20240513 Nature magazine on anti-aging breakthrough. New online Gay art gallery to launch. Homosurrealism magazine.
An expanded report on the 2010 Dallas Bathhouse raid is available. The City of Dallas has not made a commitment not to have another raid of a Gay establishment.
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An important breakthrough in slowing aging in Nature magazine.
Aging is a biological process involving biomolecular chemistry. It isn’t supernatural or mystical or involving some esoteric forces. It is just biology. It is biology that isn’t fully understood, but it is biology. It is something that research will be able to figure out and biotechnology will be able to solve.
Given how far biology and medicine has advanced, it is important to monitor developments in the field of aging science and strategize what we might do.
UPDATE: The following is a link to a somewhat easier article to read.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01274-3
First, the article.
This is an article in Nature magazine, one of the two most authoritative science magazines in the world. It is titled, “Hacking the immune system could slow ageing – here’s how.” The subtitle is, “Our immune system falters over time, which could explain the negative effects of ageing.”
This is the link; I will discuss the article after words.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01274-3
I know given all the quackery that there has been for sometime about slowing aging or reversing aging, almost any article about slowing aging or reversing aging seems suspect. However, we live in an age where the biological sciences are rapidly moving forward, often assisted by the phenomenal advances in computing.
The crucial thing was that two other labs have replicated what she has found. From the article.
Stem-cell researcher Carolina Florian didn’t trust what she was seeing. Her elderly laboratory mice were starting to look younger. They were more sprightly and their coats were sleeker. Yet all she had done was to briefly treat them — many weeks earlier — with a drug that corrected the organization of proteins inside a type of stem cell.
When technicians who were replicating her experiment in two other labs found the same thing, she started to feel more confident that the treatment was somehow rejuvenating the animals. In two papers, in 2020 and 2022, her team described how the approach extends the lifespan of mice and keeps them fit into old age1,2.
It isn’t one study and it isn’t one lab. It is multiple labs and for Florian it is in repeated studies.
This isn’t just about aging, but about the ability of the immune system to protect us as we age. From the article:
But it becomes less effective as people age and the system’s composition starts to change. In older age, people become susceptible to a range of infectious and non-infectious diseases — and more resistant to the protective power of vaccines.
There is a detailed explanation of all the biology and biomolecular science of what is happening, but what is important is that they are finding ways of doing something and changing things.
Basically as the immune system fails, it also fails to remove senescent cells. These are cells that are alive, but not really functioning, and normally there is a signal to have them removed. As they accumulate, they impact other cells and cause problems including inducing other cells to become senescent.
Fortunately they are seeing many possible ways of correcting the problem. From the article.
Many scientists are trying to do just that, from very different angles. Lots of the approaches hint that very short treatments of the immune system might have long-term effects, keeping side effects to a more manageable minimum.
This is good, because there are multiple avenues towards success. It is good because even if there are multiple ways of treating it, you might want one way for one situation and another way for another situation.
Clinical trials are already underway for the treatment of age-related diseases (see quote below). This is good, because there is bound to be some successes. Once there is success, there are sales, then there is cash flow, there is money to research what other applications there might be and also 2nd generation drugs that are more effective, cheaper, and easier to use. The successes will encourage examination of the failures to see why they failed and how they can be successful. Once the engine of technology is started, it really starts to build power and go forward.
Also, having modest goals that are achievable provide an intermediate step for a technology to develop. A program to develop a drug to stop aging is a goal too far, and it isn’t going to get funded and it is doubtful insurance companies will pay for it. Having something that helps with a disease is an achievable goal and something insurance companies will pay for, especially if it avoids the larger costs of dealing with the disease. From the article:
Some drugs — such as dasatinib, which is approved for the treatment of some cancers, and quercetin, which is marketed as an antioxidant dietary supplement but not approved as a drug — are known to reduce the age-related acceleration of senescence, and dozens of clinical trials are testing their impact on various age-related diseases. Niedernhofer herself is involved in a small clinical trial on older people with sepsis, a condition that becomes more deadly with age. [Boldface added.]
Quercetin isn’t what got Dr. Florian’s mice rejuvenating. What she did to reverse their aging was to treat haematopoietic blood cells, also calls HS cells with a sophisticated treatment
“with a Cdc42 activity-specific inhibitor (CASIN)17 for only 4 consecutive days significantly extends their average and maximum lifespan.””
Nevertheless quercetin will slow down the accumulation of senescent cells and that is beneficial until they can start treating people to deal with senescent cells.
Notice that there is one substance already available as a dietary supplement. If it is cheap and there isn’t any risk, I think a person might start taking it to get some benefit now.
Another application which will drive this technology is improving vaccinations for older persons. From the article:
The value of priming the aged immune system before administering a vaccine has been demonstrated in a series of clinical trials led by researcher Joan Mannick, chief executive of Tornado Therapeutics, which is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.
This is good since it is a good intermediate goal. Again, it is something that can be achieved. It is something for which there is a commercial market. So as soon as they get it to work in some situations, it will have a market, cash flow and research will start on improving it, 2nd generation drugs, and expanded applications.
You get a field established with experts and knowledge is accumulated and further applications are forthcoming.
There are other applications, which if successful, will also be biotechnology drivers.
One of the major challenges is how do you objectively measure aging. From the article:
Research on immune ageing faces some fundamental challenges. One is shared with ageing studies in all organs — the inability to measure ageing precisely.
I don’t think this is an insurmountable problem. Given that until recently the possibility of slowing or reversing aging wasn’t even there, the measurement of aging objectively wasn’t a priority. It is now. But it is important to know that there are still some obstacles to be overcome. After all, if you do an experiment and you are testing drug A and drug B and using different doses, how do you compare dosing or the two drugs.
There are other obstacles, they have only recently been able to classify 55 subpopulations of immune cells and to now that only 12 of them change with aging.
There is this caution:
With so many strands of research coming together, scientists are cautiously hopeful that the immune system will indeed prove to be a key lever in healthy ageing. Don’t expect an elixir of youth any time soon, says Florian — by definition, ageing research takes a long time. “But there is such great potential for translation.”
The thing about aging, is that you have to wait to see if the patient ages and how fast and aging occurs over time.
However, the situation might not be that pessimistic.
For older persons you might first get immune system treatments for the vaccinations you need to get. When you are over 65, there are several vaccinations you are advised to get. If you are getting vaccinated, and the immune treatment is available, get it, even if the money comes out of your pocket.
They might have immune treatments for other situations, and make sure you can get them if you qualify for the treatment. Look for off label use also.
Strategically, you need to really focus on healthy living. The longer you live, the greater the chance that you will live to the next biotechnological development to slow, stop, or even reverse aging. Also, it could be that the effect of immune enhancement for vaccination, but extend your life span so you are there for the next technological development.
In other fields of biotechnology I am seeing amazing developments. The tool set and the ability to do things is expanding phenomenally.
I am tracking the biotechnology of aging closely. I will be updating this page.
Jack Sanders of Homosurrealism magazine is launching on online site for artists to display their art in a virtual gallery.
He will be announcing it on the Homosurrealism page and in the Friends of Homosurrealism group this week. I will post the link also in the Facebook group, Gay Partisan.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/473985827246638 as well as the next newsletter.
Homosurrealism Page
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100055548258151
Friends who like Homosurrealism Magazine Group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1218393581508453
The next issue is Homosurrealism will have Georget Cyril
Georget Cyril will be one of the artists.
https://www.instagram.com/georget.cyril/
Revision 2 of the 2010 Dallas Bath House raid released.
Our local paper actively erased this raid from history. There is no commitment by the City of Dallas not to do another raid of a bathhouse or bar. Pick another place to visit. Don’t move here.
Powerful art upsetting homophobic Christians.
These are the links to the news story about the art. The school board made fools of themselves and thus the art got a lot of publicity.
https://www.aol.com/meet-student-artist-augusta-county-083525585.html
Goodvin Nerko and Helg Lugano showcased last week.
I am always looking for artists to showcase. Gay art builds Gay identity. Click on the image.
