blood
Creative Minds: A New Chemistry for Aging Research?
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Tony Wyss-Coray / Credit: Stanford School of Medicine
Basic scientists have long studied aging by looking inside of cells. While this research has produced many important leads, they are now starting to look outside the cell for the wealth of biochemical clues contained in the bloodstream.
To introduce you to this exciting frontier in aging research, this blog highlighted a while back the work of Tony Wyss-Coray at Stanford School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA. He and a colleague had just received a 2013 NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award to explore the effects of exercise on the brains of mice. Their work, in fact, produced one of Science Magazine’s Breakthrough Discoveries of 2014. Their team showed that by fusing the circulatory systems of old and young mice to create a shared blood supply, the young blood triggered new muscle and neural connections in the older mice, while also improving their memories.
As fascinating as this theoretical Fountain of Youth was, Wyss-Coray recognized a critical limitation. He had no way of knowing how factors secreted by the young mouse could actually cross the blood-brain barrier and rejuvenate neurons. To solve this unknown, Wyss-Coray recently received a 2015 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award to build a potentially game-changing tool to track the aging process in mice.
Cool Videos: Heart Attack
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Up next in our scientific film fest is an original music video, straight from the Big Apple. Created by researchers at The Rockefeller University, this song-and-dance routine provides an entertaining—and informative—look at how blood clots form, their role in causing heart attacks, and what approaches are being tried to break up these clots.
Before (or after!) you hit “play,” it might help to take a few moments to review the scientists’ description of their efforts: the key to saving the lives of heart attack victims lies in the molecules that control how blood vessels become clogged. This molecular biomedicine music video explains how ischemic injury can be prevented shortly after heart attack symptoms begin: clot blocking. The science is the collaborative work of Dr. Barry Coller of Rockefeller, Dr. Craig Thomas and his colleagues at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), and Dr. Marta Filizola and her Mount Sinai colleagues.
Links:
Laboratory of Blood and Vascular Biology, The Rockefeller University
Filizola Laboratory, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Center for Clinical and Translational Science, The Rockefeller University
Clinical and Translational Science Awards (NCATS/NIH)
NIH Common Fund Video Competition
NIH support: Common Fund; National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
The Diabetes Threat
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
The number of Americans diagnosed with type 2 diabetes rose from 1.5 million in 1958 to 18.8 million in 2010. That’s an increase of epidemic proportions. Even more disturbing, another 7 million Americans have type 2 diabetes, but don’t know it and, consequently, can’t take steps to control the disease. Altogether, over 8% of the U.S. population now has this potentially deadly metabolic condition.
- Type 2 diabetes wreaks havoc on the body by raising the levels of glucose in the blood, increasing the risk of blindness, heart disease, kidney failure, nerve damage, and even Alzheimer’s disease.
- Pre-diabetes is a condition in which blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be called diabetes. 79 million U.S. adults age 20 and older have pre-diabetes.
- NIH studies have shown that losing just 6–7% of body weight and increasing physical activity can prevent or delay pre-diabetes from progressing to diabetes. 85% of people with diabetes are overweight.
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