BU researchers identify compounds that inhibit monkeypox virus replication

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

(Boston)—Monkeypox is a viral zoonosis (a virus transmitted to humans from animals) with symptoms similar to those seen in smallpox patients, although clinically less severe. With the eradication of smallpox in 1980 and subsequent cessation of smallpox vaccination, monkeypox was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization.

Now, researchers from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine have developed a novel compound that soon could be used to protect against all tested poxviruses that cause human disease.

Poxviruses, other than smallpox, continue to circulate worldwide where immunity has waned following the near-universal cessation of vaccination. “Monkeypox is particularly notable with recent cases highlighting the global threat that this virus poses,” said corresponding author John Connor, PhD, associate professor of microbiology. “With more than 44,000 monkeypox cases reported worldwide (more than 10,000 in the U.S. alone), the use of FDA-approved smallpox antivirals to treat human monkeypox cases may play an important role in controlling the outbreak.” 

Connor’s study builds from an earlier finding by him and his group, in close collaboration with a team led by Scott Schaus, PhD, professor of chemistry BU’s College of Arts & Sciences and Center for Molecular Discovery (BU-CMD). In 2011, the groups identified a compound that would inhibit multiple poxviruses (vaccinia, monkeypox, cowpox). In the intervening time they made additional compounds —some of which are more potent inhibitors than the original. They then worked with the Centers for Disease Control to show that their compounds inhibit smallpox virus replication. 

According to Connor, these findings highlight the promise of a new class of antipoxviral agents as broad-spectrum small molecules with significant potential to be developed as antiviral therapy. “This would add a small molecule option for therapy of spreading diseases, including monkeypox and cowpox viruses, that would also be expected to have efficacy against smallpox,” added Connor who also is a researcher at the Boston University National Emerging infectious Diseases Laboratories.

“With disease-causing pathogens it is always important to have a diverse toolbox of treatments available, in order to counter the pathogen's evolutionary ability to evade our best interventions,” said lead author Lauren Brown, PhD, research associate professor, organic and medicinal chemistry in BU’s College of Arts & Sciences. “Our hope is that our work will lead to a new, safe antiviral therapy to add to the extremely limited arsenal of existing drugs for patients suffering from poxviral diseases”.

These findings appear online in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

Funding for this study was provided in part by R01 AI151559 to J.H.C., S.E.S., and L.E.B.

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JOURNAL

Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy

DOI

10.1128/aac.00841-22 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Identification of Small Molecules with Improved Potency against Orthopoxviruses from Vaccinia to Smallpox

U$A
6 Monkeypox-Related Deaths Reported 'Stark Reminder' Of Ongoing Threat

By Athena Chan
10/24/22 - IBT

KEY POINTS

New York City, Chicago, Nevada and Maryland reported MPV deaths

Some of the patients had weakened immune systems

"MPV is dangerous and can cause serious illness," the CDPH Commissioner said

Local authorities have confirmed the deaths of six people in the U.S. who tested positive for monkeypox (MPV/MPX/MPXV). This is said to be a "stark reminder" that the virus remains a potentially dangerous illness even amid the declining cases.

New York City has logged two deaths and so has Chicago, according to CNN. Maryland and Nevada, on the other hand, have logged one death each.

The Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced the deaths on Oct. 21. Both of the patients had other health conditions that weakened their immune systems, and both were diagnosed with MPV more than six weeks ago, the agency said. Both also had to be hospitalized. But the cases, the agency clarified, are "unrelated to each other."

The Maryland Department of Health (MDH) also reported the death on Oct. 21, noting in its statement that MPV was a "contributing factor" to the Maryland resident's death. The patient was also reportedly immunocompromised, "resulting in a more severe case."

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said it was "deeply saddened" by the deaths, as per CNN. The agency did not provide any further information on the patients.

As of Oct. 18, New York City has logged 3,703 cases. New York City authorities made the switch from calling it monkeypox to MPV, as the former name is said to be "inaccurate and stigmatizing."




The cases illustrate the continuing threat posed by MVP, experts believe.

"Though the number of new MPV cases has declined substantially since summer, this is a stark reminder that MPV is dangerous and can cause serious illness, and in very rare cases, even death," CDPH Commissioner Allison Arwady said, according to the outlet.

MDH Deputy Secretary for Public Health Services Dr. Jinlene Chan also reminded the public that the illness is "still circulating and can cause severe illness and death."

"If you are eligible, such as being immunocompromised or at-risk, the best way to protect yourself against serious illness from MPX is by getting vaccinated," Chan said in the MDH statement.

Similarly, experts recently warned that the threat is still present even though the global cases of MPV have been retreating and many places are seeing lower numbers of late.


"We are heading towards the end, but we are not there yet," Jean-Claude Manuguerra of France's Pasteur Institute reportedly told AFP.

The decline in cases, they said, could be related to the change in behavior in the at-risk communities. However, the threat of a resurgence is still lurking, particularly if behaviors return to normal.

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Further, MPV remains present in African countries where it is endemic. In these places, people in rural places can still catch it from animals.

"(A) declining outbreak can be the most dangerous outbreak, because it can tempt us to think that the crisis is over, and to let down our guard," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

As of Oct. 21, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has logged 27,884 U.S. MPV cases and six deaths in the 2022 outbreak. Globally, there have been more than 74,000 confirmed cases in places that haven't historically reported MPV.




© Copyright IBTimes 2022. All rights reserved.

AUSTERITY KILLS

People in the UK have higher probabilities of dying than predicted, new report finds

Bayes research exploring improvements in mortality rates over time ranks slowdown since 2010 among women as particularly stark, raising questions over projections of future population growth, viability of pensions schemes and inequalities within the UK

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CITY UNIVERSITY LONDON

Men and women in the UK have a higher probability of dying than predicted, a new report has found, which could have a big impact on the future viability of pensions schemes.

The research from Bayes Business School, which looks at death rates for people aged 50 to 95, painted a bleak picture for men and women in the UK.

Analysis of 21 high-income countries over a period of 50 years analysed the patterns of death rates between 1960 and 2010 and then explored whether what has happened since 2010 followed the predicted patterns.

The data shows that, following decades of improvement in the probability of dying and in life expectancy, since 2011 the probabilities of dying for people in the UK are higher than forecasts based on the earlier trends.

There is also a marked difference in gender. It is most starkly shown in UK women, whose average improvements in the probability of dying has fallen from 2.1 per cent a year (2000-2010) to 0.84 per cent (2011-2017). In UK men, the improvement rate is the lowest it has been in almost 40 years (1.18 per cent), since the 1980s.

The data showed a trend in death rates among women that was worse than expected in 19 of the 21 analysed countries. Of the 21 countries examined, the UK ranked 17th worst for women and 19th worst for men.

Co-author Professor Steven Haberman, of Bayes Business School, says these negative trends in the UK may be attributed these to the negative consequences of the Government’s austerity policies after the 2008 recession and higher than normal levels of winter deaths.

Professor Haberman, a Professor of Actuarial Science, believes the findings pose an alarming trend, and have sizeable societal implications following the proposal to increase the state pension age from 65 to 68 by 2046.

“If these rates of mortality improvement are lower, it means that State pensions, private pensions and annuities are cheaper to fund. This means, for example, that defined benefit pension schemes (like USS) are probably in a better financial situation than expected.

“That has implications because it is government policy to increase the state pension age on the basis that people are living longer. But this might not now be the case. We might be making people work for longer and then be faced with a shorter time in retirement to enjoy our pension. So, has the retirement age been pushed up too quickly? The answer may be yes.”

Other findings from the report show that the speed of which mortality rates are improving in Denmark are significantly ahead of the rest of Europe. Additionally, the mortality improvement rates of women in Greece, Italy and the Netherlands were noticeably worse on average after 2010, than other countries, for example, worse than France, Germany and the UK.

The countries in which men’s mortality rates are improving most noticeably are Norway, Denmark, Ireland and Belgium, although it is a more balanced trend than in women. The picture is different for men in the UK, Italy and Germany, who have shown the slowest improvements in Europe.

 

The slowdown in mortality improvement rates 2011-2017: a multi-country analysis, by Professor Steven Haberman, Professor of Actuarial Science at Bayes Business School; Viani Djeundje Biatat, Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh; Dr Madhavi Bajekal, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University College London; and Joseph Lu, Director of Longevity Science at Legal & General is published in the European Actuarial Journal.

Ends

 

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JOURNAL

European Actuarial Journal

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The slowdown in mortality improvement rates 2011–2017: a multi-country analysis

CityAccessMap: Addressing urban inequalities with open-source data

Disadvantaged communities have lower access to urban infrastructure

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DELFT UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: CITYACCESSMAP ROTTERDAM view more 

CREDIT: TU DELFT

CityAccessMap measures and visualises the accessibility to urban infrastructure of several cities worldwide. The tool is available to anyone who would like to see how urban infrastructure is distributed, but is especially of interest to urban planners. “With the tool we want to create awareness among policymakers and spur them to action to do something about inequalities for certain underprivileged communities”, says researcher Trivik Verma, assistant professor in urban science and policy who is involved in the development of the online tool. Together with his team, their research into accessibility and socio-economic aspects of people’s well-being shows that disadvantaged communities have lower access. It provides a framework for assessing the distribution of urban infrastructure, identifying areas where it is important to improve services.

Measuring quality of life

Today, the quality of life of urban environments is often measured in terms of accessibility: that is, the ability of urban residents to benefit from different services and opportunities. To design planning interventions for essential services being distributed in a fair and equitable manner, city planners must first assess existing levels of accessibility in their city. With the objective to drastically simplify this task, Verma and fellow researchers Leonardo Nicoletti, Mikhail Sirenko have created a new web-application ‘CityAccessMap’ that visualises urban accessibility insights for almost every city in the world (i.e., any city that is home to at least 100,000 inhabitants).

CityAccessMap

The web-app CityAccessMap uses open geographic data from OpenStreetMap and publicly available population grids of the European Commission’s Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL). “Planners can use the app to see how accessibility to different facilities is distributed across their city and its population”, says Nicoletti, the architect behind the development of CityAccessMap.

Verma: “For instance, in Rotterdam, there are so many city parts that offer lower levels of access to certain communities (see image), compared to the rest of the region. By using CityAccessMap, policymakers can get a better picture of accessibility, whether they have succeeded in improving accessibility in neighbourhoods and where more collective action towards reducing inequalities is still needed. "Looking at these insights, decision-makers can ultimately better understand how close they are to achieving better outcomes for accessibility for their communities locally or foster more collective action towards reducing inequalities.

Improving levels of accessibility for certain communities can provide them with upward social mobility and address social exclusion and inequalities in cities. “This is why it is important to understand the nature and distribution of spatial accessibility among urban communities”, stresses Verma. “And addressing spatial inequalities through data analysis should not only be feasible for well-funded metropolitan authorities like Paris or New York City, it should be possible for any planning department, no matter what their resources are”, adds Nicoletti. CityAccessMap now gives them the ability to do so. Visit the site of CityAccessMap.

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JOURNAL

Environment and Planning B Urban Analytics and City Science

DOI

10.1177/239980832211310 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Disadvantaged communities have lower access to urban infrastructure

Young people’s climate anxiety linked to action mitigating environmental change

A study compared emotions and actions evoked by climate change among young people aged 23 on average in 28 countries

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

A study compared emotions and actions evoked by climate change among young people aged 23 on average in 28 countries.

In the study Climate anxiety, pro-environmental action and wellbeing: antecedents and outcomes of negative emotional responses to climate change in 28 countries, anxiety and concern about climate change among young people was predictably high, particularly in Finland, but the researchers found that the action taken to curb and tackle climate change was strong in Finland at the same time.

A total of 28 countries took part in the study. The total number of respondents was 10,963, of whom 633 were Finns. The respondents were young adults and university students. 

Finland had almost the highest level of concern and anxiety (ranked second and third) from among the countries compared, but also the highest level of positive, pro-environmental behaviour (ranked first). 

“Action mitigates environmental change, and many of these activities also conserve energy,” says Academy of Finland Professor Katariina Salmela-Aro. 

“It’s a very positive sign especially in Finland, given current circumstances and the approaching winter.” 

Concern and anxiety motivate to act 

According to Salmela-Aro, it would appear that young people in Finland are able to channel their anxiety and concern about climate change into action to mitigate the phenomenon.

“In other words, concern and anxiety have a silver lining.”

Negative emotions associated with climate change, that is anxiety and concern, do increase mental health challenges, but if they can be channelled into action, the results can be positive.

Negative climate change anxiety and concerns are strong in Finland. At the same time, negative climate-related emotions in Finland as well as in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal have a strong connection to pro-environmental action. 

In Finland, negative emotions have a very strong connection to environmental activism. Worried young people in Finland also strive to influence other people’s attitudes in order to curb climate change. They not only act to prevent it, but also try to involve others. 

“Young people want their voice heard in Finland, and this should be taken seriously. They should have better opportunities to make a difference.” 

By contributing to environmental activism, young people also highlight the urgency of curbing climate change and the need for participation from everyone. Young people represent the future, and now the future is under threat.

Negative emotions motivate action. According to the study, engagement in proactive action was more common among women.

“This is particularly evident in Finland and other European countries. Elsewhere, the economy, lack of knowledge, or politics can present obstacles. Many people have no opportunity to act.”

Nevertheless, action does not entirely eliminate anxiety. The effect of social media or other media on climate anxiety and concern as well as action is significant. Media exposure even appears to have a positive and empowering effect. But the study did not investigate causalities. Instead, it presents a cross-section of climate anxiety among young people in different countries. 

According to Salmela-Aro, scholarly understanding of the links between climate change and wellbeing remains in its infancy. There is little information on the effects on wellbeing of climate-related emotions, particularly in the case of people living in the Global South. 

“As our dataset demonstrates, negative emotions related to the climate do have an effect in the form of a mental health challenge. This is why increasing knowledge and understanding must be a priority in advancing activities that benefit the environment and promote wellbeing.”

The countries participating in the study were the United Kingdom, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Italy, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Malesia, Nigeria, Palestine, the Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Tanzania, the United Arab Emirates and Uganda. 

Article: 

Climate anxiety, pro-environmental action and wellbeing: antecedents and outcomes of negative emotional responses to climate change in 28 countries
Ogunbode, Doran, Hanss, Ojala, Salmela-Aro et al
Journal of Environmental Psychology  DOI 10.1016/j.jenvp.2022.101887

 

---

JOURNAL

Journal of Environmental Psychology

DOI

10.1016/j.jenvp.2022.101887 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Climate anxiety, pro-environmental action and wellbeing: antecedents and outcomes of negative emotional responses to climate change in 28 countries

Strengthening cold ocean current buffers Galápagos Islands from climate change

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER

While most of the world’s oceans are warming due to climate change, a new CU Boulder study explains how the waters around the Galápagos Islands are staying cool and getting colder.

Published in PLOS Climate, the study shows that not only does a cold, eastward equatorial ocean current provide the Galápagos Islands a buffer against an otherwise warming Pacific Ocean, but this current has been getting stronger for decades. In fact, the waters off the west coast of the Galápagos have cooled by 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) since the early 1990s.

“There's a tug of war going on between our greenhouse effect causing warming from above, and the cold ocean current. Right now, the ocean current is winning—it's not just staying cool, it’s getting cooler year after year,” said Kris Karnauskas, lead author on the study, associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES).

This phenomenon is a cause for cautious optimism for the second largest marine reserve in the world, and a biodiverse island ecosystem that is home to several endangered species and designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

If corals don’t bleach and die in these waters off the western coast of Ecuador, and the marine food web doesn’t struggle like it will in nearby warming waters, flora and fauna in the Galápagos could help reseed struggling ecosystems and keep fisheries in the region functioning.

“As the Galápagos so far has been relatively unaffected by climate change, it’s worth looking at the Galápagos as a potential site to really try to put some climate change mitigation efforts into,” said Karnauskas.

But as one of the few places left in the world’s oceans that are not currently warming up, the waters off the west coast of the Galápagos are also likely in need of additional protections from overfishing as well as the pressures of increased ecotourism.

“The human pressures on this area and this mechanism that keeps it alive are at odds,” said Karnauskas. “It’s a major resource that should be protected.”

An accident of geology

The Galápagos Archipelago may seem insignificant from space, as several tiny dots in the eastern Pacific Ocean. But it’s their location—exactly on the equator—that makes them quite significant.

Because the Earth rotates on an axis, this equatorial undercurrent in the Pacific Ocean is also stuck to the equator, locked in by the force of the planet’s rotation. This current under the surface of the ocean heads quickly from west to east, its cold water rich in nutrients. When it hits the Galápagos Islands, some of this water is forced up to the surface and the chemical reaction of photosynthesis causes an explosion in food for all manner of creatures.

So while the islands are located in the tropics, this cold ocean current that collides with them creates a cooler, stable environment for coral reefs, as well as marine animals and birds who normally live much closer to the poles. The endangered Galápagos penguin, Galápagos fur seal and Galápagos sea lion all thrive on these islands, touted as a “living museum and showcase of evolution” by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention.

Published this August in Geophysical Research Letters, another paper by Karnauskas, and fellow CU Boulder atmospheric and oceanic sciences assistant professor Donata Giglio, used data from thousands of floating ocean sensors, in place since 2000, to observe and confirm that this Pacific equatorial undercurrent is responsible for the cold water that rises from below to surround and support the islands’ thriving ecosystem.

A strengthening cold current

Karnauskas used different data, when at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution a decade ago, to show how cold ocean currents might protect certain islands or coastlines from the detrimental warming effects of climate change. This new study shows that not only is that proving true for the Galápagos—but that the cold current is strengthening.

“There's clear evidence that shows all the way back to 1982 that this current has been strengthening and the cold water on the western shores of the islands has been getting colder,” said Karnauskas.

But why is this cold ocean current getting stronger?

This current, which starts near Australia, is already among the strongest in the world. Using a recently developed high-resolution ocean model, Karnauskas concluded that its continued cooling results from changes in the winds across the equator.

While this acceleration of the equatorial undercurrent is consistent with model simulations of future climate change, according to Karnauskas, it’s not yet clear if this trend can be directly attributed to human-caused climate change or if it’s the result of natural cycles.

Are the Galápagos Islands safe forever? Not quite, says Karnauskas.

El Niño (the warm phase of a recurring climate pattern across the tropical Pacific) poses a temporary threat—shutting down the cold current every couple of years, which causes penguin populations to crash. While El Niño occurs independently of the cold current, it offers a glimpse at what could happen without it.

“The worry is if in the future there are changes in this current, it could be really devastating for the ecosystem,” said Karnauskas.

And if the oceans continue to warm the way they have been, says Karnauskas, this safe haven from climate change may not stay that way.

“What the data shows very clearly is that it's hanging on so far,” said Karnauskas. “It doesn't imply that it's going to hang on forever.”

---

JOURNAL

PLOS Climate

DOI

10.1371/journal.pclm.0000056 

ARTICLE TITLE

Whither Warming in the Galápagos?

New insights into how serotonin regulates behavior

Researchers discovered unexpected mechanisms by which animals make and destroy serotonin, a chemical central to depression and eating disorders. The findings could ultimately lead to more effective treatments for a wide range of mental health disorders.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BOYCE THOMPSON INSTITUTE

 

IMAGE: BOYCE THOMPSON INSTITUTE'S FRANK SCHROEDER AND JINGFANG YU IN BTI’S CENTER FOR ADVANCED MASS SPECTROMETRY (CAMS). view more 

CREDIT: IMAGE CREDIT: BOYCE THOMPSON INSTITUTE.

Ithaca, NY - Rates of anxiety and depression have been increasing around the world for decades, a trend that has been sharply exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. New research led by the Boyce Thompson Institute’s Frank Schroeder could ultimately lead to new therapeutics to help relieve this global mental health burden.

First discovered in the 1930s, serotonin is a neurotransmitter produced in many animals that mediates myriad behaviors, such as feeding, sleep, mood and cognition. Drugs that alter serotonin levels are the main weapon to treat psychological conditions like anxiety and depression, as well as eating disorders.

As a simple model for neurobiology research, the microscopic roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans has been used extensively to study serotonin’s role in regulating behavior and food intake. For many years, researchers thought that serotonin was made in C. elegans by one specific molecular pathway, and that serotonin was then quickly degraded. Schroeder’s team and colleagues at Columbia University now demonstrated that both of those assumptions were not quite correct.

“We discovered a second, parallel biosynthetic pathway that accounts for about half of the total serotonin produced in our model system,” said Schroeder.

The findings are described in a paper published in Nature Chemical Biology on October 10.

The work began about three years ago, when the researchers unexpectedly discovered an enzyme that converts serotonin into derivative compounds.

“Most people in the field thought serotonin is made and then quickly broken down, but we found that, instead, it is used as a building block for other compounds that are responsible for some of serotonin’s activity,” explained Schroeder. “So, we decided to start at the beginning and see how serotonin is made, and once it is made then how is it converted into these new molecules.”

Jingfang Yu, a graduate student in Schroeder’s lab and first author on the paper, further showed that the new serotonin derivatives affect feeding behavior.

“When the worms lack endogenous serotonin, they tend to move quickly across the bacteria food lawn on an agar plate, and turn infrequently to explore the food,” Yu said. “We found this behavior can be alleviated by treating the worms with serotonin derivatives, suggesting these newly identified compounds contribute to effects previously attributed to serotonin.”

The worm C. elegans is an excellent model for studying serotonin because the compound’s molecular signaling pathways are highly conserved across species, including in humans. For example, the researchers showed that in C. elegans a large portion of serotonin is made in the gut, which is also the case in humans.

Schroeder said there are hints that human serotonin is converted into metabolites similar to the ones identified in C. elegans.

“This research opens up the door for many more avenues of research in humans,” said Schroeder, who is also a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in the college of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University.

“Are the analogous metabolites important in humans? What is the role of one manufacturing pathway versus the other? How are these manufacturing pathways and metabolites important for human behaviors, like mental health and feeding behaviors?” he asked.

The researchers are currently exploring how the new serotonin derivatives affect behavior in C. elegans and whether similar serotonin metabolites exist in humans.

About Boyce Thompson Institute:

Opened in 1924, Boyce Thompson Institute is a premier life sciences research institution located in Ithaca, New York. BTI scientists conduct investigations into fundamental plant and life sciences research with the goals of increasing food security, improving environmental sustainability in agriculture, and making basic discoveries that will enhance human health. Throughout this work, BTI is committed to inspiring and educating students and to providing advanced training for the next generation of scientists. BTI is an independent nonprofit research institute that is also affiliated with Cornell University. For more information, please visit BTIscience.org

Boyce Thompson Institute's Jingfang Yu examines microscopic roundworms

 while Frank Schroeder looks on.

CREDIT

Image credit: Boyce Thompson Institute.

JOURNAL

Nature Chemical Biology

DOI

10.1038/s41589-022-01148-7 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Parallel pathways for serotonin biosynthesis and metabolism in C. elegans

SERIOUSLY?!

Chief Longevity Officer of Deep Longevity proposes a life-long research plan, and pledges to dedicate the rest of his life and assets to extending productive longevity for everyone on the planet

Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, AKA Aleksandrs Zavoronkovs, announced that he made a longevity pledge. He will spend the rest of his life and the entirety of his resources on research and commercial projects to extend healthy longevity for everyone on the planet

Business Announcement

DEEP LONGEVITY LTD

 

IMAGE: ALEX ZHAVORONKOV PLEDGES TO DEDICATE THE REST OF HIS LIFE AND ASSETS TO EXTENDING PRODUCTIVE LONGEVITY FOR EVERYONE ON THE PLANET view more 

CREDIT: DEEP LONGEVITY

Tuesday, 25th of October, 2022 (11AM EST) –  Today, Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, the founder and Chief Longevity Officer of Deep Longevity, the founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, and adjunct professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, formally announced the “Longevity Pledge”. Through this pledge professor Zhavoronkov committed all of his wealth and resources as well as all of the remaining time to supporting and developing research and clinical solutions for extending healthy productive longevity for everyone on the planet.

“In my opinion, extending productive longevity for everyone on the planet is the most altruistic cause. Extending everyone’s quality life just by one year would yield roughly 8 billion quality life years not even accounting for the future generations. And, considering the current demographic situation, political climate, and the slow progress in biomedical sciences, there is no time to waste. I hope that my example will motivate the other people with similar background to not only commit their wealth but also their intellect, skills, and ingenuity to this strangely underappreciated cause. But I also want to ensure that I very clearly define the mission, long- and near-term objectives for myself as in today’s world it is easy to get distracted”, said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD.

In October 2022, during the Longevity Month, professor Zhavoronkov decided to announce that he made the “Longevity Pledge”, where he committed his entire fortune, as well as 100% of his time to be spent on projects focused on extending human productive longevity. He also explained the economics of quality-adjusted life years (QALY) in the context of the Effective Altruism philosophy and provided the rationale for extending healthy productive life for the others instead of focusing on building the family and hoarding wealth. He does not plan to leave the inheritance.

His plan is to invest the majority of his resources in companies with the potential to extend healthy productive life and can form the longevity ecosystem. These companies can grow, become sustainable, give rise to other companies, and return profits that can be reinvested in other longevity enterprises. He also outlined his non-profit priorities.

Professor Zhavoronkov outlined five major areas of his focus for the near and long-term future:

1. The development of drug discovery and development platform that can significantly derisk, accelerate, and democratize the discovery of novel therapeutics. The cost of drug discovery and development may exceed $3 Billion per one novel drug on the market. The process from disease hypothesis and target discovery to launch of the drug in the clinic usually takes 12 years and fails 99% of the time. This is a major bottleneck for any longevity project and needs to be solved. Insilico Medicine is currently at the forefront of this industry and is utilizing AI and robotics together with expert teams around the world to achieve this mission.
2. AI-powered aging clocks - AI-powered systems that can track the minute changes in the body over time using multiple data types. These systems can help identify the main drivers of aging and can be used to evaluate the efficacy of the different interventions. There is a need to measure the effectiveness of different geroprotectors.
3. Personalized Drug Discovery - relates to point #1. It may be possible to develop fully-automated systems not only to prioritize the existing drugs for individual patients but also discover novel therapeutics and therapeutic combinations for individual patients. Starting from diseases and expanding into aging.
4. Novel approaches in cryobiology and biostasis. Recent advances in rapid reheating, the use of novel gas chemistry combinations using AI and isochoric cryopreservation are likely to allow us to rapidly freeze and unfreeze organs, and possibly entire bodies to enable long-term storage, transport, and even time travel into the future for the terminally-ill or irreparably frail. These technologies are likely to result in the creation of new industries in the future.
5. AI and Robotics-driven Hospitals - this project combines all four areas under one research and clinical infrastructure enabling rapid therapeutic discovery and repair. The creation of an AI- and Robotics- driven preventative and regenerative research hospital in a secure environment and with a community of dedicated scientists is professor Zhavoronkov’s grand goal.

 

About Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD

Professor Zhavoronkov is Latvian and Canadian. He did his two bachelor degrees at Queen’s University in Canada, worked in the telecommunications and graphics processing unit (GPU) semiconductor industry (GPUs are used to train deep neural networks), but in 2004, he firmly decided to dedicate the rest of his life to aging research and longevity biotechnology. He did his masters at the Johns Hopkins University, his PhD in biophysics at MSU, worked at a number of labs and ran the bioinformatics and regenerative medicine laboratories at one of the largest pediatric hematology, oncology, and immunology research centers. He also worked at and consulted a number of biotechnology, brain-computer interface companies, and charitable foundations. In 2014, he founded Insilico Medicine, one of the first and largest AI-powered clinical-stage biotechnology company with end-to-end drug discovery capabilities. At Insilico he raised over $415 million, developed 8 preclinical candidates, and took the aging research- and AI-discovered and AI-designed antifibrotic drug into human clinical trials. He also founded Deep Longevity, which is now part of a publicly-traded Endurance Longevity, a company specializing in aging biomarkers, and published the first aging clocks using deep learning. In 2013, he founded Aging Research for Drug Discovery (ARDD) conference in Basel, Switzerland, which moved to the University of Copenhagen in 2019. Today it is the largest industry conference in longevity biotechnology. Since 2012 he published over 160 peer-reviewed articles including in Nature, Science, PNAS, and many other top journals. He also wrote a book called “The Ageless Generation” published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013 which was sold in most of the largest bookstore chains including Barnes and Noble and Chapters. In this book he explained the pressing need to accelerate aging research to revive the global economy and avoid economic collapse in the developed countries. Since 2018, he contributes to Forbes.com and publishes 1-5 articles every month covering AI and longevity.

 

Learn more about the Longevity Pledge at  www.LongevityPledge.org, 

Cosmos Without Gravitation; 

Attraction, repulsion, and electromagnetic circumduction in the solar system, 

by Immanuel Velikovsky
Publication date 1946

“The fundamental theory of this paper is: Gravitation is an electromagnetic phenomenon. There is no primary motion inherent in planets and satellites. Electric attraction, repulsion, and electromagnetic circumduction govern their movements. The moon does not “fall,” attracted to the earth from an assumed inertial motion along a straight line, nor is the phenomenon of objects falling in the terrestrial atmosphere comparable with the “falling effect” in the movement of the moon, a conjecture which is the basic element of the Newtonian theory of gravitation.”

CATASTROPHISM

Ancient Destructions explained - Immanuel Velikovsky and the Electric Universe

Last Updated on Wed, 05 Oct 2022 | Ancient History

 Climate Policy Watcher
Alternative Energy (current)

Let me introduce you to Immanuel Velikovsky a man who caused incredible controversy in his time. In the 1950’s he wrote a book called “Worlds in Collision”, which had as its main theme the cataclysmic destruction on Earth by planets and comets in the Solar System. He believed mythology and legend should be interpreted literally.

This included the malignant forces attributed to Baal/Jupiter, father of the gods. He earned the wrath of the scientific world. Yet most of his Predictions made in 1960 were absolutely proved by NASA. Jupiter did emanate radio waves and was an electromagnetic body. The surface of Venus was 800 degrees centigrade not the same as Earth. He was right. Conventional science was badly wrong. He claimed the solar system is unstable. Both the Moon and Mars have been ravaged by celestial bodies. Part of his theory was that Venus was once a comet expelled from Jupiter.

Immanuel Velikovsky sought proof of the unstable solar system from many sources. Mythology had bones of truth! Hesiod the ancient Greek philosopher portrayed this in his ancient book ‘Theogeny’ where, for instance, he sites Venus being ejected from Jupiter. Homer in his book the ‘Iliad’ describes the destructive war between the planets as the major factor governing the destruction of Troy in the Trojan wars. Immanuel Velikovsky in Worlds in Collision proposed that many myths and traditions of ancient peoples and cultures are based on actual events: worldwide global catastrophes of a celestial origin actually had profound effects on the lives, beliefs and writings of early mankind.



Professor Emilio Spendicato recently commented:
“Worlds in Collision is a book of wars in the celestial sphere that took place in historical times. In these wars the planet earth participated too. The historical-cosmological story of this book is based on the evidence of historical texts of many people around the globe, on classical literature, on epics of the northern races, on sacred books of the peoples of the Orient and Occident, on traditions and folklore of primitive peoples, on old astronomical inscriptions and charts, on archaeological finds, and also on geological and paleontological material.”

After reaching the number 1 spot in the best-sellers list, Velikovsky’s Worlds in Collision was banned from a number of academic institutions, and created an unprecedented scientific debacle that became known as The Velikovsky Affair. In 1956 Velikovsky wrote a sequel “Earth in Upheaval” to present conclusive geological evidence of terrestrial catastrophism.

“I have excluded from [these pages] all references to ancient literature, traditions, and folklore; and this I have done with intent, so that careless critics cannot decry the entire work as “tales and legends”. Stones and bones are the only witness.”

However for forty years these highly controversial theories remained an anathema to the academic world. Then in June 1994 an event occurred that radically changed scientific thought and gave credibility to Velikovsky’s theories. Myth and legend, once dismissed, had to be re-examined. What was this catastrophic event?

In June 1994 a rogue comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 approached Jupiter. Observers on Earth soon realized that it was on a collision course. But what happened next was totally unexpected. Without warning it split into twenty three large pieces. Then one by one these pieces plummeted into Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. It tore huge craters into this massive planet; the size of each crater was four times the size of earth these craters persisted for months afterwards on the unstable surface of Jupiter. Simultaneously a gaseous cloud was released that went on to envelope the surface of the planet. This toxic cloud persisted for months.

For the first time modern man had witnessed a comet collide with a planet! What was thought to be stable solar system, was now a place where the unexpected could happen. Could this have occurred on Earth? Had mankind actually witnessed such an event? Could it happen to Earth in the future? No one could now deny any of these possibilities. Perhaps Baal, alias Jupiter, does have an effect on Earth. The proof is not final, but no longer is it a wild heretical theory based on fantasy. Velikovsky could be taken seriously.

Earth In Upheaval Velikovsky : Immanuel Velikovsky : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Worlds in Collision : Immanuel Velikovsky : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive