Research from the Vakoc lab, published in Nature Communications and Cell Reports, provides new insights into the master regulators of two severe forms of lung and pancreatic cancer, which can morph in response to treatment. The discoveries could someday lead to safer therapies with fewer and less harmful side effects.

Diets of wild orangutans are “culturally-dependent”: adult Sumatran orangutans have knowledge of around 250 edible food items, which is more than any one individual can attain without learning from other individuals.

Developmental experiments “in silico”: using computer simulations based on 12 years of observations on wild orangutans, researchers show that orangutans fail to develop “adult-like” diets if deprived of key social interactions that facilitate learning.

Deep roots of cultural inheritance: adult orangutan’s diets are the product of information that many different individuals must have discovered and learnt from each other. Humans’ capacity to accumulate broad cultural repertoires – to breadths no individual could produce alone – is potentially a capacity that evolved at least 13 million years, in our common ancestor with great apes.

According to the results published in Nature Aging, ex vivo treatment of blood stem cells with the drug Rhosin leads to blood stem cell rejuvenation and helps produce healthier blood cells once transplanted back in the bone marrow.

Previously, Dr M. Carolina Florian and her team proved the central role of blood stem cells in the aging of the whole body, suggesting blood rejuvenation as an important biomedical strategy to extend healthspan and lifespan and prevent age-related diseases.

Biomedical rejuvenation strategies that target aging and its detrimental health effects will be essential in the future scenario of an aging population: by 2050, the population over 60 years of age will have doubled.