Reservoir offers the chance to preserve today’s immune cells for potential future therapies – but what might those cells eventually be worth? #longevity# #geroscience# #immunecells# #therapies# #reservoir#

Did you know 10% of your liver is made of immune cells that talk directly to your brain? Your gut talks to your immune system. Your immune system talks to your liver. Your liver talks to your brain. Dr. Jeffrey Bland known as the father of Functional Medicine, joins me to unpack how we can harness systems biology to prevent and even reverse chronic disease. Tune in to the full episode and learn: – How the immune system drives aging and disease – Why mitochondrial health is central to longevity – What it really means to “heal the gut” – How diet, nutrients, and your environment reprogram your genes in real time – So much more! We’re not stuck with the genes we inherited. We can change how they’re expressed, starting today. Drop a YES and I’ll DM you the link to listen. 🎧

Scientists figured out how to strip away the 'sugar shield' that protects cancer cells from immune attacks. Cancer cells are notorious masters of disguise, often coating themselves in a thick layer of sugar-derived molecules known as glycans to remain invisible to the body's natural defenses. This sugary camouflage acts as a physical shield and a molecular 'off switch,' suppressing immune cells and rendering many modern immunotherapies, like checkpoint inhibitors, ineffective. However, researchers from MIT and Stanford University have engineered a breakthrough therapeutic class called 'AbLecs' (antibody-lectin chimeras) specifically designed to strip away this protective barrier and expose hidden tumors. Developed by MIT's Dr. Jessica Stark and Stanford Nobel laureate Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi, AbLecs work by anchoring a glycan-binding lectin protein directly to cancer cells using a tumor-targeting antibody. This molecular pairing prevents the cancer’s sugars from shutting down neighboring immune cells, giving macrophages and natural killer cells the green light to attack. In pre-clinical trials, this plug-and-play platform dramatically reduced lung metastases and outperformed existing antibody drugs, paving the way for adaptable, next-generation immunotherapies that could soon help the estimated 80% of cancer patients who do not respond to current treatments. source: Stark, J. C., & Bertozzi, C. R. (2025). Antibody-lectin chimeras for glyco-immune checkpoint blockade. Nature Biotechnology.

Massive blood draw today: > 47 tubes > 250 mL What I'm measuring: > single cell sequencing of circulating immune cells > inflammation, oxidative stress, vascular health > metabolic, lipid, blood glucose regulation > brain

Just another day in the life on @Space_Station, doing microscopy on the ceiling. Our Lab module is jam-packed with science, but access to 3 dimensions opens up a lot more space! Here, I'm checking out how immune cells age in microgravity in support of the Immunosenescence study.

I'm a cardiologist. I've spent twenty years inside American healthcare, and I'll say the quiet part first: the system is indefensible. We spend roughly 18% of GDP on health care — the highest on earth — and have a lower life expectancy than countries spending half as much. Medical bills are a leading cause of bankruptcy. I have patients rationing insulin. I fight prior authorizations for medications that prevent heart attacks and imaging that finds cancer early. Anyone defending the status quo isn't practicing medicine. They're profiting from it. So why am I not for #MedicareForAll# ? Because I've watched what government-run health care actually does — from inside the exam room. Denial doesn't disappear. It changes uniforms. Insurers deny by prior authorization. Single-payer systems deny by waiting list. Canada's median wait from referral to treatment has run over 25 weeks. The UK's NHS backlog has hovered around 7 million. When you eliminate the price signal, you don't eliminate rationing — you just move it from a claims department to a queue, and queues are invisible. Nobody sues a waiting list. Medicare rates don't cover the cost of care. Hospitals lose money on Medicare and Medicaid and make it back on private insurance. Extend Medicare rates to everyone and that cross-subsidy vanishes overnight. Rural hospitals go first. Independent practices consolidate into hospital systems. The physicians I know would retire early, and the smartest students would go elsewhere. You can legislate coverage. You cannot legislate a doctor into existing. The fraud problem is already staggering. HHS loses an estimated $100 billion a year. Investigators found a hotel in Los Angeles where every room was a registered hospice with zero patients — just addresses billing Medicaid. If we can't police the programs we have, scaling to the entire country isn't reform. It's a bigger target. And the innovation math is real. Just this month: the first oral PCSK9 inhibitor approved, five Lp(a) drugs in late-stage trials, engineered immune cells that clear arterial inflammation. Americans overpay for drugs, and that overpayment subsidizes global R&D. Crush prices to European levels and something has to give. I'd rather fix the pricing abuse than gamble the pipeline. What I'd actually do, and none of it requires a $30 trillion bet: Real price transparency, enforced — you can't have a market where nobody sees prices. Break the employer link so insurance is portable and you don't lose coverage with your job. Expand HSAs and direct primary care — my colleagues doing it spend more time with patients and charge less. Break the PBM middlemen inflating drug costs. Site-neutral payments so a hospital can't charge triple for the same test. AI-driven fraud auditing — flag every provider billing 10 standard deviations above peers and audit them. Universal catastrophic coverage so nobody goes bankrupt from cancer. Now the honest counterpoint, because you deserve it: the strongest case for single-payer is administrative. Private insurers run 15-25% overhead. Traditional Medicare runs 2-3%. Most published economic analyses do project net savings. And every peer nation with universal coverage spends dramatically less than we do. Those aren't talking points — they're real findings that my side has to answer. I just don't believe the answer to a bureaucracy that denies your care is a bigger bureaucracy that can't be sued. Fix the prices. Fix the fraud. Cover the catastrophes. Don't hand the whole thing to the same people who couldn't notice 29 hospices in one hotel.