A selection SENS 3 Abstracts: stem cells and cancer fighting

Abstracts for the Sept 2007 SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence / Life Extension) conference are online

Will stem cell-based tissue replacement work in the old?

This presentation will describe steps for deciphering the molecular mechanisms by which age-specific inhibitory culprits of tissue repair exert their negative influence on stem cells. Additionally, we provide evidence that embryonic stem cell-derived factors indirectly enhance and rejuvenate the regenerative potential of satellite cells endogenous to old skeletal muscle, thus, delineating new promising venues for enhancing the regenerative outcome of cell replacement therapies in the old.

Stem cells dividing, sister chromatids choose fate: old stays, young moves on

We observed extraordinarily high frequencies of cells segregating older versus younger DNA to the daughter cells. Furthermore, this DNA inheritance asymmetry correlated with asymmetric cell divisions yielding daughters with divergent fates. Daughter cells inheriting the older templates exhibited a stem-like immature phenotype, whereas daughters inheriting the newer templates showed a more differentiated phenotype. These data provide compelling evidence of the Immortal DNA phenomenon in muscle regeneration and suggest that it may be more common in stem cell self-renewal than previously assumed. We propose that the Immortal DNA hypothesis be revisited as pertains to aging, cancer and development, and suggest implications for the SENS.

Efficacy of cancer vaccines to prevent cancer in the elderly

These results suggest that therapeutic immunization based on the activation of the innate immune response, may be most effective at old age, but that preventive immunization, based on activation of native T cells should start at young age, when adaptive immune responses are still inducible.

Engineering anti-cancer T cells

Whilst the process of using engineered T cells is currently complex and limited in application it is potentially a general approach which can be simplified and used to treat a broad range of cancers.

Specific targeting of therapeutic stem cells for cardiovascular disease

These proof-of-principle studies provide the groundwork for human clinical trials of bispecific antibody-targeted autologous SC for therapy of acute myocardial infarction and chronic myocardial ischemia. Application of this generally applicable targeting technology to other applications of SC therapy will be discussed.

Youth maintenance and postponing human ageing in [current] reality This is basically that if you use the current best present standard for health maintenance you should be able to stay healthy for 20 years longer than most people do now.

Studies show that years of healthy life expectancy increase approximately the same measure as the life expectancy. There are many possibilities to postpone the accumulation of damage in reality, sometimes even by several years for a single intervention.

There are three directions for youth maintenance and postponing aging changes at present:

– Taking into account risk factors (predictors) of all-cause mortality or mortality for main age-related diseases and decreasing their influence.
– Paying attention to own discomfort and using preventive measures.
– Using medicines that are effective for age-related diseases.

Our field studies have shown that it is possible to postpone the time when a certain level of aging changes (or a disease) develops up to 20 years. The obstacles to postpone ageing for several years in a country are mostly political and less scientific at present.

Therapeutic applications of human stem cells – prospects and challenges

Embryonic stem (ES) cells derived from 6-8 day old human embryos offer the most therapeutic potential as these cells are capable of generating every cell and tissue type in the human body. If we can control the differentiation of ES cells, then cell replacement for profound human disorders such as Parkinson�s disease, insulin-dependent diabetes, heart disease, stroke, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, spinal cord damage, and macular degeneration could become standard new therapies. This presentation will examine the state of the art in the development of stem cell therapies and outline some of the technical and ethical considerations as we progress toward clinical and research application of human ES cells.

Bone marrow stem cell therapy: a major breakthrough for chronic diseases and anti-aging

The procedure and the positive clinical results of using bone marrow stem cells for a variety of conditions will be presented, as well as some of the theory behind how and why this treatment will soon become widely available since these stem cells are legal, ethically correct, and cost-effective while providing better results than conventional therapy for a whole host of different diseases.

Have we reached the point for in vivo [in organism] rejuvenation?

Considering the reversibility of cell potency and aged-phenotype, the next logical step toward the goal of organismal rejuvenation is to test the possibility of inducing the pluripotent state in somatic cells in vivo. Such an approach will not only provide enough autologous stem cells to replace old cells as in standard replacement therapy, but may also have the additional beneficial effects of (i) reversing the possible aged-phenotype of iPS and (ii) rejuvenating non- or slow-turnover tissues that otherwise would benefit less from standard replacement therapy.