Telomere lengthening via gene therapy achieved for the first time

U.S. biotech company BioViva has announced the first successful use of gene therapy to extend telomeres, believed to be vitally important in the fight against human aging. In September 2015, then 44 year-old CEO of BioViva, Elizabeth Parrish, received two of her own company's experimental gene therapies: one to protect against loss of muscle mass with age; another to battle stem cell depletion responsible for diverse age-related diseases and infirmities. The treatment was originally intended to demonstrate the safety of the latest generation of the therapies. But if early data is accurate, it is already the world's first successful example of telomere lengthening via gene therapy in a human individual. Gene therapy has been used to lengthen telomeres before in mice and in cultured cells – but never in a human patient, until now. Telomeres are short segments of DNA which cap the ends of every chromosome. Like the plastic tips on shoelaces that stop them from fraying, they act as 'buffers' against wear and tear. With every cell division they become shorter, eventually getting too short to protect the chromosome, causing the cell to malfunction and the body to age. In September 2015, telomere data from Parrish's white blood cells (immediately before therapies were administered), revealed that her telomeres were unusually...

Read More........→December 08, 2016

Why Men Find Switching Tasks More Difficult Than Do Women

It has long been known to science that women find it easier than men to multitask and switch between tasks. But identifying exactly which areas of male and female brains respond differently and why has so far been unclear. According to researchers from the HSE Neurolinguistics Laboratory, men need to mobilise additional areas of their brain and use more energy than women when multitasking. Why Men Find Switching Tasks More Difficult Needing to switch attention between tasks causes stronger activation in certain brain regions in men compared to women. Although women find it easier than men to switch between tasks; how exactly their brains function differently in such situations has so far been unknown. Recent research reveals that male brains appear to consume more energy when they need to shift attention. In addition to this, in men there is greater activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal areas of the brain compared to women, as well as activation in some other areas which is not usually observed in women. Such differences are typical of younger men and women aged 20 to 45, according to findings from experiments conducted by researchers Svetlana Kuptsova and Maria Ivanova of the HSE Neurolinguistic Laboratory, radiologists Alexey Petrushevsky and Oksana Fedina of the Centre for Speech Pathology and Neurorehabilitation,...

Read More........→November 22, 2016