Health News: 6 August 2025 - 18 August 2025

Pig Neurons in Human Brains? The 2025 Reality Check on Neuron Xenotransplantation—Breakthroughs, Risks, and What Happens Next
 ·  ·  ·  ·  · 

Pig Neurons in Human Brains? The 2025 Reality Check on Neuron Xenotransplantation—Breakthroughs, Risks, and What Happens Next

What exactly is neuron xenotransplantation? Neuron xenotransplantation is the transplantation of neurons or their precursors between species, most realistically from genetically engineered pigs to human patients. It’s distinct from allografts (human‑to‑human) and from organoid research that places human cells into animals for
August 18, 2025
Rewinding the Clock: How Yamanaka Factors Are Resetting Aging Cells
 ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  · 

Rewinding the Clock: How Yamanaka Factors Are Resetting Aging Cells

Shinya Yamanaka discovered the OSKM factors—Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc—in 2006 to reprogram mature cells into pluripotent stem cells. In 2016, Izpisúa Belmonte and colleagues showed partial in vivo reprogramming in progeria mice by cycling OSKM for 2–4 days with rest, yielding
August 18, 2025
The Secret “Zombie Cell” Killers: Niche Senolytic Drugs Fighting Aging’s Clock
 ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  · 

The Secret “Zombie Cell” Killers: Niche Senolytic Drugs Fighting Aging’s Clock

In 2015, a Mayo Clinic and Scripps Research team showed that a combination of dasatinib and quercetin selectively kills senescent cells in aged mice, improving frailty and heart function. The first-generation senolytics include dasatinib and quercetin and entered human safety testing for
August 17, 2025
The Enzyme Revolution: How Engineering Nature’s Catalysts is Transforming Medicine, Food & the Planet
 ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  · 

The Enzyme Revolution: How Engineering Nature’s Catalysts is Transforming Medicine, Food & the Planet

The global market for industrial enzymes was about $9 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach $13.8 billion by 2027. Site-directed mutagenesis, invented in the 1970s by Michael Smith, enables precise single-amino-acid changes in enzymes and earned him the 1993 Nobel
August 14, 2025