Stem cells may have anti-aging properties, but they are unlikely to be a real fountain of youth. Even so, people are obsessed with aging and stem cells regularly are thought of as “the ticket” for fighting aging. I’ll start today’s recommended reads with that topic and then go on to list some interesting papers of the last week or so.
Stem cells for anti-aging, and Bezos
Jeff Bezos wants to live forever in space? Meet Altos Labs, Silicon Valley’s latest wild bet on living forever, MIT Tech Review.
The anti-aging company here is Altos Labs. I don’t see that this biotech has its own website yet. If I missed it, please let me know in the comments.
This piece is from the wonderful Antonio Regalado. Reportedly those in attendance at a small, private investment gathering included Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte and Steve Horvath. Regalado reported that Shinya Yamanaka will be an unpaid member of the board. I’d be kind of surprised if Yamanaka was part of this, but who knows.
This all brings to mind the young-blood “trend” of rich people getting infusions of blood from young people to try to reverse aging.
Myc studies
- A combination of PARP and CHK1 inhibitors efficiently antagonizes MYCN-driven tumors, Oncogene
- The MYC oncogene — the grand orchestrator of cancer growth and immune evasion, Nat Reviews Clinical Oncology.
Recommended papers and media
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Antiviral treatment causes a unique mutational signature in cancers of transplantation recipients, Cell Stem Cell. However, the transplants did not exhibit changes in donor cell genomes.
- Bidirectional relationship between cardiac extracellular matrix and cardiac cells in ischemic heart disease, Stem Cells. This is a review.
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Novel classes and evolutionary turnover of histone H2B variants in the mammalian germline, bioRxiv. From Harmit Malik’s lab at the Hutch, my old postdoc institution.
- Gelatin methacrylate hydrogels culture model for glioblastoma cells enriches for mesenchymal-like state and models interactions with immune cells, Sci Reports
I’ve always wondered if the benefits people seemed to perceive from young blood transfusions is a “watered-down” version of hormone treatment.