want to get rid of the little bastards, then it helps to put the blame on the right place. And we do want to get rid of them.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Is humanity a disease?
Looked at from the point of view of other organisms, humankind therefore resembles an acute epidemic disease, whose occasional lapses into less virulent forms of behavior have never yet sufficed to permit any really stable, chronic relationship to establish itself.
from the introduction to Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill, 1976
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