Wanted: Social media manager/eMarketing specialist

Science for Life Extension Foundation is looking for an engaging person who knows how to interact with communities throughout the online social space. The qualified candidate will be responsible for developing and driving the online communications strategy for the Foundation.

Responsibilities:

– Create, facilitate, and participate effectively and authentically in key conversations about life extension and related topics on blogs and other online social media channels
– Create and maintain visible Facebook, YouTube, Twitter accounts and other social media profiles
– Develop and execute a blogging communication strategy, including:
– Become accessible to the blogging community
– Manage responses to negative and positive feedback
– Generate buzz and interest in various forms of digital media such as online videos, blog posts, news articles, images, and more
– Develop, execute and manage the online content to drive organic search engine ranking for the blog

Qualifications:

– Strong familiarity with WordPress (HTML)
– Bachelors degree in Communications, PR, Marketing or other related field
– 3+ years of social media experience
– Deep familiarity with social media, viral and word of mouth online marketing practices
– Excellent consulting, writing, editing, and communication skills, including an engaging written voice
– Experienced builder and executer of online social media strategies

Protector drug delivery to the brain: new possibility

There are several molecules that can slow down or even reverse neuron death. One example is naturally occurring brain protein, called glial-cell-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF). It can protect and restore neurons, which can help patients recovering after stroke, people with drug addiction and suffering from Parkinson’s or Huntington’s disease.

The huge obstacle for developing therapies for the brain is delivery. Almost no potential drugs can make their way though the very tight mesh of endothelial cells lining the blood vessels in the brain, which is the blood-brain barrier.

Researchers have been trying to overcome this hurdle for quite a number of years. Now there’s a promising approach, developed by a “garage-band” biotech company, ArmaGen Technologies, located in Santa Monica, California. The founder, William Pardridge, and his collegues developed a molecule, called AGT-190, which acts like a Trojan Horse. It sneaks across the barrier that separates blood and brain tissue and delivers its contents – GDNF that has a possibility for regenerating or rejuvenating some of the sick cells in the brain. The company is waiting for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to give their permission for carrying out human safety tests.

Read more about AGT-190 and other approaches to deliver drugs to the brain.

Genome era

There will be a revolution in the year 2011. Social networks, media, healthcare, education, marketing – everything will change. In 2011-12 people will start to sequence their genomes on a mass scale. Transcripting, storage, processing, interpretation of genome data will become an enormous new industry. Preventative measures, travelling, targeting, hiring, friendship, interests, therapies, communication, hobbies, communities, education – this all will be influenced by the knowledge of the person’s genome. Processing millions of terrabytes of genome data will create thousands of new jobs. Personal computer, cell phone, internet, social networks – these are the examples of similar inventions.
Spreading of mass genome sequencing will be practically instant compared to previous inventions and more significant. In the next few years we’ll all learn the names of new billionairs, people who will create this industry. By the way…. Maybe it will be you?

Politically important article in Science Translational Medicine

The authors are: Michael J. Rae, Robert N. Butler, Judith Campisi, Aubrey D. N. J. de Grey, Caleb E. Finch, Michael Gough, George M. Martin, Jan Vijg, Kevin M. Perrott, Barbara J. Logan.

The article was published on July, 14. The authors advocate that funding of scientific research is substantailly increased and interventions for aging humans are developed.

Progressive accumulation of aging damage is the physiological cause of numerous age-related pathologies, loss of functionality and increased mortality. Aging places an unprecedented economic and social challenges, as the global increase of medical costs and decreased national workforce’s ability. Interventions to to retard, arrest, and even reverse aging damage need to be developed in order to prevent our society from experiencing these catastrophes.

I’d like to pay more attention to the particular research directions. To my mind the authors focused on some really important areas. I put them here in a form of a list, I guess it’s better if one adds numbers.

1. Loss of Proliferative Homeostasis: embraces

1.1. age-related hyperplasia (including excessive proliferation of osteoclasts, interstitial fibrosis, and, above all, cancer),

1.2. loss of tissue renewal through stem cell attrition (due, e.g., to cellular senescence, apoptosis)
or atrophy (from systemic endocrinological and signaling changes)

1.3. as well as aberrant differentiation (e.g., accumulation of mesenchymal adipocyte-like cells in aged
tissues, incomplete myocyte development in skeletal muscle, osteoblast-like
differentiation of calcifying vascular smooth muscle cells, adipogenic transformation of
thymic stromal cells in thymic involution, etc)