Tyrone Genade

Hello, You right that in the 60's there were about 200 animals and then they were down to about 67 in the 70s and are now back to 85 animals. Do you have more data points to help determine if there is an upward trend in numbers or has the population plateaued? Is there lifespan data, especially reproductive lifespan? Is there any correlation between their population growth and those of other whale species (which they also predate). I am curious to learn what other hypotheses there are for their decline/lack of population growth and how you plan on discerning which hypotheses to invalidate.

For those you following this project, we have done quite a lot for the dietary experiments in the mean time but need to run the data through proper channels before making anything public. (Running data by old Profs so they can ask difficult questions is important for error checking.) We are also still working hard on other aspects in preparation for nutraceutical experiments optimizing the antibodies. Some blots will be posted one of these days...

Hi Ray, there is another lab, in Belgium, that is looking into this question. It is a very good one. We have been very careful to keep the eggs of the different experimental groups separate for this very reason. Sadly, I don't have the space to run so many experiments so I have only continues with the eggs of the control group. Thanks

Fantastic, but complicating news! I have been gifted the GA5 and actin antibodies out of Biology Department funds as I said I would also be using the antibodies in my neurodegeneration/regeneration course. (There had been some uncertainty about this as the cost is a significant chunk of the teaching budget but money was found in a department/dean meeting last week and I was informed yesterday afternoon.) This means that I am, $445 past my immediate goal (ironically, I just posted on Facebook that I only needed another $445 to reach our goal). I am going to ask Rebecca to rest the goal to the lower value of $810 for the chemical reagents. The extra money will be put towards the alpha-synuclein antibody as I know there are differences between young and old fish in this protein. I would REALLY love to get the SMI311 and tau antibodies as well. That would be $1200 on top of the $810 = $2010. This would be an extra $755 to raise on top of the current amount pledged. Thanks a lot for your support. I wouldn't be in this good position were it not for your support.

There is growing evidence that B vitamins are playing some role but it is unclear if it is due to a shortage causing the condition, or that an increase in B vitamins slows the progression. It is an interesting field. Carnosine also seems to be important. There are studies showing that carnosine (delivered by instant chicken soup) improved mental performance and increased the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor---which is neuroprotective. Of course, too much carnosine is toxic...

That is an excellent question! Whether or not the effects are additive or not I don't know. I am planning a CR + supplement experiment to find out if this is the case. I will probably do the experiment with resveratrol and X. This is the more interesting experiment to do. We know that if we increase the dose of resveratrol the organisms live longer; and there is lots of evidence that the polyphenols have their effect via the same cellular mechanisms so I would expect resveratrol + X to be as effective as 2x resveratrol. Whether this is the case, I don't know... but the wonderful thing is that we can do the experiment and find out. So far, we think that resveratrol is improving cellular defense and switching from cell death to cell life programs (the exact mechanism isn't known but is hotly contested). X is reported to improve stem cell turnover as well as mitchondrial metabolism. The other compound, Y, is reported to boost the immune system. So, there are lots of interesting experiments to perform. I am really interested in X because of the stem cell effects. It isn't enough to slow the degeneration of cell, we need to boost regeneration as well. A paper that is often ignored is this one: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19288225 which indicates that resveratrol may kill neurons to improve overall brain function. Well, obviously, that isn't a solution to the problems of aging unless we can boost stem cell proliferation to produce new neurons. We know that our brains do try regenerate after injury (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25128862) but then get stuck. The experiments with X show that it does improve regeneration.

Hello Carl, you are quite right! If I try to publish and refuse to name the compounds that manuscript is going to be rejected. My issue right now is that I don't know if it really works or not. I can say that we know that both compounds work in C. elegans but that isn't published work yet and I don't want to scoop my collaborators (that's just rude). So, I'm holding back until I have enough data that I feel comfortable that I know the compounds do or do not work (which is good science) as well as until my collaborators publish their work (which is being polite). Regarding the resveratrol issue, what incensed me was that the same evidence that people used to market resveratrol also said that taking resveratrol early in life increased the likelihood of death. I don't know if this applies to humans but Sinclair's obese mouse experiments show the same---but, the good news, the healthy mouse resveratrol experiments showed no effect at all. I don't mind if science is used to market products but it has to be full disclosure.

I'm working with a product of NutraStem as well as Embria Health. There is good evidence for both that they should affect lifespan.

Thanks! We are sitting on a lot of data right now and need to tidy up a few loose ends for publication, which is, in part, what this fundraising is about.

Thanks! It took about 5 minutes to generate the image and about 6 months to get the staining protocol right. I hope Experiment.com keeps growing. Its >$100K for a basic confocal.

A friend of mine was searching for antibiotic compounds from snake skin (using discarded shed snake skins) and did fine antimicrobial activity in his extracts. Then the funding ran out... I'm sure you will find something, Mark, if you get the funding.