StemCell Therapy

Stem Cells are characterised by their two properties of capability of renewing themselves and differentiating into a diverse range of cell types. The two broad types of mammalian stem cells are: embryonic stem cells and somatic or adult stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are isolated from the inner cell mass of blastocysts, while adult stem cells are found in adult tissues. In a developing embryo, stem cells can differentiate into all of the specialized embryonic tissues. In adult organisms, stem cells and progenitor cells act as a repair system for the body, dividing essentially without limit to replenish specialized cells. Because of their pluripotency and unlimited capacity for self-renewal, embryonic stem cell therapies have been proposed for regenerative medicine and tissue replacement after injury or disease. Reprogramming of somatic cells with defined factors can be a resolution to the problem of allogeneic stem cell transplantation in embryonic stem cell therapies. Adult cells, which have been genetically reprogrammed to an embryonic stem celllike state by being forced to express genes and factors important for maintaining the defining properties of embryonic stem cells, are referred to as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).

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Stem Cell - Sino Biological Inc

Abstract

Understanding the malleable determinants of cellular aging is critical to understanding human longevity. Telomeres may provide a pathway for exploring this question. Telomeres are the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes. The length of telomeres offers insight into mitotic cell and possibly organismal longevity. Telomere length has now been linked to chronic stress exposure and depression. This raises the question of how might cellular aging be modulated by psychological functioning.

We consider two psychological processes or states that are in opposition to one another--threat cognition and mindfulness--and their effects on cellular aging. Psychological stress cognitions, particularly appraisals of threat and ruminative thoughts, can lead to prolonged states of reactivity. In contrast, mindfulness meditation techniques appear to shift cognitive appraisals from threat to challenge, decrease ruminative thought, and reduce stress arousal. Mindfulness may also directly increase positive arousal states.

We review data linking telomere length to cognitive stress and stress arousal and present new data linking cognitive appraisal to telomere length. Given the pattern of associations revealed so far, we propose that some forms of meditation may have salutary effects on telomere length by reducing cognitive stress and stress arousal and increasing positive states of mind and hormonal factors that may promote telomere maintenance. Aspects of this model are currently being tested in ongoing trials of mindfulness meditation.

Keywords: meditation, mindfulness, stress, appraisal, rumination, telomere length, telomerase

Chronological age is the ultimate predictor of disease and death. However, tremendous individual variability is found in onset of morbidity and mortality. Therefore, it is of great scientific and clinical interest to identify markers of biological age, as well as factors that influence them. Telomere length (TL) appears to be such an indicator. TL shortens with chronological age, predicts risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) independent of age, and is shortened in people with age-related diseases, including atherosclerosis and diabetes.1 Stress appears to influence the rate of telomere shortening.2 Here we examine links between TL, stress arousal, and stress cognitions, and consider how mindfulness meditation might alter these pathways, as well as have direct effects independent of stress pathways.

There are specific types of stress cognitions that lead to greater stress arousal and thus may impact cell longevity. Threat appraisals enhance negative emotional responses to a stressor by construing it as a threat to oneself and amplifying the significance of the stressor. In addition to the content of an appraisal, the process of rumination about negative appraisals prolongs the stress arousal, and can induce distress about the emotional response itself. These two types of stress cognition then trigger negative emotional responses tied to specific forms of physiological arousal (high catabolic, low anabolic profiles) which can impair telomere length.

Mindfulness is a psychological process that acts on specific parts of this cognitive content and process, disrupting the stress pathways and possibly having direct salutary effects on physiological arousal systems. Based on a combination of empirical data and speculation, we propose that these processes, stress cognition and mindfulness, may be linked to cellular aging, shown in . Below we offer a selective review on the literatures of cell aging (telomeres and telomerase), stress cognition (threat appraisals and rumination) and their effects on arousal relevant to telomere maintenance, and lastly, the potential impact of mindfulness and meditation on these stress processes.

Model of Mindfulness Meditation Effects on Telomere Length through Positive and Stressful Cognitive States

Telomeres provide a unique model for understanding cell aging and senescence. Telomeres are the protective nucleoprotein structures capping the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes, consisting of a simple repeat sequence (TTAGGG). When cells divide, the end of the telomere cap may not be replicated because the DNA polymerase does not function properly at the end of a DNA strand.3 Therefore telomeres tend to shorten with mitosis so that cells in older organisms have on average shorter telomeres than cells in younger organisms.

Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein reverse transcriptase cellular enzyme that counteracts TL shortening and adds telomeric DNA to shortened telomeres. Telomerase thus forestalls shortened telomeres from signaling the cell to cease dividing or to die. Telomerase promotes cell longevity even in the face of critically shortened telomeres.4 Conversely, cells with short telomeres without telomerase are at highest risk of fusions, senescence, and apoptosis.5,6 Thus, it is in part the interaction between short telomeres and low telomerase activity that appears to increase the risk of cell death.7

Telomere shortening and replicative senescence is thought to be indicative of bodily aging. Several genetic premature aging syndromes are characterized by cell sencescence (Werner Syndrome, Progeria Hutchinson Guilford, and ataxia teleangiecstasia); at least when subjects cells are examined in vitro, and are characterized by signs of accelerated aging and early mortality.8 There is a proliferation of research in this area, and many studies show that TL is linked to a variety of disease states. Shorter TL is related to aspects of cardiovascular disease, such as plaques,9 heart attacks10 greater calcific aortic valve stenosis 11, vascular dementia 12 and degenerative conditions such as osteoarthritis13 and osteoporosis.14 It has also been related to diabetes15,16 and general risk factors for chronic disease, including obesity and insulin resistance.16,17 Lastly, TL in leukocytes predicted earlier mortality in a community sample, and in samples with Alzheimers disease and history of stroke.18-20

Given the role of telomere maintenance to cell longevity and apparently human longevity, it is important to find the nexus of how psychological function might affect this longevity system. We first examined whether young healthy women under chronic stress had shorter telomeres than those with low levels of life stress. We found that objective stress (years of caregiving) and perceptions of life stress were both related to shorter telomere length.21 We have found similar relationships with dementia caregivers and controls (unpublished data). Others have since found shortened telomeres in major depression,22 and in those with lower socioeconomic status.23 Thus, stressful life circumstances, stress appraisals, and severe distress, appear to be related to greater telomere shortening.

It is nevertheless difficult to predict who is most vulnerable to telomere shortening when exposed to similar conditions of chronic stress. Here we briefly review some of the important psychological (cognitive and emotional) aspects of stress, and then physiological stress mediators that are likely related to cell aging as well. We note, however, that psychological function is only one of many factors influencing telomere length in adulthood, and a lifespan approach may be the best way to understand telomere length at any one moment in time 24.

Given the huge individual variance in perception and reaction to common stressful events, the process of coping with challenge is an important mediator of emotional reactions25 and presumably physiological reactivity.

A prevailing model for understanding what makes a situation stressful is Lazarus and Folkmans (1984) Stress and Coping Theory.26 Situations where a goal that matters to the person is at stake and the demands of the situation outweigh the persons resources for coping with it can cause feelings of stress. We may feel stressed when a situation harms or threatens important goals (threat appraisals). In contrast, in a stressful situation, a person might see the possibility of doing well at coping and thus perceive the stressor as a challenge (challenge appraisals). Here, we focus on threat appraisals, which according to our model is the harmful type of stress, linked to cell aging.

Cognitive appraisal in turn affects choice of coping strategy. Coping refers to constantly changing (moment to moment) cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage the demands of a stressful situation.26 A key aspect of the appraisal process is the evaluation of personal control over the outcome. Situations in which there is the possibility of control usually call for behaviorally active, problem-focused coping strategies; situations in which nothing can be done usually call for cognitive strategies that help the person accept the situation or regulate their emotional responses to it.27,28 Accurate appraisals are important to enact effective coping (e. g., to prevent mismatches such as attempting to exert control over an uncontrollable situation).

In our original study on stress and cell aging among maternal caregivers, we examined perceptions of life stress, using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS),29 among healthy women (n = 65), some caring for a child with a chronic condition and others caring for healthy children. As reported elsewhere, the full scale score assessing stress-related feelings and thoughts over the last month was significantly related to shorter TL (r = 0.31), after covarying age and body mass index.2 Here we examine which aspects of stress perception on the PSS are linked to TL. Three of the 10 items were significantly related to TL, and these items represent the three core components of perceived stress: the two cognitive components, which include the perception that demands outweigh coping resources and a loss of control, represented by the question difficulties were piling up so high I could not overcome them, (r = 0.40, p < .002) and feeling unable to control important things in life (r = 0.28, p < .05); and the face-valid emotional component of stress represented by the question feeling nervous or stressed, (r = 0.40, p < .002). This item analysis suggests that specific stress cognitions may be related to TL, at least in this sample of women.

Appraisals also drive emotional states. Threat appraisals drive negative emotions (such as fear and anxiety), whereas challenge appraisals can foster both negative (e.g., anxiety) and positive emotions (e.g., feeling energized and elated).26,30 According to Stress and Coping Theory, 26 the coping process begins when an event is appraised as threatening or challenging. These appraisals prompt both emotional states and coping efforts. If the event is resolved favorably, a positive emotional state (e.g., relief, satisfaction) ensues. If the event is resolved unfavorably or if it remains unresolved, a negative emotional state results (e.g., anger, guilt, anxiety) and the coping process continues through reappraisal and continued rounds of coping.

Many people in modern societies are dealing with at least one, if not multiple, chronic life stressor, such as financial, relationship, work or caregiving stressors. What are the coping mechanisms people use to maintain positive affect and a positive outlook? In dealing with chronic stressors, the negative emotion associated with unfavorable resolution can in some cases motivate positive changes. Negative states motivate meaning-focused coping processes such as those that draw on important goals and values, 31-33 including goal-directed problem-focused coping, positive reappraisal, benefit finding and benefit reminding about a specific situation, 34 and infusion of ordinary events with meaning.35 These coping processes result in positive emotion, which serve important coping functions: they provide a psychological time-out from the distress associated with chronic stress and help motivate and sustain ongoing efforts to cope with the negative effects of the chronic stressor.36

There appears to be such a strong drive to experience positive emotions, such that people facing chronic adversity may be driven to reorganize their outlook on life. In the course of coping with chronic stress, people often develop cognitive shifts or changes in ones mental filter that promotes positive appraisals. These are distinct from acute stress appraisals and coping strategies. We call these cognitive shifts psychological thriving.37 Thriving includes a range of positive appraisals such as greater appreciation of life, or self growth (new skills and feeling empowered). These changes are not tied to specific situations, but rather serve as meta-cognitions about ones life. These shifts may stay with a person (i.e., become ingrained schemas) and affect future appraisals as well. We suspect that psychological thriving shifts situational appraisals of everyday minor stressors toward challenge appraisals, and decreases rumination. In this way, psychological thriving may promote a state of enhanced allostasis, a state where one has lower basal stress arousal, more efficient reactivity peaks, quicker recovery, and greater anabolic functioning after stress, as described in detail elsewhere.37,38

We do not know which individual or situation factors, in the course of chronic stress, cause some people to engage in positive coping, while others remain more fixed in their thinking. It is possible that mindfulness training can help foster positive coping and eventually psychological thriving.

Here, we report a preliminary test of one aspect of this model, the link between acute stress appraisals and telomere length. We asked whether acute appraisals to a standardized stressor are linked to telomere length. In the maternal caregiver study described above, we also examined response to an acute laboratory psychosocial stressor, an adapted form of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST).39 Before the stressor, we measured thoughts and emotions linked to threat and challenge appraisals based on theory and research.27,40,41 Participants rated how much they felt each of 6 emotions, including worried, anxious, or fearful (threat emotions) and eager, confident, and hopeful (challenge emotions). They also rated expectations for the task, including anticipated success, difficulty of the task, perceptions of control over the task, and effort they would need to exert.

An exploratory factor analysis was performed requesting two factors, with a varimax rotation. All items loaded on one of two factors, with loadings of .59 or higher, accounting for 51% of the total variance, supporting the existence of threat and challenge appraisal factors. The threat factor (Eigenvalue of 2.8) included the threat emotions and scoring high on expected difficulty. The challenge factor (Eigenvalue of 2.4) included scoring high on challenge emotions, high anticipated success, high perceived control, and expecting to exert high effort. Factor scores were created and examined independently and as a ratio of challenge to threat, in case relative levels of appraisal mattered. There were no correlations between TL with challenge (.07) or threat (r = .00) factors, suggesting that neither type of appraisal alone is associated with telomere shortening. However, the ratio of challenge to threat was significantly correlated with longer telomeres (r = .26, p < .05), suggesting that appraising a standardized stressor as more challenging than threatening may be related to longer TL. Appraisals are complex, even with a short lab stressor. In response to the upcoming laboratory stressor, people made both challenge and threat appraisals. Given the correlation between appraisal ratio and TL, and that telomere length is a cumulative measure, one that changes slowly over years, it appears that the predominant appraisal, determined by the relative balance of appraisals, is likely related to habitual ways of responding to small daily stressors.

The neuroendocrine system and autonomic nervous system which regulate the stress response are important physiological mediators between emotional stress and illness. Chronic stress can depress levels of heart rate variability or vagal tone, an index of the counterregulatory response to sympathetic arousal. For example, low vagal tone has been related to work stress42, depression43 and low socioeconomic status.44

Chronic stress can lead to dysregulation of the hypothalamic pituitary axis, which can take many forms, such as a blunted diurnal rhythm of cortisol or elevated basal levels.45,46 Flattened rhythm in turn can predict various indicators of physical and mental health, such as coronary calcification47 and metastatic breast cancer progression.48 Chronic stress can suppress levels of certain anabolic hormones, such as DHEA or insulin like growth factor 49 and can increase levels of insulin and visceral fat 50. Anabolic hormones such as testosterone appear to suppress or counterregulate the catabolic and sympathetic stress response 51 thus playing an important role in endocrine balance. Lastly, acute and chronic stress appear to increase levels of oxidative stress.52 These relationships between stress and neuroendocrine balance have been reviewed extensively elsewhere.49,53-55

Strong positive and negative emotions associated with appraisals can induce changes in physiological arousal systems. A primary construct for understanding appraisal and arousal is perceived control. Perceptions of control help determine whether a situation is appraised as a threat or challenge, and these appraisals in turn are primary determinants of physiological stress responses. Classic stress research has shown that feeling a lack of control over a stressor, including a sense of unpredictability and uncertainty, stimulates cortisol reactivity.56 A meta-analysis across studies of psychological laboratory stressors showed that conditions of social evaluative threat (perceptions that ego relevant aspects of ones identity will be negatively judged) and low control, are potent stimulants of the adrenal gland, with additive effects for both.57

Little research has examined positive emotions and physiology, and no research to our knowledge has compared high vs. low arousal positive states. Positive emotional states may promote a more salutary pattern of arousal. High arousal positive states, such as sports competition, vicariously experiencing winning, or experiencing challenge appraisals while successfully coping with an acute stressor, may activate certain anabolic hormones such as testosterone and DHEA-S.58-60 Lower arousal emotions, such as feeling composed, calm and peaceful are associated with greater vagal tone (parasympathetic activity) 61 and possibly to higher DHEA.62 Low DHEA at baseline has also been related to greater subsequent threat appraisals and negative affect in response to a stressor, suggesting it promotes affective vulnerability to acute stress.63 Thus, there are likely bidirectional relationships between neuroendocrine balance of anabolic and catabolic hormones, and appraisals. We suggest that the anabolic (mainly androgens and vagal tone) response to positive states, both high arousal states (challenge) and low arousal states (relaxation) may be one key to the effects of mindfulness on physical health (See , Positive states).

When a coping outcome is appraised as unfavorable and the goal remains highly valued, people feel more negative affect and may engage in rumination, repetitive thought that is not goal directed. Depressive rumination, a negative self-focus on assumed basic faults, can prolong negative mood and over time predict depression.64 Negative affect and rumination may further lead to prolonged cardiovascular recovery.65-67 State rumination has been related to higher salivary cortisol after acute stress.68

As yet few studies attempt to link cell aging to stress arousal. In our initial study of healthy young women, those with shorter telomeres excreted higher levels of both cortisol and epinephrine in their urine overnight, 69 suggesting chronically elevated stress response system activity. When examining telomerase, we found that low telomerase was related to greater basal hemodynamic arousal (heart rate, blood pressure), lower heart rate variability, and greater sympathetic reactivity to lab stress.69 Low telomerase was related to lower resting vagal tone and a greater dip in vagal tone in response to an acute lab stressor independent of resting vagal tone.

Endocrine and biochemical milieu can affect rate of telomere shortening with each cell division. Oxidative stress, characterized by excess free radicals, shortens telomeres, whereas telomerase can rebuild and thus lengthen the telomere. Further, in vitro evidence in various cell lines suggests that certain anabolic hormones, including growth hormone, 70 IGF-1,71-73 and estrogen, 74,75 can promote telomerase activity. In contrast, insulin and insulin resistance are related to telomere shortness.17 These same pathways may be affected by chronic stress and meditation, discussed further below.

Here we review meditation techniques theorized to positively modulate stress-related cognitive processes and arousal with implications for cellular aging. We first outline the theoretical claims and practice of mindfulness meditation, in particular, based on a large body of theory and research in this area, and examine other forms of meditation when applicable. We then review research linking mindfulness states, mindfulness meditation, and other types of meditation to aspects of stress cognition, coping, and emotional reactivity. Lastly, we review research linking meditation to stress arousal.

At the outset, we note the Buddhist origins of mindfulness meditation techniques and acknowledge that scientific understandings of mindfulness have developed largely independent of Buddhist paradigms, theory, and goals (for a discussion on this issue, see 76,77). Mindfulness meditation has been adapted to Western secular contexts to treat patients with a variety of physical and psychological conditions and research to date has predominantly focused on its efficacy to improve these conditions and examine underlying mechanisms. In contrast, in Buddhist settings, mindfulness is one aspect of a set of integrated spiritual practices, beliefs, and teachings aimed at achieving insight into the nature and cause of suffering and realizing spiritual freedom.77 These differing goals and contexts have implications for the understanding of mindfulness and so we emphasize the importance of not mistaking secular, therapeutic conceptualizations of mindfulness, as we focus on here, for Buddhist conceptualizations. Notwithstanding these issues, we would argue that the adaptation of mindfulness to Western contexts retains at least some of its essential ingredients and appears to be beneficial. Thus, it is within this larger context that we aim to review the scientific literature on mindfulness. We specifically focus on the relation of mindfulness to stress related cognitions, affect, and coping processes using Stress and Coping theory as a framework to propose mechanisms through which mindfulness, and other forms of meditation, may positively impact stress arousal and cellular aging.

Mindfulness is considered an inherent aspect of consciousness that can be enhanced through a variety of mental training techniques collectively referred to as mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness, translated from the Pali word sati (Sanskrit: smrti), literally means to remember. In the traditional Buddhist context, it means to adhere to an object of consciousness with a clear mental focus in a given moment 78. This simple definition contrasts with the multidimensional conceptualization of mindfulness by contemporary Western scientists. Although scientists have yet to agree on a precise definition,76,79-81 the most commonly cited one belongs to pioneer Jon Kabat-Zinn, who defined it as paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally 82 (p.4). Kabat-Zinn adds an attitudinal dimension to the state of mindfulnesss, that of nonjudgmentalness. Other researchers following his lead have described the attitude as one of curiosity and acceptance80 or kindness, compassion, and patience. 83 Thus, in addition to characterizing mindfulness as a form of attention regulation as in the Buddhist definition, scientists emphasize the importance of the cognitive and emotional manner in which attention is deployed.

Instructions for the formal practice of mindfulness meditation entail purposefully directing attention to ones experience in the present moment with an attitude of open curiosity and acceptance.80 An upright sitting posture with minimal movement is encouraged (with eyes either open or closed) to allow the body to relax and the mind to remain alert. Attention is directed to a pre-determined object, usually localized sensations involving respiration, such as those at the tip of the nose (external objects can also be used, such as a picture). Novice practitioners usually report that after a short period of time, they become distracted by thoughts, feelings, sounds, or physical sensations and their focus on the intended object is lost. At this point, the instruction is to notice these experiences (distractions) fully without judgment, to let them go, and return attention back to its intended object. Instructions for attending to distractions vary - from silently applying a specific label to the object (e.g., anger, anticipation, sound) to applying the general term thinking to any thought, to not making any mental notation whatsoever. Labeling an experience is believed to strengthen recognition of it and this may be particularly helpful for some individuals or when experiencing intense distractions. The process of becoming distracted and returning the attention is repeated over and over again during formal mindfulness practice. The goal is to increase awareness of present-moment experience to increasingly subtle levels and to strengthen stability of attention. The goal is not to ignore or get rid of thought in order to have a blank mind, but to notice with full attention whatever arises. In this sense, there are no distractions; whatever is noticed in the field of awareness can be observed. Interestingly, it can be painful to observe thoughts one wishes to avoid, so in this sense, the practice cultivates a willingness to experience discomfort and reduces attempts to escape it. At the other extreme, the goal is not to indulge in pleasant thought or achieve a pleasant experience (although this may occur), but to remain aware of each experience as it occurs.

A fundamental shift in the relation to thought and other objects of awareness is considered a pivotal, key mechanism of mindfulness training. This metacognitive process has been referred to as decentering and reperceiving, processes which have been similarly defined.79,84 Here we use the term reperceiving, which is defined as a shift in perspective in that what was previously subject becomes object (p. 378); or, in other words, consciousness becomes awareness of thought rather than thought itself. This shift in perspective is hypothesized to lead to the realization that I am not that thought allowing for greater flexibility in how to respond to thought or any experience when it occurs. This insight is argued to have manifold salutary effects on psychological functioning further elaborated below.81 We feel this is a key process for defusing stress cognitions, as described in detail below (under appraisal and rumination sections).

Mindful states of consciousness are not confined to formal meditation practice, but are thought to carry over into daily activities. Additionally, as mindfulness is considered an innate capacity of human consciousness, individuals without formal training are thought to vary in the extent to which they are mindful. As such, self-report measures of dispositional mindfulness have been developed using non-meditators 85,86. Effects of mindfulness training have most commonly been studied a) in the context of an eight-week group intervention program, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) 87 or variations of this program tailored to meet the needs of specific populations, b) using brief inductions of mindfulness in laboratory settings, or c) comparing experienced meditators to controls, findings of which are highlighted below.

As noted, a central aspect of mindfulness training involves the self-regulation of attention. In support, recent studies find improved performance on attention-related behavioral tasks after mindfulness training. Jha and colleagues found improved ability to orient attention in response to an environmental cue, enhancing response accuracy and reaction time on a computerized task among MBSR participants compared to meditation-nave participants.88 The researchers also found individuals who completed a one-month mindfulness-based residential retreat increased accuracy of a target location when no prior cue was presented compared to controls, indicating an enhanced vigilant state of alertness. These findings suggest that mindfulness enhances attention-related responsiveness to environmental cues and ability to maintain alertness.

In line with these findings, two studies have shown that meditation training is associated with inhibition of habitual responding on the classic Stroop task, in which participants are asked to name the colored text of a word rather than the word itself (e.g., the correct response to the word red appearing in blue-colored font is blue). 89,90 Although a contrived laboratory task, the findings support the suggestion that automatic, top-down information processing is reduced following certain forms of meditation practice. One implication of the deautomatization of thought is that it should lead to enhanced ability to notice nuanced details of experience from a fresh perspective and inhibit reliance on memories, expectations, and schemas during information processing.91

Meditation training has further been shown to reduce elaborative processing of previous stimuli thereby increasing attentional resources to present-moment experience.92 The distribution of attentional resources as measured by performance on an attentional-blink task improved after a 3-month intensive mindfulness-based meditation retreat compared to controls.92 Scalp-recorded brain potentials showed reduced brain-resource allocation to the first target embedded in a rapid stream of stimuli enabling increased identification of the second target.

Enhanced attention-related processes are hypothesized to improve early detection of potential stressors and increase the probability that effective coping will be implemented in a timely manner (Teasdale et al, 1995). Increased awareness of present-moment experience may also disrupt ruminative thought processes that play a role in prolonged stress reactivity and vulnerability to mental illness (Teasdale et al, 1995).

In addition, training in present-moment awareness appears to increase interoceptive processes, which involve awareness of visceral signals and subtle emotional feelings thought to be important in emotion regulation.93 Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, increased neural activity of brain regions involved in processing present-moment experience was found following eight weeks of mindfulness training compared to controls.94 Specifically, viscerosomatic brain areas showed greater activation (including the insula, secondary somatosensory cortex and infereior parietal lobule) when meditators compared to novices were asked to maintain an experiential momentary experience vs. a narrative self-focus after presentation of personality traits.94 In a study of long-term mindfulness meditation practitioners, magnetic resonance imaging revealed greater cortical thickness in brain regions associated with interoception, including the right anterior insula, compared to controls.95 These studies provide neural evidence that mindfulness meditation cultivates interoceptive awareness, which is thought to play a key role in maintaining present moment awareness and regulating emotions.

In regards to cognitive appraisals, to the extent mindfulness reduces identification with self-related cognition and goals through enhanced attention to present-moment experience and reperceiving, situations may be appraised as less threatening. Heppner and Kernis 96 argue that individuals who report greater dispositional mindfulness are less likely to interpret ambiguous behavior by others as reflecting hostile intent, and report less anger and desire to retaliate. In a mindfulness meditation induction experiment (as described in Heppner et al, 2007, citing unpublished analyses), participants exposed to a brief mindfulness practice (mindful eating of a raisin) displayed less aggressive behavior following social rejection compared to control participants. They suggest these participants may have experienced reduced reactivity to social threat because they attributed less hostile intent to the actor. In a study of relationship stress among romantic couples, those with higher dispositional mindfulness reported relatively more positive perceptions of their partner and relationship after discussing a conflict in a laboratory setting.97 A randomized waitlist-controlled trial of an abbreviated MBSR program conducted among adults at their work-site, found reductions in global appraisals of life stress (using the Perceived Stress Scale) compared to control group participants.98

These studies support the notion that mindfulness facilitates interpretation of situations as less threatening, perhaps due to less activation of self-relevant concerns, so that events are responded to more thoughtfully, rather than reacted to through automatic filters of cognitive and emotional processes. Mindfulness is argued to promote cognitive balance, the ability to see clearly beyond assumptions, preventing common and habitual cognitive distortions.99

Mindfulness may also improve coping with events that are appraised as threatening in which there is little possibility of control. Mindfulness may serve to increase a sense of control, not simply by reacting more coolly, (with attenuated cycles of negative thoughts and emotions), but by lessening ones perceived need to be in control, especially when situations are determined to be uncontrollable. In one controlled mindfulness-based meditation intervention of 28 healthy participants, those in the treatment group reported both increases in sense of control over life and increased willingness to let go of control efforts (greater use of acceptance/yielding to cope with stressors).100

Mindfulness training also improves the ability of patients to cope with a variety of chronic disease-related stressors that often afford limited opportunities for control. A meta-analysis of 20 studies examining effects of MBSR in patients with chronic illnesses (including cancer, fibromyalgia, and chronic pain) as well as those seeking to reduce stress, found a moderate effect size (Cohens d = ~.50) across observational, waitlist-controlled, and active-controlled studies.101 Improvements in psychological functioning (e.g., anxiety and depressive symptoms, copying style) were observed in addition to improvements in physical health symptoms, including pain and physical impairment and function. Large, well-controlled studies that assess the active ingredients of mindfulness are still needed, yet the accumulated studies offer encouragement that MBSR is helpful in enhancing patients ability to cope with a wide range of chronic illnesses.

Several other forms of meditation have been shown to reduce threat appraisals and enhance adaptive coping. A randomized controlled trial of mantra meditation (repeating a spiritually-related word or phrase throughout the day, including a focus on noticing and interrupting stressful thoughts) showed an increase in positive reappraisal, the tendency to reframe situations in a more positive light.102 Robins, McCain et al. 2006 conducted an uncontrolled study of Tai Chi, a form of moving meditation focusing on breath, in a sample of 59 participants with HIV. Although they found no changes in other types of coping, there was a significant increase in positive reappraisal.103

Lastly, a randomized study of Cognitive Behavioral Stress Management (CBSM) which incorporates a variety of somatic and cognitive techniques including meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, cognitive restructuring, assertiveness training, and anger management, examined responses to a standardized laboratory stressor (TSST, described above). They found that those in CBSM made fewer stress appraisals, both threat and challenge, and experienced greater expected control. These appraisals mediated lower cortisol responses to the stressor.104 A similar study followed 28 students, randomized to CBSM or a waitlist control group, and measured stress appraisals before a naturalistic stressor (an exam). Compared to the control group, those who received CBSM were less likely to appraise the exam as threatening (although equally likely to appraise it as challenging, thus changing the appraisal ratio), and had marginally greater perceived competence.105 These studies show that forms of meditation practice and stress reduction other than mindfulness also reduce stress-related cognitions, partly by shifting appraisals of events from threatening to positive and/or challenging.

One key way in which mindfulness may protect one from the negative effects of stress is by decreasing rumination. Increasing awareness of present-moment experience may disrupt ruminative thought processes that play a role in prolonged stress reactivity. 106 The typical instructions for mindfulness meditation, to notice thoughts and let them go, target the discursive mind the tendency to revisit the same thoughts repeatedly. As thoughts and feelings are experienced as transient mental events occurring within a wider context of awareness, attenuation of automatic identification and reactivity to them may occur. Over time, this more objective perspective on mental content, referred to as meta-cognitive awareness, may interrupt ruminative thinking, increase the ability to evaluate the accuracy of thoughts, and allow greater freedom of choice in responding to thoughts and emotions.84

The practice of changing how one relates to thoughts and emotions contrasts with cognitive behavioral therapies that emphasize changing the content of thoughts. Mindfulness practice involves first allowing awareness of thought and then becoming less engaged or attached to the thoughts themselves before attempting to evaluate their accuracy.99 This type of non-reactivity to inner experiences such as negative thoughts is one factor of a multi-factorial self-report measure of mindfulness.86

There are several studies that examine mindfulness and rumination. Mindfulness, as an individual difference variable, is related to less rumination.107,108 Conversely, mindfulness is negatively related to the more trait-like automatic habit of negative thinking,108 suggesting that it may prevent tonic dysphoria and low self esteem, in addition to playing a role in coping with stressors. A recent randomized trial suggests that mindfulness training reduces ruminative thought and distraction to a larger extent than somatic relaxation. This reduction in rumination is thought to be key to reducing distress.109

Mindfulness may also influence the secondary response to negative emotions that perpetuates the cycle of negative thoughts (distress about distress). Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), based on the MBSR program, specifically targets rumination and negative thought patterns associated with depression. A primary goal of the MBCT intervention developed for people with a history of depression is to shift the way participants relate to depressive thoughts and emotions, a process referred to as decentering, in that thoughts are experienced more objectively as passing events in the mind rather than accurate reflections of reality. The program has been found to be effective for reducing depression relapse in currently non-depressed patients in randomized usual-care controlled trials.84,110 Using semi-structured interview techniques to elicit memories of mildly depressive situations, the researchers found that mindfulness training increased the ability of participants to view their depressive thoughts and emotions with greater discrimination, evaluate the appropriateness of their thoughts and feelings, and gain greater perspective that their thoughts were self-generated rather than accurate reflections of reality.

Mindfulness is theorized to enhance emotion regulation skills by increasing awareness of emotions, increasing the willingness to tolerate and accept distressing or uncomfortable emotions, and reducing emotional reactivity to provocative events and emotions themselves.111

The proposal that mindfulness improves affect regulation through enhanced awareness of emotional processes is supported by three studies on reactivity to emotional stimuli. In one study, participants were asked to label emotions expressed on human faces while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Individuals scoring higher on a measure of trait mindfulness showed enhanced prefrontal cortical regulation of affect and reduced bilateral amygdala activity (typically associated with negative affective states) during affect labeling compared to a control labeling task.112 Furthermore, those with high vs. low trait mindfulness showed strong negative associations between areas of prefrontal cortex and right amygdala activity. These findings point to neural substrates that may underlie aspects of the reperceiving process in which consciousness is shifted from identification with emotion to conscious awareness of emotion. The effect of this cognitive shift may be to disrupt or inhibit automatic affective responses, reducing their intensity and duration.112,113

Brief mindfulness-based meditation training has been shown to reduce reactivity to emotional stimuli and increase willingness to be exposed to or tolerate negative stimuli. Participants who participated in a 15-minute focused breathing exercise akin to exercises taught in MBSR, reported less negative affect in response to images known to elicit negative emotions compared to two control groups instructed to either let their minds wander for 15 minutes or worry about certain aspects of their lives.111 The mindfulness participants also continued to report moderate levels of positive affect throughout exposure to emotionally neutral images and were more willing to view additional negative images compared to the control groups.

In a randomized waitlist-controlled MBSR trial among employees, Davidson and colleagues (2003) found an increased pattern of left-sided anterior brain activation, known to be associated with state and trait positive affect, in response to positive and negative mood inductions in MBSR participants compared to waitlist group from pre to post intervention. Left-sided anterior activation has been associated with quicker emotional recovery following a negative event.114 These studies indirectly support the idea that mindfulness promotes adaptive regulation of emotion.

In addition, mindfulness is linked to greater emotional well-being across studies with differing methodologies, including correlations of self-report levels of mindfulness with self-report emotional well-being, mindfulness induction experiments conducted in laboratories, and clinical trial interventions, as reviewed by Brown et al (2007). Trait levels of mindfulness have been associated with fewer emotional disturbances (e.g., depressive and anxiety symptoms), greater affective balance high positive affect and low negative affect, and less difficulties with emotional regulation.85,86 In a 2-week experience-sampling study, reports of greater state mindfulness were associated with affective balance (higher positive affect and lower negative affect), independent of trait mindfulness.85

Mindfulness is also although thought to increase intensity and frequency of positive and pro-social emotions, including empathy, kindness and compassion for self and others (Wallace and Shapiro, 2006). A randomized study of mindfulness-based stress reduction demonstrated increased scores on a measure of empathy, the capacity to notice and feel what another is feeling.115

In summary, the early research reviewed above suggests that mindfulness appears to reduce stress cognitions both the negative content of threat appraisals, the ruminative process of revisiting negative thoughts, as well as the secondary response of feeling distress about feeling distress.

In addition to mitigating stress-related cognitions and emotions, some types of meditation appear to reduce markers of stress arousal, both through the HPA axis, increasing vagal tone, and reducing markers of sympathetic arousal. Transcendental meditation (TM), a concentrative technique that uses silent repetition of a word or phrase as the object of awareness, has been the most extensively studied meditative technique. It appears to reduce systolic and diastolic blood pressure to levels comparable to pharmacologic treatment116 and improves heart rate variability compared to an active control group.117 It also appears to lower basal cortisol and lead to greater cortisol peaks in response to an acute stressor,118-120 a profile that might be described as enhanced allostasis.38,121 TM and a similar type of concentrative meditation (the relaxation response technique) are also characterized by decreased oxygen consumption,122,123 carbon dioxide elimination,124,125 and salutary EEG patterns (theta and alpha activation).126

Little research has evaluated specifically the effects of mindfulness meditation on HPA axis arousal or autonomic activity127 although similar effects as those found with transcendental meditation and the relaxation response could be predicted to occur. In one uncontrolled MBSR intervention study, cancer patients consistently showed decreased daily average cortisol values after one year of follow-up .128 In a second study, lower cortisol responses to mental stress were observed after five days of practicing an integrated mind-body meditation approach incorporating mindfulness compared to a randomized relaxation control group.129 However, one caveat is that mindfulness includes acknowledgement of distressing thoughts and feelings, which may initially increase arousal and emotional activity, but viewed as a developmental process, may progressively lead to decreased reactivity through enhanced awareness, tolerance of discomfort, and acceptance. Thus, for beginners, and periodically for experienced practitioners, mindfulness meditation is expected to produce increases in physiologic arousal.130

Several randomized controlled trials have demonstrated the effectiveness of CBSM on reducing peripheral stress arousal. CBSM training reduced urinary free cortisol and epinephrine in clinical samples.131,132 In one study of healthy participants, CBSM led to lower cortisol reactivity in response to a standardized laboratory stressor within 2 weeks104 and, to a lesser extent, four months after the intervention.133 To the extent that mindfulness or other forms of meditation promote the ability to buffer oneself from social evaluative threat -- recognizing that negative social judgments or reflected appraisals of the self (what one thinks others think about oneself) do not necessarily represent reality or a threat to ones self-worth, practitioners should indeed become less stress reactive.

Although concentrative and mindfulness meditation techniques may reduce HPA axis and autonomic arousal, the brain appears to respond to specific types of meditation in ways that may represent an adaptive attentional state to appraise stimuli. An fMRI study of meditation practitioners (who practiced Kundalini meditation in which focused attention on respiration is linked to silent repetition of a phrase found increased activation of localized neural structures involved in attention (frontal and parietal cortex) and control of the autonomic nervous system (pregenual anterior cingulate, amygdala, midbrain, and hypothalamus) compared to a control nonmeditative condition.134 These data suggest that as some meditation practices produce deep physical relaxation evidenced by reductions in autonomic and HPA arousal, these practitioners were engaged in an active attentional state of autonomic control, countering the notion that meditation is a state of mental as well as physical relaxation.

Further evidence suggests that meditation effects are not simply the result of volitionally reduced peripheral arousal. Results of a study comparing neural correlates of mindfulness meditation and respiratory biofeedback found that while some regions are engaged by both tasks, mindfulness meditation activates additional neural regions (e.g., right anterior insula).135 Thus, while some forms of meditation engage attentional resources to induce a hypometablic state benefical for managing stress-related arousal, they also appear to modulate cognitive and emotional processes involved in the appraisal of stress, such as interoception.

Several meditation studies have measured markers of positive health, such as anabolic hormones, and these may have relevance for cellular aging. As discussed above and reviewed elsewhere, several stress reduction interventions have induced increased heart rate variability and increased anabolic hormones such as DHEA.136 Several uncontrolled studies of TM show healthier profiles of arousal, including greater levels of DHEA-S.120,137

Across controlled studies, mindfulness meditation appears to improve physical health symptoms and functioning across a variety of disorders, and increases measures of mental health, including reduced negative affect and increased quality of life.138,139 It is thought that these positive effects are mediated in part by reductions in psychological and physiological stress. TM has been linked to reduced cardiovascular disease risk factors and in controlled trials, has reduced blood pressure116 and carotid artery atherosclerosis 140 as reviewed by Walton and colleagues.1412893

Oxidative stress may be an important mediator between stress and disease. It is linked to cardiovascular disease, as well as telomere shortening. Although few studies have examined oxidative stress balance, two initial studies found that meditation practitioners (TM and Zen) had lower levels of a marker of oxidative stress (lipid peroxidation).142,143

Stress cognitions are important for survival, but if they are based on distorted perceptions, they may promote excessive stress arousal, creating a harmful milieu for cellular longevity. During the longevity conference that these proceedings are based upon, H.H. the Dalai Lama explained that emotions based on reason and analysis, tend to drive meaningful behavior. In contrast, emotions based on false projections or fear-based beliefs are harmful to longevity. Here, as shown in , we speculate that certain types of meditation can increase awareness of present moment experience leading to positive cognitions, primarily by increasing meta-cognitive awareness of thought, a sense of control (and decreased need to control), and increased acceptance of emotional experience. These cognitive states and skills reduce cognitive stress and thus ability for more accurate appraisals, reducing exaggerated threat appraisals and rumination, and distress about distress. These positive states are thus stress-buffering. Increasing positive states and decreasing stress cognitions may in turn slow the rate of cellular aging.

There is some indirect support of aspects of this hypothesis involving stress cognitions. In our previous study, perceived life stress -- primarily an inability to cope with demands and feeling a lack of control, and higher nocturnal stress hormones (cortisol and catecholamines) were related to shorter telomere length.2 Trait negative mood was related to lower telomerase activity, a precursor of telomere shortening.144 Here we presented preliminary data from the same sample linking telomere length to higher proportions of challenge appraisals relative to threat appraisals in response to a standardized stressor. The results suggest that the relative balance of threat to challenge cognitions may be important in buffering against the long term wear and tear effects of stressors. To the extent that meditation mitigates stress-related cognitions and propagation of negative emotions and negative stress arousal, a longstanding practice of mindfulness or other forms of meditation may indeed decelerate cellular aging.

We also speculate about the physiological mechanisms. Above we have reviewed data linking stress arousal and oxidative stress to telomere shortness. Meditative practices appear to improve the endocrine balance toward positive arousal (high DHEA, lower cortisol) and decrease oxidative stress. Thus, meditation practices may promote mitotic cell longevity both through decreasing stress hormones and oxidative stress and increasing hormones that may protect the telomere. There is much evidence of neuroendocrine and physical health benefits from TM, which has a longer history of study than MBSR. The newer studies of mindfulness meditation are promising, and offer insight into specific cognitive processes of how it may serve as an antidote to cognitive stress states.

This field of stress induced cell aging is young, our model is highly speculative, and there are considerable gaps in our knowledge of the potential effects of meditation on cell aging. Several laboratories are working on diverse aspects of this model, which will soon allow it to be evaluated in light of the empirical data.

24. Epel ES. Telomeres: A new psychobiomarker for a lifespan approach? Current Directions in Psychology. 2008 in press.

26. Lazarus R, Folkman S. Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer-Verlag; New York: 1984.

31. Folkman S, Moskowitz J. The scope of social psychology: Theory and applications. Psychology Press; Hove, UK: 2007. Positive affect and meaning-focused coping during significant psychological stress; pp. 193208.

33. Park CL, Folkman S. Meaning in the context of stress and coping. Review of General Psychology. 1997;2:115144.

34. Tennen H, Affleck G. Benefit-finding and benefit-reminding. In: Snyder CR, Lopez SJ, editors. Handbook of positive psycholog. 584-597. Oxford University Press; London: 2002.

35. Folkman S, Moskowitz J, Ozer E, Park C. Positive meaningful events and coping in the context of HIV/AIDS. In: Gottlieb B, editor. Coping with Chronic Stress. Plenum; New York: 1997. pp. 293314.

36. Lazarus RS, Kanner AD, Folkman S. Emotions: A cognitive-phenomenological analysis. In: Plutchik R, Kellerman H, editors. Theories of emotion. Academic Press; New York: 1980.

37. Bower J, Low C, Moskowitz J, Sepah S, Epel E. Pathways from benefit finding to physical health: Enhanced psychological and physiological responses to stress. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. 2008 in press.

38. Epel E, McEwen B, Ickovics J. Embodying psychological thriving: Physical thriving in response to stress. Journal of Social Issues. 1998;54:301322.

49. Epel E, Burke H, Wolkowitz O. Psychoneuroendocrinology of Aging: Focus on anabolic and catabolic hormones. In: Aldwin C, Spiro A, Park C, editors. Handbook of Health Psychology of Aging. Guildford Press; 2007. pp. 119141.

53. Sterling P, Eyer J. Allostasis: A new paradigm to explain arousal pathology. In: Fisher S, Reason J, editors. Handbook of Life Stress: Cognition and Health. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.; 1988. pp. 629649.

60. Mendes WB, Ayduk O, Epel ES, Akinola M, Gyurak A. When stress is good for you: Neuroendocrine concomitants of physiological thriving. Harvard University; Boston: 2008.

62. Whitmore R, Maninger N, Wolfson W, Mendes WB, Epel ES. Relaxation increases DHEA; Paper presented at: Society of Behavioral Medicine; San Diego. 2008.

77. Rosch E. More than mindfulness: When you have a tiger by the tail, let it eat you. Taylor & Francis; United Kingdom: 2007.

78. Rosch E. More Than Mindfulness: When You Have a Tiger by the Tail, Let It Eat You. Psychological Inquiry. 2007 in press.

80. Bishop SR, Lau M, Shapiro S, et al. Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice. 2004 Fal11(3):230241.

81. Brown K, Ryan R, Creswell JD. Mindfulness: Theoretical foundations and evidence for its salutary effects. Psychological Inquiry. 2007;18(4):211237.

82. Kabat-Zinn J. Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life. Hyperion; New York: 1994.

87. Kabat-Zinn J. Full Catastrophe Living. Dell Publishing; New York: 1990.

91. Siegel D. The Mindful Brain. W.W. Norton and Company; New York: 2007.

96. Heppner WL, Kernis MH. Quiet ego functioning: The complementary roles of mindfulness, authenticity, and secure high self-esteem. Taylor & Francis; United Kingdom: 2007.

135. Lazar SW. Neural correlates of respiratory control during mindfulness meditation: Behavioral influences on respiration; Paper presented at: American Psychosomatic Society; Baltimore. 2008.

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1. Where did you have your stem cell treatment done? 2. Why didnt you have the treatment done in the United States? 3. Werent you worried about having a treatment done that is not FDA approved? 4. Where is Costa Rica? 5. Is Costa Rica safe to travel to? 6. Isn't Costa Rica a third world country? 7. What are stem cells? 8. What is the difference between embryonic and adult stem cells? 9. Did the stem cell treatment work? 10. What was the hospital like? 11. Did the treatment hurt? 12. Would you do it again? 1.Q Where did you have your stem cell treatment done? A After months of research and questioning and fact-finding, I decided to go to the Stem Cell Institute (cellmedicine.com). My first 2 treatments were done in San Jose, Costa Rica. The company continued to grow and expand to Panama to develop Medistem Panama. In 2009, the company was undergoing full development of a new $3M state of the art adult stem cell laboratory. In 2009, the Stem Cell Institute consolidated and moved all lab, research, and medical procedures to Panama. Go to Top 2.Q Why didnt you have the treatment done in the United States? A The stem cell treatment I had done for Multiple Sclerosis is not an approve treatment by the FDA. Go to Top 3.Q Werent you worried about having a treatment done that is not FDA approved? A No. In my humble opinion, I do not think that the United States is the only country that has the technology and resources available to develop and perform beneficial, advanced medical treatments. It is ignorant to believe that the FDA always knows best. Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. United States scientists and doctors are not the only professionals looking for solutions to solve health issues. It is a worldwide endeavor. Go to Top 4.Q Where is Costa Rica? A Costa Rica is located on the Central American isthmus with Nicaragua to the North and Panama to the South. It is not an island. It is bordered on the north by Nicaragua, the southeast by Panama. It is bordered on the East by the Caribbean Sea and on the West by the Pacific Ocean and is situated very near the equator. Go to Top 5.Q Is Costa Rica safe to travel to? A Without a doubt Costa Rica can be called the safest country in Central America. First and foremost, Costa Ricans (whether foreigners or Ticos) are honest and friendly people. They have a saying, "Pura Vida" ("Pure Life"). Wealth is very evenly distributed in relation to North America or European countries. Simple living without great material excess is the rule, and education, health, and welfare are freely available. Dismal poverty is rare, and therefore crime is reduced considerably. It has one of the lowest violent crime rates anywhere in the world. It's a democracy, has potable drinking water and an excellent, if basic, cuisine. There is no army, though the well-trained police force is highly qualified to keep the country secure. Go to Top 6.Q Isn't Costa Rica a third world country? A No. The United Nations uses the phrases developing countries and least developed countries rather than Third World. While it does have an official list of least developed countries it does not have an official list of developing countries because its members have not agreed on the criteria. Here is the link to the United Nations: http://www.worldbank.org The US is considered a first world country because it is on the list of High Income Economies. The next level down is Upper Middle Income Economies and that is what most people refer to as second world countries. Costa Rica and Mexico are on this list. Costa Rica is NOT a third world country. Go to Top 7.Q What are stem cells? A Stem cells are the forerunners of the specialized cells that generate all of the tissues in a human body. Stem cells are capable of renewing themselves almost indefinitely, ensuring a steady supply of replacement cells for those lost to disease, injury and age. Go to Top 8.Q What is the difference between embryonic and adult stem cells? A Adult stem cells are found throughout the body and come from mature tissue including bone marrow, blood, the brain, hair follicles, fat, the pancreas, inside the nose and umbilical cords. They multiply by cell division to replenish dying cells and regenerate damaged tissues. Adult stem cells are multipotent because they can develop into several different types of cells, but not as many as embryonic stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells are derived from fertilized eggs from in vitro fertilization done in a clinic. They are not derived from eggs fertilized in a woman's body. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, which means they can differentiate into nearly all cells. Embryonic stem cells also have an unlimited ability to self-renew.

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I Love My New Stem Cells

Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being defined by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.[1] Happy mental states may also reflect judgements by a person about their overall well-being.[2] A variety of biological, psychological, economic, religious and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources. Various research groups, including positive psychology and happiness economics are employing the scientific method to research questions about what "happiness" is, and how it might be attained.

The United Nations declared 20 March the International Day of Happiness to recognise the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals.

Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness in this sense was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, and is still used in virtue ethics. There has been a transition over time from emphasis on the happiness of virtue to the virtue of happiness.[3] Since the turn of the millennium, the human flourishing approach, advanced particularly by Amartya Sen has attracted increasing interest in psychological, especially prominent in the work of Martin Seligman, Ed Diener and Ruut Veenhoven, and international development and medical research in the work of Paul Anand.[citation needed]

A widely discussed political value expressed in the United States Declaration of Independence of 1776, written by Thomas Jefferson, is the universal right to "the pursuit of happiness."[4] This suggests a subjective interpretation but one that nonetheless goes beyond emotions alone.[citation needed]

Happiness is a fuzzy concept and can mean many different things to many people. Part of the challenge of a science of happiness is to identify different concepts of happiness, and where applicable, split them into their components. Related concepts are well-being, quality of life and flourishing. At least one author defines happiness as contentment.[5] Some commentators focus on the difference between the hedonistic tradition of seeking pleasant and avoiding unpleasant experiences, and the eudaimonic tradition of living life in a full and deeply satisfying way.[6]

The 2012 World Happiness Report stated that in subjective well-being measures, the primary distinction is between cognitive life evaluations and emotional reports.[7] Happiness is used in both life evaluation, as in How happy are you with your life as a whole?, and in emotional reports, as in How happy are you now?, and people seem able to use happiness as appropriate in these verbal contexts. Using these measures, the World Happiness Report identifies the countries with the highest levels of happiness.[citation needed]

Since the 1960s, happiness research has been conducted in a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including gerontology, social psychology, clinical and medical research and happiness economics. During the past two decades, however, the field of happiness studies has expanded drastically in terms of scientific publications, and has produced many different views on causes of happiness, and on factors that correlate with happiness,[8] but no validated method has been found to substantially improve long-term happiness in a meaningful way for most people.

Sonja Lyubomirsky concludes in her book The How of Happiness that 50 percent of a given human's happiness level is genetically determined (based on twin studies), 10 percent is affected by life circumstances and situation, and a remaining 40 percent of happiness is subject to self-control.[citation needed]

The results of the 75-year Grant Study of Harvard undergraduates show a high correlation of loving relationship, especially with parents, with later life wellbeing.[9]

In the 2nd Edition of the Handbook of Emotions (2000), evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby say that happiness comes from "encountering unexpected positive events". In the 3rd Edition of the Handbook of Emotions (2008), Michael Lewis says "happiness can be elicited by seeing a significant other". According to Mark Leary, as reported in a November 1995 issue of Psychology Today, "we are happiest when basking in the acceptance and praise of others". Sara Algoe and Jonathan Haidt say that "happiness" may be the label for a family of related emotional states, such as joy, amusement, satisfaction, gratification, euphoria, and triumph.[10]

It has been argued that money cannot effectively "buy" much happiness unless it is used in certain ways.[11] "Beyond the point at which people have enough to comfortably feed, clothe, and house themselves, having more money - even a lot more money - makes them only a little bit happier."[according to whom?] A Harvard Business School study found that "spending money on others actually makes us happier than spending it on ourselves".[12]

Meditation has been found to lead to high activity in the brain's left prefrontal cortex, which in turn has been found to correlate with happiness.[13]

Psychologist Martin Seligman asserts that happiness is not solely derived from external, momentary pleasures,[14] and provides the acronym PERMA to summarize Positive Psychology's correlational findings: humans seem happiest when they have

There have also been some studies of how religion relates to happiness. Causal relationships remain unclear, but more religion is seen in happier people. This correlation may be the result of community membership and not necessarily belief in religion itself. Another component may have to do with ritual.[15]

Abraham Harold Maslow, an American professor of psychology, founded humanistic psychology in the 1930s. A visual aid he created to explain his theory, which he called the hierarchy of needs, is a pyramid depicting the levels of human needs, psychological, and physical. When a human being ascends the steps of the pyramid, he reaches self-actualization. Beyond the routine of needs fulfillment, Maslow envisioned moments of extraordinary experience, known as peak experiences, profound moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, during which a person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient, and yet a part of the world. This is similar to the flow concept of Mihly Cskszentmihlyi.[citation needed]

Self-determination theory relates intrinsic motivation to three needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

Cross-sectional studies worldwide support a relationship between happiness and fruit and vegetable intake. Those eating fruits and vegetables each day have a higher likelihood of being classified as very happy, suggesting a strong and positive correlation between fruit and vegetable consumption and happiness.[16] Whether it be in South Korea,[17] Iran,[18] Chile,[19] USA,[20] or UK,[21] greater fruit and vegetable consumption had a positive association with greater happiness, independent of factors such as smoking, exercise, body mass index, or socio-economic factors.

Religion and happiness have been studied by a number of researchers, and religion features many elements addressing the components of happiness, as identified by positive psychology. Its association with happiness is facilitated in part by the social connections of organized religion,[22] and by the neuropsychological benefits of prayer[23] and belief.

There are a number of mechanisms through which religion may make a person happier, including social contact and support that result from religious pursuits, the mental activity that comes with optimism and volunteering, learned coping strategies that enhance one's ability to deal with stress, and psychological factors such as "reason for being." It may also be that religious people engage in behaviors related to good health, such as less substance abuse, since the use of psychotropic substances is sometimes considered abuse.[24][25][26][27][28][29]

The Handbook of Religion and Health describes a survey by Feigelman (1992) that examined happiness in Americans who have given up religion, in which it was found that there was little relationship between religious disaffiliation and unhappiness.[30] A survey by Kosmin & Lachman (1993), also cited in this handbook, indicates that people with no religious affiliation appear to be at greater risk for depressive symptoms than those affiliated with a religion.[31] A review of studies by 147 independent investigators found, "the correlation between religiousness and depressive symptoms was -.096, indicating that greater religiousness is mildly associated with fewer symptoms."[32]

The Legatum Prosperity Index reflects the repeated finding of research on the science of happiness that there is a positive link between religious engagement and wellbeing: people who report that God is very important in their lives are on average more satisfied with their lives, after accounting for their income, age and other individual characteristics.[33]

Surveys by Gallup, the National Opinion Research Centre and the Pew Organisation conclude that spiritually committed people are twice as likely to report being "very happy" than the least religiously committed people.[34] An analysis of over 200 social studies contends that "high religiousness predicts a lower risk of depression and drug abuse and fewer suicide attempts, and more reports of satisfaction with sex life and a sense of well-being. However, the links between religion and happiness are always very broad in nature, highly reliant on scripture and small sample number. To that extent there is a much larger connection between religion and suffering (Lincoln 1034)."[32] And a review of 498 studies published in peer-reviewed journals concluded that a large majority of them showed a positive correlation between religious commitment and higher levels of perceived well-being and self-esteem and lower levels of hypertension, depression, and clinical delinquency.[35] A meta-analysis of 34 recent studies published between 1990 and 2001 found that religiosity has a salutary relationship with psychological adjustment, being related to less psychological distress, more life satisfaction, and better self-actualization.[36] Finally, a recent systematic review of 850 research papers on the topic concluded that "the majority of well-conducted studies found that higher levels of religious involvement are positively associated with indicators of psychological well-being (life satisfaction, happiness, positive affect, and higher morale) and with less depression, suicidal thoughts and behaviour, drug/alcohol use/abuse."[37]

However, there remains strong disagreement among scholars about whether the effects of religious observance, particularly attending church or otherwise belonging to religious groups, is due to the spiritual or the social aspectsi.e. those who attend church or belong to similar religious organizations may well be receiving only the effects of the social connections involved. While these benefits are real enough, they may thus be the same one would gain by joining other, secular groups, clubs, or similar organizations.[38]

Terror management theory maintains that people suffer cognitive dissonance (anxiety) when they are reminded of their inevitable death. Through terror management, individuals are motivated to seek consonant elements symbols which make sense of mortality and death in satisfactory ways (i.e. boosting self-esteem).

Research has found that strong belief in religious or secular meaning systems affords psychological security and hope. It is moderates (e.g. agnostics, slightly religious individuals) who likely suffer the most anxiety from their meaning systems. Religious meaning systems are especially adapted to manage death anxiety because they are unlikely to be disconfirmed (for various reasons), they are all encompassing, and they promise literal immortality.[39][40]

Whether emotional effects are beneficial or adverse seems to vary with the nature of the belief. Belief in a benevolent God is associated with lower incidence of general anxiety, social anxiety, paranoia, obsession, and compulsion whereas belief in a punitive God is associated with greater symptoms. (An alternative explanation is that people seek out beliefs that fit their psychological and emotional states.)[41]

Citizens of the world's poorest countries are the most likely to be religious, and researchers suggest this is because of religion's powerful coping abilities.[42][43] Luke Galen also supports terror management theory as a partial explanation of the above findings. Galen describes evidence (including his own research) that the benefits of religion are due to strong convictions and membership in a social group.[44][45][46]

Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings.[47] For ultimate freedom from suffering, the Noble Eightfold Path leads its practitioner to Nirvana, a state of everlasting peace. Ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms. More mundane forms of happiness, such as acquiring wealth and maintaining good friendships, are also recognized as worthy goals for lay people (see sukha). Buddhism also encourages the generation of loving kindness and compassion, the desire for the happiness and welfare of all beings.[48][49][unreliable source?]

Happiness or simcha (Hebrew: ) in Judaism is considered an important element in the service of God.[50] The biblical verse "worship The Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs," (Psalm 100:2) stresses joy in the service of God.[citation needed] A popular teaching by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a 19th-century Chassidic Rabbi, is "Mitzvah Gedolah Le'hiyot Besimcha Tamid," it is a great mitzvah (commandment) to always be in a state of happiness. When a person is happy they are much more capable of serving God and going about their daily activities than when depressed or upset.[51]

The primary meaning of "happiness" in various European languages involves good fortune, chance or happening. The meaning in Greek philosophy, however, refers primarily to ethics. In Catholicism, the ultimate end of human existence consists in felicity, Latin equivalent to the Greek eudaimonia, or "blessed happiness", described by the 13th-century philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas as a Beatific Vision of God's essence in the next life.[52] Human complexities, like reason and cognition, can produce well-being or happiness, but such form is limited and transitory. In temporal life, the contemplation of God, the infinitely Beautiful, is the supreme delight of the will. Beatitudo, or perfect happiness, as complete well-being, is to be attained not in this life, but the next.[53]

While religion is often formalised and community-oriented, spirituality tends to be individually based and not as formalised. In a 2014 study, 320 children, ages 812, in both public and private schools, were given a Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire assessing the correlation between spirituality and happiness. Spirituality and not religious practices (praying, attending church services) correlated positively with the child's happiness; the more spiritual the child was, the happier the child was. Spirituality accounted for about 326% of the variance in happiness.[54]

The Chinese Confucian thinker Mencius, who 2300 years ago sought to give advice to the ruthless political leaders of the warring states period, was convinced that the mind played a mediating role between the "lesser self" (the physiological self) and the "greater self" (the moral self) and that getting the priorities right between these two would lead to sage-hood. He argued that if we did not feel satisfaction or pleasure in nourishing one's "vital force" with "righteous deeds", that force would shrivel up (Mencius,6A:15 2A:2). More specifically, he mentions the experience of intoxicating joy if one celebrates the practice of the great virtues, especially through music.[55]

Al-Ghazali (10581111) the Muslim Sufi thinker wrote the Alchemy of Happiness, a manual of spiritual instruction throughout the Muslim world and widely practiced today.[citation needed]

The Hindu thinker Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras, wrote quite exhaustively on the psychological and ontological roots of bliss.[56]

In the Nicomachean Ethics, written in 350 BCE, Aristotle stated that happiness (also being well and doing well) is the only thing that humans desire for its own sake, unlike riches, honor, health or friendship. He observed that men sought riches, or honor, or health not only for their own sake but also in order to be happy. Note that eudaimonia, the term we translate as "happiness", is for Aristotle an activity rather than an emotion or a state.[57] Thus understood, the happy life is the good life, that is, a life in which a person fulfills human nature in an excellent way. Specifically, Aristotle argues that the good life is the life of excellent rational activity. He arrives at this claim with the Function Argument. Basically, if it's right, every living thing has a function, that which it uniquely does. For humans, Aristotle contends, our function is to reason, since it is that alone that we uniquely do. And performing one's function well, or excellently, is one's good. Thus, the life of excellent rational activity is the happy life. Aristotle does not leave it that, however. For he argues that there is a second best life for those incapable of excellent rational activity.This second best life is the life of moral virtue.[citation needed]

Many ethicists make arguments for how humans should behave, either individually or collectively, based on the resulting happiness of such behavior. Utilitarians, such as John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, advocated the greatest happiness principle as a guide for ethical behavior.[citation needed]

Friedrich Nietzsche savagely critiqued the English Utilitarians' focus on attaining the greatest happiness, stating "Man does not strive for happiness, only the Englishman does." Nietzsche meant that the making happiness one's ultimate goal, the aim of one's existence "makes one contemptible;" Nietzsche instead yearned for a culture that would set higher, more difficult goals than "mere happiness." Thus Nietzsche introduces the quasi-dystopic figure of the "last man" as a kind of thought experiment against the utilitarians and happiness-seekers; these small, "last men" who seek after only their own pleasure and health, avoiding all danger, exertion, difficulty, challenge, struggle are meant to seem contemptible to Nietzsche's reader. Nietzsche instead wants us to consider the value of what is difficult, what can only be earned through struggle, difficulty, pain and thus to come to see the affirmative value suffering and unhappiness truly play in creating everything of great worth in life, including all the highest achievements of human culture, not least of all philosophy.[58][59]

According to St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, man's last end is happiness: "all men agree in desiring the last end, which is happiness."[60] However, where utilitarians focused on reasoning about consequences as the primary tool for reaching happiness, Aquinas agreed with Aristotle that happiness cannot be reached solely through reasoning about consequences of acts, but also requires a pursuit of good causes for acts, such as habits according to virtue.[61] In turn, which habits and acts that normally lead to happiness is according to Aquinas caused by laws: natural law and divine law. These laws, in turn, were according to Aquinas caused by a first cause, or God.[citation needed]

According to Aquinas, happiness consists in an "operation of the speculative intellect": "Consequently happiness consists principally in such an operation, viz. in the contemplation of Divine things." And, "the last end cannot consist in the active life, which pertains to the practical intellect." So: "Therefore the last and perfect happiness, which we await in the life to come, consists entirely in contemplation. But imperfect happiness, such as can be had here, consists first and principally in contemplation, but secondarily, in an operation of the practical intellect directing human actions and passions."[62]

Common market health measures such as GDP and GNP have been used as a measure of successful policy. On average richer nations tend to be happier than poorer nations, but this effect seems to diminish with wealth.[63][64] This has been explained by the fact that the dependency is not linear but logarithmic, i.e., the same percentual increase in the GNP produces the same increase in happiness for wealthy countries as for poor countries.[65][66][67][68] Increasingly, academic economists and international economic organisations are arguing for and developing multi-dimensional dashboards which combine subjective and objective indicators to provide a more direct and explicit assessment of human wellbeing. Work by Paul Anand and colleagues helps to highlight the fact that there many different contributors to adult wellbeing, that happiness judgement reflect, in part, the presence of salient constraints, and that fairness, autonomy, community and engagement are key aspects of happiness and wellbeing throughout the life course.

Libertarian think tank Cato Institute claims that economic freedom correlates strongly with happiness[69] preferably within the context of a western mixed economy, with free press and a democracy. According to certain standards, East European countries (ruled by Communist parties) were less happy than Western ones, even less happy than other equally poor countries.[70]

However, much empirical research in the field of happiness economics, such as that by Benjamin Radcliff, professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, supports the contention that (at least in democratic countries) life satisfaction is strongly and positively related to the social democratic model of a generous social safety net, pro-worker labor market regulations, and strong labor unions.[71] Similarly, there is evidence that public policies that reduce poverty and support a strong middle class, such as a higher minimum wage, strongly affects average levels of well-being.[72]

It has been argued that happiness measures could be used not as a replacement for more traditional measures, but as a supplement.[73] According to professor Edward Glaeser, people constantly make choices that decrease their happiness, because they have also more important aims. Therefore, the government should not decrease the alternatives available for the citizen by patronizing them but let the citizen keep a maximal freedom of choice.[74]

It has been argued that happiness at work is one of the driving forces behind positive outcomes at work, rather than just being a resultant product.[75]

Several scales have been used to measure happiness:

The UK began to measure national well being in 2012,[83] following Bhutan which already measured gross national happiness.[citation needed]

A correlation has been found between hormone levels and happiness. SSRIs, such as Prozac, are used to adjust the levels of seratonin in the clinically unhappy. Researchers, such as Alexander, have indicated that many peoples usage of narcotics may be the unwitting result of attempts to readjust hormone levels to cope with situations that make them unhappy.[84]

A positive relationship has been found between the volume of gray matter in the right precuneus area of the brain and the subject's subjective happiness score.[85] Interestingly meditation, including mindfulness, based interventions have been found to correlate with a significant gray matter increase within the precuneus.[86][87][88][89][90]

In 2005 a study conducted by Andrew Steptow and Michael Marmot at University College London, found that happiness is related to biological markers that play an important role in health.[91] The researchers aimed to analyze whether there was any association between well-being and three biological markers: heart rate, cortisol levels, and plasma fibrinogen levels. Interestingly, the participants who rated themselves the least happy had cortisol levels that were 48% higher than those who rated themselves as the most happy. The least happy subjects also had a large plasma fibrinogen response to two stress-inducing tasks: the Stroop test, and tracing a star seen in a mirror image. Repeating their studies three years later Steptow and Marmot found that participants who scored high in positive emotion continued to have lower levels of cortisol and fibrinogen, as well as a lower heart rate.[citation needed]

In Happy People Live Longer (2011),[92] Bruno Frey reported that happy people live 14% longer, increasing longevity 7.5 to 10 years and Richard Davidson's bestseller (2012) The Emotional Life of Your Brain argues that positive emotion and happiness benefit long-term health.[citation needed]

However, in 2015 a study building on earlier research found that happiness has no effect on mortality.[93] "This "basic belief that if you're happier you're going to live longer. That's just not true."[94] Consistent results are that "apart from good health, happy people were more likely to be older, not smoke, have fewer educational qualifications, do strenuous exercise, live with a partner, do religious or group activities and sleep for eight hours a night."[94]

Happiness does however seem to have a protective impact on immunity. The tendency to experience positive emotions was associated with greater resistance to colds and flu in interventional studies irrespective of other factors such as smoking, drinking, exercise, and sleep.[95][96]

Despite a large body of positive psychological research into the relationship between happiness and productivity,[97][98][99] happiness at work has traditionally been seen as a potential by-product of positive outcomes at work, rather than a pathway to success in business. However a growing number of scholars, including Boehm and Lyubomirsky, argue that it should be viewed as one of the major sources of positive outcomes in the workplace.[75][100]

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Happiness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Integration of Traditional and Alternative Medicine

Office-based Holistic and Integrative Medicine, Naples, FL (2007 - Present)

Hospitalist Medicine, Naples, Florida (2007 - 2012)

Office and Hospitalist Medicine, Naples, Florida (2006 - 2007)

Traveling Physician in Idaho, Nevada, & Washington State (2004 - 2005)

Integrative Medicine, Aventura, Florida(2003 - 2004)

Internal Medicine & Pediatrics Combined Residency Program Jackson Memorial Hospital/University of Miami Miami, Florida (1999 - 2003)

University of Michigan Medical School (M.D.) Ann Arbor, Michigan (1995 - 1999)

Harvard University (B.A.) Cambridge, Massachusetts (1991 - 1995)

Craniosacral Therapy, PractitionerUpledger Institute, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida (2005 - Present)

Full Body Presence, Certified Presenter Healing From The Core Curriculum (2007 - Present)

Medical Acupuncture for Physicians The Helms Institute: UCLA sponsored CME course (2006 - 2007)

Tai Chi Chuan Instructor, Chen-Style

Yoga Instructor,Certified by Love Yoga Center (2012)

Florida Licensed Physician Board-Certified: Internal Medicine

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About Me - Dr. Joel Ying, MD - Joy Health & Wellness, LLC

Most of the testing can be performed at the Hughes Center For Functional Medicine. During your medical consultation, Dr. Hughes or Dr. Roberts will determine which tests are needed and then our nurses will review testing recommendations, instructions (for instance, fasting or non-fasting, etc.) and costs, if applicable.

Your financial resources and how much testing you are interested in completing are taken into account and the plan for testing is reviewed with you. Testing is frequently done to assess nutritional status including amino acids, fatty acids, oxidative stress, vitamin levels, mitochondrial function, food allergies, and heavy metals.

Many other tests are available, including genetic testing for a variety of conditions, hormone evaluations, bone health, gastrointestinal health, adrenal function and many others. Some testing can be performed at home with test kits to collect urine, saliva or stool. Our nurse will review the instructions for completing these tests at home.

While the testing gives a more complete picture of your status, effective care can be implemented without it, or testing can be done over time. You should not let this prevent you from seeing one of the doctors.

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Summary

Veterinarians check for symptoms of illnesses in pets.

Veterinarians care for the health of animals and work to improve public health. They diagnose, treat, and research medical conditions and diseases of pets, livestock, and other animals.

Most veterinarians work in private clinics and hospitals. Others travel to farms, work in laboratories or classrooms, or work for the government.

Veterinarians must have a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from an accredited veterinary college and a state license.

The median annual wage for veterinarians was $88,490 in May 2015.

Employment of veterinarians is projected to grow 9 percent from 2014 to 2024, faster than the average for all occupations. Candidates should expect very strong competition for available veterinarian positions, especially in companion animal care. Those with specializations and prior work experience should have the best job opportunities.

Explore resources for employment and wages by state and area for veterinarians.

Compare the job duties, education, job growth, and pay of veterinarians with similar occupations.

Learn more about veterinarians by visiting additional resources, including O*NET, a source on key characteristics of workers and occupations.

Veterinarians use x rays to diagnose animals.

Veterinarians care for the health of animals and work to improve public health. They diagnose, treat, and research medical conditions and diseases of pets, livestock, and other animals.

Veterinarians typically do the following:

Veterinarians treat the injuries and illnesses of pets and other animals with a variety of medical equipment, including surgical tools and x-ray and ultrasound machines. They provide treatment for animals that is similar to the services a physician provides to treat humans.

The following are examples of types of veterinarians:

Companion animal veterinarians treat pets and generally work in private clinics and hospitals. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, more than 75 percent of veterinarians who work in private clinical practice treat pets. They most often care for cats and dogs, but also treat other pets, such as birds, ferrets, and rabbits. These veterinarians diagnose and provide treatment for animal health problems, consult with owners of animals about preventive healthcare, and carry out medical and surgical procedures, such as vaccinations, dental work, and setting fractures.

Equine veterinarians work with horses. In 2014, about 6 percent of private practice veterinarians diagnosed and treated horses.

Food animal veterinarians work with farm animals such as pigs, cattle, and sheep, which are raised to be food sources. In 2014, about 7 percent of private practice veterinarians treated food animals. They spend much of their time at farms and ranches treating illnesses and injuries and testing for and vaccinating against disease. They may advise owners or managers about feeding, housing, and general health practices.

Food safety and inspection veterinarians inspect and test livestock and animal products for major animal diseases, provide vaccines to treat animals, enhance animal welfare, conduct research to improve animal health, and enforce government food safety regulations. They design and administer animal and public health programs for the prevention and control of diseases transmissible among animals and between animals and people.

Research veterinarians work in laboratories, conducting clinical research on human and animal health problems. These veterinarians may perform tests on animals to identify the effects of drug therapies, or they may test new surgical techniques. They may also research how to prevent, control, and eliminate food- and animal-borne illnesses and diseases.

Some veterinarians become postsecondary teachers at colleges and universities.

Most veterinarians work in veterinary clinics.

Veterinarians held about 78,300 jobs in 2014, of which about 74 percent were in the veterinary services industry. Others held positions in federal, state, or local government; animal production, and in colleges and universities. About 1 in 6 veterinarians were self-employed in 2016.

Most veterinarians work in private clinics and hospitals. Others travel to farms, work in laboratories or classrooms, or work for the government.

Veterinarians who treat horses or food animals travel between their offices and farms and ranches. They work outdoors in all kinds of weather and may have to perform surgery, often in remote locations.

Veterinarians who work in food safety and inspection travel to farms, slaughterhouses, and food-processing plants to inspect the health of animals and ensure that safety protocols are being followed by the facility.

Veterinarians who conduct research work primarily in offices and laboratories. They spend much of their time dealing with people, rather than animals.

The work can be emotionally stressful, as veterinarians deal with sick animals and the animals anxious owners. Also, the workplace can be noisy, as animals make noise when sick or being handled. Working on farms and ranches, in slaughterhouses, or with wildlife can also be physically demanding.

When working with animals that are frightened or in pain, veterinarians risk being bitten, kicked, and scratched. In addition, veterinarians working with diseased animals risk being infected by the disease.

Veterinarians often work additional hours. Some work nights or weekends, and they may have to respond to emergencies outside of scheduled work hours.

Veterinarians can choose specialties such as companion animals or farm animals.

Veterinarians must have a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from an accredited veterinary college and a state license.

Veterinarians must complete a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M. or V.M.D.) degree at an accredited college of veterinary medicine. There are currently 30 colleges with accredited programs in the United States. A veterinary medicine program generally takes 4 years to complete and includes classroom, laboratory, and clinical components.

Although not required, most applicants to veterinary school have a bachelors degree. Veterinary medical colleges typically require applicants to have taken many science classes, including biology, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, zoology, microbiology, and animal science. Most programs also require math, humanities, and social science courses.

Admission to veterinary programs is competitive, and less than half of all applicants were accepted in 2014.

In veterinary medicine programs, students take courses on animal anatomy and physiology, as well as disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Most programs include 3 years of classroom, laboratory, and clinical work. Students typically spend the final year of the 4-year program doing clinical rotations in a veterinary medical center or hospital.

Veterinarians must be licensed in order to practice in the United States. Licensing requirements vary by state, but all states require prospective veterinarians to complete an accredited veterinary program and to pass the North American Veterinary Licensing Examination. Veterinarians working for the state or federal government may not be required to have a state license, because each agency has different requirements.

Most states not only require the national exam but also have a state exam that covers state laws and regulations. Few states accept licenses from other states, so veterinarians who want to be licensed in another state usually must take that states exam.

The American Veterinary Medical Association offers certification in 40 specialties, such as surgery, microbiology, and internal medicine. Although certification is not required for veterinarians, it can show exceptional skill and expertise in a particular field. To sit for a specialty certification exam, veterinarians must have a certain number of years of experience in the field, complete additional education, and complete a residency program, typically lasting 3 to 4 years. Requirements vary by specialty.

Some veterinary medical colleges weigh experience heavily during the admissions process. Formal experience, such as previous work with veterinarians or scientists in clinics, agribusiness, research, or some area of health science, is particularly advantageous. Less formal experience, such as working with animals on a farm, at a stable, or in an animal shelter, can also be helpful.

Although graduates of a veterinary program can begin practicing once they receive their license, some veterinarians pursue further education and training. Some new veterinary graduates enter internship or residency programs to gain specialized experience.

Compassion. Veterinarians must be compassionate when working with animals and their owners. They must treat animals with kindness and respect, and must be sensitive when dealing with the animal owners.

Communication skills. Strong communication skills are essential for veterinarians, who must be able to discuss their recommendations and explain treatment options to animal owners and give instructions to their staff.

Decisionmaking skills. Veterinarians must decide the correct method for treating the injuries and illnesses of animals. For instance, deciding to euthanize a sick animal can be difficult.

Management skills. Management skills are important for veterinarians who manage private clinics or laboratories, or direct teams of technicians or inspectors. In these settings, they are responsible for providing direction, delegating work, and overseeing daily operations.

Manual dexterity. Manual dexterity is important for veterinarians, because they must control their hand movements and be precise when treating injuries and performing surgery.

Problem-solving skills. Veterinarians need strong problem-solving skills because they must figure out what is ailing animals. Those who test animals to determine the effects of drug therapies also need excellent diagnostic skills.

Median annual wages, May 2015

The median annual wage for veterinarians was $88,490 in May 2015. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $53,210, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $158,260.

Veterinarians often work additional hours. Some work nights or weekends, and they may have to respond to emergencies outside of scheduled work hours.

Percent change in employment, projected 2014-24

Employment of veterinarians is projected to grow 9 percent from 2014 to 2024, faster than the average for all occupations. Veterinarians will continue to be needed to diagnose and treat animals.

Veterinary medicine has advanced considerably. Veterinarians are able to offer more services today that are comparable to healthcare for humans, including more complicated procedures like cancer treatments and kidney transplants.

There also will be employment growth in areas such as food and animal safety, where organizations work to prevent foodborne contaminations and diseases in animals; public health, where organizations work to protect the health of an entire population; and disease control. Veterinarians will continue to be needed to inspect the food supply and to ensure animal and human health.

Candidates can expect competition for most veterinarian positions. Job seekers with a specialization and prior work experience should have the best job opportunities.

The number of new graduates from veterinary schools has increased to roughly 3,000 per year, resulting in greater competition for jobs than in recent years. Additionally, most veterinary graduates are attracted to companion animal care, so there will be fewer job opportunities in that field.

Job opportunities in farm animal care will be better, because fewer veterinarians compete to work on large animals. Also, there will be some job opportunities available in the federal government in food safety, animal health, and public health. Job opportunities will also become available as veterinarians retire opening up positions for new veterinarians.

Veterinary schools also train veterinarians for positions in other fields, such as public health, disease control, corporate sales, and population studies. With potentially fewer opportunities in companion animal care, many graduating veterinarians will likely have better job prospects in these areas.

Veterinarians

The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program produces employment and wage estimates annually for over 800 occupations. These estimates are available for the nation as a whole, for individual states, and for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. The link(s) below go to OES data maps for employment and wages by state and area.

Occupational employment projections are developed for all states by Labor Market Information (LMI) or individual state Employment Projections offices. All state projections data are available at http://www.projectionscentral.com. Information on this site allows projected employment growth for an occupation to be compared among states or to be compared within one state. In addition, states may produce projections for areas; there are links to each states websites where these data may be retrieved.

Americas Career InfoNet includes hundreds of occupational profiles with data available by state and metro area. There are links in the left-hand side menu to compare occupational employment by state and occupational wages by local area or metro area. There is also a salary info tool to search for wages by zip code.

This table shows a list of occupations with job duties that are similar to those of veterinarians.

Agricultural and food scientists research ways to improve the efficiency and safety of agricultural establishments and products.

Animal care and service workers provide care for animals. They feed, groom, bathe, and exercise pets and other nonfarm animals. Job tasks vary by position and place of work.

Medical scientists conduct research aimed at improving overall human health. They often use clinical trials and other investigative methods to reach their findings.

Physicians and surgeons diagnose and treat injuries or illnesses. Physicians examine patients; take medical histories; prescribe medications; and order, perform, and interpret diagnostic tests. They counsel patients on diet, hygiene, and preventive healthcare. Surgeons operate on patients to treat injuries, such as broken bones; diseases, such as cancerous tumors; and deformities, such as cleft palates.

Veterinary assistants and laboratory animal caretakers look after animals in laboratories, animal hospitals, and clinics. They care for the animals by performing routine tasks under the supervision of scientists, veterinarians, and veterinary technologists and technicians.

Veterinary technologists and technicians perform medical tests under the supervision of a licensed veterinarian to assist in diagnosing the injuries and illnesses of animals.

Zoologists and wildlife biologists study animals and other wildlife and how they interact with their ecosystems. They study the physical characteristics of animals, animal behaviors, and the impacts humans have on wildlife and natural habitats.

The What They Do tab describes the typical duties and responsibilities of workers in the occupation, including what tools and equipment they use and how closely they are supervised. This tab also covers different types of occupational specialties.

The Work Environment tab includes the number of jobs held in the occupation and describes the workplace, the level of physical activity expected, and typical hours worked. It may also discuss the major industries that employed the occupation. This tab may also describe opportunities for part-time work, the amount and type of travel required, any safety equipment that is used, and the risk of injury that workers may face.

The How to Become One tab describes how to prepare for a job in the occupation. This tab can include information on education, training, work experience, licensing and certification, and important qualities that are required or helpful for entering or working in the occupation.

The Pay tab describes typical earnings and how workers in the occupation are compensatedannual salaries, hourly wages, commissions, tips, or bonuses. Within every occupation, earnings vary by experience, responsibility, performance, tenure, and geographic area. This tab may also provide information on earnings in the major industries employing the occupation.

The State and Area Data tab provides links to state and area occupational data from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program, state projections data from Projections Central, and occupational information from the Department of Labor's Career InfoNet.

The Job Outlook tab describes the factors that affect employment growth or decline in the occupation, and in some instances, describes the relationship between the number of job seekers and the number of job openings.

The Similar Occupations tab describes occupations that share similar duties, skills, interests, education, or training with the occupation covered in the profile.

The More Information tab provides the Internet addresses of associations, government agencies, unions, and other organizations that can provide additional information on the occupation. This tab also includes links to relevant occupational information from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET).

The wage at which half of the workers in the occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. Median wage data are from the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics survey. In May 2015, the median annual wage for all workers was $36,200.

Additional training needed (postemployment) to attain competency in the skills needed in this occupation.

Typical level of education that most workers need to enter this occupation.

Work experience that is commonly considered necessary by employers, or is a commonly accepted substitute for more formal types of training or education.

The employment, or size, of this occupation in 2014, which is the base year of the 2014-24 employment projections.

The projected percent change in employment from 2014 to 2024. The average growth rate for all occupations is 7 percent.

The projected numeric change in employment from 2014 to 2024.

Typical level of education that most workers need to enter this occupation.

Additional training needed (postemployment) to attain competency in the skills needed in this occupation.

The projected numeric change in employment from 2014 to 2024.

The percent change of employment for each occupation from 2014 to 2024.

The projected numeric change in employment from 2014 to 2024.

The projected percent change in employment from 2014 to 2024.

The wage at which half of the workers in the occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. Median wage data are from the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics survey. In May 2015, the median annual wage for all workers was $36,200.

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U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: How to Become a Veterinarian

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Veterinary Supplies, Medical & Podiatry Products at best prices

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knowledge center home stem cell research all about stem cells what are stem cells?

Stem cells are a class of undifferentiated cells that are able to differentiate into specialized cell types. Commonly, stem cells come from two main sources:

Both types are generally characterized by their potency, or potential to differentiate into different cell types (such as skin, muscle, bone, etc.).

Adult or somatic stem cells exist throughout the body after embryonic development and are found inside of different types of tissue. These stem cells have been found in tissues such as the brain, bone marrow, blood, blood vessels, skeletal muscles, skin, and the liver. They remain in a quiescent or non-dividing state for years until activated by disease or tissue injury.

Adult stem cells can divide or self-renew indefinitely, enabling them to generate a range of cell types from the originating organ or even regenerate the entire original organ. It is generally thought that adult stem cells are limited in their ability to differentiate based on their tissue of origin, but there is some evidence to suggest that they can differentiate to become other cell types.

Embryonic stem cells are derived from a four- or five-day-old human embryo that is in the blastocyst phase of development. The embryos are usually extras that have been created in IVF (in vitro fertilization) clinics where several eggs are fertilized in a test tube, but only one is implanted into a woman.

Sexual reproduction begins when a male's sperm fertilizes a female's ovum (egg) to form a single cell called a zygote. The single zygote cell then begins a series of divisions, forming 2, 4, 8, 16 cells, etc. After four to six days - before implantation in the uterus - this mass of cells is called a blastocyst. The blastocyst consists of an inner cell mass (embryoblast) and an outer cell mass (trophoblast). The outer cell mass becomes part of the placenta, and the inner cell mass is the group of cells that will differentiate to become all the structures of an adult organism. This latter mass is the source of embryonic stem cells - totipotent cells (cells with total potential to develop into any cell in the body).

In a normal pregnancy, the blastocyst stage continues until implantation of the embryo in the uterus, at which point the embryo is referred to as a fetus. This usually occurs by the end of the 10th week of gestation after all major organs of the body have been created.

However, when extracting embryonic stem cells, the blastocyst stage signals when to isolate stem cells by placing the "inner cell mass" of the blastocyst into a culture dish containing a nutrient-rich broth. Lacking the necessary stimulation to differentiate, they begin to divide and replicate while maintaining their ability to become any cell type in the human body. Eventually, these undifferentiated cells can be stimulated to create specialized cells.

Stem cells are either extracted from adult tissue or from a dividing zygote in a culture dish. Once extracted, scientists place the cells in a controlled culture that prohibits them from further specializing or differentiating but usually allows them to divide and replicate. The process of growing large numbers of embryonic stem cells has been easier than growing large numbers of adult stem cells, but progress is being made for both cell types.

Once stem cells have been allowed to divide and propagate in a controlled culture, the collection of healthy, dividing, and undifferentiated cells is called a stem cell line. These stem cell lines are subsequently managed and shared among researchers. Once under control, the stem cells can be stimulated to specialize as directed by a researcher - a process known as directed differentiation. Embryonic stem cells are able to differentiate into more cell types than adult stem cells.

Stem cells are categorized by their potential to differentiate into other types of cells. Embryonic stem cells are the most potent since they must become every type of cell in the body. The full classification includes:

Embryonic stem cells are considered pluripotent instead of totipotent because they do not have the ability to become part of the extra-embryonic membranes or the placenta.

A video on how stem cells work and develop.

Although there is not complete agreement among scientists of how to identify stem cells, most tests are based on making sure that stem cells are undifferentiated and capable of self-renewal. Tests are often conducted in the laboratory to check for these properties.

One way to identify stem cells in a lab, and the standard procedure for testing bone marrow or hematopoietic stem cell (HSC), is by transplanting one cell to save an individual without HSCs. If the stem cell produces new blood and immune cells, it demonstrates its potency.

Clonogenic assays (a laboratory procedure) can also be employed in vitro to test whether single cells can differentiate and self-renew. Researchers may also inspect cells under a microscope to see if they are healthy and undifferentiated or they may examine chromosomes.

To test whether human embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, scientists allow the cells to differentiate spontaneously in cell culture, manipulate the cells so they will differentiate to form specific cell types, or inject the cells into an immunosuppressed mouse to test for the formation of a teratoma (a benign tumor containing a mixture of differentiated cells).

Scientists and researchers are interested in stem cells for several reasons. Although stem cells do not serve any one function, many have the capacity to serve any function after they are instructed to specialize. Every cell in the body, for example, is derived from first few stem cells formed in the early stages of embryological development. Therefore, stem cells extracted from embryos can be induced to become any desired cell type. This property makes stem cells powerful enough to regenerate damaged tissue under the right conditions.

Tissue regeneration is probably the most important possible application of stem cell research. Currently, organs must be donated and transplanted, but the demand for organs far exceeds supply. Stem cells could potentially be used to grow a particular type of tissue or organ if directed to differentiate in a certain way. Stem cells that lie just beneath the skin, for example, have been used to engineer new skin tissue that can be grafted on to burn victims.

A team of researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital reported in PNAS Early Edition (July 2013 issue) that they were able to create blood vessels in laboratory mice using human stem cells.

The scientists extracted vascular precursor cells derived from human-induced pluripotent stem cells from one group of adults with type 1 diabetes as well as from another group of healthy adults. They were then implanted onto the surface of the brains of the mice.

Within two weeks of implanting the stem cells, networks of blood-perfused vessels had been formed - they lasted for 280 days. These new blood vessels were as good as the adjacent natural ones.

The authors explained that using stem cells to repair or regenerate blood vessels could eventually help treat human patients with cardiovascular and vascular diseases.

Additionally, replacement cells and tissues may be used to treat brain disease such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's by replenishing damaged tissue, bringing back the specialized brain cells that keep unneeded muscles from moving. Embryonic stem cells have recently been directed to differentiate into these types of cells, and so treatments are promising.

Healthy heart cells developed in a laboratory may one day be transplanted into patients with heart disease, repopulating the heart with healthy tissue. Similarly, people with type I diabetes may receive pancreatic cells to replace the insulin-producing cells that have been lost or destroyed by the patient's own immune system. The only current therapy is a pancreatic transplant, and it is unlikely to occur due to a small supply of pancreases available for transplant.

Adult hematopoietic stem cells found in blood and bone marrow have been used for years to treat diseases such as leukemia, sickle cell anemia, and other immunodeficiencies. These cells are capable of producing all blood cell types, such as red blood cells that carry oxygen to white blood cells that fight disease. Difficulties arise in the extraction of these cells through the use of invasive bone marrow transplants. However hematopoietic stem cells have also been found in the umbilical cord and placenta. This has led some scientists to call for an umbilical cord blood bank to make these powerful cells more easily obtainable and to decrease the chances of a body's rejecting therapy.

Another reason why stem cell research is being pursued is to develop new drugs. Scientists could measure a drug's effect on healthy, normal tissue by testing the drug on tissue grown from stem cells rather than testing the drug on human volunteers.

The debates surrounding stem cell research primarily are driven by methods concerning embryonic stem cell research. It was only in 1998 that researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison extracted the first human embryonic stem cells that were able to be kept alive in the laboratory. The main critique of this research is that it required the destruction of a human blastocyst. That is, a fertilized egg was not given the chance to develop into a fully-developed human.

The core of this debate - similar to debates about abortion, for example - centers on the question, "When does life begin?" Many assert that life begins at conception, when the egg is fertilized. It is often argued that the embryo deserves the same status as any other full grown human. Therefore, destroying it (removing the blastocyst to extract stem cells) is akin to murder. Others, in contrast, have identified different points in gestational development that mark the beginning of life - after the development of certain organs or after a certain time period.

People also take issue with the creation of chimeras. A chimera is an organism that has both human and animal cells or tissues. Often in stem cell research, human cells are inserted into animals (like mice or rats) and allowed to develop. This creates the opportunity for researchers to see what happens when stem cells are implanted. Many people, however, object to the creation of an organism that is "part human".

The stem cell debate has risen to the highest level of courts in several countries. Production of embryonic stem cell lines is illegal in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, and Ireland, but permitted in Finland, Greece, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK. In the United States, it is not illegal to work with or create embryonic stem cell lines. However, the debate in the US is about funding, and it is in fact illegal for federal funds to be used to research stem cell lines that were created after August 2001.

Medical News Today is a leading resource for the latest headlines on stem cell research. So, check out our stem cell research news section. You can also sign up to our weekly or daily newsletters to ensure that you stay up-to-date with the latest news.

This stem cells information section was written by Peter Crosta for Medical News Today in September 2008 and was last updated on 19 July 2013. The contents may not be re-produced in any way without the permission of Medical News Today.

Disclaimer: This informational section on Medical News Today is regularly reviewed and updated, and provided for general information purposes only. The materials contained within this guide do not constitute medical or pharmaceutical advice, which should be sought from qualified medical and pharmaceutical advisers.

Please note that although you may feel free to cite and quote this article, it may not be re-produced in full without the permission of Medical News Today. For further details, please view our full terms of use

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What are Stem Cells? - Health News - Medical News Today

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are adult cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to an embryonic stem celllike state by being forced to express genes and factors important for maintaining the defining properties of embryonic stem cells. Although these cells meet the defining criteria for pluripotent stem cells, it is not known if iPSCs and embryonic stem cells differ in clinically significant ways. Mouse iPSCs were first reported in 2006, and human iPSCs were first reported in late 2007. Mouse iPSCs demonstrate important characteristics of pluripotent stem cells, including expressing stem cell markers, forming tumors containing cells from all three germ layers, and being able to contribute to many different tissues when injected into mouse embryos at a very early stage in development. Human iPSCs also express stem cell markers and are capable of generating cells characteristic of all three germ layers.

Although additional research is needed, iPSCs are already useful tools for drug development and modeling of diseases, and scientists hope to use them in transplantation medicine. Viruses are currently used to introduce the reprogramming factors into adult cells, and this process must be carefully controlled and tested before the technique can lead to useful treatment for humans. In animal studies, the virus used to introduce the stem cell factors sometimes causes cancers. Researchers are currently investigating non-viral delivery strategies. In any case, this breakthrough discovery has created a powerful new way to "de-differentiate" cells whose developmental fates had been previously assumed to be determined. In addition, tissues derived from iPSCs will be a nearly identical match to the cell donor and thus probably avoid rejection by the immune system. The iPSC strategy creates pluripotent stem cells that, together with studies of other types of pluripotent stem cells, will help researchers learn how to reprogram cells to repair damaged tissues in the human body.

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Stem Cell Basics VI. | stemcells.nih.gov

For millennia, if not for eonsanthropology continuously pushes backward the time of human originlife expectancy was short. The few people who grew old were assumed, because of their years, to have won the favor of the gods. The typical person was fortunate to reach 40.

Beginning in the 19th century, that slowly changed. Since 1840, life expectancy at birth has risen about three months with each passing year. In 1840, life expectancy at birth in Sweden, a much-studied nation owing to its record-keeping, was 45 years for women; today its 83 years. The United States displays roughly the same trend. When the 20th century began, life expectancy at birth in America was 47 years; now newborns are expected to live 79 years. If about three months continue to be added with each passing year, by the middle of this century, American life expectancy at birth will be 88 years. By the end of the century, it will be 100 years.

Viewed globally, the lengthening of life spans seems independent of any single, specific event. It didnt accelerate much as antibiotics and vaccines became common. Nor did it retreat much during wars or disease outbreaks. A graph of global life expectancy over time looks like an escalator rising smoothly. The trend holds, in most years, in individual nations rich and poor; the whole world is riding the escalator.

Projections of ever-longer life spans assume no incredible medical discoveriesrather, that the escalator ride simply continues. If anti-aging drugs or genetic therapies are found, the climb could accelerate. Centenarians may become the norm, rather than rarities who generate a headline in the local newspaper.

Pie in the sky? On a verdant hillside in Marin County, Californiahome to hipsters and towering redwoods, the place to which the Golden Gate Bridge leadssits the Buck Institute, the first private, independent research facility dedicated to extending the human life span. Since 1999, scientists and postdocs there have studied ways to make organisms live much longer, and with better health, than they naturally would. Already, the institutes researchers have quintupled the life span of laboratory worms. Most Americans have never heard of the Buck Institute, but someday this place may be very well known.

Buck is not alone in its pursuit. The University of Michigan, the University of Texas, and the University of California at San Francisco are studying ways to slow aging, as is the Mayo Clinic. Late in 2013, Google brought its trove of cash into the game, founding a spin-off called the California Life Company (known as Calico) to specialize in longevity research. Six months after Calicos charter was announced, Craig Venter, the biotech entrepreneur who in the 1990s conducted a dramatic race against government laboratories to sequence the human genome, also founded a start-up that seeks ways to slow aging.

Should research find a life-span breakthrough, the proportion of the U.S. population that is elderlyfated to rise anyway, considering declining fertility rates, the retirement of the Baby Boomers, and the continuing uplift of the escalatormay climb even more. Longer life has obvious appeal, but it entails societal risks. Politics may come to be dominated by the old, who might vote themselves ever more generous benefits for which the young must pay. Social Security and private pensions could be burdened well beyond what current actuarial tables suggest. If longer life expectancy simply leads to more years in which pensioners are disabled and demand expensive services, health-care costs may balloon as never before, while other social needs go unmet.

With each passing year, the newly born live about three months longer than those born the prior year.

But the story might have a happy ending. If medical interventions to slow aging result in added years of reasonable fitness, life might extend in a sanguine manner, with most men and women living longer in good vigor, and also working longer, keeping pension and health-care subsidies under control. Indeed, the most-exciting work being done in longevity science concerns making the later years vibrant, as opposed to simply adding time at the end.

Postwar medical research has focused on specific conditions: there are heart-disease laboratories, cancer institutes, and so on. Traditional research assumes the chronic later-life diseases that are among the nations leading killerscardiovascular blockage, stroke, Alzheimersarise individually and should be treated individually. What if, instead, aging is the root cause of many chronic diseases, and aging can be slowed? Not just life span but health span might increase.

Drugs that lengthen health span are becoming to medical researchers what vaccines and antibiotics were to previous generations in the lab: their grail. If health-span research is successful, pharmaceuticals as remarkable as those earlier generations of drugs may result. In the process, society might learn the answer to an ancient mystery: Given that every cell in a mammals body contains the DNA blueprint of a healthy young version of itself, why do we age at all?

Here in our freezers we have 100 or so compounds that extend life in invertebrates, says Gordon Lithgow, a geneticist at the Buck Institute. He walks with me through labs situated on a campus of modernistic buildings that command a dreamlike view of San Pablo Bay, and encourage dreamlike thoughts. The 100 compounds in the freezer? What we dont know is if they work in people.

The Buck Institute bustles with young researchers. Jeans and San Francisco 49ers caps are common sightsthis could be a Silicon Valley software start-up were not microscopes, cages, and biological-isolation chambers ubiquitous. The institute is named for Leonard and Beryl Buck, a Marin County couple who left oil stocks to a foundation charged with studying why people age, among other issues. When the institute opened, medical research aimed at slowing aging was viewed as quixoticthe sort of thing washed-up hippies talk about while sipping wine and watching the sunset. A mere 15 years into its existence, the Buck Institute is at the bow wave of biology.

In one lab, researchers laboriously tamper with yeast chromosomes. Yeast is expedient as a research subject because it lives out a lifetime before an analysts eyes, and because a third of yeast genes are similar to human genes. Deleting some genes kills yeast; deleting others causes yeast to live longer. Why deleting some genes extends life isnt knownBuck researchers are trying to figure this out, in the hope that they might then carry the effect over to mammals. The work is painstaking, with four microscopes in use at least 50 hours a week.

Buck employs Lilliputian electrocardiogram machines and toy-size CT scanners to examine the internal organs of mice, since the goal is not just to make them live longer but to keep them healthy longer, with less cancer or heart disease. Researchers curious about aging mainly work with mice, worms, flies, and yeast, because they are small and easily housed, and because they dont live long, so improvements to life expectancy are quickly observable. Twenty years ago it was a really big deal to extend the life span of worms. Now any postdoc can do that, says Simon Melov, a Buck geneticist. Experiments funded by the National Institute on Aging have shown that drugs can extend a mouses life span by about a quarter, and Buck researchers have been able to reverse age-related heart dysfunction in the same animal. Think how the world would be upended if human longevity quickly jumped another 25 percent.

The rubber will meet the road with human trials. We hope to find five to 10 small molecules that extend healthy life span in mice, then stage a human trial, says Brian Kennedy, the Buck Institutes CEO. A drug called rapamycinbeing tested at the institute and elsewhereseems closest to trial stage and has revolutionary potential. But in addition to being ethically fraught, human trials of a life-extension substance will be costly, and might take decades. The entry of Googles billions into the field makes human trials more likely. Calico is tight-lipped about its plansthe company agreed to let me visit, then backed out.

Anti-aging research is not without antecedents, some of which offer notes of caution. A generation ago, Linus Pauling, a winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, proposed that megadoses of vitamin C would retard aging. It turned out that at megadoses, vitamins can become toxic. If you take vitamins, swallow the amounts recommended by the Food and Drug Administration.

A decade ago, a biotech start-up called Sirtris sought to devise drugs that mimic the supposed health-giving properties of red wine. GlaxoSmithKline bought Sirtris for $790 million in todays dollars, money the company may wish it had back: Sirtris experiments have yet to lead to any practical product.

About 15 years ago, Bruce Ames, an accomplished scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, proposed that acetylcarnitine, which regulates the mitochondria of cells, combined with an antioxidant, might retard aging while treating mild Alzheimers. Antioxidant has become a buzzword of supplement marketing and Dr. Ozstyle quackery. Too much antioxidant would be unhealthy, since oxidation is essential to the bodys respiration. Ames thought he had found a compound that safely moderates the pace at which cells use themselves up. He began dosing himself with acetylcarnitine, and continues to work at Berkeley, at age 85; whether he would have enjoyed such longevity anyway is unknowable. Pharmaceutical companies have shown little interest in Amess ideabecause it occurs naturally, acetylcarnitine cannot be patented, and, worse from Big Pharmas standpoint, the substance is inexpensive.

Today, lab results show a clear relationship between a restricted-calorie diet and longevity in mice. That eating less extends the life spans of small mammals is the strongest finding of anti-aging research to this point. A restrictive diet seems to put mouse cells into a state vaguely similar to hibernation; whether caloric restriction would work in people isnt known. A campaign against calories might seem to possess broad practical appeal, since whats recommendedeating lesscosts nothing. But if the mice are any indication, one would need to eat a lot less, dropping caloric intake to the level at which a person feels hunger pangs throughout the day. Caloric restriction is a fad diet in Northern California, Melov told me. We had a caloric-restriction group come in to visit the institute. They did not look at all healthy.

Recently, separate teams at Harvard, Stanford, and UC San Francisco reported that transferring the blood of adolescent mice into old, declining mice had a rejuvenating effect on the latter. The thought of the old rich purchasing blood from the young poor is ghoulish on numerous levels. The research goal is to determine what chemical aspect of youthful blood benefits mature tissue. Perhaps compounds in adolescent blood excite dormant stem cells, and a drug could be developed that triggers the effect without transfusion.

The Buck Institute and other labs have been looking for health-span DNA that may exist in other mammals. Whales are a lot less likely than people are to get cancer. Polar bears consume an extremely high-fat diet yet dont develop arterial plaque. If the biological pathways for such qualities were understood, a drug might be designed to trigger the effect in people. Mimicking what nature has already developed seems more promising than trying to devise novel DNA.

In worms, genes called daf-2 and daf-16 can change in a way that causes the invertebrates to live twice as long as is natural, and in good vigor. A molecular biologist named Cynthia Kenyon, among the first hires at Calico, made that discovery more than two decades ago, when she was a researcher at UC San Francisco. By manipulating the same genes in mice, Kenyon has been able to cause them to live longer, with less cancer than mice in a control group: that is, with a better health span. The daf-16 gene is similar to a human gene called foxo3, a variant of which is linked to exceptional longevity. A drug that mimics this foxo3 variant is rumored to be among Calicos initial projects.

A long time has passed since Kenyons eureka moment about worm genes, and shes still far from proving that this insight can help people. But the tempo of the kind of work she does is accelerating. Twenty years ago, genetic sequencing and similar forms of DNA research were excruciatingly time-consuming. New techniques and equipment have altered that: for instance, one Silicon Valley lab-services firm, Sequetech, advertises, Go from [cell] colony to sequence in a day. The accelerating pace of genetic-information gathering may come in handy for health-span research.

The Buck Institute became cautiously optimistic about rapamycin when its life-extension properties were noticed in yeast. Lab mice dosed with rapamycin are dying off more slowly than they would naturally, and many of the old mice appear energetic and youthful. Devised to prevent rejection of transplanted organs, rapamycin seems to alter some chemistry associated with cellular senescence. (More on that later.) If the drug turns out to delay aging in people, it would be the greatest off-label pharmaceutical use ever. But dont ask your doctor for a prescriptionhealth-span therapy based on rapamycin is years away, if it ever happens. Kennedy, the Buck Institute CEO, does not dose himself with rapamycin, whose side effects are not understood.

Researchers at the Buck Institute are lean: societys obesity problems are not in evidence there. Everyone takes the stairs; elevators are viewed as strictly for visitors. If there is a candy machine on the 488-acre grounds, it is well hidden. I met some researchers for lunch in a glass-and-chrome conference room (Bucks buildings were designed by I. M. Pei and fairly shout Give me an architecture award!). Lunch was an ascetic affair: water and a small sandwich with greens; no sides, soda, or cookies. Kennedy says he seldom eats lunch, and runs up to 20 miles weekly. Yet, even doing everything right by the lights of current assumptions about how to stave off aging, at age 47, Kennedy has wrinkle lines around his eyes.

Except with regard to infectious diseases, medical cause and effect is notoriously hard to pin down. Coffee, salt, butter: good, bad, or neither? Studies are inconclusive. Why do some people develop heart disease while others with the same habits dont? The Framingham Heart Study, in its 66th year and following a third generation of subjects, still struggles with such questions. You should watch your weight, eat more greens and less sugar, exercise regularly, and get ample sleep. But you should do these things because they are common sensenot because there is any definitive proof that they will help you live longer.

The uncertainty inherent in the practice of medicine is amplified when the subject is longevity, because decades might pass before anyone knows whether a particular drug or lifestyle modification does any good. Scrutinizing the very old has not been the gold mine some researchers hoped it would be. Lifestyle studies of centenarians can be really puzzling, Kennedy says. They smoke more and drink less than we might guess. Few are vegetarians. Nothing jumps out as a definitive cause of their long lives.

Among the first wide-scale efforts to understand gerontology was the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, begun by federal researchers in 1958 and ongoing. Its current director, Luigi Ferrucci, says, The study has determined that disabilities among the elderly often have warning signs that can be detected in youth, and this insight might lead to early-life interventions that decrease late-life chronic disease. But on some of the big questions, such as whether longevity is caused mainly by genes or mainly by lifestyle and environment, we just have no idea at all.

Studies of twins suggest that about 30 percent of longevity is inherited. This is one of the factors that make researchers optimisticif 30 percent of longevity is inherited, perhaps laboratories can design a compound that causes anyones blood chemistry to mimic what happens in the bodies of those who were born with the DNA for long life. But when we sequence the genome, only 1 percent seems linked to longevity, Ferrucci told me. The other 99 percent of the presumed genetic effect is unexplained.

At medical conferences, Ferrucci likes to show physicians and researchers an elaborate medical profile of an anonymous patient, then ask them to guess her age. Guesses are off by as much as 20 years too high or low, he says. This is because medically, we do not know what age is. The sole means to determine age is by asking for date of birth. Thats what a basic level this research still is at.

Aging brings with it, of course, senescence. Cellular senescence, a subset of the overall phenomenon, is a subject of fascination in longevity research.

The tissues and organs that make up our bodies are prone to injury, and the cells are prone to malfunctions, cancer being the most prominent. When an injury must be healed, or cancerous tissue that is dividing must be stopped, nearby cells transmit chemical signals that trigger the repair of injured cells or the death of malignant ones. (Obviously this is a simplification.) In the young, the system works pretty well. But as cells turn senescent, they begin to send out false positives. The bodys healing ability falters as excess production of the repair signal leads to persistent inflammation, which is the foundation of heart disease, Alzheimers, arthritis, and other chronic maladies associated with the passage of time. Cars wear out because they cannot repair themselves; our bodies wear out because they lose the ability to repair themselves. If the loss of our ability to self-repair were slowed down, health during our later years would improve: a longer warranty, in the auto analogy.

If we can figure out how to eliminate senescent cells or switch off their secretions, says Judith Campisi, who runs the Buck Institutes research on this topic, then we could prevent or lessen the impact of many chronic diseases of aging. Its not a coincidence that incidence of these chronic diseases increases sharply after the age of 50, a time when senescent cells also increase in number. If you believe, as many scientists do, that aging is a prime cause of many chronic diseases, it is essential that we understand the accumulation of senescent cells. Rapamycin excites longevity researchers because it seems to switch off the repair signal mistakenly sent by senescent cells. Mayo Clinic researchers are studying other substances that dampen the effects of cellular senescence; some have proved to keep mice fit longer than normal, extending their health span. Many elderly people decline into years of progressive disability, then become invalids. If instead most people enjoyed reasonable vigor right up to the end, that would be just as exciting for society as adding years to life expectancy.

Big medical efforts tend to be structured as assaults on specific conditionsthe war on cancer and so on. One reason is psychological: a wealthy person who survived a heart attack, or lost a parent to one, endows a foundation to study the problem. Another reason is symbolic: we tend to view diseases as challenges thrown at us by nature, to be overcome one by one. If the passage of time itself turns out to be the challenge, interdisciplinary study of aging might overtake the disease-by-disease approach. As recently as a generation ago, it would have seemed totally crazy to suppose that aging could be cured. Now curing aging seems, well, only somewhat crazy.

The life-expectancy escalator has for nearly two centuries risen about three months a year, despite two world wars, the 1918 influenza pandemic, the AIDS epidemic, and the global populations growing sevenfoldthe latter deceptively important, because crowded conditions are assumed to more readily communicate disease. Will life-span increases continue regardless of what may happen in biotech? The yea position is represented by James Vaupel, the founder of Germanys Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research; the nay by Jay Olshansky, a professor of public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

In 2002, Vaupel published an influential article in Science documenting the eerily linear rise in life expectancy since 1840. Controversially, Vaupel concluded that reductions in mortality should not be seen as a disconnected sequence of unrepeatable revolutions but rather as a regular stream of continuing progress. No specific development or discovery has caused the rise: improvements in nutrition, public health, sanitation, and medical knowledge all have helped, but the operative impetus has been the stream of continuing progress.

Vaupel called it a reasonable scenario that increases will continue at least until life expectancy at birth surpasses 100. His views havent changed. The data still support the conclusions of the 2002 paper. Linear rise in life expectancy has continued, Vaupel told me earlier this year. In a recent report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the age-adjusted U.S. death rate declined to a record low in 2011. Today the first four causes of death in the United States are chronic, age-related conditions: heart disease, cancer, chronic lower-respiratory diseases, and stroke. As long as living standards continue to improve, Vaupel thinks, life expectancy will continue to increase.

On the opposite side of this coin, Olshansky told me the rise in life expectancy will hit a wall soon, if it hasnt already. He noted, Most of the 20th-century gains in longevity came from reduced infant mortality, and those were onetime gains. Infant mortality in the United States trails some other nations, but has dropped so muchdown to one in 170that little room for improvement remains. Theres tremendous statistical impact on life expectancy when the young are saved, Olshansky says. A reduction in infant mortality saves the entire span of a persons life. Avoiding mortality in a young personsay, by vaccinesaves most of the persons life. Changes in medicine or lifestyle that extend the lives of the old dont add much to the numbers. Olshansky calculates that if cancer were eliminated, American life expectancy would rise by only three years, because a host of other chronic fatal diseases are waiting to take its place. He thinks the 21st century will see the average life span extend another 10 years or so, with a bonus of more health span. Then the increase will slow noticeably, or stop.

Whether human age may have a biological limit does not factor into this debate. A French woman who lived from 1875 to 1997, Jeanne Calment, had the longest confirmed life span, at 122. Shes obviously an outlier, and while outliers dont tell us much, they do hint at whats possible. Her age at death was well beyond the average life span that either Vaupel or Olshansky are contemplating in their analyses. And in any case, various experts, at various times across the past century, have argued that life span was nearing a ceiling, only to be proved wrong.

Diminishing smoking and drunk driving have obviously contributed to declining mortality. Homicide has fallen so muchshootings arent necessarily down, but improved trauma response saves more victimsthat murder is no longer among the top 15 causes of death in the United States. Other health indicators seem positive as well. All forms of harmful air and water emissions except greenhouse gases are in long-term decline. Less smog, acid rain, and airborne soot foster longevitythe old are sensitive to respiratory diseasewhile declining levels of industrial toxins may contribute to declining cancer rates. Life expectancy can be as much as 18 years shorter in low-income U.S. counties than in high-income counties, but Obamacare should correct some of that imbalance: Romneycare, enacted in 2006 and in many ways Obamacares precursor, reduced mortality in low-income Massachusetts counties. These and many other elements of Vaupels stream of continuing progress seem to favor longevity. So does climate change: people live longer in warm climates than cold, and the world is warming.

Popular attention tends to focus on whether what we gulp down determines how long we live: Should people take fish oil and shop for organic probiotic kefir? The way our homes, families, and friendships are organized may matter just as much. Thomas Perls, a professor at Boston Medical Center who analyzes the genomes of centenarians, notes that Seventh-Day Adventists enjoy about a decade more life expectancy than peers of their birth years: They dont drink or smoke, most are vegetarians, they exercise regularly even when old, and take a true weekly day of rest. But what really strikes Perls about Seventh-Day Adventists is that they maintain large social groups. Constant interaction with other people can be annoying, but overall seems to keep us engaged with life.

For years, the American social trend has been away from constant interaction with other peoplefewer two-parent homes, fewer children per home, declining participation in religious and community activities, grandparents living on their own, electronic interaction replacing the face-to-face in everything from work to dating. Prosperity is associated with smaller households, yet the large multigeneration home may be best for long life. There are some indications that the Great Recession increased multigeneration living. This may turn out to boost longevity, at least for a time.

The single best yardstick for measuring a persons likely life span is education. John Rowe, a health-policy professor at Columbia University and a former CEO of Aetna, says, If someone walked into my office and asked me to predict how long he would live, I would ask two things: What is your age, and how many years of education did you receive?

Jay Olshanskys latest research suggests that American women with no high-school diploma have experienced relatively small life-span increases since the 1950s, while the life expectancy of highly educated women has soared since then. Today the best-educated Americans live 10 to 14 years longer than the least educated, on average. Nothing pops out of the data like the link between education and life expectancy, Olshansky says. The good news is that the share of the American population that is less educated is in gradual decline. The bad news is that lack of education seems even more lethal than it was in the past.

Education does not sync with life expectancy because reading Dostoyevsky lowers blood pressure; college is a proxy for other aspects of a persons life. Compared with the less educated, people with a bachelors degree have a higher income, smoke less, are less likely to be overweight, and are more likely to follow doctors instructions. College graduates are more likely to marry and stay married, and marriage is good for your health: the wedded suffer fewer heart attacks and strokes than the single or divorced.

Many of the social developments that improve longevitybetter sanitation, less pollution, improved emergency roomsare provided to all on an egalitarian basis. But todays public high schools are dreadful in many inner-city areas, and broadly across states including California. Legislatures are cutting support for public universities, while the cost of higher education rises faster than inflation. These issues are discussed in terms of fairness; perhaps health should be added as a concern in the debate. If education is the trump card of longevity, the top quintile may pull away from the rest.

Society is dominated by the oldold political leaders, old judges. With each passing year, as longevity increases, the intergenerational imbalance worsens. The old demand benefits for which the young must pay, while people in their 20s become disenchanted, feeling that the deck is stacked against them. National debt increases at an alarming rate. Innovation and fresh thinking disappear as energies are devoted to defending current pie-slicing arrangements.

This isnt a prediction about the future of the United States, but rather a description of Japan right now. The Land of the Rising Sun is the worlds grayest nation. Already the median age is 45 (in the U.S., by comparison, it is 37), and it will jump to 55 by 2040. As Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute, has noted, median age in the retirement haven of Palm Springs, California, is currently 52 years. Japan is on its way to becoming an entire nation of Palm Springs residents.

The number of Americans 65 or older could reach 108 million in 2050. Thats like adding three more Floridas, inhabited entirely by seniors.

Japans grayness stems from a very low fertility ratenot enough babies to bring down the average ageand strict barriers against immigration. The United States remains a nation of immigrants, and because of the continual inflow of young people, the U.S. median age wont go haywire even as life expectancy rises: the United Nations World Population Prospects estimates that the U.S. median age will rise to 41 by mid-century.

Nonetheless, that Japan is the first major nation to turn gray, and is also the deepest in debt, is not encouraging. Once, Japan was feared as the Godzilla of global trade, but as it grayed, its economy entered a long cycle of soft growth. In 2012 the centrist Democratic Party of Japan, then holding the Diet, backed a tax whose goal was not to pay down what the country owes but merely to slow the rate of borrowing. The party promptly got the heave-ho from voters. Last year Japans public debt hit $10 trillion, twice the nations GDP.

Sheila Smith, a Japan specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me, Young people in Japan have some of the worlds worst voter-participation rates. They think the old have the system so rigged in their favor, theres no point in political activity. The young dont seem excited by the future. News accounts of young Japanese becoming so apathetic that theyve lost interest in having sex sound hard to believe, but may bear some truth.

Young urban Japanese surely are aware that their elders are ringing up bills to be handed to them, but theyre also aware that if funding for the retired is cut, Grandma may want to move into their very small apartment. As life expectancy rises, a Japanese person entering the happy-go-lucky phase of early adulthood may find that parents and grandparents both expect to be looked after. Because the only child is common in Japans newest generation, a big cast of aging people may turn to one young person for financial support or caregiving or both. Acceding to public borrowing may have become, to young Japanese, a way to keep older generations out of the apartmenteven if it means crushing national debt down the road.

That America may become more like Japansteadily older, with rising debt and declining economic growthis unsettling. From the second half of the George W. Bush administration until 2013, U.S. national debt more than doubled. The federal government borrowed like there was no tomorrow. The debt binge, for which leaders of both political parties bear blame, was a prelude to the retirement of the Baby Boomers. Tomorrow has a way of coming.

Suppose the escalator slows, and conservative assumptions about life expectancy prevail. In a 2009 study, Olshansky projected future demographics under the hit a wall scenario. The number of Americans 65 or older, 43 million today, could reach 108 million in 2050that would be like adding three more Floridas, inhabited entirely by seniors. The oldest old cohort, those 85 and older, may increase at least fivefold, to more than 6 percent of the U.S. citizenry. Olshansky projected that by 2050, life expectancy will extend three to eight years past the age used by the Social Security Administration to assess the solvency of its system, while forecasting that by 2050, Medicare and Social Security will rack up between $3.2 trillion and $8.3 trillion in unfunded obligations. (State and local governments have at least another $1 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities.) These disconcerting numbers flow from the leading analyst who thinks that the life-span increase is slowing down.

When President Obama took office, Social Securitys trustees said the current benefits structure was funded until 2037. Now the Congressional Budget Office says the year of reckoning may come as soon as 2031. States may be funding their pension obligations using fuzzy math: New York issues promissory notes; Illinois and New Jersey sell debt instruments distressingly similar to junk bonds. Many private pension plans are underfunded, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which on paper appears to insure them, is an accident looking for a place to happen. Twice in the past three years, Congress has voted to allow corporations to delay contributions to pension plans. This causes them to pay more taxes in the present year, giving Congress more to spend, while amplifying problems down the road. Social Securitys disability fund may fail as soon as late 2016. Medicare spending is rising faster than Social Security spending, and is harder to predict. Projections show the main component of Medicare, its hospital fund, failing by 2030.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that over the next decade, all federal spending growth will come from entitlementsmainly Social Security and Medicareand from interest on the national debt. The nonpartisan think tank Third Way has calculated that at the beginning of the Kennedy presidency, the federal government spent $2.50 on public investmentsinfrastructure, education, and researchfor every $1 it spent on entitlements. By 2022, Third Way predicts, the government will spend $5 on entitlements for every $1 on public investments. Infrastructure, education, and research lead to economic growth; entitlement subsidies merely allow the nation to tread water.

If health span can be improved, the costs of aging-related disability may be manageable. Not that long ago, vast sums were spent on iron lungs and sanitariums for treatment of polio: preventing the disease has proved much less expensive than treating it. If chronic ailments related to aging can be prevented or significantly delayed, big-ticket line items in Medicare might not go off the rails.

But if health span does not improve, longer life could make disability in aging an economic crisis. Today, Medicare and Medicaid spend about $150 billion annually on Alzheimers patients. Absent progress against aging, the number of people with Alzheimers could treble by 2050, with society paying as much for Alzheimers care as for the current defense budget.

Many disabilities associated with advanced years cannot be addressed with pharmaceuticals or high-tech procedures; caregivers are required. Providing personal care for an aged invalid is a task few wish to undertake. Already many lists of careers with the most job openings are headed by caregiver or nurses aide, professions in which turnover is high.

As longevity increases, so too does the number of living grandparents. Families that once might have had one oldest old relative find themselves with three or four, all expecting care or money. At the same time, traditional family trees are being replaced with diagrams that resemble maps of the London Underground. Will children of blended families feel the same obligation to care for aging stepparents as they feel for biological parents? Just the entry of the phrase birth parent into the national lexicon suggests the magnitude of the change.

With Japan at the leading edge of lengthening life expectancy, its interest in robotics can be eerie. Foxconn, the Asian electronics giant, is manufacturing for the Japanese market a creepy mechanized thing named Pepper that is intended to provide company for the elderly. More-sophisticated devices may be in store. A future in which large numbers of very old, incapacitated people stare into the distance as robot attendants click and hum would be a bad science-fiction movie if it didnt stand a serious chance of happening.

As the population ages, so do the political powers that beand theyre aging in place. Computerized block-by-block voting analysis and shameless gerrymanderingMarylands new sixth congressional district is such a strange shape, it would have embarrassed Elbridge Gerrylock incumbents into power as never before. Campaign-finance laws appear to promote reform, but in fact have been rigged to discourage challengers. Between rising life expectancy and the mounting power of incumbency, both houses of Congress are the oldest theyve ever been: the average senator is 62 years old; the average representative, 57.

A graying Congress would be expected to be concerned foremost with protection of the status quo. Government may grow sclerotic at the very time the aging of the populace demands new ideas. Theres already a tremendous advantage to incumbency, one experienced political operative told me. As people live longer, incumbents will become more entrenched. Strom Thurmond might not be unusual anymore. Many from both parties could cling to power too long, freezing out fresh thinking. It wont be good for democracy. The speaker was no starry-eyed radical: he was Karl Rove.

Now think of the Supreme Court as life expectancy increases. The nine justices on the first Court sat an average of nine years; the last nine to depart, an average of 27 years. John Paul Stevens, the most recent to retire, was a justice for 35 years. If Clarence Thomas lives to the actuarial life expectancy of a male his current age, he could be a Supreme Court justice for 40 years.

The Framers would be aghast at the idea of a small cadre of unelected potentates lording it over the body politic for decades. When the Constitution was written, no one could have anticipated how much life span would increase, nor how much power the Supreme Court would accrue. If democracy is to remain vibrant as society ages, campaign laws must change to help challengers stand a chance versus incumbents, and the Constitution must be amended to impose a term limit on the Supreme Court, so confirmation as a justice stops being a lifetime appointment to royalty.

In 1940, the typical American who reached age 65 would ultimately spend about 17 percent of his or her life retired. Now the figure is 22 percent, and still rising. Yet Social Security remains structured as if longevity were stuck in a previous century. The early-retirement option, added by Congress in 1961start drawing at age 62, though with lower benefitsis appealing if life is short, but backfires as life span extends. People who opt for early Social Security may reach their 80s having burned through savings, and face years of living on a small amount rather than the full benefit they might have received. Polls show that Americans consistently underestimate how long they will livea convenient assumption that justifies retiring early and spending now, while causing dependency over the long run.

James Vaupel has warned that refusing to acknowledge longevitys steady march distorts peoples decisions about how much to save and when to retire and gives license to politicians to postpone painful adjustments to Social Security. Ronald Reagan was the last president to push through legislation to account for life-span changes. His administration increased the future eligible age of full Social Security benefits from 65 to 66 or 67, depending on ones birth year. Perhaps 99 percent of members of Congress would agree in private that retirement economics must change; none will touch this third rail. Generating more Social Security revenue by lifting the payroll-tax cap, currently $117,000, is the sole politically attractive option, because only the well-to-do would be impacted. But the Congressional Budget Office recently concluded that even this soak-the-rich option is insufficient to prevent insolvency for Social Security. At least one other change, such as later retirement or revised cost-of-living formulas, is required. A fair guess is that the government will do nothing about Social Security reform until a crisis strikesand then make panicked, ill-considered moves that foresight might have avoided.

Americans may decry government gridlock, but they cant blame anyone else for their own decisions. Peoples retirement savings simply must increase, though this means financial self-discipline, which Americans are not known for. Beyond that, most individuals will likely need to take a new view of what retirement should be: not a toggle switchno work at all, after years of full-time laborbut a continuum on which a person gradually downshifts to half-time, then to working now and then. Lets call it the retirement track rather than retirement: a phase of continuing to earn and save as full-time work winds down.

Widespread adoption of a retirement track would necessitate changes in public policy and in employers attitudes. Banks dont think in terms of smallish loans to help a person in the second half of life start a home-based business, but such lending might be vital to a graying population. Many employers are required to continue offering health insurance to those who stay on the job past 65, even though they are eligible for Medicare. Employers premiums for these workers are much higher than for young workers, which means employers may have a logical reason to want anyone past 65 off the payroll. Ending this requirement would make seniors more attractive to employers.

Many people may find continuing to work but under the lower-stress circumstances of part-time employment to be preferable to a gold watch, then idleness. Gradual downshifting could help ease aging people into volunteer service roles, where theres never any end of things to do. The retirement track could be more appealing than traditional retirement. A longer health span will be essential to making it possible.

Understanding the evolutionary biology of aging might help the quest for improved health span. Each cell of the body contains DNA code for a fresh, healthy cell, yet that blueprint is not called on as we grow old. Evolutionists including Alfred Russel Wallace have toyed with the idea of programmed deaththe notion that natural selection wants old animals to die in order to free up resources for younger animals, which may carry evolved genetic structures. Current thinking tends to hold that rather than trying to make older animals die, natural selection simply has no mechanism to reward longevity.

Felipe Sierra, a researcher at the National Institute on Aging, says, Evolution doesnt care about you past your reproductive age. It doesnt want you either to live longer or to die, it just doesnt care. From the standpoint of natural selection, an animal that has finished reproducing and performed the initial stage of raising young might as well be eaten by something, since any favorable genetic quality that expresses later in life cannot be passed along. Because a mutation that favors long life cannot make an animal more likely to succeed at reproducing, selection pressure works only on the young.

A generation ago, theorists suspected that menopause was an evolutionary adaptation exclusive to the Homo genuswomen stop expending energy to bear children so they can care longer for those already born, as mothers and grandmothers. This, the theory goes, increases childrens chances of survival, allowing them to pass along family genes. Yet recent research has shown that animals including lions and baboons also go through menopause, which increasingly looks more like a malfunction of aging cells than a quality brought about by selection pressure. As for the idea that grandparents help their grandchildren prosper, favoring longevitythe grandmother effectthis notion, too, has fared poorly in research.

The key point is: if nothing that happens after a person reproduces bears on which genes flourish, then nature has never selected for qualities that extend longevity. Evolution favors strength, intelligence, reflexes, sexual appeal; it does not favor keeping an organism running a long time. For example, a growing body needs calcium, so nature selected for the ability to metabolize this element. In later life, calcium causes stiffening of the arteries, a problem that evolution has no mechanism to correct, since hardened arteries do not occur until its too late for natural selection to side with any beneficial mutation. Testosterone is essential to a youthful man; in an aging man, it can be a factor in prostate cancer. Evolution never selected for a defense against that.

Similar examples abound; the most important may be senescent cells. Natural selection probably favors traits that reduce the risk of cancer, because cancer can strike the young before reproductive age is reached. Senescence doesnt occur until evolution is no longer in play, so natural selection has left all mammal bodies with a defect that leads to aging and death.

If senescence could be slowed, men and women hardly would become immortal. Violence, accidents, and contagious disease still would kill. Even if freed of chronic conditions, eventually our bodies would fail.

But it is not credulous futurism to suppose that drugs or even genetic therapy may alter the human body in ways that extend longevity. Brian Kennedy, of the Buck Institute, notes, Because natural selection did not improve us for aging, theres a chance for rapid gains. The latest BMWs are close to perfect. How can an engineer improve on them? But the Model T would be easy to improve on now. When young, genetically we are BMWs. In aging, we become Model Ts. The evolutionary improvements havent started yet.

In the wild, young animals outnumber the old; humanity is moving toward a society where the elderly outnumber the recently arrived. Such a world will differ from todays in many outward aspects. Warm-weather locations are likely to grow even more popular, though with climate change, warm-weather locations may come to include Buffalo, New York. Ratings for football, which is loud and aggressive, may wane, while baseball and theatergoing enjoy a renaissance. The shift back toward cities, initiated by the educated young, may give way to another car-centric suburban and exurban growth phase.

The university, a significant aspect of the contemporary economy, centuries ago was a place where the fresh-faced would be prepared for a short life; today the university is a place where adults watch children and grandchildren walk to Pomp and Circumstance. The university of the future may be one that serves all ages. Colleges will reposition themselves economically as offering just as much to the aging as to the adolescent: courses priced individually for later-life knowledge seekers; lots of campus events of interest to students, parents, and the community as a whole; a pleasant college-town atmosphere to retire near. In decades to come, college professors may address students ranging from age 18 to 80.

Products marketed to senior citizens are already a major presence on television, especially during newscasts and weathercasts. Advertising pitched to the elderly may come to dominate the airwaves, assuming there still is television. But consumerism might decline. Neurological studies of healthy aging people show that the parts of the brain associated with reward-seeking light up less as time goes on. Whether its hot new fashions or hot-fudge sundaes, older people on the whole dont desire acquisitions as much as the young and middle-aged do. Denounced for generations by writers and clergy, wretched excess has repelled all assaults. Longer life spans may at last be the counterweight to materialism.

If health span extends, the nuclear family might be seen as less central. Bearing and raising children would no longer be the all-consuming life event.

Deeper changes may be in store as well. People in their late teens to late 20s are far more likely to commit crimes than people of other ages; as society grays, the decline of crime should continue. Violence in all guises should continue downward, too. Horrible headlines from Afghanistan or Syria are exceptions to an overall trend toward less warfare and less low-intensity conflict. As Steven Pinker showed in the 2011 book Better Angels of Our Nature, total casualties of combat, including indirect casualties from the economic harm associated with fighting, have been declining, even as the global population has risen. In 1950, one person in 5,000 worldwide died owing to combat; by 2010, this measure was down to one person in 300,000. In recent years, far more people have been killed by car crashes than by battle. Simultaneously, per capita military expenditure has shrunk. My favorite statistic about the world: the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports that, adjusting to todays dollars, global per capita military spending has declined by one-third in the past quarter century.

The end of the Cold War, and the proxy conflicts it spawned, is an obvious influence on the subsiding of warfare, as is economic interconnectedness. But aging may also be a factor. Counterculture optics notwithstanding, polls showed that the young were more likely to support the Vietnam War than the old were; the young were more likely to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq, too. Research by John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University, suggests that as people age, they become less enthusiastic about war. Perhaps this is because older people tend to be wiser than the youngand couldnt the world use more wisdom?

Older people also report, to pollsters and psychologists, a greater sense of well-being than the young and middle-aged do. By the latter phases of life, material and romantic desires have been attained or given up on; passions have cooled; and for most, a rich store of memories has been compiled. Among the core contentions of the well-being research of the Princeton University psychologist Daniel Kahneman is that in the end, memories are all you keepwhats in the mind matters more than what you own. Regardless of net worth, the old are well off in this sense.

Should large numbers of people enjoy longer lives in decent health, the overall well-being of the human family may rise substantially. In As You Like It, Jaques declares, Man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. The first five embody promise and powerinfant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, and success. The late phases are entirely negativepantaloon, a period as the butt of jokes for looking old and becoming impotent; then second childishness, a descent into senile dependency. As life expectancy and health span increase, the seven ages may demand revision, with the late phases of life seen as a positive experience of culmination and contentment.

Further along may be a rethinking of life as better structured around friendship than around family, the basic unit of human society since the mists of prehistory. In the brief life of previous centuries, all a man or woman could hope to accomplish was to bear and raise children; enervation followed. Today, life is longer, but an education-based economy requires greater investments in childrencontemporary parents are still assisting offspring well into a childs 20s. As before, when the child-rearing finally is done, decline commences.

But if health span extends, the nuclear family might be seen as less central. For most people, bearing and raising children would no longer be the all-consuming life event. After child-rearing, a phase of decades of friendships could awaitpotentially more fulfilling than the emotionally charged but fast-burning bonds of youth. A change such as this might have greater ramifications for society than changes in work schedules or health-care economics.

Regardless of where increasing life expectancy leads, the direction will be into the unknownfor society and for the natural world. Felipe Sierra, the researcher at the National Institute on Aging, puts it this way: The human ethical belief that death should be postponed as long as possible does not exist in naturefrom which we are now, in any case, diverging.

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What Happens When We All Live to 100? - The Atlantic

Caligula ()[1] was the popular nickname of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August AD 12 24 January AD 41), Roman emperor (AD 3741). Born Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus (not to be confused with Julius Caesar), Caligula was a member of the house of rulers conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligula's biological father was Germanicus, and he was the nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius. The young Gaius earned the nickname "Caligula" (meaning "little soldier's boot", the diminutive form of caliga, hob-nailed military boot) from his father's soldiers while accompanying him during his campaigns in Germania.

When Germanicus died at Antioch in AD 19, his wife Agrippina the Elder returned with her six children to Rome, where she became entangled in a bitter feud with Tiberius. The conflict eventually led to the destruction of her family, with Caligula as the sole male survivor. Untouched by the deadly intrigues, Caligula accepted the invitation to join the Emperor in AD 31 on the island of Capri, where Tiberius had withdrawn five years earlier. With the death of Tiberius in AD 37, Caligula succeeded his grand uncle and adoptive grandfather as emperor.

There are few surviving sources about the reign of Emperor Caligula, although he is described as a noble and moderate ruler during the first six months of his reign. After this, the sources focus upon his cruelty, sadism, extravagance, and sexual perversity, presenting him as an insane tyrant. While the reliability of these sources is questionable, it is known that during his brief reign, Caligula worked to increase the unconstrained personal power of the emperor, as opposed to countervailing powers within the principate. He directed much of his attention to ambitious construction projects and luxurious dwellings for himself, and initiated the construction of two aqueducts in Rome: the Aqua Claudia and the Anio Novus. During his reign, the empire annexed the Kingdom of Mauretania as a province.

In early AD 41, Caligula was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy by officers of the Praetorian Guard, senators, and courtiers. The conspirators' attempt to use the opportunity to restore the Roman Republic was thwarted: on the day of the assassination of Caligula, the Praetorian Guard declared Caligula's uncle, Claudius, the next Roman emperor.

Gaius Julius Caesar (named in honor of his famous relative) was born in Antium (modern Anzio and Nettuno[2]) on 31 August 12 AD, the third of six surviving children born to Germanicus and his second cousin Agrippina the Elder.[3] Gaius had two older brothers, Nero and Drusus,[3] as well as three younger sisters, Agrippina the Younger, Julia Drusilla and Julia Livilla.[3] He was also a nephew of Claudius, Germanicus' younger brother and future emperor.[4]

Agrippina the Elder was the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder.[3] She was a granddaughter of Augustus and Scribonia on her mother's side. Through Agrippina, Augustus was the maternal great-grandfather of Gaius.[3]

As a boy of just two or three, Gaius accompanied his father, Germanicus, on campaigns in the north of Germania.[5] The soldiers were amused that Gaius was dressed in a miniature soldier's outfit, including boots and armour.[5] He was soon given his nickname Caligula, meaning "little (soldier's) boot" in Latin, after the small boots he wore.[6] Gaius, though, reportedly grew to dislike this nickname.[7]

Suetonius claims that Germanicus was poisoned in Syria by an agent of Tiberius, who viewed Germanicus as a political rival.[8]

After the death of his father, Caligula lived with his mother until her relations with Tiberius deteriorated.[9] Tiberius would not allow Agrippina to remarry for fear her husband would be a rival.[10] Agrippina and Caligula's brother, Nero, were banished in 29 AD on charges of treason.[11][12]

The adolescent Caligula was then sent to live with his great-grandmother (and Tiberius's mother) Livia.[9] After her death, he was sent to live with his grandmother Antonia.[9] In 30 AD, his brother, Drusus Caesar, was imprisoned on charges of treason and his brother Nero died in exile from either starvation or suicide.[12][13] Suetonius writes that after the banishment of his mother and brothers, Caligula and his sisters were nothing more than prisoners of Tiberius under the close watch of soldiers.[14]

In 31 AD, Caligula was remanded to the personal care of Tiberius on Capri, where he lived for six years.[9] To the surprise of many, Caligula was spared by Tiberius.[15] According to historians, Caligula was an excellent natural actor and, recognizing danger, hid all his resentment towards Tiberius.[9][16] An observer said of Caligula, "Never was there a better servant or a worse master!"[9][16]

Caligula claimed to have planned to kill Tiberius with a dagger in order to avenge his mother and brother: however, having brought the weapon into Tiberius's bedroom he did not kill the Emperor but instead threw the dagger down on the floor. Supposedly Tiberius knew of this but never dared to do anything about it.[17] Suetonius claims that Caligula was already cruel and vicious: he writes that, when Tiberius brought Caligula to Capri, his purpose was to allow Caligula to live in order that he "...prove the ruin of himself and of all men, and that he was rearing a viper for the Roman people and a Phaethon for the world."[18]

In 33 AD, Tiberius gave Caligula an honorary quaestorship, a position he held until his rise to emperor.[19] Meanwhile, both Caligula's mother and his brother Drusus died in prison.[20][21] Caligula was briefly married to Junia Claudilla, in 33, though she died in childbirth the following year.[22] Caligula spent time befriending the Praetorian prefect, Naevius Sutorius Macro, an important ally.[22] Macro spoke well of Caligula to Tiberius, attempting to quell any ill will or suspicion the Emperor felt towards Caligula.[23]

In 35 AD, Caligula was named joint heir to Tiberius's estate along with Tiberius Gemellus.[24]

When Tiberius died on 16 March 37 AD, his estate and the titles of the principate were left to Caligula and Tiberius's own grandson, Gemellus, who were to serve as joint heirs. Although Tiberius was 78 and on his death bed, some ancient historians still conjecture that he was murdered.[22][25]Tacitus writes that the Praetorian Prefect, Macro, smothered Tiberius with a pillow to hasten Caligula's accession, much to the joy of the Roman people,[25] while Suetonius writes that Caligula may have carried out the killing, though this is not recorded by any other ancient historian.[22] Seneca the elder and Philo, who both wrote during Tiberius's reign, as well as Josephus record Tiberius as dying a natural death.[26] Backed by Macro, Caligula had Tiberius's will nullified with regard to Gemellus on grounds of insanity, but otherwise carried out Tiberius's wishes.[27]

Caligula accepted the powers of the principate as conferred by the senate and entered Rome on 28 March amid a crowd that hailed him as "our baby" and "our star", among other nicknames.[28] Caligula is described as the first emperor who was admired by everyone in "all the world, from the rising to the setting sun."[29] Caligula was loved by many for being the beloved son of the popular Germanicus,[28] and because he was not Tiberius.[30] Suetonius said that over 160,000 animals were sacrificed during three months of public rejoicing to usher in the new reign.[31][32] Philo describes the first seven months of Caligula's reign as completely blissful.[33]

Caligula's first acts were said to be generous in spirit, though many were political in nature.[27] To gain support, he granted bonuses to the military, including the Praetorian Guard, city troops and the army outside Italy.[27] He destroyed Tiberius's treason papers, declared that treason trials were a thing of the past, and recalled those who had been sent into exile.[34] He helped those who had been harmed by the imperial tax system, banished certain sexual deviants, and put on lavish spectacles for the public, including gladiatorial games.[35][36] Caligula collected and brought back the bones of his mother and of his brothers and deposited their remains in the tomb of Augustus.[37]

In October 37 AD, Caligula fell seriously ill, or perhaps was poisoned. He soon recovered from his illness, but many believed that the illness turned the young emperor toward the diabolical: he started to kill off or exile those who were close to him or whom he saw as a serious threat. Perhaps his illness reminded him of his mortality and of the desire of others to advance into his place.[38] He had his cousin and adopted son Tiberius Gemellus executed an act that outraged Caligula's and Gemellus's mutual grandmother Antonia Minor. She is said to have committed suicide, although Suetonius hints that Caligula actually poisoned her. He had his father-in-law Marcus Junius Silanus and his brother-in-law Marcus Lepidus executed as well. His uncle Claudius was spared only because Caligula preferred to keep him as a laughing stock. His favorite sister Julia Drusilla died in 38 AD of a fever: his other two sisters, Livilla and Agrippina the Younger, were exiled. He hated being the grandson of Agrippa and slandered Augustus by repeating a falsehood that his mother was actually conceived as the result of an incestuous relationship between Augustus and his daughter Julia the Elder.[39]

In AD 38, Caligula focused his attention on political and public reform. He published the accounts of public funds, which had not been made public during the reign of Tiberius. He aided those who lost property in fires, abolished certain taxes, and gave out prizes to the public at gymnastic events. He allowed new members into the equestrian and senatorial orders.[40]

Perhaps most significantly, he restored the practice of democratic elections.[41]Cassius Dio said that this act "though delighting the rabble, grieved the sensible, who stopped to reflect, that if the offices should fall once more into the hands of the many... many disasters would result".[42]

During the same year, though, Caligula was criticized for executing people without full trials and for forcing his supporter Macro to commit suicide.[43]

According to Cassius Dio, a financial crisis emerged in AD 39.[43]Suetonius places the beginning of this crisis in 38.[44] Caligula's political payments for support, generosity and extravagance had exhausted the state's treasury. Ancient historians state that Caligula began falsely accusing, fining and even killing individuals for the purpose of seizing their estates.[45]

Historians describe a number of Caligula's other desperate measures. In order to gain funds, Caligula asked the public to lend the state money.[46] He levied taxes on lawsuits, weddings and prostitution.[47] Caligula began auctioning the lives of the gladiators at shows.[45][48] Wills that left items to Tiberius were reinterpreted to leave the items instead to Caligula.[49] Centurions who had acquired property by plunder were forced to turn over spoils to the state.[49]

The current and past highway commissioners were accused of incompetence and embezzlement and forced to repay money.[49] According to Suetonius, in the first year of Caligula's reign he squandered 2.7 billion sesterces that Tiberius had amassed.[50] His nephew Nero Caesar both envied and admired the fact that Gaius had run through the vast wealth Tiberius had left him in so short a time.[51]

A brief famine of unknown extent occurred, perhaps caused by this financial crisis, but Suetonius claims it resulted from Caligula's seizure of public carriages;[45] according to Seneca, grain imports were disturbed because Caligula repurposed grain boats for a pontoon bridge.[52]

Despite financial difficulties, Caligula embarked on a number of construction projects during his reign. Some were for the public good, though others were for himself.

Josephus describes Caligula's improvements to the harbours at Rhegium and Sicily, allowing increased grain imports from Egypt, as his greatest contributions.[53] These improvements may have been in response to the famine.[citation needed]

Caligula completed the temple of Augustus and the theatre of Pompey and began an amphitheatre beside the Saepta.[54] He expanded the imperial palace.[55] He began the aqueducts Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus, which Pliny the Elder considered engineering marvels.[56] He built a large racetrack known as the circus of Gaius and Nero and had an Egyptian obelisk (now known as the "Vatican Obelisk") transported by sea and erected in the middle of Rome.[57]

At Syracuse, he repaired the city walls and the temples of the gods.[54] He had new roads built and pushed to keep roads in good condition.[58] He had planned to rebuild the palace of Polycrates at Samos, to finish the temple of Didymaean Apollo at Ephesus and to found a city high up in the Alps.[54] He planned to dig a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece and sent a chief centurion to survey the work.[54]

In 39, Caligula performed a spectacular stunt by ordering a temporary floating bridge to be built using ships as pontoons, stretching for over two miles from the resort of Baiae to the neighboring port of Puteoli.[59] It was said that the bridge was to rival that of the Persian king, Xerxes, crossing of the Hellespont.[59] Caligula, who could not swim,[60] then proceeded to ride his favorite horse, Incitatus, across, wearing the breastplate of Alexander the Great.[59] This act was in defiance of a prediction by Tiberius's soothsayer Thrasyllus of Mendes that Caligula had "no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae".[59]

Caligula had two large ships constructed for himself, which were recovered from the bottom of Lake Nemi during the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini. The ships were among the largest vessels in the ancient world. The smaller ship was designed as a temple dedicated to Diana. The larger ship was essentially an elaborate floating palace with marble floors and plumbing. Thirteen years after being raised, the ships were burned during an attack in the Second World War, and almost nothing remains of their hulls, though many archeological treasures remain intact in the museum at Lake Nemi and in the Museo Nazionale Romano (Palazzo Massimo) at Rome.[citation needed]

In AD 39, relations between Caligula and the Roman Senate deteriorated.[61] The subject of their disagreement is unknown. A number of factors, though, aggravated this feud. The Senate had become accustomed to ruling without an emperor between the departure of Tiberius for Capri in AD 26 and Caligula's accession.[62] Additionally, Tiberius's treason trials had eliminated a number of pro-Julian senators such as Asinius Gallus.[62]

Caligula reviewed Tiberius's records of treason trials and decided, based on their actions during these trials, that numerous senators were not trustworthy.[61] He ordered a new set of investigations and trials.[61] He replaced the consul and had several senators put to death.[63]Suetonius reports that other senators were degraded by being forced to wait on him and run beside his chariot.[63]

Soon after his break with the Senate, Caligula faced a number of additional conspiracies against him.[64] A conspiracy involving his brother-in-law was foiled in late 39.[64] Soon afterwards, the Governor of Germany, Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, was executed for connections to a conspiracy.[64]

In AD 40, Caligula expanded the Roman Empire into Mauretania and made a significant attempt at expanding into Britannia even challenging Neptune in his campaign. The conquest of Britannia was fully realized by his successors.

Mauretania was a client kingdom of Rome ruled by Ptolemy of Mauretania. Caligula invited Ptolemy to Rome and then suddenly had him executed.[65] Mauretania was annexed by Caligula and subsequently divided into two provinces, Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis, separated by the river Malua.[66] Pliny claims that division was the work of Caligula, but Dio states that in 42 AD an uprising took place, which was subdued by Gaius Suetonius Paulinus and Gnaeus Hosidius Geta, and the division only took place after this.[67] This confusion might mean that Caligula decided to divide the province, but the division was postponed because of the rebellion.[68] The first known equestrian governor of the two provinces was Marcus Fadius Celer Flavianus, in office in 44 AD.[68]

Details on the Mauretanian events of 3944 are unclear. Cassius Dio wrote an entire chapter on the annexation of Mauretania by Caligula, but it is now lost.[69] Caligula's move seemingly had a strictly personal political motive fear and jealousy of his cousin Ptolemy and thus the expansion may not have been prompted by pressing military or economic needs.[70] However, the rebellion of Tacfarinas had shown how exposed Africa Proconsularis was to its west and how the Mauretanian client kings were unable to provide protection to the province, and it is thus possible that Caligula's expansion was a prudent response to potential future threats.[68]

There seems to have been a northern campaign to Britannia that was aborted.[69] This campaign is derided by ancient historians with accounts of Gauls dressed up as Germanic tribesmen at his triumph and Roman troops ordered to collect seashells as "spoils of the sea".[71] The few primary sources disagree on what precisely occurred. Modern historians have put forward numerous theories in an attempt to explain these actions. This trip to the English Channel could have merely been a training and scouting mission.[72] The mission may have been to accept the surrender of the British chieftain Adminius.[73] "Seashells", or conchae in Latin, may be a metaphor for something else such as female genitalia (perhaps the troops visited brothels) or boats (perhaps they captured several small British boats).[74]

When several client kings came to Rome to pay their respects to him and argued about their nobility of descent, he allegedly cried out the Homeric line:[75] "Let there be one lord, one king."[76] In AD 40, Caligula began implementing very controversial policies that introduced religion into his political role. Caligula began appearing in public dressed as various gods and demigods such as Hercules, Mercury, Venus and Apollo.[77] Reportedly, he began referring to himself as a god when meeting with politicians and he was referred to as "Jupiter" on occasion in public documents.[78][79]

A sacred precinct was set apart for his worship at Miletus in the province of Asia and two temples were erected for worship of him in Rome.[79] The Temple of Castor and Pollux on the forum was linked directly to the imperial residence on the Palatine and dedicated to Caligula.[79][80] He would appear here on occasion and present himself as a god to the public. Caligula had the heads removed from various statues of gods and replaced with his own in some temples.[81] It is said that he wished to be worshipped as "Neos Helios," the "New Sun." Indeed, he was represented as a sun god on Egyptian coins.[82]

Caligula's religious policy was a departure from that of his predecessors. According to Cassius Dio, living emperors could be worshipped as divine in the east and dead emperors could be worshipped as divine in Rome.[83]Augustus had the public worship his spirit on occasion, but Dio describes this as an extreme act that emperors generally shied away from.[83] Caligula took things a step further and had those in Rome, including senators, worship him as a tangible, living god.[84]

Caligula needed to quell several riots and conspiracies in the eastern territories during his reign. Aiding him in his actions was his good friend, Herod Agrippa, who became governor of the territories of Batanaea and Trachonitis after Caligula became emperor in AD 37.[85]

The cause of tensions in the east was complicated, involving the spread of Greek culture, Roman Law and the rights of Jews in the empire.

Caligula did not trust the prefect of Egypt, Aulus Avilius Flaccus. Flaccus had been loyal to Tiberius, had conspired against Caligula's mother and had connections with Egyptian separatists.[86] In AD 38, Caligula sent Agrippa to Alexandria unannounced to check on Flaccus.[87] According to Philo, the visit was met with jeers from the Greek population who saw Agrippa as the king of the Jews.[88] Flaccus tried to placate both the Greek population and Caligula by having statues of the emperor placed in Jewish synagogues.[89] As a result, riots broke out in the city.[90] Caligula responded by removing Flaccus from his position and executing him.[91]

In AD 39, Agrippa accused Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, of planning a rebellion against Roman rule with the help of Parthia. Herod Antipas confessed and Caligula exiled him. Agrippa was rewarded with his territories.[92]

Riots again erupted in Alexandria in AD 40 between Jews and Greeks.[93] Jews were accused of not honoring the emperor.[93] Disputes occurred in the city of Jamnia.[94] Jews were angered by the erection of a clay altar and destroyed it.[94] In response, Caligula ordered the erection of a statue of himself in the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem,[95] a demand in conflict with Jewish monotheism.[96] In this context, Philo wrote that Caligula "regarded the Jews with most especial suspicion, as if they were the only persons who cherished wishes opposed to his".[96]

The Governor of Syria, Publius Petronius, fearing civil war if the order were carried out, delayed implementing it for nearly a year.[97] Agrippa finally convinced Caligula to reverse the order.[93]

Philo of Alexandria and Seneca the Younger describe Caligula as an insane emperor who was self-absorbed, angry, killed on a whim, and indulged in too much spending and sex.[98] He is accused of sleeping with other men's wives and bragging about it,[99] killing for mere amusement,[100] deliberately wasting money on his bridge, causing starvation,[101] and wanting a statue of himself erected in the Temple of Jerusalem for his worship.[95] Once, at some games at which he was presiding, he ordered his guards to throw an entire section of the crowd into the arena during intermission to be eaten by animals because there were no criminals to be prosecuted and he was bored.[102][clarification needed]

While repeating the earlier stories, the later sources of Suetonius and Cassius Dio provide additional tales of insanity. They accuse Caligula of incest with his sisters, Agrippina the Younger, Drusilla, and Livilla, and say he prostituted them to other men.[103] They state he sent troops on illogical military exercises,[69][104] turned the palace into a brothel,[46] and, most famously, planned or promised to make his horse, Incitatus, a consul,[105] and actually appointed him a priest.[79]

The validity of these accounts is debatable. In Roman political culture, insanity and sexual perversity were often presented hand-in-hand with poor government.[106]

Caligula's actions as emperor were described as being especially harsh to the senate, to the nobility and to the equestrian order.[107] According to Josephus, these actions led to several failed conspiracies against Caligula.[108] Eventually, officers within the Praetorian Guard led by Cassius Chaerea succeeded in murdering the emperor.[109] The plot is described as having been planned by three men, but many in the senate, army and equestrian order were said to have been informed of it and involved in it.[110]

The situation had escalated when, in 40 AD, Caligula announced to the senate that he planned to leave Rome permanently and to move to Alexandria in Egypt, where he hoped to be worshiped as a living god. The prospect of Rome losing its emperor and thus its political power was the final straw for many. Such a move would have left both the senate and the Praetorian Guard powerless to stop Caligula's repression and debauchery. With this in mind Chaerea convinced his fellow conspirators to put their plot into action quickly.

According to Josephus, Chaerea had political motivations for the assassination.[111] Suetonius sees the motive in Caligula calling Chaerea derogatory names.[112] Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and for not being firm with tax collection.[113] Caligula would mock Chaerea with names like "Priapus" and "Venus".[114]

On 22 January 41 (Suetonius gives the date as 24 January), Cassius Chaerea and other guardsmen accosted Caligula as he addressed an acting troupe of young men during a series of games and dramatics held for the Divine Augustus.[115] Details recorded on the events vary somewhat from source to source, but they agree that Chaerea stabbed Caligula first, followed by a number of conspirators.[116] Suetonius records that Caligula's death resembled that of Julius Caesar. He states that both the elder Gaius Julius Caesar (Julius Caesar) and the younger Gaius Julius Caesar (Caligula) were stabbed 30 times by conspirators led by a man named Cassius (Cassius Longinus and Cassius Chaerea).[117] By the time Caligula's loyal Germanic guard responded, the Emperor was already dead. The Germanic guard, stricken with grief and rage, responded with a rampaging attack on the assassins, conspirators, innocent senators and bystanders alike.[118]

The cryptoporticus (underground corridor) beneath the imperial palaces on the Palatine Hill where this event took place was discovered by archaeologists in 2008.[119]

The senate attempted to use Caligula's death as an opportunity to restore the republic.[120] Chaerea tried to persuade the military to support the senate.[121] The military, though, remained loyal to the idea of imperial monarchy.[121] The grieving Roman people assembled and demanded that Caligula's murderers be brought to justice.[122] Uncomfortable with lingering imperial support, the assassins sought out and stabbed Caligula's wife, Caesonia, and killed their young daughter, Julia Drusilla, by smashing her head against a wall.[123] They were unable to reach Caligula's uncle, Claudius; after a soldier, Gratus, found Claudius hiding behind a palace curtain he was spirited out of the city by a sympathetic faction of the Praetorian Guard [124] to the nearby Praetorian camp.[125]

Claudius became emperor after procuring the support of the Praetorian Guard. He ordered the execution of Chaerea and of any other known conspirators involved in the death of Caligula.[126] According to Suetonius, Caligula's body was placed under turf until it was burned and entombed by his sisters. He was buried within the Mausoleum of Augustus; in 410, during the Sack of Rome ashes in the tomb were scattered.

The history of Caligula's reign is extremely problematic as only two sources contemporary with Caligula have survived the works of Philo and Seneca. Philo's works, On the Embassy to Gaius and Flaccus, give some details on Caligula's early reign, but mostly focus on events surrounding the Jewish population in Judea and Egypt with whom he sympathizes. Seneca's various works give mostly scattered anecdotes on Caligula's personality. Seneca was almost put to death by Caligula in AD 39 likely due to his associations with conspirators.[127]

At one time, there were detailed contemporaneous histories on Caligula, but they are now lost. Additionally, the historians who wrote them are described as biased, either overly critical or praising of Caligula.[128] Nonetheless, these lost primary sources, along with the works of Seneca and Philo, were the basis of surviving secondary and tertiary histories on Caligula written by the next generations of historians. A few of the contemporaneous historians are known by name. Fabius Rusticus and Cluvius Rufus both wrote condemning histories on Caligula that are now lost. Fabius Rusticus was a friend of Seneca who was known for historical embellishment and misrepresentation.[129] Cluvius Rufus was a senator involved in the assassination of Caligula.[130]

Caligula's sister, Agrippina the Younger, wrote an autobiography that certainly included a detailed explanation of Caligula's reign, but it too is lost. Agrippina was banished by Caligula for her connection to Marcus Lepidus, who conspired against Caligula.[64] The inheritance of Nero, Agrippina's son and the future emperor, was seized by Caligula. Gaetulicus, a poet, produced a number of flattering writings about Caligula, but they too are lost.

The bulk of what is known of Caligula comes from Suetonius and Cassius Dio. Suetonius wrote his history on Caligula 80 years after his death, while Cassius Dio wrote his history over 180 years after Caligula's death. Cassius Dio's work is invaluable because it alone gives a loose chronology of Caligula's reign.

A handful of other sources add a limited perspective on Caligula. Josephus gives a detailed description of Caligula's assassination. Tacitus provides some information on Caligula's life under Tiberius. In a now lost portion of his Annals, Tacitus gave a detailed history of Caligula. Pliny the Elder's Natural History has a few brief references to Caligula.

There are few surviving sources on Caligula and no surviving source paints Caligula in a favorable light. The paucity of sources has resulted in significant gaps in modern knowledge of the reign of Caligula. Little is written on the first two years of Caligula's reign. Additionally, there are only limited details on later significant events, such as the annexation of Mauretania, Caligula's military actions in Britannia, and his feud with the Roman Senate.

All surviving sources, except Pliny the Elder, characterize Caligula as insane. However, it is not known whether they are speaking figuratively or literally. Additionally, given Caligula's unpopularity among the surviving sources, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. Recent sources are divided in attempting to ascribe a medical reason for his behavior, citing as possibilities encephalitis, epilepsy or meningitis. The question of whether or not Caligula was insane (especially after his illness early in his reign) remains unanswered.

Philo of Alexandria, Josephus and Seneca state that Caligula was insane, but describe this madness as a personality trait that came through experience.[92][131][132] Seneca states that Caligula became arrogant, angry and insulting once becoming emperor and uses his personality flaws as examples his readers can learn from.[133] According to Josephus, power made Caligula incredibly conceited and led him to think he was a god.[92]Philo of Alexandria reports that Caligula became ruthless after nearly dying of an illness in the eighth month of his reign in AD 37.[134]Juvenal reports he was given a magic potion that drove him insane.

Suetonius said that Caligula suffered from "falling sickness", or epilepsy, when he was young.[135] Modern historians have theorized that Caligula lived with a daily fear of seizures.[136] Despite swimming being a part of imperial education, Caligula could not swim.[137] Epileptics are discouraged from swimming in open waters because unexpected fits in such difficult rescue circumstances can be fatal.[138] Additionally, Caligula reportedly talked to the full moon.[63] Epilepsy was long associated with the moon.[139]

Some modern historians think that Caligula suffered from hyperthyroidism.[140] This diagnosis is mainly attributed to Caligula's irritability and his "stare" as described by Pliny the Elder.

On 17 January 2011, police in Nemi, Italy, announced that they believed they had discovered the site of Caligula's burial, after arresting a thief caught smuggling a statue which they believed to be of the emperor.[141] The claim has been met with scepticism by Cambridge historian Mary Beard.[142]

Quadrans celebrating the abolition of a tax in AD 38 by Caligula. The obverse of the coin contains a picture of a Pileus which symbolizes the liberation of the people from the tax burden.

Welsh actor Emlyn Williams was cast as Caligula in the never-completed 1937 film I, Claudius.[143]

American actor Jay Robinson famously portrayed a sinister and scene-stealing Caligula in two epic films of the 1950s, The Robe (1953) and its sequel Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954).[144]

A feature-length historical film Caligula was completed in 1979, in which Malcolm McDowell played the lead role. The film alienated audiences with explicit sex and violence. Although reviews were overwhelmingly negative (though McDowell's performance as the title character was praised), the film is considered to be a cult classic.[145]

David Brandon portrayed Caligula in the 1982 Italian exploitation film Emperor Caligula, the Untold Story which was directed by Joe D'Amato.[citation needed]

Courtney Love appeared as Caligula in a fake trailer for Gore Vidal's Caligula, ostensibly a remake of the 1979 film, but actually a parodic short film by conceptual artist Francesco Vezzoli.[143]

Szabolcs Hajdu portrayed Caligula in the 1996 film Caligula.[citation needed]

Caligula, by French author Albert Camus, is a play in which Caligula returns after deserting the palace for three days and three nights following the death of his beloved sister, Drusilla. The young emperor then uses his unfettered power to "bring the impossible into the realm of the likely".

In the 1934 novel I, Claudius by English writer Robert Graves, Caligula is presented as being a murderous sociopath from his childhood, who became clinically insane early in his reign. At the age of only seven, he drove his father Germanicus to despair and death by secretly terrorising him. Graves's Caligula commits incest with all three of his sisters and is implied to have murdered Drusilla.

In the BBC series based on Graves' novel (where the role is played by John Hurt), Caligula, although unhinged since early childhood, becomes dangerously psychotic after an apparent epileptic seizure and awakens believing that he has metamorphosed into the god Zeus. He kills Drusilla while trying to reenact the birth of Athena by cutting his child from her womb.

In 1941, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote I Am a Barbarian. The story is pitched as a free translation of the memoirs of Britannicus (a fictional character created by Burroughs) who was the slave of Caligula from early childhood till Caligula's death.

The character Ellsworth Toohey in Ayn Rand's 1943 novel The Fountainhead references Caligula in his climactic speech to Peter Keating stating, "Remember the Roman Emperor who said he wished humanity had a single neck so he could cut it? People have laughed at him for centuries. But we'll have the last laugh. We've accomplished what he couldn't accomplish. We've taught men to unite. This makes one neck ready for one leash."

The play The Reckoning of Kit and Little Boots, by Nat Cassidy, examines the lives of the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe and Caligula, with the fictional conceit that Marlowe was working on a play about Caligula around the time of his own murder. It emphasizes the similarities between the two charactersboth stabbed to death at 29, both in part as a result of their controversial religious perspectives. The play focuses on Caligula's love for his sister Drusilla and his deep-rooted loathing for Tiberius. It received its world premiere in New York City in June 2008.[146][147]

Eugene O'Neill's play Lazarus Laughed features the young Caligula as one of its pinnacle characters, where he is portrayed as a psychopath who believes he will only be happy once Tiberius is dead and he is the Caesar.

Canadian death metal band Ex Deo released an album called Caligula, styled as Caligvla. The band's video, "I Caligula", features Caligula and other members of his court that were important in his rule.

The Dickies' 1989 album Second Coming includes the song "Caligula," which relates his origins and reign of terror.

Welsh musician John Cale performed a song called "Caligula", which was part of his cycle composed for the centenary of the Christmas truce in December 2014.[148]

German thrash metal band Sodom released Decision Day in 2016, it includes the song Caligula. Two weeks before the release of the album, they released a lyrical music video of the song.

In The Smiths song "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" Caligula is referenced in the lyric 'Caligula would have blushed'.

Caligula has been portrayed in a number of television series:

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Caligula - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

By Liz Segre; reviewed by Gary Heiting, OD

During an eye test, eye doctors use eye charts to measure how well you see in the distance, compared with other human beings. If you haven't established an eye doctor yet, click here to find one near you.

The classic example of an eye chart is the Snellen eye chart, developed by Dutch eye doctor Hermann Snellen in the 1860s. There are many variations of the Snellen eye chart, but in general they show 11 rows of capital letters. The top row contains one letter (usually the "big E," but other letters can be used). The other rows contain letters that are progressively smaller.

During an eye exam, your eye doctor will ask you to find the smallest line of text letters that you can make out, and ask you to read it. If you can read the bottom row of letters, your visual acuity is very good.

In the United States, the standard placement of the eye chart is on a wall that's 20 feet away from your eyes. Since many eye doctors' offices don't have rooms that are 20 feet long, in a smaller room the eye chart may hang behind the patient chair, using mirrors to make it appear in front of you at a simulated distance of 20 feet.

20/20 vision (or really, 20/20 visual acuity) is considered "normal" vision, meaning you can read at 20 feet a letter that most human beings should be able to read at 20 feet.

Eye charts can be configured in various ways, but generally, if during an eye test you can read the big E at the top but none of the letters lower than that, your vision is considered 20/200. That means you can read at 20 feet a letter that people with "normal" vision can read at 200 feet. So at 20/200, your visual acuity is very poor.

In the United States you are considered "legally blind" if your best-corrected visual acuity (meaning, your best distance vision with eyeglasses or contact lenses) is 20/200 or worse.

To get a driver's license in most of the United States, your best-corrected visual acuity must be at least 20/40.

Usually the 20/20 line of letters is fourth from the bottom, with 20/15, 20/10 and 20/5 below that. Not many people have 20/10 or better visual acuity, but many animals do, especially birds of prey, which have been estimated to have an acuity of 20/5 or even better.

In some cases a standard Snellen eye chart cannot be used. One example is when the person having the eye test is a young child who doesn't know the alphabet or is too shy to read letters aloud. Other examples include when the person is illiterate or has a handicap that makes it impossible for him to cognitively recognize letters or read them aloud.

In these situations, a modification of the Snellen eye chart called a "tumbling E" chart may be used. The tumbling E chart has the same scale as a standard Snellen eye chart, but all characters on the chart are a capital letter "E," in different spatial orientations (rotated in increments of 90 degrees).

The eye doctor asks the person being tested to use either hand (with their fingers extended) to show which direction the "fingers" of the E are pointing: right, left, up or down.

Studies have shown that visual acuity measurements using a tumbling E chart are virtually the same as those obtained from testing with a standard Snellen eye chart.

To evaluate your near vision, your eye doctor may use a small hand-held card called a Jaeger eye chart. The Jaeger chart consists of short blocks of text in various type sizes.

The Jaeger type scale ranges from J1 to J11 or larger, with J1 being the smallest type. J2 is considered the equivalent of 20/20 distance visual acuity at the reading distance indicated on the card (usually 12 to 14 inches from your eyes).

The chart can be used in two different ways, depending on what your eye doctor is trying to measure:

Eye charts measure visual acuity only. They do help your eye doctor figure out whether you need prescription eyeglasses or contact lenses for your distance vision. And they help the Department of Motor Vehicles to determine if you are required to use eyewear for driving, or if you shouldn't drive at all because you are legally blind.

But eye charts don't measure your peripheral vision, depth perception, color perception or ability to perceive contrast.

And they don't measure items related to the health of your eyes, such as your eye fluid pressure, whether you have glaucoma, how dry your eyes are or whether your retinas are in good shape.

So eye chart testing is just one component of a complete eye exam, which you should have every one or two years.

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[Page updated May 2015]

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Eye Test - The Eye Chart and 20/20 Vision Explained

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2016 Market Research Reports on 5000+ Sectors at ...

Recruitment and Retention

To succeed and grow in the 21st century economy, biotechnology employers need to fill each position in their companies - from entry-level to the most advanced - with qualified and skilled individuals. Because the industry is experiencing such rapid growth, biotechnology firms often demand more skilled workers than are available and are projected to need more workers than are currently enrolled in training programs.

Skills Competencies and Training

While there may be instances where locally industry-driven career ladders and competency models exist, there is a challenge with the lack of nationally-recognized articulated skills competencies and career ladders as well as sources of training. However, the biotechnology industry's challenges in this area are complicated by the rapidly changing environment in which the industry operates. Advances in the underlying sciences have a continuous effect on the technology and processes used by the biotechnology industry; making it necessary for employees working in the industry to upgrade their skills to maintain productivity.

Image and Outreach to the Public

There is a need for clear information about career options within the biotechnology industry geared towards youth, educators and job seekers for career exploration and recruitment activities. Currently this lack of available information results in a disconnect between these groups and presents a challenge for the industry because the lack of definition and outreach limits the number of people who consider the biotechnology field to be a viable career option.

(Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Survey of the Use of Biotechnology in U.S. Industry and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006-07 Career Guide to Industries)

In June 2003, ETA announced the High Growth Job Training Initiative to engage businesses with local education providers and the local/regional workforce investment system to find solutions that address changing talent development needs in various industries.

In October 2005, the Community-Based Job Training Grants were announced to improve the role of community colleges in providing affordable, flexible and accessible education for the nation's workforce.

ETA is investing more than $260 million in 26 different regions across the United States in support of the WIRED (Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development) Initiative. Through WIRED, local leaders design and implement strategic approaches to regional economic development and job growth. WIRED focuses on catalyzing the creation of high skill, high wage opportunities for American workers through an integrated approach to economic and talent development.

These initiatives reinforce ETA's commitment to transform the workforce system through engaging business, education, state and local governments and other federal agencies with the goal of creating a skilled workforce to meet the dynamic needs of today's economy.

ETA has invested $33,985,520 in the biotechnology industry. This includes 16 High Growth Job Training Initiative grants totaling $22,921,599 and seven Community-Based Job Training Grants totaling $11,063,921. Leveraged resources from all of the grantees total $23,847,037.

For additional background information about the industry and details on the grants, information about employment and training opportunities and workforce development tools for employers, educators and workforce professionals, please visit: http://www.doleta.gov/business/, http://www.careeronestop.org, and http://www.workforce3one.org.

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High Growth Industry Profile - Biotechnology

NEW YORK An experimental stem cell therapy developed by Asterias Biotherapeutics restored some movement to patients paralyzed by recent spinal cord injuries, according to interim data from a small study being presented on Wednesday.

One of the five patients in the trial regained use of both arms and hands, and is now able to feed himself, send texts on a phone and operate a wheelchair, the Fremont, California-based company said.

Three months after the cells were implanted, the study met its efficacy goal of two patients regaining return of two motor levels of functioning on at least one side of their body, the company said.

All five people in the study have experienced some upper extremity improvement so far, Asterias said.

Each motor level function measurement correlates with a reduction in the assistance and care a paralyzed patient might require. A two-level improvement can mean a patient is able to live more independently.

The cells are injected by a neurosurgeon directly into the site of the spinal cord damage within two to four weeks of injury, before scar tissue forms. The hope is that they can help restore signals from the brain through the spinal cord to the outer extremities.

Stem cells are able to transform into various other types of cells in the body, and scientists have been working for years to try to harness their unique capabilities to combat various medical conditions, including paralysis and heart failure.

"I am very encouraged by this first look at efficacy data in complete cervical spinal cord patients," Dr. Shekar Kurpad, a trial researcher and director of the Spinal Cord Injury Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin, said in a statement.

The company had not expected to reach the efficacy goal before six to 12 months after implantation of the 10 million embryonic stem cells dubbed AST-OPC1, Asterias Chief Executive Stephen Cartt said.

"We came out early with the data because it was so compelling. We were expecting to wait until January," Cartt said in a telephone interview, acknowledging that the work is still in the early stages and that it is a very small study.

The interim results were presented at the International Spinal Cord Society meeting in Vienna, Austria.

There were no reported serious adverse side effects related to AST-OPC1 or the injection procedure, Asterias said.

The company has secured regulatory approval to double the dose to 20 million cells in future studies.

The five patients will be followed and assessed for 12 months.

"It's certainly our hope that we see at least that these gains are maintained, and we hope to see continuing improvement," Cartt said.

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Asterias stem cell therapy shows promise in spinal cord ...

Stem Cell Therapy share

Painful discs in the neck or low back are common causes of severe back pain and disability. Historically, therapies did not exist to regenerate the degenerative process in a vertebral disc, often leaving surgical intervention as the only option if other non-operative treatment options have failed. In selected patients, we now have hopes of better ways to treat spinal disease. Regenerative therapies for the spine are the future for spinal treatments. We are excited to offer innovative techniques as new and improved ways to try to heal spinal problems without having to undergo surgery. Regenerative therapy options hold wonderful healing potential and represent the future of modern medicine.

In the United States alone, more than 400,000 lumbar discectomies and 500,000 spinal fusions are performed each year for symptoms related to lumbar disc degeneration. The ability to get these to heal without surgery has been a long-term goal of many patients and physicians alike.At Virginia Spine Institute, we are working to promote healing without surgery. Virginia Spine Institute continues to be on the forefront of treatment options and is proud to offer stem cell therapy treatments for patients as part of ourcomprehensive non-operative treatment options.

We obtain a patients own stem cells by aspirating tissue from the patient's hip bone or from their fat cells. These cells are centrifuged down to identify and separate specific primitive cells that will help heal tissues. Stem cells are theninjected into the disc, stimulating healing of the disc by using these primitive blood cells to stimulate regeneration of the collagen within the disc. We are excited to report improvements in our patients treated with stem cells.

What are Stem Cells?

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the potential to become specialized types of cells. Stem cells can be categorized as embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells.Embryonic stem cells are derived from a human fetus; there are many ethical concerns with embryonic stem cells, and these are not used in our practice.

Adult stem cells are derived from adults, sometimes obtained from your very own body! Adult stem cells are further divided into different categories. For example, the types of adult stem cells we use to treat musculoskeletal issues are known as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). These are multi-potent cells that can differentiate into bone cells, cartilage cells, or fat cells. Its important to note that they cannot differentiate into any other type of cell.

The human body has multiple storage sites for stem cells to repair degenerated and injured structures. We have found that obtaining stem cells from the hip bone (iliac bone) is easily performed within minutes and, in most cases, is a fairly painless procedure for the patient. The stem cells are obtained from your own bone marrow; just minutes later, they are used for treatment.

This procedure is done in our office and starts with the patient lying face down on the examination table. The skin is first numbed with a novocaine solution. After that, the cortex of the hip bone (iliac bone) is numbed. Next, under x-ray (fluoroscopic) guidance, a special needle is advanced through the bone to the cortex of your hip bone into the bone marrow. The liquid marrow - which contains the stem cells - is then withdrawn into a syringe. Finally, the needle is removed, and a small bandage is placed where the needle was inserted.

After the procedure, the syringe of stem cells is taken to the lab and placed in a specialized machine called a centrifuge. The centrifuge spins the bone marrow solution and stem cells are separated from the non-useful cells. The concentrated stem cells are then transferred to a new syringe. Now, the stem cells are ready for the treatment.

Not all patients will be a candidate for these disc regeneration procedures. For those whom are ideal candidates, this provides great hope with reduction in pain and improved quality of life without the need for major surgery. We are excited about these great advances in health care and look forward to helping you live pain free.

Stem cell injections are most commonly used for treatment of the following conditions:

The area of injury is first identified using ultrasound or fluoroscopy. The area is then sterilized, and the skin above the area is numbed with a novocaine-type solution. Using ultrasound or fluoroscopic guidance, the needle is guided to the area of injury, and the stem cell solution is injected. All the regenerative injections performed at our practice are performed under image guidance with ultrasound or fluoroscopy to confirm accurate placement of the stem cells.

The risks depend on the area being treated; however, there is always a potential risk of an injection causing infection, bleeding, or nerve damage. It is important to note that there is no risk of allergic reaction since you are using your own stem cells. At Virginia Spine Institute we always recommended the safest and most efficient procedures for our patients, however, your physician will review any possible risks associated with this treatment prior to administering.

The benefit is usually seen approximately two to three months after the whole treatment protocol has completed; however, you may start to notice the benefit sooner than this.

In most cases, patients respond very well to just one treatment; however, the patient may require two to three injections. We never perform more than three injections within a span of 12 months.

Virginia Spine Institute is part of an ongoing FDA clinical trial study and now also offers stem cell therapy to patients not enrolled in the study. This pioneering cell therapy, currently under investigation by our physicians, shows promise in restoring the structure of degenerating discs and alleviating pain after other non-operative treatments have failed.

The clinical trial uses NuQu (made by ISTO Technologies, Inc) to attempt to restore a damaged disc to save the disc and prevent further degeneration. NuQu is composed of culture-expanded juvenile cartilage cells (stem cells) in a protein-based carrier. These cells have been proven to have far greater regenerative potential than adult cartilage-forming cells based upon preliminary investigations.

After evaluating hundreds of patients for the FDA trial comparing these cartilage forming stem cells to a saline placebo, the spinal experts at Virginia Spine Institute were able to enroll 5 patients in the study. Although early results have been promising, the evaluation will not be complete until a full year passes after the injection.

Although NuQu is an early-stage, cell-based therapy aimed at treating the cause of back pain associated with degenerating discs, we remain optimistic that it has the potential to cure this disease. This pioneering cell therapy, currently under investigation by our physicians, shows promise in restoring the structure of degenerating discs and alleviating pain after other non-operative treatments have failed and before surgery even becomes a consideration.

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Stem Cell Therapy for Neck & Back Pain - DC Metro Area

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis is currently treated with immune suppressive agents such as steroids, methothrexate, cyclosporine, gold, and more recently infliximab (Remicade). Despite inducing temporary improvement, these approaches possess long-term adverse effects due to non-specific inhibition of immune responses. When disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) like methotrexate are not effective, biologics like abatacept (Orencia), adalimumab (Humira) or etanercept (Enbrel) may be recommended. None of these treatments address the issue of damage that has already occurred to the joints or extra-articular tissues.

Even though advancements in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment protocols and introduction of targeted biological therapies have markedly improved patient outcomes, up to 50% of patients still fail to achieve a significant clinical response.

Stem cell therapy has been demonstrated to induce profound healing activity in animals with various forms of arthritis. For example, the company Vet-Stem routinely utilizes stem cells in horses with various joint deformities to accelerate healing. Besides healing of damaged tissues, stem cells have the unique ability to modulate the immune system so as to shut off pathological responses while preserving ability to fight off disease.

Stem cells and specifically, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) home to inflamed tissue and start producing anti-inflammatory agents. These mediators act locally and do not suppress the immune response of the patients whole body. Additionally, MSCs induce the production of T regulatory cells, a type of immune cell whose function is to protect the body against immunological self-attack.

A recent study on MSCs for rheumatoid arthritis (Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy for Patients with Active Rheumatoid Arthritis: Safety and Efficacy) showed that MSCs produced a significant decrease in pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-, both of which are temporarily targeted by many current RA treatments. without the long-term side effects. These decreases are shown in Figure 5 from the original publication.

The Stem Cell Institute uses adult stem cells called allogeneic mesenchymal stem cells to treat rheumatoid arthritis. These cells are harvested from human umbilical cords donated after normal, healthy births. All mothers who donate umbilical cords undergo infectious disease testing and medical history screening. Proper written consent is obtained from each family prior to umbilical cord donation.

All mesenchymal stem cells harvested from umbilical cords are screened for infectious diseases to International Blood Bank Standards before they are cleared for use in treatments.

Only a small percentage of umbilical cords pass our rigorous screening process.

Through retrospective analysis of our cases, weve identified proteins and genes that allow us to screen several hundred umbilical cord donations to find the ones that we know are most effective. We only use these cells and we call them golden cells.

We go through a very high throughput screening process to find cells that we know have the best anti-inflammatory activity, the best immune modulating capacity, and the best ability to stimulate regeneration.

The bodys immune system is unable to recognize human umbilical cord tissue (HUCT)-derived mesenchmyal stem cells as foreign and therefore they are not rejected. HUCT stem cells have been administered thousands of times at the Stem Cell Institute and there has never been a single instance rejection (graft vs. host disease). Umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells also proliferate/differentiate more efficiently than older cells, such as those found in the fat and therefore, they are considered to be more potent.

In this next video (just past the 1 minute mark), Arnold Caplan, PhD explains the mechanism by which donor mesenchymal stem cells shield themselves from the recipients immune system. Dr. Caplan is the scientist who discovered the mesenchymal stem cell. He is commonly referred to as the father of the mesenchymal stem cell.

They are typically given intravenously (IV) over the course of a few days.

Below is an example of a typical 4-day rheumatoid arthritis treatment protocol.

*Includes Hilton hotel room with breakfast, WIFI, transportation from and to the airport with VIP airport gate service and expedited customs clearance upon arrival, and transportation between the Hilton and Stem Cell Institute.

*After examining each patients medical history and other medical information our team of physicians will recommend a specific treatment protocol. Your recommended protocol may differ from the example given above.

Proper follow-up helps us evaluate the effectiveness of our treatments and improve our treatment protocols based on observed outcomes. Therefore, one of our medical staff will contact you regularly to monitor your progress. You will be contacted after 1 month, 3 months, 4 months, and 1 year.

Of course there are. A number of our treated rheumatoid arthritis patients have volunteered to speak with prospective patients after treatment approval. Your patient coordinator will be happy to put you in touch with them at the appropriate time.

You may also view rheumatoid arthritis patient news, stories and videos. Please take a look!

You may contact us by telephone 1 (800) 980-STEM (toll-free in US) and 1 (954) 358-3382.

To apply for stem cell treatment, please complete this Patient Application Form.

Antigen Specific Therapy of Rheumatoid Arthritis Ichim T. Zheng X, Suzuki M, Kubo N, Zhang X, Min L, Beduhn M, Riordan N, Inman R, Min W. Expert opin. Biol. Ther. 2008; 8(2): 191-199

Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy for Patients with Active Rheumatoid Arthritis: Safety and Efficacy Liming Wang, Lihua Wang, Xiuli Cong, Guangyang Liu, Jianjun Zhou, Bin Bai, Yang Li, Wen Bai, Ming Li, Haijie Ji, Delin Zhu, Mingyuan Wu and Yongjun Liu Stem Cells Dev. 2013 Dec 15;22(24):3192-202. doi: 10.1089/scd.2013.0023. Epub 2013 Oct 4.

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Rheumatoid Arthritis - Stem Cell Therapy

Conference Series LLC Conferences invites all the participants across the globe to attend 8th International Conference on Biomarkers and Clinical Research during December 05-07, 2016 in Philadelphia, USA which includes prompt Keynote presentations, Oral talks, Poster presentations and Exhibitions.

Biomarkers 2016will mainly focus on the types of biomarkers, Functional genomics and cytogenetic biomarkers and its clinical research and development, omics technologies in discovery and its validation, biomarkers of exposure response and susceptibility, biomarkers disorders, techniques to maximize biomarker identification, biomarkers nano science.

Conference Series LLC, the host of this conference is comprised of 3000+ Global Events with over 600+ Conferences, 1200+ Symposiums and 1200+Workshops on diverse Medical, Pharmaceutical, Clinical, Engineering, Science, Technology, Business and Management field is organizing conferences all over the globe.Biomarkers 2016 is the worlds largest multidisciplinarycancer meeting. Biomarkers and cancer conferencesinclude scientific keynote lectures, symposia, workshops, exhibitions with the support fromOncology SocietyandAmerican Oncology Society. Cancer conferences includeEuropean oncology conferences,surgical oncology global cancer conferenceandcancer conferences.

Track 1:Types of Biomarkers

Biomarkeris a characteristic diagnostic tool that is objectively measured and evaluated as an indicator of normalbiological processes, pathogenic processes or pharmacological responses to a therapeutic intervention. Biomarkers can be molecules, or genes, gene products, enzymes, or hormones referred asprotein biomarkers, analytical biomarkers, blood biomarkers, fluorescent biomarkers, circulating biomarkers and molecular biomarkers to quantify the degree of disease condition. Biomarkers are the measures used to perform a clinical assessment in case ofcancer biomarkers. They predict health states in individuals across populations so that appropriate therapeutic intervention can be planned. In the current scenario more than a thousand organizations and universities have contributed to the field of Biomarkers research especially molecular and cancer biomarkers, with its wings spreading across major organizations in USA, UK, Germany and China. The global biomarkers market is expected to grow from $29.3 billion in 2013 to $53.6 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.8%.Different types of biomarkers includeProtein biomarkers, Fluorescent biomarkers,Blood biomarkers, Cancer biomarkers, Analytical biomarkers andMolecular Biomarkers.

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12th Euro Global Summit onCancer Therapy, September 26-28 2016, London, UK; 13th GlobalOncologistsSummit, October 17-19 2016, Dubai, UAE; Global Summit onMelanoma, September 25-26, 2017 Rome, Italy; Multiple Myeloma Conference, October 15-17, 2017 Milan, Italy; Radiology Conference, October 23-25, 2017 Chicago, USA; 6thAnnual Asia-Pacific Prostate Society Conference, September 9 -10 Seoul, Korea; 68thAnnual German Society of Urology Congress, September 28-October 1, 2016 Leipzig, Germany; 72ndAnnual Canadian Urological Association Meeting, June 25-27, 2017 Toronto, Canada; 4th Annual Immuno-Oncology Summit, August 29-September 2, 2016 Boston, USA; 2nd Biomarkers, Diagnostics & Clinical Research Conference, September 19-20 Boston, USA; Biomarkers and Targeted Therapeutics in Sjgrens (BATTS) Conference, September 19-22, 2016 Oklahoma, USA; NCRI Cancer Conference, November 6-9, 2016 Liverpool, UK; 6th Munich Biomarker Conference, November 29-30, 2016 Munchen, Germany; Annual Meeting of American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons, April 27-30, 2017 Florida, USA.

Track 2: Cancer Biomarkers

Cancer biomarkers are used to detect the natural course of a tumour and are used to assess chances of developing cancer. Biomarkers in cancer screening play an important role in cancer detection and risk assessment to reduce cancer deaths. Tumour biomarkers are used to detect cancer development and progression. Uterine cervical cancer, endometrial cancer, trophoblastic neoplasms and ovarian cancer are gynaecologic malignancies for which tumour markers are in clinical use. Effective cancer biomarkers are used to reduce cancer mortality rates by facilitating diagnosis of cancers at early stages. Cancer biomarkers can also be used in diagnosis, risk assessment and recurrence of cancer.

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Oral Cancer Conference, August 18-20 2016, Portland, USA; Surgical Oncology Conference, August 29-31 2016, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Cancer Diagnostics Conference, May 8-10, 2017 Dubai, UAE; 3rd Prostate Cancer Conference, June 26-28, 2017 Baltimore, USA; Lymphoma Conference, July 24-26, 2017 Rome, Italy; 14thUrological Association of Asia Congress, July 20-24, 2016 Suntec, Singapore; 17thAsia-Pacific Prostate Cancer Conference, August 31- September 3, 2016 Melbourne, Australia; ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, February, 16-18, 2017 Orlando, USA; 2ndInternational Prostate Cancer Symposium, August 6 -7, 2016 Moscow, Russia, 13thMeeting of the EAU Robotic Urology Section, September 14-16, 2016 Milan Italy; 11thAnnual Congress of Russian Association of Oncological Urology, 05-07, 2016 Moscow, Russia; 36thInternational Urology Congress, October 20-23, 2016 Argentina, South America, 27thInternational Prostate Cancer Update, January 24-27, 2017 Colorado, USA.

Track 3:Functional Genomics and Cytogenetic Biomarkers

The branch ofgenomicsthat determines the biological function and complex association of the genes and their products depicts thefunctional genomics. The measurable degree of these parameters through various processes and equipment inclusive of Next generation sequencing, Personalized genome sequencing and mi-RNA sequencing utilizing cellular entities to predict SNP biomarkers, immuno fluorescent biomarkers,oxidative stress biomarkers, si-RNA and mi-RNA will aid in better understanding of the disease outcome. Thecytogeneticbiomarkers are a feasible diagnostic tool to detect DNA and chromatin damage.

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MolecularBiomarkers Conference, September 15-17 2016 Berlin, Germany; Cervical Cancer Conference, September 22-23 2016, Vienna, Austria; Surgical Oncology Conference, October 23-25, 2017 Chicago, USA; 2nd Cervical Cancer Conference, October 29 -31, 2017 Brussels, Belgium; Cancer World Conventaion, November 26-28, 2017 Frankfurt, Germany; 89thAnnual Italian Society of Urology Congress, October 15-18, 2016 Venezia Italy; 62ndAnnual Meeting of Czech Urological Society, October 19-21, 2016 Czech Budejovice, Czech Republic; ESMO 2017 Congress, September 08-12, 2017 Madrid, Spain; International Cancer Education Conference, September 14-16, 2016 Bethesda, USA; 16th Biennial Meeting of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society, October 29-31 Lisbon, Portugal; World Cancer Congress , October 31 - November 3 Paris, France, Malaysia Urology Conference, November 24-28,2016 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Annual AUA Meeting, May 12-16, 2017 Boston, USA.

Track 4: Functional Transcriptomics and Profiling Techniques

The newly emerged discipline in the field of cytogenetic andfunctional genomicsis Molecular imaging biomarkers, aids in better visualization of the cellular function and the follow-up of the molecular process in living organisms without penetrance. Roche Diagnostics, GlaxoSmithKline, Siemens Healthcare, GE Healthcare and Merck & Co are a few of the key players in this market as observed inbiomarkerscongress. The functional genomics and cytogenetic market is estimated to reach 150M$ by 2017.Functional genomicscovers various areas of biomarkers applications like Next gen sequencing, Personalized genome sequencing, Micro RNA sequencing and SNP biomarkers.Cytogenetic biomarkersinclude Immuno flouscent biomarkers, Molecular imaging biomarkers, Oxidative Stress Biomarkers and si-RNA and mi-RNA.

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12th Euro Global Summit onCancer Therapy, September 26-28 2016, London, UK; 13th GlobalOncologistsSummit, October 17-19 2016, Dubai, UAE; Global Summit onMelanoma, September 25-26, 2017 Rome, Italy; Multiple Myeloma Conference, October 15-17, 2017 Milan, Italy; Radiology Conference, October 23-25, 2017 Chicago, USA; 6thAnnual Asia-Pacific Prostate Society Conference, September 9 -10 Seoul, Korea; 68thAnnual German Society of Urology Congress, September 28-October 1, 2016 Leipzig, Germany; 72ndAnnual Canadian Urological Association Meeting, June 25-27, 2017 Toronto, Canada; 4th Annual Immuno-Oncology Summit, August 29-September 2, 2016 Boston, USA; 2nd Biomarkers, Diagnostics & Clinical Research Conference, September 19-20 Boston, USA; Biomarkers and Targeted Therapeutics in Sjgrens (BATTS) Conference, September 19-22, 2016 Oklahoma, USA; NCRI Cancer Conference, November 6-9, 2016 Liverpool, UK; 6th Munich Biomarker Conference, November 29-30, 2016 Munchen, Germany; Annual Meeting of American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons, April 27-30, 2017 Florida, USA.

Track 5:Biomarkers in Clinical Research and Development

TheBiomarkersfinds its valuable application in the field ofClinical researchand development by case study and data management as evident through Biomarker conferences. The Bioethics and intellectual property right establishes the norms and standard of conduct of hypothesis with respect to clinical validation of biomarkers. The incorporation of biomarker inclinical trialsfor various disease conditions will put forth a valid diagnostic and therapeutic approach utilizing even the medical devices to detectclinical biomarkers. Currently this is the booming industry. Most of the reputed organizations like Pfizer, Parexel and Quintiles are into clinical research and development. The companies, hospitals and clinical research organizations are the hot spots for conducting clinical research with its growth rate increasing exponentially by an estimated 75B$ by 2016.In clinical research and development, clinical biomarkers are used in case study anddata management, clinical trials and in medical devices.

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Oral Cancer Conference, August 18-20 2016, Portland, USA; Surgical Oncology Conference, August 29-31 2016, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Cancer Diagnostics Conference, May 8-10, 2017 Dubai, UAE; 3rd Prostate Cancer Conference, June 26-28, 2017 Baltimore, USA; Lymphoma Conference, July 24-26, 2017 Rome, Italy; 14thUrological Association of Asia Congress, July 20-24, 2016 Suntec, Singapore; 17thAsia-Pacific Prostate Cancer Conference, August 31- September 3, 2016 Melbourne, Australia; ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, February, 16-18, 2017 Orlando, USA; 2ndInternational Prostate Cancer Symposium, August 6 -7, 2016 Moscow, Russia, 13thMeeting of the EAU Robotic Urology Section, September 14-16, 2016 Milan Italy; 11thAnnual Congress of Russian Association of Oncological Urology, 05-07, 2016 Moscow, Russia; 36thInternational Urology Congress, October 20-23, 2016 Argentina, South America, 27thInternational Prostate Cancer Update, January 24-27, 2017 Colorado, USA.

Track 6:Omics Technologies in Biomarkers Discovery and Validation

Biomarkersplay a critical role in disease diagnosis and treatment, especially for the early detection of cancer, to enable screening of asymptomatic populations. Recent omics technologies, such as Transcriptomics,genomicsand proteomics approaches besides Metabolomics are accelerating the rate of biomarker discovery. The incorporation of techniques like microarray data analysis, computational biology, data mining methods, Transcriptomics and profiling techniques are playing a crucial role in the validation of biomarkers. Since theHuman Genome Projectwas completed in April 2003, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have contributed toward a greater understanding of the genetic basis of complex diseases and advances in high-throughput technologies. This has enabled researchers to rapidly map the genome of vertebrates, invertebrates and pathogens through cost-effective methods. The applications ofBioinformaticstool in biomarker research is the current emerging field promoting better diagnosable parameters. The global omics market was valued at nearly $2.8 billion in 2011, nearly $3.2 billion in 2012, and is forecast to grow to nearly $7.5 billion by 2017 after increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.7%. The omics technology segment holds the largest share of ~75% of the biomarker discovery market, primarily due to the increase in adoption ofproteomicsand genomics technologies, globally. There are several approaches in biomarkers discovery and validation likegenomics and proteomicapproaches, Microarray data analysis, Data mining methods and Transcriptomics and profiling techniques by making use of Computational biology and Application of Bioinformatics in biomarker discovery.

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2ndInternational Conference onProstate Cancerand Treatment, August 22-23, 2016, USA, Experts Meeting onGynaecologic Oncology, May 19-21, 2016 , USACancer DiagnosticsConference and Expo, June 13-15, 2016, Italy, 11thAsia PacificOncologistsConference, July 11-13, 2016, Kualalumpur, Malaysia, Global Summit onMelanoma and Carcinoma, July 14-15, 2016, Australia, Controversies inBreast Cancer (CoBRA) October 22-24, 2015, Australia, 16th Biennial Meeting of the InternationalGynaecologic CancerSociety, 29-31stOctober 2016, Lisbon, WSMOS FallOncologyConference, 30thOctober 2015,Uk, Next NRGOncologySemiannual Meeting, Jan 21-24th ,2015, Atlanta, Progress and Controversies inGynaecologic OncologyConference, 16-17 January 2015, Spain; 12thCancer ConferencesEurope September 26-28, 2016 London, UK; 12thOncology ConferencesEurope September 26-28, 2016 London, UK; 12thCancer Science EventsEurope September 26-28, 2016 London, UK;Cancer Global ConferencesMiddle East November 21-23, 2016 Dubai, UAE;Oncology ConferencesNovember 21-23, 2016 Dubai, UAE;Worldwide Cancer EventsNovember 21-23, 2016 Dubai, UAE;Breast Cancer ConferencesOctober 03-05, 2016 London, UK;Womens Health ConferencesOctober 03-05, 2016 London, UK.

Track 7:Biomarkers of Exposure Response and Susceptibility

Biomarkersof exposure are important in toxicology, because they are an indicator of internal exposure and genetic susceptibility to drug, chemicals or the amount ofchemicalexposure that got accumulated in the body. Significant advances have been made in developing analytical methods that detect and quantify many natural or synthetic toxins or their breakdown products in thebiologicalmatrix. The ability to accurately measure biomarkers of exposure depends upon an adequate understanding of the chemistry and toxicology of the substance under consideration.Epigenetic biomarkersalso quantify the degree of exposure to toxic dynamic and pharmacodynamics parameters inpathologicaland biochemical changes occurring due to exposure to harmful agents, brought to light by toxic dynamics meetings andpharmacodynamicsworkshops. This emerging field of study is gaining importance in industry with an estimate of more than 7,287 personnel conducting study across the globe. While studying the response and susceptibility parameters like toxic dynamic and pharmacodynamic parameters are taken into consideration to measure the internal exposure and genetic susceptibility to drugs and chemicals.

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MolecularBiomarkers Conference, September 15-17 2016 Berlin, Germany; Cervical Cancer Conference, September 22-23 2016, Vienna, Austria; Surgical Oncology Conference, October 23-25, 2017 Chicago, USA; 2nd Cervical Cancer Conference, October 29 -31, 2017 Brussels, Belgium; Cancer World Conventaion, November 26-28, 2017 Frankfurt, Germany; 89thAnnual Italian Society of Urology Congress, October 15-18, 2016 Venezia Italy; 62ndAnnual Meeting of Czech Urological Society, October 19-21, 2016 Czech Budejovice, Czech Republic; ESMO 2017 Congress, September 08-12, 2017 Madrid, Spain; International Cancer Education Conference, September 14-16, 2016 Bethesda, USA; 16th Biennial Meeting of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society, October 29-31 Lisbon, Portugal; World Cancer Congress , October 31 - November 3 Paris, France, Malaysia Urology Conference, November 24-28,2016 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Annual AUA Meeting, May 12-16, 2017 Boston, USA.

Track 8:Biomarkers for Disorders

Biomarkers are the characteristicbiological measurableindictors for the various disorders if occurring inabnormal levels. These are used as quantitative entities for neurological disorders, genetic disorders, metabolic disorders, cardiac disorders and inborn errors. The present era is focusing on the cancer research utilizing biomarkers as indictor of disease conditions. The lungcancer biomarkersand biomarkers for breast cancer are inclusive of genes, enzymes, proteins and cell surface entitles. Registering a compound annual growth rate of 14.60% from 2011 to 2018, the market foroncology biomarkerswas valued at $13.16 billion in 2011 and is expected to be worth $29.78 billion in 2018.Biomarkers are also used in diagnosing and treating various diseases and disorders likeNeurological disorders, Genetic disorders,Metabolic disorders, Cardiac disorders, Inborn errors, Lung cancer and Breast cancer.

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12th Euro Global Summit onCancer Therapy, September 26-28 2016, London, UK; 13th GlobalOncologistsSummit, October 17-19 2016, Dubai, UAE; Global Summit onMelanoma, September 25-26, 2017 Rome, Italy; Multiple Myeloma Conference, October 15-17, 2017 Milan, Italy; Radiology Conference, October 23-25, 2017 Chicago, USA; 6thAnnual Asia-Pacific Prostate Society Conference, September 9 -10 Seoul, Korea; 68thAnnual German Society of Urology Congress, September 28-October 1, 2016 Leipzig, Germany; 72ndAnnual Canadian Urological Association Meeting, June 25-27, 2017 Toronto, Canada; 4th Annual Immuno-Oncology Summit, August 29-September 2, 2016 Boston, USA; 2nd Biomarkers, Diagnostics & Clinical Research Conference, September 19-20 Boston, USA; Biomarkers and Targeted Therapeutics in Sjgrens (BATTS) Conference, September 19-22, 2016 Oklahoma, USA; NCRI Cancer Conference, November 6-9, 2016 Liverpool, UK; 6th Munich Biomarker Conference, November 29-30, 2016 Munchen, Germany; Annual Meeting of American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons, April 27-30, 2017 Florida, USA.

Track 9:Techniques to Maximize Biomarker Identification

Biomarkersare the existing bimolecular and integral indictors of disease condition of biological systems. The techniques used to identify and maximize the expression of biomarkers include RT-PCR genotyping, molecular imaging and dynamics,biochemicalassay and profiling,immunologicaltechniques and chromatographic techniques. A wider approach towards identification of biomarkers lies in theproteomicapproach besides utilizing biosensors as a compatible tool for evaluation of biomarker levels in the biological systems. Most of the companys focus is on generating cost effective durable profiling techniques and equipment to quantify biomarkers within a short span of time. Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline Plc., GEHealthcare, Affymetrix Inc., Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. are a few of the key players in this market. Partnerships, agreements,collaborations, & mergers and acquisitions are the key business strategies adopted by market participants to ensure their growth in the market.

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Oral Cancer Conference, August 18-20 2016, Portland, USA; Surgical Oncology Conference, August 29-31 2016, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Cancer Diagnostics Conference, May 8-10, 2017 Dubai, UAE; 3rd Prostate Cancer Conference, June 26-28, 2017 Baltimore, USA; Lymphoma Conference, July 24-26, 2017 Rome, Italy; 14thUrological Association of Asia Congress, July 20-24, 2016 Suntec, Singapore; 17thAsia-Pacific Prostate Cancer Conference, August 31- September 3, 2016 Melbourne, Australia; ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, February, 16-18, 2017 Orlando, USA; 2ndInternational Prostate Cancer Symposium, August 6 -7, 2016 Moscow, Russia, 13thMeeting of the EAU Robotic Urology Section, September 14-16, 2016 Milan Italy; 11thAnnual Congress of Russian Association of Oncological Urology, 05-07, 2016 Moscow, Russia; 36thInternational Urology Congress, October 20-23, 2016 Argentina, South America, 27thInternational Prostate Cancer Update, January 24-27, 2017 Colorado, USA.

Track 10:Biomarkers in Nano science

Nano science is the study of structures and materials on the scale of nanometres.Nanotechnologymay be able to create many new materials and devices with a vast range of applications in medicine, electronics, biomaterialsenergy production, and consumer products. Nanotechnology is evolving rapidly with nanoparticles events. An estimated 1 million workers in R&D and production are involved in the field of Nano science and nanomaterial generation. Interaction of biomarkers with nanoparticles aids in identification and validation throughbiologicaland biomedical applications. Current marketholds Nano devices and nanomaterial for identification, quantifying, calibrating and even in surgeries. The US leads the world in investing and in the number ofNanotech Companies. Global consumption ofnanomaterialis expected to grow in unit terms from nearly 225,060 metric tons in 2014 to nearly 584,984 metric tons in 2019, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.1% for the period of 2014 to 2019.Nano science is another rapidly growing area where application ofnanotechnologytobiomarkersis used for biological and biomedical applications like Nano devices.

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MolecularBiomarkers Conference, September 15-17 2016 Berlin, Germany; Cervical Cancer Conference, September 22-23 2016, Vienna, Austria; Surgical Oncology Conference, October 23-25, 2017 Chicago, USA; 2nd Cervical Cancer Conference, October 29 -31, 2017 Brussels, Belgium; Cancer World Conventaion, November 26-28, 2017 Frankfurt, Germany; 89thAnnual Italian Society of Urology Congress, October 15-18, 2016 Venezia Italy; 62ndAnnual Meeting of Czech Urological Society, October 19-21, 2016 Czech Budejovice, Czech Republic; ESMO 2017 Congress, September 08-12, 2017 Madrid, Spain; International Cancer Education Conference, September 14-16, 2016 Bethesda, USA; 16th Biennial Meeting of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society, October 29-31 Lisbon, Portugal; World Cancer Congress , October 31 - November 3 Paris, France, Malaysia Urology Conference, November 24-28,2016 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Annual AUA Meeting, May 12-16, 2017 Boston, USA.

Track 11: Biomarkers in Toxicology

Biomarkers are used for detecting kidney toxicity. Kidney toxicity is detected using biomarkers serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen. Many qualified biomarkers are used to develop products to conquer the kidney toxicity problem. Latest research on biomarkers discovered new approaches to predicting and recognising toxic exposures of macromolecular adducts and their potential consequences.

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Track 12: Biomarkers in Microbial Infections

Biomarkers can be used for microbial infections and can be used for early diagnosis and prognosis of the disease. The diagnostic performance of biomarkers is usually measured in terms of sensitivity.

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Oral Cancer Conference, August 18-20 2016, Portland, USA; Surgical Oncology Conference, August 29-31 2016, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Cancer Diagnostics Conference, May 8-10, 2017 Dubai, UAE; 3rd Prostate Cancer Conference, June 26-28, 2017 Baltimore, USA; Lymphoma Conference, July 24-26, 2017 Rome, Italy; 14thUrological Association of Asia Congress, July 20-24, 2016 Suntec, Singapore; 17thAsia-Pacific Prostate Cancer Conference, August 31- September 3, 2016 Melbourne, Australia; ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, February, 16-18, 2017 Orlando, USA; 2ndInternational Prostate Cancer Symposium, August 6 -7, 2016 Moscow, Russia, 13thMeeting of the EAU Robotic Urology Section, September 14-16, 2016 Milan Italy; 11thAnnual Congress of Russian Association of Oncological Urology, 05-07, 2016 Moscow, Russia; 36thInternational Urology Congress, October 20-23, 2016 Argentina, South America, 27thInternational Prostate Cancer Update, January 24-27, 2017 Colorado, USA.

Track 13: Biomarkers in Drug Discovery

The role of Biomarkers in drug discovery and development is to understand the pathophysiology of disease. Biomarkers can be a clinical tool for drug discovery and development by confirming the efficacy and safety to the right patient. Biomarkers can be used in understanding the mechanism of drug.

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MolecularBiomarkers Conference, September 15-17 2016 Berlin, Germany; Cervical Cancer Conference, September 22-23 2016, Vienna, Austria; Surgical Oncology Conference, October 23-25, 2017 Chicago, USA; 2nd Cervical Cancer Conference, October 29 -31, 2017 Brussels, Belgium; Cancer World Conventaion, November 26-28, 2017 Frankfurt, Germany; 89thAnnual Italian Society of Urology Congress, October 15-18, 2016 Venezia Italy; 62ndAnnual Meeting of Czech Urological Society, October 19-21, 2016 Czech Budejovice, Czech Republic; ESMO 2017 Congress, September 08-12, 2017 Madrid, Spain; International Cancer Education Conference, September 14-16, 2016 Bethesda, USA; 16th Biennial Meeting of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society, October 29-31 Lisbon, Portugal; World Cancer Congress , October 31 - November 3 Paris, France, Malaysia Urology Conference, November 24-28,2016 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Annual AUA Meeting, May 12-16, 2017 Boston, USA.

Track 14: Personalized Medicine and Data Analysis

Recently there has been enhanced and advanced biomedical technology such as high-throughput molecular imaging and microarrays to monitor SNPs, gene and protein expressions, to provide exhaustive situations for individuals. The biological and medical status from such data sets, which are viewed as biomarkers in a wide sense to help to do identification, association, and prediction studies for phenotypes such as cancer subtypes, prognosis, treatment responsiveness, and adverse reactions for personalized medicine.

Related Biomarkers Conferences | Cancer Conferences | Biomarkers Meetings

12th Euro Global Summit onCancer Therapy, September 26-28 2016, London, UK; 13th GlobalOncologistsSummit, October 17-19 2016, Dubai, UAE; Global Summit onMelanoma, September 25-26, 2017 Rome, Italy; Multiple Myeloma Conference, October 15-17, 2017 Milan, Italy; Radiology Conference, October 23-25, 2017 Chicago, USA; 6thAnnual Asia-Pacific Prostate Society Conference, September 9 -10 Seoul, Korea; 68thAnnual German Society of Urology Congress, September 28-October 1, 2016 Leipzig, Germany; 72ndAnnual Canadian Urological Association Meeting, June 25-27, 2017 Toronto, Canada; 4th Annual Immuno-Oncology Summit, August 29-September 2, 2016 Boston, USA; 2nd Biomarkers, Diagnostics & Clinical Research Conference, September 19-20 Boston, USA; Biomarkers and Targeted Therapeutics in Sjgrens (BATTS) Conference, September 19-22, 2016 Oklahoma, USA; NCRI Cancer Conference, November 6-9, 2016 Liverpool, UK; 6th Munich Biomarker Conference, November 29-30, 2016 Munchen, Germany; Annual Meeting of American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons, April 27-30, 2017 Florida, USA.

Track 15: Nutritional Biomarkers

A nutritional biomarker can be any biological specimen that is an indicator of nutritional status with respect to intake or metabolism of dietary constituents. It can be a biochemical, functional or clinical index of status of an essential nutrient or other dietary constituent. Nutritional biomarkers may be interpreted more broadly as a biologic consequence of dietary intake or dietary patterns.

Related Biomarkers Conferences | Cancer Conferences | Biomarkers Meetings

Oral Cancer Conference, August 18-20 2016, Portland, USA; Surgical Oncology Conference, August 29-31 2016, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Cancer Diagnostics Conference, May 8-10, 2017 Dubai, UAE; 3rd Prostate Cancer Conference, June 26-28, 2017 Baltimore, USA; Lymphoma Conference, July 24-26, 2017 Rome, Italy; 14thUrological Association of Asia Congress, July 20-24, 2016 Suntec, Singapore; 17thAsia-Pacific Prostate Cancer Conference, August 31- September 3, 2016 Melbourne, Australia; ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, February, 16-18, 2017 Orlando, USA; 2ndInternational Prostate Cancer Symposium, August 6 -7, 2016 Moscow, Russia, 13thMeeting of the EAU Robotic Urology Section, September 14-16, 2016 Milan Italy; 11thAnnual Congress of Russian Association of Oncological Urology, 05-07, 2016 Moscow, Russia; 36thInternational Urology Congress, October 20-23, 2016 Argentina, South America, 27thInternational Prostate Cancer Update, January 24-27, 2017 Colorado, USA.

Track 16: Current Research Concepts in Biomarkers

Current Research Concepts in Biomarkers include research in glucose disorders, Biomarkers in disease and health, technologies in biomarker discovery, translational biomarker research and the use of biomarkers in pre-clinical and clinical studies.

Related Biomarkers Conferences | Cancer Conferences | Biomarkers Meetings

MolecularBiomarkers Conference, September 15-17 2016 Berlin, Germany; Cervical Cancer Conference, September 22-23 2016, Vienna, Austria; Surgical Oncology Conference, October 23-25, 2017 Chicago, USA; 2nd Cervical Cancer Conference, October 29 -31, 2017 Brussels, Belgium; Cancer World Conventaion, November 26-28, 2017 Frankfurt, Germany; 89thAnnual Italian Society of Urology Congress, October 15-18, 2016 Venezia Italy; 62ndAnnual Meeting of Czech Urological Society, October 19-21, 2016 Czech Budejovice, Czech Republic; ESMO 2017 Congress, September 08-12, 2017 Madrid, Spain; International Cancer Education Conference, September 14-16, 2016 Bethesda, USA; 16th Biennial Meeting of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society, October 29-31 Lisbon, Portugal; World Cancer Congress , October 31 - November 3 Paris, France, Malaysia Urology Conference, November 24-28,2016 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Annual AUA Meeting, May 12-16, 2017 Boston, USA

Track 17: Oncologists: Biomarkers

An oncologist is a doctor who specializes in treating people with cancer. The oncologists research into the causes, prevention, detection, and treatment of cancer is going on in many medical centres throughout the world.

Related Biomarkers Conferences | Cancer Conferences | Biomarkers Meetings

12th Euro Global Summit onCancer Therapy, September 26-28 2016, London, UK; 13th GlobalOncologistsSummit, October 17-19 2016, Dubai, UAE; Global Summit onMelanoma, September 25-26, 2017 Rome, Italy; Multiple Myeloma Conference, October 15-17, 2017 Milan, Italy; Radiology Conference, October 23-25, 2017 Chicago, USA; 6thAnnual Asia-Pacific Prostate Society Conference, September 9 -10 Seoul, Korea; 68thAnnual German Society of Urology Congress, September 28-October 1, 2016 Leipzig, Germany; 72ndAnnual Canadian Urological Association Meeting, June 25-27, 2017 Toronto, Canada; 4th Annual Immuno-Oncology Summit, August 29-September 2, 2016 Boston, USA; 2nd Biomarkers, Diagnostics & Clinical Research Conference, September 19-20 Boston, USA; Biomarkers and Targeted Therapeutics in Sjgrens (BATTS) Conference, September 19-22, 2016 Oklahoma, USA; NCRI Cancer Conference, November 6-9, 2016 Liverpool, UK; 6th Munich Biomarker Conference, November 29-30, 2016 Munchen, Germany; Annual Meeting of American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons, April 27-30, 2017 Florida, USA.

Track 18: Biomarkers in Market

With the emerging importance to quantify and validate various disease conditions, many organizations, companies, and universities have stepped forward to contribute to the field of biomarkers discovery and quantification for better prognosis of disease conditions. The Biomarkers is the second leading industry after clinical research and development. The Biomarkers in pharmaceutical industry, biomarkers in oncology & other diseases has attained utmost recognition due to global spread of cancer and other diseases. The Biomarkers validation and regulatory affairs and diagnostic biomarker are booming industry with an estimate of more than 270 companies involved across the globe in 2016.

Related Biomarkers Conferences | Cancer Conferences | Biomarkers Meetings

MolecularBiomarkers Conference, September 15-17 2016 Berlin, Germany; Cervical Cancer Conference, September 22-23 2016, Vienna, Austria; Surgical Oncology Conference, October 23-25, 2017 Chicago, USA; 2nd Cervical Cancer Conference, October 29 -31, 2017 Brussels, Belgium; Cancer World Conventaion, November 26-28, 2017 Frankfurt, Germany; 89thAnnual Italian Society of Urology Congress, October 15-18, 2016 Venezia Italy; 62ndAnnual Meeting of Czech Urological Society, October 19-21, 2016 Czech Budejovice, Czech Republic; ESMO 2017 Congress, September 08-12, 2017 Madrid, Spain; International Cancer Education Conference, September 14-16, 2016 Bethesda, USA; 16th Biennial Meeting of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society, October 29-31 Lisbon, Portugal; World Cancer Congress , October 31 - November 3 Paris, France, Malaysia Urology Conference, November 24-28,2016 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Annual AUA Meeting, May 12-16, 2017 Boston, USA.

Track 19: Biomarkers Case Reports

Biomarkers case reports play a crucial role in moving new treatments to patients who need those most, securing data so regulatory approvals can be obtained and new drugs can move into widespread clinical practice.

Related Biomarkers Conferences | Cancer Conferences | Biomarkers Meetings

12th Euro Global Summit onCancer Therapy, September 26-28 2016, London, UK; 13th GlobalOncologistsSummit, October 17-19 2016, Dubai, UAE; Global Summit onMelanoma, September 25-26, 2017 Rome, Italy; Multiple Myeloma Conference, October 15-17, 2017 Milan, Italy; Radiology Conference, October 23-25, 2017 Chicago, USA; 6thAnnual Asia-Pacific Prostate Society Conference, September 9 -10 Seoul, Korea; 68thAnnual German Society of Urology Congress, September 28-October 1, 2016 Leipzig, Germany; 72ndAnnual Canadian Urological Association Meeting, June 25-27, 2017 Toronto, Canada; 4th Annual Immuno-Oncology Summit, August 29-September 2, 2016 Boston, USA; 2nd Biomarkers, Diagnostics & Clinical Research Conference, September 19-20 Boston, USA; Biomarkers and Targeted Therapeutics in Sjgrens (BATTS) Conference, September 19-22, 2016 Oklahoma, USA; NCRI Cancer Conference, November 6-9, 2016 Liverpool, UK; 6th Munich Biomarker Conference, November 29-30, 2016 Munchen, Germany; Annual Meeting of American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons, April 27-30, 2017 Florida, USA.

Track 20: Biomarkers: Entrepreneur Investments Meet

A key ingredient in successful entrepreneurship is self-knowledge. Biomarkers-2016 aims to bring together all existing and budding bio entrepreneurs to share experiences and present new innovations and challenges in cancer community. Each year, over a million companies are started in the world with about 510 of them classified as high technology companies. Turning ideas into business ventures is tricky and the opportunity-recognition step is critical in new venture creation. This gestalt in the entrepreneur's perception of the relationship between the invention and final product is refined into a business model that describes how the venture will make money or provide an appropriate return to the potential investors. Cancer science is complex and rapidly changing and requires a specialized knowledge to understand the value of the innovation and its competitive position in the industry. This three day community-wide conference will be a highly interactive forum that will bring experts in areas ranging from Biomarkers to signalling pathways to novel therapeutic approaches to the scientific hub. In addition to our outstanding speakers, we will also showcase short talks and poster presentations from submitted abstracts .The speakers will discuss state-of-the-art treatments, current guidelines, clinical challenges, and review recent trial data and emerging therapeutic approaches with the potential to impact clinical practice. This session will include combined efforts of World-renowned speakers, the most recent techniques, developments, and the newest updates in Biomarkers.

Related Biomarkers Conferences | Cancer Conferences | Biomarkers Meetings

Oral Cancer Conference, August 18-20 2016, Portland, USA; Surgical Oncology Conference, August 29-31 2016, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Cancer Diagnostics Conference, May 8-10, 2017 Dubai, UAE; 3rd Prostate Cancer Conference, June 26-28, 2017 Baltimore, USA; Lymphoma Conference, July 24-26, 2017 Rome, Italy; 14thUrological Association of Asia Congress, July 20-24, 2016 Suntec, Singapore; 17thAsia-Pacific Prostate Cancer Conference, August 31- September 3, 2016 Melbourne, Australia; ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, February, 16-18, 2017 Orlando, USA; 2ndInternational Prostate Cancer Symposium, August 6 -7, 2016 Moscow, Russia, 13thMeeting of the EAU Robotic Urology Section, September 14-16, 2016 Milan Italy; 11thAnnual Congress of Russian Association of Oncological Urology, 05-07, 2016 Moscow, Russia; 36thInternational Urology Congress, October 20-23, 2016 Argentina, South America, 27thInternational Prostate Cancer Update, January 24-27, 2017 Colorado, USA.

OMICS International hosted the 6thInternational Conference on Biomarkers & Clinical Research (Biomarkers 2015) during August 31September 02 at Toronto Airport Marriott Hotel, Toronto, Canada. The scientific meeting has laid path for the designing and development of research methodologies with the theme impact of Lab to industry as bio-signatures to therapeutic discovery.

Biomarkers 2015 was fortunate to acquire support from association and societies - Clinical Research Association of Canada (CRAC), Hypertension Canada, International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT), The Egyptian Biophysical Society and media partners -Biomarkers Profile Corporation, Gate2Biotech, The Technology Networks, Council of European Bio-Region, Oncology Education and Edinburgh Science Triangle.

The highlights of the meeting were the eponymous lectures, delivered byDr. Claude Prigent, University of Rennes, France, Dr. Trevor G Marshall, Autoimmunity Research Foundation, USA, Dr. Alain Moreau, Sainte-Justine University Hospital, Canada, Dr. Sergey Suchkov, I. M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Russia, Dr. Alexander M Buko, Human Metabolome Technologies, USA, Dr. Chee Gee See, Proteome Sciences, UK, Dr. Biswendu B Goswami, FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, USA.

Biomarkers 2015 held pre-conference workshop on August 1, 2015 in Mumbai University, India under the supervision of Prof. K. P. Mishra, Founder President of Society of Radiation Research, India. The workshop gathered 650+ participants inclusive of students, faculty, societies and industrial personnel.

The conference held 2 workshops under the supervision of Prof. Sergey Suchkov, I. M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Russia; Dr. Trevor G Marshall, Autoimmunity Research Foundation, USA and their team from Czech Republic and Prof. Youhe Gao, Beijing Normal University, China.

Biomarkers-2014

The5thInternational Conference on Biomarkers & Clinical Research, the Biomarker-2014, was held during April 15-17, 2014 at Oxford, UK.

Biomarkers-2014 has taken up the scientific thoughts towards proving the importance of accurate diagnostics to be prevital towards the curing efficacy. The scientific meeting has laid path for the designing and development of research methodologies with the theme impact of Diagnostic significance of the therapeutic bio-clinical molecule.

The conference was greeted by the welcome message from Presidents desk at the European Association for Predictive, Preventive and Personalised Medicine (EPMA), Brussels, EU. The support was extended through the PPPM workshop being conducted with the PPPM representatives from Russia, USA, Czech Republic and Saudi Arabia. The conference has gathered support from Everest Biotech, EuroScienceCon, Biomarkers Profile Corporation, ArrayMold, BioNews, Edinburgh Science Triangle, Biowebspin, The Technology Networks, European Biotechnology Thematic Network Association, Visiongain and Current Partnering as the media partners. In addition SCIENION has participated at the conference as Exhibitor at this conference.

The program highlights of the meeting were the eponymous lectures, delivered byDr. Sergey Suchkovfrom I.M.Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Russia;Dr.Pavel Vodickafrom Institute of Experimental Medicine, Czech Republic;Dr.Ondrej Topolcan from Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic;Dr. Claudio Nicolinifrom University of Genova, Italy andDr. Claude Prigentfrom University of Rennes, France.

Biomarkers-2013

OMICS Grouporganized 4thInternational Conference on Biomarkers & Clinical Research, during July 15-17, 2013 at Philadelphia, USA under the theme of Impact of Biomarkers Development in Health Diagnostics and Clinical Research.

The conference was initiated with a series of invited lectures delivered by Dr. Jizu Yi from BD Diagnostics, USA; Dr. Yaping Tian from PLA General Hospital, China; Dr. Leticia Cano from Biomarker Profile Corporation, USA and Dr. Lawrence Greenfield from Affymetrix, USA.

Biomarkers-2012

The3rd International Conference on Biomarkers & Clinical Research, organized by theOMICS Groupwas held onJuly 2-4, 2012 at Embassy Suites Las Vegas, USA under the theme of "Commercialization of Biomarkers". There were about 200 delegates representing 25 countries from different corners of the world who made this conference a big success in the field ofBiomarkers and Clinical Research.

The conference was initiated with a series of invited lectures delivered by both Honorable Guests and members of the Keynote forum. The list includesDr. Josip Blonder, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (NIH), USA;Dr. Marcel M. Daadi, Stanford University, USA;Dr. Ting-Chao Chou, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, USA;Dr. Jacob Kagan, National Cancer Institute, NIH, USA;Dr. Michael Sullivan, Worldwide Clinical Trials-Drug Development Solutions, USA;Dr. Hitoshi Sohma, Sapporo Medical University Center for Medical Education, Japan andDr. Da Zhi Liu, University of California at Devis, USA.All the above mentioned Honourable Guests and Keynote speakers gave their energetic and fruitful contributions atBiomarkers-2012. All accepted abstracts have been indexed in OMICS Group Journal of Molecular Biomarkers & Diagnosisas a special issue.

Biomarkers-2011

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