Irina Conboy

Transfusing young mice with blood from older rodents quickly triggers ageing, suggesting that cellular ageing isn't just a case of wear and tear. There is a longstanding hypothesis that surgically connecting an old mouse with a young rodent causes a transfer of blood that de-ages the older animal. While this benefits the older mouse, the effects on the young donor rodent were less clear. Irina Conboy at the University of California, Berkeley , and her colleagues transfused blood between young and old mice. Those aged 3 months got blood from animals that were approaching 2 years old. Two weeks later, the young mice had an increased number of senescent cells – cells in the liver, kidneys and muscles that are damaged and stop dividing, but don't die. Strength tests also revealed the young mice became weaker after receiving the older rodents' blood. "Cell senescence is only part of the process of ageing," says Conboy. "That opens new horizons and helps explain why senolytics (drugs that clear senescent cells in the body) so far in clinical trials were less successful than people hoped."

By diluting the blood plasma of old mice, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announced they were able to stimulate age-reversing effects in mouse brains, livers and muscles. Removing age-elevated and potentially harmful factors in old blood is shifting the main model of rejuvenation away from young blood. For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News.

A new, portable CRISPR device promises to make it far easier and quicker to accurately diagnose genetic diseases than existing methods can. The device, made from graphene and nicknamed CRISPR-Chip, was first conceived in the Berkeley lab of bioengineering professor Irina Conboy, one of the co-researchers, and it can diagnose Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy from a purified DNA sample within 15 minutes, a process that usually takes several weeks. The lead scientist is Keck Graduate Institute bioengineer and former Berkeley postdoctoral researcher Kiana Aran. Speaking of next steps, Aran says: "We're talking with companies who would be great at pushing our lab tool into diagnostics, with a goal of setting up partnerships to make that happen. So, commercialization of the quality control and validation tool this year, and a clinical tool to come later." For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News. Stories on this topic have appeared in more than 100 sources around the world, including Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, Silicon Republic, MedIndia, Medical Device Network (Great Britain), and Wissenschaft (Germany).