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Calico (an ALPHABET company)

calico google aging cynthia kenyon longevity bill maris

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#91 Link

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Posted 05 September 2014 - 04:36 AM

I think you could definitely make a case that cancer is more complex than at least some of the more straight forward causes of aging like loss of stem cells, tissue stiffening due to protein crosslinks etc.

 

I think part of the problem with Alzheimers is the way in which we look to treat it, after the patient is already exhibiting outward symptoms. It's like waiting until your car is on the side of the road with flames coming out of it before you call a mechanic.

 

I read an article recently where they were talking about a new drug or therapy to break up amyloid plaques in the brain and found that it didn't improve symptoms as much as they had hoped. I suspect that by the time the amyloid plaques are causing you to forget things the damage to the brain has already been done and starting to remove the plaques is not helpful at that point, you need to prevent them occurring in the first place through regular maintenance, when people are in their 40s and 50s. Unfortunately, modern medicine is not done this way.


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#92 IDoNotWantToDie

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Posted 13 September 2014 - 03:56 AM

Obviously this is good news but people should know that Dr. de Grey is not completely overjoyed as the OP stated. In another interview he stated Google Calico is right down the street from the SENS Foundation and Calico hasn't even spoken to him yet or asked for his help despite being the one that gave Google Calico the idea in the first place. Dr. Aubrey de Grey started this all and Google Calico which is two blocks away won't even give him the time of day and acknowledge his existence , wtf? That pisses me off. Furthermore Dr. Grey stated there was another powerful and rich organization like Google just 10 years before that had the same idea of doing a life extension program but it just fizzled out over time and Dr. Grey was concerned it might happen again with Calico. So is Calico just a publicity stunt?

#93 tunt01

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Posted 13 September 2014 - 04:49 AM

Obviously this is good news but people should know that Dr. de Grey is not completely overjoyed as the OP stated. In another interview he stated Google Calico is right down the street from the SENS Foundation and Calico hasn't even spoken to him yet or asked for his help despite being the one that gave Google Calico the idea in the first place. Dr. Aubrey de Grey started this all and Google Calico which is two blocks away won't even give him the time of day and acknowledge his existence , wtf? That pisses me off. 

 

This is really ridiculous.  It's not their job to open up their IP strategy to de Grey.  He is not responsible for Google's resources.  De Grey doesn't have a monopoly on scientific talent in gerontology and the science aging.  Sounds like a lot of childish envy to me.

 

 

Furthermore Dr. Grey stated there was another powerful and rich organization like Google just 10 years before that had the same idea of doing a life extension program but it just fizzled out over time and Dr. Grey was concerned it might happen again with Calico. So is Calico just a publicity stunt?

 

I doubt that very much.  Name the organization.  Google has a market value of $400 B USD.  Google has $60 B USD right now in cash and cash equivalents.  Where are they going exactly?  Did people stop using Google's website, services and products?  SENS annual budget is $5 M.  I would bet that Google's Calico instantly has a larger annual budget.  Calling it a publicity stunt, given the commitment of the individuals involved (Kenyon, etc.) seems a little absurd to me.

 

Sounds like a lot of blathering F.U.D. to me.



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#94 IDoNotWantToDie

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Posted 13 September 2014 - 08:01 AM

prophets : I think he said it was Larry Ellison of Oracle tried the same thing. If anyone has a monopoly on biomedical gerontology Dr. Grey is the closest I know of. Can you name any better? I'd like to know. Even if he's not the genius I believe he is I believe he is important enough that Calico could give him a call and hire him if that much money is involved.

Edited by IDoNotWantToDie, 13 September 2014 - 08:04 AM.

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#95 albedo

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Posted 13 September 2014 - 08:54 AM

...In another interview he stated Google Calico is right down the street from the SENS Foundation and Calico hasn't even spoken to him yet or asked for his help despite being the one that gave Google Calico the idea in the first place. Dr. Aubrey de Grey started this all and Google Calico which is two blocks away won't even give him the time of day and acknowledge his existence...

 

We do not know exactly. I remain optimistic when he says with a small smile this might change (listen to min 59:22 on of the video). This community might also help toward the objective.

 



#96 tunt01

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Posted 13 September 2014 - 09:20 AM

If anyone has a monopoly on biomedical gerontology Dr. Grey is the closest I know of. Can you name any better? I'd like to know. 

 

No one has a monopoly on biomedical gerontology.  There are labs all over this planet addressing with various focus and different approaches.  Are really sitting here telling everyone that somehow all the tens of billions of dollars invested in medical research over the decades that has blossomed into gerontology and the study of aging is somehow in de Grey's left pocket?  What kind of nonsense is that.

 

 

Even if he's not the genius I believe he is I believe he is important enough that Calico could give him a call and hire him if that much money is involved.

 

 

This isn't how companies are run.  The company has a new division.  They hire leadership to execute a strategy for that division.  It is up to the leaders of that division to hire and fire people.  If they run the division poorly, they should fire leadership.  If there are things to collaborate on with SENS, I'm sure they will probably call him at some point.

 

Frankly, I don't understand how you pass judgment on a group of individuals and the way they run their business, before they even do anything besides put up a website.


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#97 IDoNotWantToDie

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Posted 13 September 2014 - 09:51 AM

albedo : Thank you. That's great :-) prophets : are you a businessman or a scientist by the way? In any case Its clear your intelligent but there is no need to get snippy. I was half-joking when I stated Dr. Grey has a monopoly of biogerontology of course :-p I'm merely a student here to learn from people like yourself here on this forum.

#98 tunt01

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Posted 13 September 2014 - 11:09 AM

albedo : Thank you. That's great :-) prophets : are you a businessman or a scientist by the way? In any case Its clear your intelligent but there is no need to get snippy. I was half-joking when I stated Dr. Grey has a monopoly of biogerontology of course :-p I'm merely a student here to learn from people like yourself here on this forum.

 

Not trying to be snippy, but put yourself in the shoes of the people hired to run this business unit.  Cynthia Kenyon has been studying this area for 30+ years with a PhD from MIT.  I don't think she wakes up in the morning saying, "I've got to call De Grey so he can tell me what I should be doing."

 

I'm more on the business side, I guess.  I worked on Wall St. for 7 years.  Did venture capital for a while.  I'm an amateur biology/health enthusiast.  I come at this area mostly from my statistics background which is useful in financial data and somewhat applicable to scientific/medical data.

 

Wish you well.


Edited by prophets, 13 September 2014 - 11:10 AM.

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#99 albedo

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Posted 13 September 2014 - 12:55 PM

Monopoly is a concept foreign to science. I have seen numberless times real progress happening when cross disciplinarity and thinking outside the box occur and of course funding is matching. I see SENS and Calico approaches, the latter to be understood, no exception to this. I only wish SENS succeeding in gathering more funding which so far is incomparable. There is also the distinction to be made as Calico has been incepted as a business initiative. This is an aspect also Aubrey looks in favor to when you see, for example, a focus on the next RB2014 conference is also on industry. Again, I remain optimistic.



#100 follies

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Posted 13 September 2014 - 02:32 PM

Calico will be instrumental in curing aging in the next 30 years. It is a big data problem and Google knows how to solve big data problems. It will be solved by Watson like programs which simulate biological and chemical systems.
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#101 niner

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Posted 14 September 2014 - 01:31 AM

Calico will be instrumental in curing aging in the next 30 years. It is a big data problem and Google knows how to solve big data problems. It will be solved by Watson like programs which simulate biological and chemical systems.


I don't agree. It's not a big data problem- Where's the data? It's a high complexity biochemical/engineering problem where a lot of experimentation and development needs to be done. The various *-omics disciplines are capable of generating moderately large datasets, but nothing outside the capability of modern PCs or servers. I don't see Watson doing simulations, but systems like that could be put to use scouring the world's scientific literature and finding holes in existing knowledge, making connections that might easily be missed, etc.

#102 niner

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Posted 14 September 2014 - 01:42 AM

Check this out: Calico intersects with the NAD+ story:
source

DALLAS, Texas, and SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Sept. 11, 2014 – UT Southwestern Medical Center, 2M Companies, and Calico today announce a new collaboration to advance research and drug development for neurodegenerative disorders caused by the aging and death of nerve cells.

This week, UT Southwestern researchers published a new paper about the molecular target of P7C3 compounds, a class that has been shown to help in various animal models of neurodegeneration. UT Southwestern previously licensed the P7C3 compounds to Dallas-based 2M Companies. 2M and Calico have now entered into a new license agreement under which Calico will take responsibility for developing and commercializing the compounds resulting from the research program. Under the agreement, Calico will fund research laboratories in the Dallas area and elsewhere to support the program.

The P7C3 Program and Today’s Cell Paper

Death of nerve cells is the key mechanism in many devastating neurological diseases for which there are currently inadequate treatment options. UT Southwestern researchers Dr. Steven McKnight, Chairman of Biochemistry, Dr. Joseph Ready, Professor of Biochemistry, and Dr. Andrew Pieper, a former UT Southwestern faculty member who is now Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, have collaborated since 2007 to find novel drugs that promote the growth of new nerve cells in the brain, a process known as “neurogenesis.”

The P7C3 compounds discovered by the team have previously been shown to be effective in animal models of age-related neurocognitive impairment, Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and depression. New research published today in the journal Cell shows that these drugs activate a cellular enzyme involved in energy metabolism, known as NAMPT (short for nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase), which is critical to the proper functioning and survival of cells. A separate study published today in Cell Reports shows that the P7C3 compounds protect against brain dysfunction when given to rodents following traumatic injury.

More...

 
 


The Cell paper:
 

Cell. 2014 Sep 11;158(6):1324-1334. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2014.07.040.
P7C3 Neuroprotective Chemicals Function by Activating the Rate-Limiting Enzyme in NAD Salvage.
Wang G, Han T, Nijhawan D, Theodoropoulos P, Naidoo J, Yadavalli S, Mirzaei H, Pieper AA, Ready JM, McKnight SL.

The P7C3 class of aminopropyl carbazole chemicals fosters the survival of neurons in a variety of rodent models of neurodegeneration or nerve cell injury. To uncover its mechanism of action, an active derivative of P7C3 was modified to contain both a benzophenone for photocrosslinking and an alkyne for CLICK chemistry. This derivative was found to bind nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT), the rate-limiting enzyme involved in the conversion of nicotinamide into nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). Administration of active P7C3 chemicals to cells treated with doxorubicin, which induces NAD depletion, led to a rebound in intracellular levels of NAD and concomitant protection from doxorubicin-mediated toxicity. Active P7C3 variants likewise enhanced the activity of the purified NAMPT enzyme, providing further evidence that they act by increasing NAD levels through its NAMPT-mediated salvage.

PMID: 25215490



#103 IDoNotWantToDie

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Posted 14 September 2014 - 06:21 AM

Prophets : thank you :-) . Impressive background by the way.

Monopoly is a concept foreign to science. I have seen numberless times real progress happening when cross disciplinarity and thinking outside the box occur and of course funding is matching. I see SENS and Calico approaches, the latter to be understood, no exception to this. I only wish SENS succeeding in gathering more funding which so far is incomparable. There is also the distinction to be made as Calico has been incepted as a business initiative. This is an aspect also Aubrey looks in favor to when you see, for example, a focus on the next RB2014 conference is also on industry. Again, I remain optimistic.


Just wanted to say I agree. I remain optimistic as well.
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#104 APBT

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Posted 27 September 2014 - 06:08 PM

http://www.sfgate.co...for-5783521.php?

 

Calico exec: Find cause before cure for age-related disorders

 

A top executive at Google’s antiaging biotechnology company said this week that scientists must

identify and understand the underlying biology of age-related diseases like Alzheimer’s before

finding a cure.

A year after Google formed Calico in South San Francisco, Dr. Hal Barron, the company’s

president of research and development and a former high-ranking executive at Roche and

Genentech, made a rare appearance on a panel at a Palo Alto conference about antiaging research

on Thursday.

Speaking to a group of scientists, life science executives and investors, Barron said researchers

must focus on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of a disease before developing possible

treatments, a hint at Calico’s overall approach to fighting age-related disorders. The company has

so far revealed little about its plans.

While doctors have traditionally focused on treating symptoms, “it behooves us to really spend a

lot of time trying to understand the biology of human disease,” said the clinician-scientist, who left

his position as chief medical officer and head of global product development of Roche to join

Calico under the leadership of former Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson.

 

Aging is the result of not one cause but rather an interlocking series of factors, Barron said. So

scientists must design strategies to reflect that complexity, he said.

In the United States, cases of Alzheimer’s alone are expected to nearly triple by 2050, to about 14

million from 5 million. Several biopharmaceutical companies have seen promising treatments for

neurodegenerative conditions flop in recent late-stage clinical trials.

“It seems unlikely that Alzheimer’s is really one disease, one path or physiological process,” Barron

said. “It’s possible, but there may be five or six or 10 different ways people can have that end game.

And if they want us to develop a drug for that and treat them all the same, you can do a model, but

the trial will be negative.”

The panel was held at Merck Research Labs and hosted by Johnson & Johnson Innovation,

Janssen Labs and Nature Publishing Group, which publishes academic journals in science

and medicine.

Under an exclusive worldwide license announced this month, Calico plans to develop and license

compounds that have been shown to ward off memory loss in animal models of Alzheimer’s.

The compounds, developed by University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center researchers, have

also demonstrated potential in animal studies for Parkinson’s disease, ALS and depression. The

most recent studies suggest the compounds help activate a cellular process that is critical to a cell’s

functions and survival and also protect against brain dysfunction in rodents with

traumatic injuries.

Calico has said it will fund labs in Dallas to perform the research. This month it also entered a

potential $1.5 billion deal with pharmaceutical giant AbbVie to build a Bay Area research facility

where scientists will try to develop therapies.

Scientists already know certain biological factors can determine how quickly a person ages, Barron

said. For example, people with a high blood glucose level after fasting tend to age faster. The same

goes for people who, while exercising at maximum capacity, consume less oxygen than the

average person.

“There’s a lot of different things that we could measure, we could know today about people who are

probably aging faster, but to try to understand the biology behind that is actually the hard part,”Barron said.

An audience member asked Barron if he knew of “any molecules, small or large, that would be

suitable for pharmaceutical development” in aging — akin to how Genentech made its legacy in

biotech history by cloning human insulin and growth hormone in the 1970s and ’80s.

Unfortunately, Barron said, there is no magic bullet for treating age-related diseases.

“It’s not like the heyday of biotech, when there was all of a sudden a brand-new technology that

unleashed a massive unmet need that was being replaced or being met,” Barron said.



#105 Kalliste

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Posted 27 September 2014 - 07:30 PM

That was depressing to read. They will waste money on infinite research.
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#106 ceridwen

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Posted 29 September 2014 - 12:28 AM

Research has to be done and so far money has been wasted looking in the wrong place. Compounds will be developed and marketed. Good news for future sufferes


Good news for future sufferers



#107 niner

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Posted 29 September 2014 - 04:13 AM

Speaking to a group of scientists, life science executives and investors, Barron said researchers

must focus on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of a disease before developing possible

treatments

 

This is exactly what conventional pharmas do today, and have been doing for decades.



#108 Kalliste

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Posted 29 September 2014 - 05:35 AM

Research has to be done and so far money has been wasted looking in the wrong place. Compounds will be developed and marketed. Good news for future sufferes

Good news for future sufferers


Good news for those born in 2114 perhaps.

#109 mpe

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Posted 29 September 2014 - 05:48 AM

Don't expect great things if they follow the big pharma model


Edited by mpe, 29 September 2014 - 05:50 AM.


#110 Invariant

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Posted 05 October 2014 - 06:22 PM

I think the pessimism about Calico's approach is due to a gross underestimation of the complexity of biology. To make any kind of progress at all, you need to set realistic goals. The people on the board of Calico know what it means to successfully complete a biomedical research project. They know that even the sort of research deemed "boring" on this board, will involve many setback, unforeseen difficulties, and often, outright failure. De Grey is a clever guy with interesting ideas, but what he has laid down is 1) not precise enough to serve as a roadmap for actual research (it is a popular science book), 2) is not guaranteed to lead to success (the more far out the idea, the greater the risk of failure will tend to be), and 3) is not really all that different from research that is being done elsewhere (in small incremental steps, as it must be).



#111 niner

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Posted 05 October 2014 - 11:58 PM

I think the pessimism about Calico's approach is due to a gross underestimation of the complexity of biology. To make any kind of progress at all, you need to set realistic goals. The people on the board of Calico know what it means to successfully complete a biomedical research project. They know that even the sort of research deemed "boring" on this board, will involve many setback, unforeseen difficulties, and often, outright failure. De Grey is a clever guy with interesting ideas, but what he has laid down is 1) not precise enough to serve as a roadmap for actual research (it is a popular science book), 2) is not guaranteed to lead to success (the more far out the idea, the greater the risk of failure will tend to be), and 3) is not really all that different from research that is being done elsewhere (in small incremental steps, as it must be).

 

I don't agree.  I think that we have a pretty good understanding of the complexity of biology, and that is why we're dismayed that Calico seems to be following the most high-complexity, lowest yield road.  So far it looks like they are trying to beat back the consequences of aging rather than truly zeroing in on the causes of aging.  I think the work being done by the SRF is quite different from the vast majority of biomedical research.  There really are not a lot of people doing what they do, and in fact SRF is funding some work in outside labs (for example, building a research infrastructure aimed at the ultimate development of AGE breakers), as a way of obtaining needed expertise and focusing the field.

 

I don't consider Calico a "negative".  They will undoubtedly do something useful, perhaps very much so, and their mere existence changes the sociological landscape of anti-aging research.


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#112 albedo

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Posted 07 October 2014 - 02:35 PM

Fully agree with Niner and feel positive on both Calico and SRF. I only regret the SRF low funding level. I guess this is going to change when more and more people realize the necessity to have also that angle of attack to the problem and more results are published.



#113 cylon

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Posted 13 March 2015 - 12:37 AM

In the April 2015 issue of Bloomberg Markets

 

http://www.bloomberg...f-living-to-500



#114 albedo

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Posted 05 May 2015 - 09:12 AM

Calico Life Sciences Partners with the Buck Institute for Research on Aging

https://www.fightagi...ch-on-aging.php



#115 albedo

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Posted 07 January 2016 - 08:54 AM

A bit more recent info in case you missed it:

 

What’s He Building in There? The Stealth Attempt to Defeat Aging at Google’s Calico.

http://recode.net/20...googles-calico/



#116 reason

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Posted 15 December 2016 - 02:46 PM

Google founded the California Life Company, or Calico Labs, to work on aging, and has put a large amount of money into this project. It is all comparatively secretive, but so far the evidence suggests that this will, sadly, turn out much the same way as the Ellison Medical Foundation, which is to say (a) work on extending the map of all cellular biochemistry relevant to the progression of aging at the most detailed level coupled to (b) attempts to slightly slow aging via pharmaceuticals. The project is headed by someone who has little interest in translational research, the business of bringing therapies to market, and those involved - for the most part - are not people with a track record of paying attention to the SENS program of repairing damage to produce rejuvenation. The SENS research agenda is to my eyes the only viable way forward to produce meaningful extension of healthy life any time soon, and certainly the only way to help older people by turning back aging at later stages. It is also far closer to realization and far less expensive to develop than efforts to safely alter human metabolism to slow the rate at which damage is done. The field of aging research has all too little funding in comparison to its potential, but it doesn't suffer from a lack of fundamental research anywhere near as much as it suffers from a lack of taking what is already well known about the forms of cell and tissue damage that cause aging in order to build therapies here and now.

David Botstein is Calico's chief scientific officer. He is 74, with a grizzled shadow of beard reaching up from his collar. In November, I found him at a lecture hall at MIT, where he offered a rare window onto experiments under way at Calico. Botstein, a well-known Princeton geneticist whom Calico recruited out of near retirement, was in town to celebrate the birthday of a successful former student, now a sexagenarian. "The pleasure is coming to see old friends. The not-so-­pleasure is if these guys are 60, what am I?" In his lecture, Botstein described several technologies - four, in fact - that Calico has for isolating old yeast cells from the daughter cells that bud off them. These old cells are tracked and subjected to a comprehensive analysis of which genes are turned up or turned down, a technique that is Botstein's specialty. Botstein told me Calico is exactly what Google intended: a Bell Labs working on fundamental questions, with the best people, the best technology, and the most money. "Instead of ideas chasing the money, they have given us a very handsome sum of money and want us to do something about the fact that we know so little about aging. It's a hard problem; it's an unmet need; it is exactly what Larry Page thinks it is. It's something to which no one is really in a position to pay enough attention, until maybe us."

Botstein says no one is going to live forever - that would be perpetual motion which defies the laws of thermodynamics. But he says ­Cynthia Kenyon's experiments on worms are a "perfectly good" example of the life span's malleability. So is the fact that rats fed near-starvation diets can live as much as 45 percent longer. The studies Botstein described in yeast cells concerned a fundamental trade-off that cells make. In good times, with lots of food, they grow fast. Under stresses like heat, starvation, or aging, they hunker down to survive, grow slowly, and often live longer than normal. "Shields down or shields up," as ­Botstein puts it. Such trade-offs are handled through biochemical pathways that respond to nutrients; one is called TOR, and another involves insulin. These pathways have already been well explored by other scientists, but Calico is revisiting them using the newest technology. "A lot of our effort is in trying to verify or falsify some of the theories," Botstein says, adding that he thinks much of the science on aging so far is best consumed "with a dose of sodium chloride." Some molecules touted as youth elixirs that can act through such pathways - like resveratrol, a compound in red wine - never lived up to their early hype.

According to Botstein, aging research is still seeking a truly big insight. Imagine, he says, doctors fighting infections without knowing what a virus is. Or think back to cancer research in the 1960s. There were plenty of theories then. But it was the discovery of oncogenes - specific genes able to turn cells cancerous-that provided scientists with their first real understanding of what causes tumors. "What we are looking for, I think above everything else, is to be able to contribute to a transformation like that. We'd like to find ways for people to have a longer and healthier life. But by how much, and how - well, I don't know." Botstein says a "best case" scenario is that Calico will have something profound to offer the world in 10 years. That time line explains why the company declines media interviews. "There will be nothing to say for a very long time, except for some incremental scientific things. That is the problem."

To some, Calico's heavy bet on basic biology is a wrong turn. The company is "my biggest disappointment right now," says Aubrey de Grey, an influential proponent of attempts to intervene in the aging process and chief science officer of the SENS Research Foundation, a charity an hour's drive from Calico that promotes rejuvenation technology. It is being driven, he complains, "by the assumption that we still do not understand aging well enough to have a chance to develop therapies." Indeed, some competitors are far more aggressive in pursuing interventions than Calico is. "They are very committed to these fundamental mechanisms, and bless them for doing that. But we are committed to putting drugs into the clinic and we might do it first," says Nathaniel David, president and cofounder of Unity Biotechnology. This year, investors put $127 million behind Unity, a startup in San Francisco that's developing drugs to zap older, "senescent" cells that have stopped dividing. These cells are suspected of releasing cocktails of unhelpful old-age signals, and by killing them, Unity's drugs could act to rejuvenate tissues. The company plans to start with a modestly ambitious test in arthritic knees. De Grey's SENS Foundation, for its part, has funded Oisin Biotechnologies, a startup aiming to rid bodies of senescent cells using gene therapy.

Link: https://www.technolo...life-span-trip/


View the full article at FightAging
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#117 niner

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Posted 15 December 2016 - 09:34 PM

 

Botstein says no one is going to live forever - that would be perpetual motion which defies the laws of thermodynamics.

 

smh.  What a tragic waste of resources.


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#118 Antonio2014

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Posted 15 December 2016 - 10:56 PM

The same old, stupid argument about thermodynamics. Why do people keep repeating it? Living beings aren't closed systems!


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#119 sthira

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Posted 16 December 2016 - 01:27 AM

David Botstein is Calico's chief scientific officer. He is 74, with a grizzled shadow of beard reaching up from his collar.



Isn't it odd that a 74 year old chief scientist at one of the richest companies in the world involved in a "moonshot" and given "a handsome sum of money" is still so worried about aging yeast cells? With all that money and all that talent around him, why isn't he worried about his own aging body, and the aging bodies of his now 60 years old aging students, and the aging bodies of humans?



Botstein says no one is going to live forever - that would be perpetual motion which defies the laws of thermodynamics. But he says ­Cynthia Kenyon's experiments on worms are a "perfectly good" example of the life span's malleability.


Wait, am I to understand that Cynthia Kenyon is still working on worms twenty years later? Do we need more worm data about FOXO?



So is the fact that rats fed near-starvation diets can live as much as 45 percent longer. The studies Botstein described in yeast cells concerned a fundamental trade-off that cells make. In good times, with lots of food, they grow fast. Under stresses like heat, starvation, or aging, they hunker down to survive, grow slowly, and often live longer than normal. "Shields down or shields up," as ­Botstein puts it.


So why not study CR and fasting in humans rather than in yeast, worms, mice, and macaques? What, not enough money? Not enough human patients?



Some molecules touted as youth elixirs that can act through such pathways - like resveratrol, a compound in red wine - never lived up to their early hype.


Yeah, like duh: no vitamin pill like resveratrol or astragalus or NR or any whatever commodity magical silver bullet is ever going to eradicate aging. Move on, lost rich people.



To some, Calico's heavy bet on basic biology is a wrong turn. The company is "my biggest disappointment right now," says Aubrey de Grey, an influential proponent of attempts to intervene in the aging process and chief science officer of the SENS Research Foundation, a charity an hour's drive from Calico that promotes rejuvenation technology. It is being driven, he complains, "by the assumption that we still do not understand aging well enough to have a chance to develop therapies."


Why are they not helping fund SENS? Is this ego or pride or ideology or do they dislike Aubrey deGrey's beard? One day, many moons later, after they've spent so much time and so many billions someone will explain.
  • Good Point x 4

#120 alc

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Posted 18 December 2016 - 02:19 AM

Nothing "special" here.

Calico has access to a lot of data in this field (thanks to Google's search engine that dominates the net).

Data that they analyze doesn't support sens's approach (as sciences moves on, no surprise here either).

Calico uses AI (just read about Daphne Koller) and their results point to systemic rejuvenation solutions not the old school like sens's approach (post factum a-la sweeper and broom type) of clearing damage.

Therefore, they have no interest in sens.

Keep in mind that if sens/fa/or any zealot here and there, keep repeating same thing that "sens is the only right one and the others are wrong", that doesn't mean a thing.

Things are clear when we have results like for example from the recent study done by Izpisua's Lab @ Salk.

http://belmonte.salk.edu/inthenews.php

Other than results from studies, words said here and there are just opinions.


Edited by alc, 18 December 2016 - 02:19 AM.

  • Ill informed x 2
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Also tagged with one or more of these keywords: calico, google, aging, cynthia kenyon, longevity, bill maris

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