When I was doing research for Body Hack IV with Bill Andrews and the studies trying to stop senescence and increase lifespan, I came across a substance that many medical professional shave started to say has a really powerful anti-aging effect. The substance is L-Carnosine.

From the website JonBarron.Com

End Of Old Age

I’m not a big believer in magic bullets. Everything I’ve ever learned says that you’re only as strong as your weakest link. That’s why I’ve always preached that the key to health is raising your entire Baseline of Health. But that said, I have to admit that what we’re talking about here today is a uniquely important anti-aging discovery.

What Is Aging?

The best place to start is at the beginning. What is aging? What makes us age? There are actually many factors that contribute to old age (free radical damage, hormonal changes, etc.), but of all of the things that make us “old,” two things stand out because until now, they have been so untouchable:

• The Hayflick Limit
• The glycation of proteins

The Hayflick Limit: Cell Life Span

The Hayflick Limit is named after the person who discovered it almost 40 years ago. A quick description is that all cells have only a limited capacity to continue to divide through the course of our lives.

Those numbers are different for each type of cell in our body, and by early adulthood, half of those divisions have been used up. By mid-life, maybe only 20-39% of those divisions are left. At that point, old age starts taking over – then death.

This limited capacity of a cell to perpetuate itself is called the Hayflick Limit. In effect, the Hayflick Limit determines life span at the cellular level. With each division, a cell becomes less likely to divide again, until finally it stops dividing altogether and becomes what we call senescent.

Cell senescence is the final step before cell death. Senescent cells are still alive and metabolically active, but they’re no longer capable of dividing. More importantly, though, senescent cells exhibit all of the characteristics that so bother us about old age, such as the difference between the supple skin of a child and the wrinkled skin of the elderly.

How do cells age?

As cells approach the Hayflick Limit, they divide less frequently and become aberrant. They take on wildly irregular forms. They no longer line up in parallel arrays; they assume a granular appearance, and deviate from their normal size and shape. This distorted appearance, called the senescent phenotype, is accompanied by a state of declining functionality that, UNTIL RECENTLY, was thought to be irreversible.

Astounding News: Reverse Aging

As it turns out, not only can we reverse the aging process at the cellular level now, and actually do it quite simply AND QUICKLY – but we can also reverse aging at the system level and the organ level. And for that matter, we can reverse it in terms of how we look and feel – and by that I mean our skin and hair and energy levels. And then, of course, we can even reverse aging in terms of lifespan.

What’s the Secret?

The substance I’m talking about is L-carnosine. It’s a naturally occurring combination of two amino acids, alanine and histidine, that was discovered in Russia in the early 1900s. Because much of the research was done in Russia, it has been largely unavailable in the United States until recently. Now, though, there have been a number of studies and experiments in other parts of the world verifying everything done in Russia – and more.

Most notably, there were a series of astonishing experiments done in Australia that proved that carnosine rejuvenates cells as they approach senescence. Cells cultured with carnosine lived longer and retained their youthful appearance and growth patterns.

What’s probably the most exciting result of the studies is that it was discovered that carnosine can actually REVERSE the signs of aging in senescent cells.

The Reversal of Aging

When the scientists transferred senescent cells to a culture medium containing carnosine, those cells exhibited a rejuvenated appearance and often an enhanced capacity to divide. When they transferred the cells back to a medium lacking carnosine, the signs of senescence quickly reappeared.

As they switched the cells back and forth several times between the culture media, they consistently observed that the carnosine medium restored the juvenile cell phenotype WITHIN DAYS, whereas the standard culture medium brought back the senescent cell phenotype.

Increase Cell Life

In addition, the carnosine medium increased cell life span — even for old cells. When the researchers took old cells that had already gone through 55 divisions and transferred them to the carnosine medium, they survived up to 70 divisions, compared to only 57 to 61 divisions for the cells that were not transferred.

This represents an increase in the number of cell divisions for each cell of almost 25%.

But in terms of cell life, the increase was an astounding 300%. The cells transferred to the carnosine medium attained a life span of 413 days, compared to just 126 to 139 days for the control cells.

Increase Life Expectancy

This is mind-boggling. But so far, all we’ve talked about are cells. What does carnosine mean for actual life expectancy?

A new Russian study on mice has shown that mice given carnosine are twice as likely to reach their maximum lifespan as untreated mice. The carnosine also significantly reduced the outward “signs of old age.”

In effect, it made the mice look younger. 44% of the carnosine treated mice had young, glossy coats in old age as opposed to only 5% in the untreated mice. This represents 900% better odds of looking young in old age.

Feel Young Again

Another important difference between the treated and the untreated mice was in their behavior. Only 9% of the untreated mice behaved youthfully in old age, versus 58% of the carnosine treated mice. That’s a 600% improvement in how they felt.

Strong Antioxidant

Quite simply, carnosine is one of the most powerful antioxidants known. It’s a great heavy-metal scavenger. It’s a powerful auto-regulator. And it stands alone when it comes to preventing and reversing protein glycation or cross-linking.

Auto-Regulator

Carnosine has the remarkable ability to throttle down bodily processes that are in a state of excess, and to ramp up those that are under expressed.

For example, carnosine thins the blood of people whose blood tends to clot too much andincreases the clotting tendency in those with a low clotting index.

Another example is that carnosine suppresses excess immune responses in those who have “hyper” immune systems, whereas it stimulates the immune response in those with weakened immune systems – such as the aged.

And carnosine even seems to have the ability to normalize brain wave functions.

Protein Glycation: Sugar And Aging

Glycation is the uncontrolled reaction of sugars with proteins. It’s kind of like what happens to sugars when you heat them and they caramelize. In effect, glycation is what happens when excess sugars caramelize the proteins in your body. It’s a major factor in the aging process – and it’s particularly devastating to diabetics.

Your body is mostly made up of proteins. In fact, proteins are the substances most responsible for the daily functioning of your body. That’s why anything that causes protein deterioration has such a dramatic impact on the body’s function and appearance.

Thanks largely to the destructive effect of sugar and aldehydes, the protein in our bodies tends to undergo destructive changes as we age. This destruction is a prime factor, not only in the aging process itself, but also in the familiar signs of aging such as wrinkling skin, cataracts, and the destruction of our nervous system – particularly our brains. Studies show that carnosine is effective against all these forms of protein modification.

Protein Modification for Longevity

As I said, aging is associated with damage to cellular proteins. But carnosine protects cellular proteins from damage in at least two ways.

1. First, it bonds with the carbonyl (or aldehyde) groups that if left alone will attack and bind with proteins.
2. Second, it works as an antioxidant to prevent the formation of oxidized sugars, also calledAdvanced Glycosylation End-products or AGEs for short. That’s really the caramelization thing that I mentioned earlier. The bottom line here is that the less AGEs, in your body, the younger you are.

Both of these processes have important implications for anti-aging therapy. The key is that carnosine not only prevents damaging cross-links from forming, it eliminates cross-links that have previously formed in proteins, thus restoring normal membrane function.

Alzheimer’s

Carnosine has been proven to reduce or completely prevent cell damage caused by beta amyloid, one of the prime protein risk factors for Alzheimers. The presence of beta amyloid leads to damage of the nerves and arteries of the brain. Carnosine blocks and inactivates beta amyloid. In effect, it protects neural tissues against dementia.  The key is that carnosine not only prevents damaging cross-links from forming in proteins, it eliminates cross-links that have previously formed in those proteins, thus restoring normal membrane function in cells. This is true not only in the brain, but in all the organs of our body – our skin included. Keep in mind that the damage you see in the skin is not just a cosmetic question. That damage is absolutely an indicator of the kinds of damage happening to every other organ in your body – including your eyes and your brain.

The Reversal of Age

Carnosine levels in our body directly correlate with both the length and quality of our lives. And since carnosine levels decline with age, supplementation with carnosine represents one of the most powerful things you can do to hold back the ravages of old age.

Results

While it is true that many people who supplement with carnosine are going to notice everything from younger looking skin to more energy, the bottom line is that you really shouldn’t look for any short term benefits from carnosine supplementation. If any short-term benefits are noticed, you should consider them an added bonus.

The reason you want to supplement with carnosine is for the long term, not for the short-term benefits that you may or may not notice. You supplement with carnosine to protect against the long-term ravages of aging.

Using Carnosine

Some experts recommend using only 50-100 mg of carnosine a day. Others say that if you don’t take 1,000-1,500 mg a day it won’t work because your body metabolizes the first 500 mg or so.

The key here is that all of these experts are ignoring the simple fact, that different people need different amounts. For example:

• The older you get, the more you need.
• If you eat a mostly vegetarian diet, you need more.
• If you’re diabetic, or just have trouble with blood sugar, you need more.

I think most people will do best on 500-750 mg a day.

If you’re young and healthy and include meat in your diet, then 250 mg a day makes sense. As you get older, and if you’re starting to show signs of aging or glycation (such as cataracts), then you’d want to think of increasing the dosage up to 1,000 mg a day – maybe even as high as 1,500 mg a day.

Safety

In studies, carnosine has been proven safe in amounts as high as 70, 80, or even 100 grams a day, although a small number of people have noticed some minor muscle twitching at doses as small as 1,000 mg. The bottom line is use what you need, and you won’t have any problems – only benefits.

Importance

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t believe in magic bullets. Everything I’ve ever learned says that you’re only as strong as your weakest link. I still believe that improving your entire Baseline of Health^® is the key to good health and long life.

But that said, I think that once you actually understand what carnosine does – once you understand the role it plays in preventing and potentially reversing all of the signs of old age in the body (and we’re talking about everything from wrinkled skin to cataracts to Alzheimer’s) – heck, once you understand the role it plays in extending life itself – then you’re left with the unmistakable conclusion that supplementing with carnosine may represent one of the single best things you can do to help “turn back your biological clock.”

A Missing Link

As important as carnosine is, there is a “gap” in its usefulness. It’s called lipofuscin.

Lipofuscin is the age pigment commonly found in aging brains and in other tissue such as the skin. By itself, it is not dangerous. It is merely a byproduct of harmful reactions that have already taken place. For example, one of the byproducts of free radical damage and protein/aldehyde damage (both conditions that carnosine addresses) is lipofuscin.

When you supplement with carnosine, however, something different happens. The carnosine quickly binds with the aldehydes, preventing them from damaging the proteins. The byproduct of this reaction is lipofuscin. So once again you have inactive lipofuscin compounds, but this time as the result of PREVENTING protein damage. In a sense, with carnosine you trade protein damage for lipofuscin.

As I said before, by itself, lipofuscin is not harmful. However, if enough of it accumulates over time (and this process is accelerated when you supplement with carnosine), it can interfere with proper cellular and organ functions. So the bottom line is that however it is produced (as a result of protein damage, or as the result of taking sacrificial carnosine to prevent protein damage), you want to get rid of it.

DMAE

By any definition, DMAE is the perfect companion to carnosine in an anti-aging formulation. First, it reinforces carnosine’s own anti-aging properties. Then, it provides a whole series of complementary benefits of its own.

What Is DMAE?

DMAE is short for (dimethylaminoethanol), a naturally-occurring nutrient that enhances acetylcholine (ACh) synthesis. Adequate levels of ACh are important for proper memory function. Normally found in small amounts in our brains, DMAE has been shown to remarkably enhance brain function when used as a supplement in clinical studies.

DMAE Reinforces Carnosine

One of the prime actions of DMAE is that it flushes accumulated lipofuscin from your body – from the neurons in your brain, from your skin, and from all other organs. It also complements carnosine in that DMAE on its own has been shown to inhibit and reverse the Cross-Linking of proteins and extend lifespan.

Many people have heard of the anti-aging results that Romanian scientist, Ana Aslan, achieved using something called GH3, or procaine. What most people do not know is that GH3 breaks down in the body to form DMAE (after first metabolizing into DEAE) and PABA. In other words, DMAE is the key active component in Ana Aslan’s anti-aging formula.

Numerous scientific studies now show that DMAE can help:

• Increase Acetylcholine levels and RNA levels in the brain
• Stimulate mental activity
• Increase attention span
• Increase alertness
• Increase intelligence (especially in children)
• Improve learning and memory
• Increase energy levels
• Provide a mild, safe tonic effect
• Stimulate the central nervous system
• Relieve anxiety
• Elevate mood in general
• Alleviate behavioral problems and hyperactivity associated with Attention Deficit Disorder
• Increase motivation and reduce apathy in persons suffering from depression
• Induce sounder sleep
• Over time reduce the amount of sleep required by about 1 hour per night
• Intensify dreams tremendously. (Even more so when you take it along with a large dose of phosphatidyl choline — a key component of lecithin)
• Cause dreams to become more lucid
• Increase willpower
• Decrease the incidence and severity of hangovers in people who consume excessive amounts of Alcohol

DMAE Is Safe

Clinical studies of DMAE have used up to 1,600 mg per day with no reports of side effects. In some cases, some people may experience slight headaches, muscle tension, or insomnia if they take too much too soon.

These effects are easily eliminated if intake is reduced and then gradually increased. Although there is no direct connection, many manufacturers recommend that women who are pregnant or breast-feeding, anyone who suffers from convulsions, epilepsy, or seizure disorders, and people with manic-depressive illness should avoid using DMAE.

This is probably more of a legal issue than a medical issue.

Acetyl-L-Carnitine

Like DMAE, acetyl-L-carnitine is a perfect complement to L-carnosine.

Although your body can synthesize L-carnitine in the liver, it depends on outside sources (meat being a primary source) to fulfill its requirements. This can present a problem for vegetarians since L-carnitine performs several key functions in the human body. For one, it can improve the functioning of the immune system by enhancing the ability of macrophages to function as phagocytes. And it can improve the functioning of muscle tissue. In fact, it has been shown to increase running speed when given prior to exercise. It also plays a major factor in cellular energy production by shuttling fatty acids from the main cell body into the mitochondria (the cell’s energy factories) so that the fats can be oxidized for energy. Without carnitine, fatty acids cannot easily enter the mitochondria.

There is, however, a specialized form of L-carnitine known as acetyl-L-carnitine (ALC) that is often deficient even in meat eaters and that performs virtually all of the same functions – but better. For example, in terms of cellular energy production, in addition to shuttling fatty acids into cell mitochondria, ALC provides acetyl groups from which Acetyl-Coenzyme A (a key metabolic intermediate) can be regenerated, thereby facilitating the transport of metabolic energy and boosting mitochondrial activity. But beyond that, the addition of the acetyl group makes ALC water soluble, which enables it not only to diffuse easily across the inner wall of the mitochondria but also to cross all cell membranes more easily. In other words, ALC reaches parts of the body where L-carnitine cannot go. In particular, ALC readily crosses the blood/brain barrier, where it provides a number of specialized neurological functions. For example, it can:

• Facilitate both the release and synthesis of acetylcholine, a key brain biochemical.
• Increase the brain’s levels of choline acetylase.
• Enhance the release of dopamine and improve the binding of dopamine to dopamine receptors.
• Protect the neurons of the optic nerve and the occipital cortex of the brain.

In addition, studies have shown that acetyl-L-carnitine can inhibit the deterioration in mental function associated with Alzheimer’s disease and slow its progression. Part of this is a result of its ability to shield neurons from the toxicity of beta amyloid protein. As a result:

• ALC improves alertness in Alzheimer’s patients.
• Improves attention span.
• And it increases short term memory.

Through its action on dopamine (a chemical messenger used between nerve cells) and dopamine receptors, ALC seems to play a major role in preventing and/or minimizing the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

• ALC enhances the release of dopamine from dopaminergic neurons and improves the binding of dopamine to dopamine Receptors.
• ALC retards the decline in the number of dopamine receptors that occurs as part of the normal aging process and (more rapidly) with the onset of Parkinson’s disease. In fact, many researchers believe that Parkinson’s may be caused by a deficiency of dopamine.
• And ALC inhibits tremors.

And acetyl-L-carnitine may even play a role in helping with MS.

• ALC inhibits (and possibly reverses) the degeneration of myelin sheaths

But most of all, ALC just helps slow down the aging process of the brain.

• ALC retards the inevitable decline in the number of glucocorticoid teceptors that occurs with aging.
• It retards the age-related deterioration of the hippocampus.
• It retards the inevitable decline in the number of nerve growth factor receptors that occurs as we age.
• It stimulates and maintains the growth of new neurons within the brain (both independently of Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) and as a result of preserving NGF) and helps to prevent the death of existing neurons.
• ALC protects the NMDA receptors in the brain from age-related decline.
• ALC inhibits the excessive release of adrenalin in response to stress and inhibits the depletion of luteinising hormone releasing hormone and testosterone that occurs as a result of excessive stress.
• And ALC enhances the function of cytochrome oxidase, an essential enzyme of the Electron Transport System.

The mind boosting effect of acetyl-L-carnitine is often noticed within a few hours — or even within an hour — of supplementing. Most people report feeling mentally sharper, having more focus, and being more alert. Some find a mild mood enhancement. More specifically:

• ALC improves learning ability along with both short term and long term memory
• It improves mood by 53%.
• It both improves the quality of and reduces the need for sleep.
• It improves verbal fluency.
• And ALC improves hand eye coordination by some 300-400%.

And yes, acetyl-L-carnitine helps flush lipofuscin from the body — especially from the brain.

The Longevity Bottom Line

Based on everything we know, supplementing with a combination of L-carnosine, DMAE, and acetyl-L-carnitine is one of the simplest, most effective, and safest steps we can take to help turn back the clock and optimize our health.

From the website emaxhealth.com I copy and pasted the article that talks about the possible benefits towards anti-aging with L-Carnosine.

Along with the biohackers movement is another underground phenomenon that is getting a lot of attention these days. This movement involves a group of people trying to find the most cutting edge science and technology to try to extend their lifespan. For some, they would prefer to be immortal. In front of the movement is biochemist Bill Andrews, who I had first read about two years ago when I picked up a Time (or some other very big name) magazine from a Barnes & Noble in Seattle. Imagine my surprise when I found his name and research also talked about in a weekly college newspaper editorial from a top ranked university in Seoul last year. Then I see his name appear again on the podcast with Dave Asprey and I realized that I wanted to know about this guy, and his mission to find a way towards immortality.

This is the article/ story I managed to find from the Popular Sciences website. Again, I will highlight the parts which I found the most interesting and worth looking over.

There is another underground group of individuals these days who have developed a methodical approach to tracking and measuring nearly everything they do. These are the Biohackers, who have developed the name “quantified self movement”. For them, the objective is to find out ways to manipulate and get the body and the mind to be at its optimum state using what science and the data states.

The article of the San Francisco Gate  is below. Again, I will highlight the parts which I felt is important or relevant to what we are doing with this site.

There is a small underground group of people these days who are trying to do with biology and genetics what the computer hackers did 20 years ago. They are trying to figure out cool ways to hack biology and genetics. I personally think that this new field of synthetic biology is going to be a completely new area of study that will grow far bigger in the future.

This is a post I found from HPlusMagazine.com which talks about the DIY Biology movement going on.

 DIY Bio: A Growing Movmeent Take On Aging

A movement is growing quietly, steadily, and with great speed. In basements, attics, garages, and living rooms, amateurs and professionals alike are moving steadily towards disparate though unified goals. They come home from work or school and transform into biologists: do-it-yourself biologists, to be exact.

DIYbiology (“DIYbio”) is a homegrown synthesis of software, hardware, and wetware. In the tradition of homebrew computing and in the spirit of the Make space (best typified by o‘Reilly‘s Make Magazine), these DIYers hack much more than software and electronics. These biohackers build their own laboratory equipment, write their own code (computer and genetic) and design their own biological systems. They engineer tissue, purify proteins, extract nucleic acids and alter the genome itself. Whereas typical laboratory experiments can run from tens-of-thousands to millions of dollars, many DIYers knowledge of these fields is so complete that the best among them design and conduct their own experiments at stunningly low costs. With adequate knowledge and ingenuity, DIYbiologists can build equipment and run experiments on a hobbyist‘s budget. As the movement evolves, cooperatives are also springing up where hobbyists are pooling resources and creating “hacker spaces” and clubs to further reduce costs, share knowledge and boost morale.

This movement, still embryonic, could become a monster — a proper rival to industry, government, and academic labs. The expertise needed to make serious breakthroughs on a regular basis at home hasn‘t yet reached a critical mass, but there are good reasons to believe that this day will soon come.

Software

DIYbio software has been around for a long time. Folding@home, which came out of Professor vinjay Pande‘s group at Stanford Chemistry Department in 2000, is designed to perform computationally intensive simulations of protein folding and other molecular dynamics. FAH, as it‘s known, is now considered the most powerful distributed computing cluster in the world. Open source software for bioinformatics, computational neuroscience, and computational biology is plentiful and continues to grow. On their own time, students, professors, entrepreneurs, and curious amateurs contribute to open source work that captures their interests. BioPerl and BioPython have hundreds of contributors and tens of thousands of users. Programs like GENESIS and NEURON have been downloaded by computational neuroscientists for over twenty years.

The software part is easy. The FOSS/OSS machine is well established, and has been successful for a long time. As the shift to open source software continues, computational biology will become even more accessible, and even more powerful. (Red Hat has recently asked the US Supreme Court to bar all software patents, submitting an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the “Bilski case.” See Resources.)

Hardware

Biological research is expensive. Microscopes, pipetmen, PCR machines, polyacrylamide gels, synthesizers — basics for any molecular biology lab — run from hundreds to thousands of dollars apiece. Traditional experiments cost hundreds-of-thousands to millions of dollars to conduct. How can the hobbyist afford this equipment? Unless “Joe (or Jill) the DIYBiologist” is extremely wealthy, they can‘t. So instead of purchasing brand new equipment, DIYers like to find good deals at auction sites like eBay or Dovebid, refurbish discarded equipment from labs or biotech companies, or — more and more frequently — build it themselves.

Hardware hacking has a rich history, filled with geek heroes, and these skills are being turned towards the creation of biotech equipment. On the bleeding edge of it all, some DIYbiologists are applying their skills to h+ technologies. SENS researchers John Schloendorn, Tim Webb, and Kent Kemmish are conducting life-extension research for the SENS Foundation, building equipment for longevity research, saving thousands of dollars doing it themselves.

The DIY SENS lab is headed by PhD candidate John Schloendorn. John is a last- year PhD student at Arizona State University. He volunteers full time for the SENS Foundation. Entering his lab was a mind-blowing experience. The ceilings were high, the lab itself was spacious and well-lit. It smelled of sawdust, the product of constructing the furniture on site. The equipment was handmade, but brilliantly so. Elegance and function were clear priorities. When a panel could be replaced with a tinted membrane, it was. When metal could be replaced by sanded wood, it was. The on-site laser was modified from a tattoo-removal system. Costs were down, but the technical skill involved in manufacturing was top notch.

In addition to his own experiments, Schloendorn is building an incubator (no pun intended) for DIYbio engineers who work on fighting death.

Schloendorn tells me that working by ourselves might only take us so far, but thinks it‘s a great place to start (many successful discoveries and businesses were founded in someone‘s garage). He believes that being a DIYer doesn‘t mean you must “go it alone,” but can include cooperation and teamwork. He cautions that since time and effort are limited, DIYers must choose carefully what they‘re going to work on and do that which is most important for them. His personal priority is to solve parts of the aging question, and he‘d obviously like many other DIYers to take up this challenge. “I wanted to make a dent in the suffering and death caused by aging. It seemed like the SENS people were the smartest, most resourceful and best organized among those ambitious enough. Of course, there are also DIYers with no ambitions to save the world, who are content to ‘make yogurt glow‘ in the basement for their own personal satisfaction.”

The DIYbio community has a high-traffic mailing list, where projects are discussed, designs shared, and questions asked or answered. The community has worked on dozens of DIY designs: gel electrophoresis techniques, PCR machines, alternative dyes and gels, light microscopes, and DNA extraction techniques. All of them focus on enabling cheap and effective science.

Wetware

The most popular conception of wetware is the genome — the language of life, the ultimate hackable code. Genetic engineering and (more recently) synthetic biology are the hallmarks of this effort. Synthetic biology takes genetic engineering and builds it into a scalable engineering framework. It is the synthesis of complex, biologically-based (or inspired) systems that display functions that do not exist in nature. In synthetic biology, genetic code is abstracted into chunks, colloquially known as biological “parts.” These parts allow us to build increasingly complex systems: putting several parts together creates a “device” that is regulated by start codons, stop codons, restriction sites, and similar coding regions known as “features.” (Visit MIT‘s Standard Registry of Biological Parts for more detailed information, and tutorials on how to make your own biological part.)

These parts are primarily designed by undergraduates competing in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, the largest student synthetic biology symposium. At the beginning of the summer, student teams are given a kit of biological parts from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Working at their own schools over the summer, they use these parts, and new parts of their own design, to build biological systems and operate them in living cells.

Randy Rettberg, director of the iGEM competition, says that iGEM is addressing the question: “Can simple biological systems be built from standard, interchangeable parts and operated in living cells? Or is biology just too complicated to be engineered in this way?” The broader goals of iGEM include enabling the systematic engineering of biology, promoting the open and transparent development of tools for engineering biology, and helping to construct a society that can productively apply biological technology.

If this sounds suspiciously like a front for DIYbio, that‘s probably because it is. In addition to attracting the brightest young minds to the critical field of molecular biology, many of the founders of iGEM, including Drew Endy at Stanford, Tom Knight at MIT, and DIYbio-rep Mac Cowell are heavily involved in or supportive of the DIYbio community. The recent introduction of iGEM teams unaffiliated with universities (“DIYgem”) is a step towards an inclusive community, allowing anyone with the brain and the drive to participate at the level of academics.

Mainstream science is increasingly friendly to DIYbio. DIYbiologist Jason Bobe works on George Church‘s Personal Genome Project (PGP), which shares and supports DIYbio‘s drive to make human genome data available for anyone to use.

How to get involved

Join the DIYbio mailing list (see Resources). Anyone can join and it‘s the best way to begin your involvement with DIYbio. You‘ll want to check out their DIYbio forums, which are growing rapidly. You can also find a local group there and connect with like-minded DIYers. Have a look around the DIYbio.org site, which lists some of the current projects:

BioWeatherMaps: “Self-Assembly Required” 
Flash mobs meet consumer-generated science in the new DIYbio initiative Flashlabs, where they‘ll be pulling-off a new large-scale collaborative science project annually for amateurs and enthusiasts worldwide. Case in point — the BioWeatherMap initiative is a “global, grassroots, distributed environmental sensing effort aimed at answering some very basic questions about the geographic and temporal distribution patterns of microbial life.”

SKDB: “Apt-Get for Real Stuff (Hardware)” 
Skdb is a free and open source hardware package management system. The idea is to let the user “make” a project by using all of the packaged hardware out on the web, so that the wheel isn‘t reinvented every time a new project is started. The package includes milling machines, gel boxes, semiconductor manufacturing processes, fabratories, robot armies, wetlab protocols… everything. At the moment, they‘re working on OpenCASCADE integration. Package maintainers from the DIYbio and open manufacturing communities assist others in bringing in projects into the system.

Smartlab: “Taking the Work out of Benchwork” 
Project Smartlab is aiming to build hardware to augment the benchtop science experience. This includes automatic data logging instruments with painless electronic lab book integration, video streaming with “instant replay” features for those “did-I-just-pipette-that-into-the-wrong-tube” moments, and interactive protocol libraries that guide new scientists and the scientifically enthusiastic alike through tricky protocols.

The Pearl Gel Box: “A Built-In Transilluminator and Casting Box for $199!” 
Want to get a jump start in DIYbio? The gel electrophoresis box is a basic tool for any DIYbiologist — and they‘re making kits so you can build your own. The Pearl Gel Box is cutting edge, open-source, and cheap. The participants in this project have created a professional grade gel box, available fully assembled or as free design documents. Plus, they want you to design new features like a built-in light filter or a mount for your digital cam.

This is a mere glimpse into the vast undertaking that is DIYbio. Most DIYers work independently on projects that have significant personal meaning. Tyson Anderson, a specialist in the US Army, was struck by the lack of technological infrastructure during his time in Afghanistan. Anderson, a transhumanist as well as a DIYbiologist, was trying to discuss the implications of the Singularity with the friends he had made there. He realized it was difficult to conceive of a technological paradise in a world with limited electricity. He looked to DIYbio to make a difference, and is now engineering bioluminescent yeast to construct sugar-powered lamps for his friends in Afghanistan.

Because there is much overlap between the DIYbio and transhumanist communities, it‘s not surprising that many emerging projects focus on both. DIY-SENS is only the tip of the iceberg. DIYh+ is a fusion of DIYbio and h+, coordinating projects that allow willing individuals to experiment with practical human enhancement. Example projects include supplement/ exercise regimens, DIY-tDCS, DIY-EEG, and the personal harvesting of stem cells. From the group description: “This group is a friendly cross between DIYbio and Open Source Medicine, with a dash of the ImmInst (Immortality Institute) forums [see Resources]. It‘s the slightly edgier half of OSM. The community, ideally, should strive to foster an open and safe way for responsible adults to learn about do-it-yourself human enhancement. We do not believe in limiting the use of medical technology to therapy.”

It‘s not just enhancement technology that can benefit from DIYbiology. As the popular distrust of doctors grows, people will want to understand and monitor their own body. Likewise, as personalized medicine becomes a reality, we will probably see a rise in the number of hobbyists who treat their own bodies as machines to be worked on — like a radio or a car — branching out from personalized genomics to things like DIY stem cell extraction and manipulation, DIY prosthetics, DIY neural prosthetics and sensory enhancements (infrared vision, anyone?), immune system testing, and general tweaking of whatever system strikes the hobbyist‘s fancy. This hacker‘s paradise has not yet come to pass, but it is, perhaps, our exciting future.

The road to true DIYbiology will not be easy. It‘s not a magic bullet. It will probably not produce the next Bill Gates, at least not for a long time. Biology is hard, messy, and failure is more common than success. The knowledge required takes time and effort to acquire, and even then, so-called textbook knowledge is being revised almost daily. Many are attracted by the glamour of it all. They‘re drawn to the romance of being a wetware hacker — the existential thrill of tweaking life itself. They tend to become quickly disappointed by the slow, tedious, difficult path they face.

Hobbyist biology is still in its infancy, and it will take a great deal of work before it reaches its potential. Few are more skeptical than DIYbiologists themselves. But many see no choice. Squabbles over sponsorship, intellectual property, and cumbersome regulations often prevent progress along more conventional lines. An anonymous DIYbiologist puts it this way: “universities charge far more than the experiments really cost, and bureaucratic rules constantly retard real progress.” Questions of IP and ownership can hamstring innovation in industry, while concerns for national security prevent real information sharing in government science. Large, unwieldy bureaucracies and regulatory agencies find it difficult to keep pace with the breakneck speed of technological progress. Thought-monopolies make it unwise to promote new ideas while waiting for tenure, despite the fact that many central dogmas of biology change. Individuals willing to intelligently circumvent convention may find themselves stumbling into uncharted areas of biology where they may make new discoveries.

Indeed, it is only in the last century that biology has become an unreachable part of the academic-corporate-government machine. History‘s naturalists, from Darwin to Mendel, are the true fathers of DIYbiology. They shared the spirit of discovery and scientific ingenuity and the drive to “figure it out yourself.” No one told Isaac Newton to discover the laws of classical mechanics, and you can bet he was never given calculus homework. Einstein‘s life would have been respectable if he hadn‘t spent a silent decade questioning the nature of spacetime. They were driven by the simple need to know, and they would not be stopped by the incidental truth that no one had figured it out before. DIYbiology is perhaps a reemergence of this basic curiosity, applied to the study of life.

As technologyl advances, let us study the workings of the cell the same way Newton may have studied the effects of gravity. Who wouldn‘t want to know? Who can resist a peek at the mechanisms of our own existence? DIYbio may be young, but it is a symptom of our species‘ unbreakable curiosity. We will know these secrets too, someday.

“For me, chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world. I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.” —Primo Levi

Without a lab supervisor to guide them, DIYbiologists must take a carefully disciplined (and perhaps more genuine) approach to science. DIYbio has the potential to revive a noble tradition of pure scientific curiosity, with a modern, engineering twist. If you want to get something done, some day it really will be possible to do it yourself.

Parijata Mackey is the Chief Science Officer of Humanity + and a senior at the University of Chicago, interested in applying synthetic biology, stem cell therapies, computational neuroscience, and DIYbio to life-extension and increased healthspan.

I didn’t write this article but I wanted to post it here to let other people know what is being build in around the world today. From the NY Times, the story of these group of people unfolds…

Do-It-Yourself Genetic Engineering

I had stated that I wanted to shift the subject of this site slightly to talk about other biological issues besides how to grow taller. I wanted to include a series of Mind Hacks and a series of Body Hacks.

This is the first in the series called “Body Hack”. For the first one I wanted to talk about the Bionie Eye, which has been in the news in recent days.

This article and story below was taken from the Huffington Post which you can find the original story by clicking HERE. The Youtube video is found from HERE.

Dianne Ashworth Bionic Eye: ‘Little Flash’ Brings Australian Woman Some Sight

Two days ago on the 1st of September the traffic on the site jumped up by over 1000% and after a few hours of researching to figure out what happened, it turned out an old post I did about Tanya Angus (HERE) had gotten a lot of views because the news stations and TV stations in the US had decided to do a story on her new condition. When people decided to do a google search on her name, this website turned up on the first page of Google’s rankings. So I felt that it would be appropriate to do an update on the condition of Tanya Angus.

These are the stories I have found on her new state, which seems to be that the doctors have learned a way to stop the pituitary gland tumor in her head to stop and to halt her growth process. From the ABC website (HERE) I will post the story below….

For the first time in a decade Tanya Angus, who is fighting a life-and-death battle against gigantism, has stopped growing. At seven feet and 400 pounds, she now has some hope.

Angus, a 33-year-old from Las Vegas, was diagnosed with acromegaly, a rare pituitary disorder that causes the body to produce too much growth hormone. It affects about 20,000 Americans.

Since 2010, when ABCNews.com first told her story, Angus has grown an inch taller and gained 30 pounds. Before the disease began its destructive course, she was only 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 135 pounds.

But for the last year, she has been treated with a drug that has kept the levels of growth hormone in her blood in the normal range.

“This is such good news,” Angus told ABC’s Las Vegas affiliate KTNV.

Angus has grown so large that she can barely walk and a swimming pool is the only place where she is without pain because she can float there.

Angus has a tumor on her pituitary gland but radiation and three surgeries have done nothing to stop her dangerous growth. One 13-hour operation nearly killed her, and another caused a stroke that took away most of her hearing.

As her body gets larger, so do her other organs. Her heart, lungs, joints and other parts of her body have also grown under the strain of this rare disease.

Doctors say it is one of the worst cases of acromegaly that they have ever seen. Her mother, Karen Strutynski, says it is the “worst in the world.”

About 95 percent of the time, the condition is caused by a non-cancerous tumor on the pituitary gland, according to the Pituitary Network Association. Such is the case with Angus, but her tumor is wrapped around her carotid artery, and is inoperable.

Dr. Laurence Katznelson, professor of medicine and neurosurgery at Stanford University Hospital in California and medical director of its pituitary center, did not treat Angus but serves as medical advisor to the online Acromegaly Community.

“Everything gets thicker and the facial features become abnormal,” he told ABCNews.com last year when Angus was speaking at a national conference.

Fluid accumulates in the body, causing stress on multiple systems in the body. Patients are more prone to cardiac conditions, hypertension and diabetes.

“They are in a lot of pain because they get severe headaches and their joints can be swollen and develop premature osteoarthritis,” he said. “Their mortality rate is two to four times greater than the general population.”

The disease is not hereditary and happens, “sporadically,” he said.

Acromegaly Has an Insidious Pattern

“There is such a slow onset,” said Katznelson. “Patients don’t present with, ‘I am getting bigger.’ You look at photos and their history over 10 years and you see it. But when we look in the mirror every day, we don’t see the changes.”

At 21, Angus was a beautiful young woman who rode horses, danced and had a boyfriend. But one day, she noticed changes in her 5-foot-8-inch frame: Her shoes didn’t quite fit, her jeans were too tight and her hands got bigger.

“She was perfectly normal, but by age 22 she had grown three inches,” said her mother. “Nobody knew what was going on.”

Angus, who lived in Michigan and was a supervisor at a Walmart, began to worry when even her face and head got larger. Her bosses also noticed — and fired her. And her boyfriend left when his parents began to ask, “Is she a man?'”

Tanya decided to return home in 2002. When her sister picked her up at the airport, she “freaked out,” because she didn’t recognize Tanya.

The doctor took one look and diagnosed acromegaly.

But now, say Angus and her mother, new treatments are promising. “This gives us renewed hope,” said Strutynsk.

And Angus, who has agreed to be part of a documentary on acromegaly, says she too feels optimistic, and encouraged by others.

“I read emails that people send in saying, ‘You’re my inspiration,’ or, ‘You are so strong.’ If I am helping other people, I feel I can do anything.”

From the Daily Mail UK…

Woman fighting one of world’s worst cases of gigantism finally stops growing at nearly 7ft and 400lbs

• Tanya Angus, 33, from Las Vegas, suffers from the rare pituitary disorder acromegaly, which is life-threatening if not treated
  
• She was just 5ft 8in and 130lbs at the age of 21, before her diagnosis

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER                  PUBLISHED: 15:42 GMT, 31 August 2012 | UPDATED: 18:29 GMT, 31 August 2012

A woman who suffers from one of the world’s worst cases of gigantism has finally stopped growing thanks to aggressive new treatment.

Tanya Angus, 33, from Las Vegas, stands at nearly 7ft tall and weighs 400lbs having suffered from the rare pituitary disorder acromegaly for over a decade.

Efforts to treat the condition, that causes the body to produce too much growth hormone, remained unsuccessful until now, and Ms Angus, who was a slender 5ft 8 and 130lbs at the age of 21, continued to grow.

Acromegaly, which affects 20,000 people in the U.S., is usually caused by a non-cancerous tumour on the pituitary gland. Ms Angus has undergone radiation and surgery three times in an effort to have hers removed, but, as it is wrapped around her carotid artery, it has proved too difficult.

If left untreated, acromegaly can be life-threatening, as it causes organs such as the heart and lungs to grow along with height and weight.

Sufferers are at higher risk of developing diabetes and high blood pressure, while the pressure on their joints causes swelling and early onset of osteoarthritis.

Dr. Laurence Katznelson, professor of medicine and neurosurgery at Stanford University Hospital in California, told ABC: ‘Their mortality rate is two to four times greater than the general population.’

Describing the symptoms of acromegaly, which is not hereditary, Dr Katznelson said: ‘Everything gets thicker and the facial features become abnormal.’

Ms Angus, for now, is thrilled by the improvement in her condition.

She told KTNV: ‘This is such good news.’ 

Her mother, Karen Strutynski added: ‘This gives us renewed hope.’

Despite the improvement in her condition, Ms Angus’s acromegaly has taken a serious toll on her health.

She can barely walk and is in constant pain when she does – the only place she feels relief is a swimming pool, where the pressure on her joints is eased.

One surgery caused a stroke that severely damaged her hearing, another 13-hour procedure nearly killed her.

It is a far cry from Ms Angus as a energetic 21-year-old, a keen horse-rider who loved dancing. Then 5ft 8in and 130lbs, she began to notice that her clothes no longer fit her, and her hands had become enlarged.

‘She was perfectly normal, but by age 22 she had grown three inches,’ her mother revealed. ‘Nobody knew what was going on.’

Ms Angus, who had been working as a supervisor at a Walmart in Michigan, was fired from her post when her head grew larger, and was dumped by her boyfriend when his parents questioned whether she was a man.

Not long afterwards, in 2002, she moved home to Las Vegas where a doctor quickly diagnosed her acromegaly.

Though she admits her appearance upsets her, Ms Angus hopes to inspire others with the same condition – indeed, she already receives many messages of support.

‘I read emails that people send in saying, “You’re my inspiration,” or, “You are so strong,”‘ she told ABC.

‘If I am helping other people, I feel I can do anything.’

Me: So the doctors managed to finally stop her from growing any bigger. Her life is saved. I really hope Ms. Angus can finally get back to living a more ordinary life and that she finds love again.