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Showing posts with label Human Longevity Inc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Human Longevity Inc. Show all posts

Monday, February 15, 2016

The Chief Medical Officer at Human Longevity Says We Will Be Celebrating our 200th Birthdays


Anti-Aging

Human Longevity Inc.'s Brad Perkins says technological innovations including cloud-based systems could spark a medical revolution in tackling age-related diseases.


Brad Perkins is a visionary physician, scientist, and executive who is responsible for leading all clinical and therapeutic operations at the Human Longevity Inc. This includes collecting and utilizing phenotype data, development of the consumer clinics business, and guiding stem cell therapeutics.

"With machine learning, scientists can connect medical genome to sequence data and, therefore, understand the fundamental causes of aging."
According to Perkins, technological innovations including cloud-based systems could spark a medical revolution in tackling age-related diseases.

Research into diseases such as Alzheimer's, diabetes and cancer could be advanced by new technology and could potentially see the human lifespan eventually double, states Perkins, who spoke at this year's World Government Summit in Dubai.

Technology cited included integrated data bases, cloud-based systems, advanced clinical imaging and machine, which could help improve knowledge of the human genome.

“With machine learning, scientists can connect medical genome to sequence data and, therefore, understand the fundamental causes of aging. By comparing physiological to chronological age and building direct medical intervention methods for age, we are closer to preventing age related diseases.”

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Prior to joining HLI, Dr. Perkins was Executive Vice President for Strategy and Innovation, and Chief Transformation Officer at Vanguard Health Systems, a large multi-state, for-profit, integrated health services provider with nearly 46,000 employees. He helped transform Vanguard from a traditional fee for service healthcare model, to a fee for value, “population health” model. Some of his innovative solutions there included: establishing Accountable Care Organizations to improve primary care, implementing an award winning tele-radiology program, and starting a $167 million venture capital fund to support Vanguard’s transformation programs.

Dr. Perkins began his career at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1989 after completing his residency training and chief residency in internal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. At the CDC he led some of the most important and high profile programs and published more than 120 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.

He first joined and then led the Meningitis and Special Pathogens Branch where he investigated global bacterial disease epidemics. He co-discovered the bacteria which causes Cat Scratch Diseases and conducted translational research leading to development of several new bacterial meningitis and pneumonia vaccines. In 2001 Dr. Perkins led the investigations into the anthrax attacks in the United States, the largest and highest profile investigation ever conducted by CDC. In 2005 he was appointed CDC’s Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, a position in which he managed a $11.2 billion budget, and 15,000 employees with offices in more than 50 countries. Working closely with the CDC Director, he built a $2 billion state-of-the-art emergency response capability and positioned the improvement of population health as a focus of the healthcare reform movement within the White House administration at that time.

Dr. Perkins is a member of the RAND Health Board, and he is the chairman of the advisory board for Esther Dyson’s nonprofit, HICCup, sponsor of the “Way to Wellville” community health competition. He received his BA in Microbiology and his MD from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and an MBA from Emory University. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine.




SOURCE  World Government Summit


By 33rd SquareEmbed


Monday, April 27, 2015

Human Longevity Promises a Hundred Years of Scientific Advancement in a Decade

 Life Extension
Scientific advances are going to really accelerate according to Human Longevity founder Craig J. Venter and the company's CMO, Brad Perkins. They both promise to bring about a hundred years worth of progress in the next 10 years, and a revolution in medicine.





Using a "supercharged" approach to human genome research could see as many health breakthroughs made in the next decade as in the previous century, say key players in the medical start-up Human Longevity Inc.

“It’s going to be an exciting ride in the next 10 years,” Craig J. Venter, co-founder of Human Longevity Inc. said at the recent AHA Forum. Because technology has changed so dramatically since the genome was first mapped, he and other scientists now have previously unavailable machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computational tools to do the kind of experiments and analysis they first imagined all those years ago.

Craig J. Venter

“I think there’s going to be more breakthroughs in the next decade than in the past 100 years,” he added.

Brad Perkins, chief medical offer at Human Longevity Inc, speaking at WIRED Health 2015 mirrored these statements.

Perkins says the opportunity for humanity—and Human Longevity—is the result of the convergence of four trends: the reduction in the cost of genome sequencing (from $100m per genome in 2000, to just over $1,000 in 2014), the vast improvement in computational power, the development of large-scale machine learning techniques and the wider movement of health care systems towards ‘value-based’ models. Together these trends are making it easier than ever to analyse human genomes at scale.

Brad Perkins - Human Longevity Inc

The company's CMO, Perkins heads up all clinical and therapeutic work at Human Longevity Inc. Previously he was an executive vice president at Vanguard Health Systems, and prior to that worked at the US Center for Disease Control, where he led the 2001 investigation into anthrax attacks. Now at Human Longevity, he believes the methods used to analyse diseases in the previous century can now be applied to the root causes of human aging.

Based in San Diego, Human Longevity is building up systems that use genome data and analytics to develop new ways to fight age-related diseases.

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The stealthy Human Longevity business plan is actually very simple, Perkins quipped: the company wants to take large amounts of genome data, subject it to machine learning and analytics, and "radically, disruptively" produce new models for medical care.

"Our focus is not being a fee for service sequencing operation," Perkins says. It is to "fully understand and fully interpret all the meaning in the human genome". To do that Human Longevity Inc is building machine learning systems which can act as a ‘Google Translate’ for genomics, taking in genetic code and spitting out insights.

Fittingly, they’ve hired as their chief data scientist Franz Och, who was formerly at Google working, among other things… on Google Translate. "To translate the language of biology in the form of sequence data into the language of health and disease, into the form of clinical phenotypes" is the aim, said Perkins.

"As genomics begins the process of revolutionizing human health and the practice of medicine, and opens the door to the next steps… of regenerative medicine."


The company will work to, "To define and continuously evolve what we consider to be a 21st digital description of the full human phenotype."

Human Longevity Inc will be analyzing the whole genome sequence—all 3.2 billon base pairs, compared to much lower numbers analysed by existing, mainstream DNA research companies such as 23andMe.

Collecting and analyzing all that data will require the world’s largest sequencing facility, which Human Longevity Inc operates, and Perkins estimates is currently able to sequence 35,000 human genomes per year.

That amount will almost triple to around 100,000 genomes per year by the end of 2015 and target is one million genomes per year by 2020. "I’d like to see that number higher," Perkins says.

The result of this work will be revolutionary according to Venter and Perkins. "I’m encouraged that we’re on the verge of having lots more grandfathers and grandmothers at the special events of all of our lives," Perkins says. "As genomics begins the process of revolutionizing human health and the practice of medicine, and opens the door to the next steps… of regenerative medicine. It’s going to be an extraordinarily exciting ride."




SOURCES  Medical Daily and WIRED

By 33rd SquareEmbed

Wednesday, October 1, 2014


 Regenerative Medicine
According to stem cell expert, Dr. Robert Hariri the biology of a stem cell is akin to a computer, and we are now understanding how to reprogram it. Hariri suggests stem cell therapies will soon allow aging adults to stay healthy and functional for as long as possible.




In the TEDx talk above, Human Longevity Inc.'s Dr. Robert Hariri tells how stem cells may be the secret scientific ingredient that enables humans to live younger longer.

Human Longevity Inc, which was recently formed with J. Craig Venter and Peter Diamandis will use both genomics and stem cell therapies to find treatments that allow aging adults to stay healthy and functional for as long as possible.

"I believe that aging is a stem cell problem, related to a shift in the balance of undifferentiated, versatile to differentiated, specialized cells," says Hariri.

He talks of how bone marrow recipients and plastic surgery patients that have had adipose tissue injections can  achieve more youthful characteristics thanks to the introduction of stem cells into the affected areas, and the important proteins that they produce.

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"I think the solution here is to recharge the regenerative engine by replenishing the reservoir of stem cells that can restore that synthetic versatility," he claims.

Hariri concludes his talk by saying that, "The future use of stem cells can benefit from a new model describing functional similarities to computers." In this conception, the biological software resides in the DNA of the cell's nucleus; the cytosolic organelles that produce the proteins are the processor and the cell membrane with it's numerous receptors, serves as the keyboard.

"Reprogramming the biological software of stem cells is already happening and provides a platform for controlling their fate and behavior for biomedical purposes including longevity."


"Reprogramming the biological software of stem cells is already happening and provides a platform for controlling their fate and behavior for biomedical purposes including longevity," concludes Hariri.

Hariri is a surgeon, biomedical scientist and highly successful serial entrepreneur in two technology sectors: biomedicine and aerospace. The Chairman, Founder, Chief Scientific Officer, and former Chief Executive Officer of Celgene Cellular Therapeutics, one of the world’s largest human cellular therapeutics companies, Dr. Hariri has pioneered the use of stem cells to treat a range of life threatening diseases and has made transformative contributions in the field of tissue engineering.

Dr. Robert Hariri

His activities and experience includes academic neurosurgeon at Cornell, businessman, military surgeon and aviator and aerospace innovator. Dr. Hariri has over 90 issued and pending patents, has authored over 100 published chapters, articles and abstracts and is most recognized for his discovery of pluripotent stem cells from the placenta and as a member of the team which discovered the physiological activities of TNF (tumor necrosis factor).

Dr. Hariri was recipient of the Thomas Alva Edison Award in 2007 and 2011, The Fred J. Epstein Lifetime Achievement Award and has received numerous other honors for his many contributions to biomedicine and aviation. Dr. Hariri also serves on numerous Boards of Directors including Myos Corporation and Provista Diagnostics. Dr. Hariri is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Pathology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a member of the Board of Visitors of the Columbia University School of Engineering & Applied Sciences and the Science & Technology Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and is a member of the scientific advisory board for the Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, which is awarded by the X PRIZE Foundation. Dr. Hariri is also a Trustee of the Liberty Science Center and has been appointed Commissioner of Cancer Research by NJ Governor Christie. Dr. Hariri is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the J. Craig Venter Institute.

A jet-rated commercial pilot with thousands of hours of flight time in over 60 different military and civilian aircraft, Dr. Hariri has also produced several feature films as well as documentaries on global societal issues.


SOURCE  TEDx Talks

By 33rd SquareEmbed

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Human Longevity Inc
 Aging
Craig Venter, Peter Diamandis and Robert Hariri have teamed up to form a new company to fight aging. Human Longevity Inc. announced plans to sequence 40,000 human genomes in year to better understand age-related diseases like cancer and dementia.




Craig Venter, is now on a quest to conquor age-related disease.  The well-known scientist behind the successful completion of the Human Genome Project and the team leader of a project to create a custom-made lifeform has started a new venture, Human Longevity Inc.

Venter has teamed up with stem cell pioneer Dr. Robert Hariri and X Prize Foundation founder Dr. Peter Diamandis to form the company. Human Longevity Inc will use both genomics and stem cell therapies to find treatments that allow aging adults to stay healthy and functional for as long as possible.

"I haven't been a skeptic, but I have been one of the people complaining that too little has happened after the human genome was sequenced," Venter told National Geographic.

Human Longevity Inc.

"We're hoping to make numerous new discoveries in preventive medicine. We think this will have a huge impact on changing the cost of medicine," Venter said on a conference call announcing his latest venture.

Fighting aging is increasingly becoming a scientific and business rallying point; Venter's transition into longevity follows the formation in September of Google-backed biotechnology company Calico.

Diamandis, Venter, Hariri
Robert Hariri, J. Craig Venter, and Peter Diamandis (right to left)
Image Source -Brett Shipe/Science
The company, which will be based in San Diego-based already has $70 million in private backing and has already purchased two ultrafast HiSeq X Ten gene sequencing systems from Illumina Inc, a leading manufacturer of DNA sequencing machines, with the option to buy three more.

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The company plans to use that technology to map 40,000 human genomes in a push to build the world's largest database of human genetic variation. The database will include sequences from the very young through the very old, both diseased and healthy. 40,000 is the calculated number the two gene sequencing machines can complete in a year.

"This will be one of the largest data studies in the history of science and medicine," Venter told the conference call.

Along with gathering whole genome data, the company will collect genetic data on the trillions of microbes - including bacteria, viruses and fungi - living in and on humans.

By better understanding the microbiomes in the gut, in the mouth, on the skin and other sites on the body, the company said it hopes to develop better probiotics as well as better diagnostics and drugs to improve health and wellness.

The company's initial treatment targets will be some of the toughest age-related diseases: cancer, diabetes and obesity, heart and liver diseases, and dementia.

Venter said the company will start first with cancer. It has teamed up with the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, with the goal of sequencing the genomes of everyone who comes there for treatment, as well as doing a full genome sequence on their tumors.

"Cancer is one of the most actionable areas right now with genomic-based therapies," Venter said, adding that cancer is "just the first of a multitude of diseases we will be sequencing this year."

"Undoubtedly, important biologic discoveries will be made along the way, but it remains unclear whether such efforts like Human Longevity Inc and Calico can influence longevity," Dr. Eric Topol, Scripps Health chief academic officer and director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute said.

In addition to UCSD, the company has established strategic collaborations with privately held Metabolon Inc of North Carolina, a company that focuses on biochemical profiling, as well as his own J. Craig Venter Institute, a nonprofit genomics research institute.



SOURCE  Reuters

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