On Monday, I returned from the 6th International Congress on Autoimmunity held in Porto, Portugal. You can watch my presentation here.

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Though the human genome was fully sequenced in 2001, the most promising work in genomics has just begun and not even in the study of human DNA. Human cells are outnumbered by bacterial cells by a factor of ten to one, and, as the rest of this site alludes to ad nauseam, there is strong reason to believe that bacteria are to blame for many of the chronic diseases from which humans suffer. Genetically speaking, we know relatively little about bacteria that persist in humans. The field is ripe for advances.

Colorful representations of sequenced genomes adorn the walls at JCVI.

You may wonder how a researcher can view and understand a particular bacterial genome. On their own, they cannot. Progress in genetics is a group effort, and requires partnering with one of the handful of heavyweight institutions in the world that have developed resources allowing for genome interpretation. Several such institutions exist in the US. The NIH has bacterial protein sequencing tools at its disposal. The Broad Institute at MIT as well as the Washington University Genome Sequencing Center have also developed tools that allow for genome sequencing.

Many would argue though that the Institution most on the bleeding edge when it comes to genome sequencing technology is the J. Craig Venter Institute, formerly known as TIGR. Headed by transformative iconoclast and entrepreneur J. Craig Venter, the Institute is a non-profit research center that was founded in 2006. It has facilities in Rockville, Maryland and La Jolla, California and employs over 400 people, including Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith.

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In 2005, for his TED talk, Dr. Aubrey de Grey was asked by an audience member who was seemingly puzzled by his long brown beard, “Since you talk about aging and try to defeat it, why do you make yourself appear like an old man?”

De Grey responded, “Because I am an old man. I am 158.”

Aubrey de Grey

It has been three years since then and at the ripe age of 161 (according to his Wikipedia bio, his birthday is in April), Aubrey de Grey presided over the latest of the Methuselah Foundation’s annual anti-aging symposiums. At the end of June 2008, a group of us with ties to Autoimmunity Research Foundation attended that meeting on the *very* sunny campus of UCLA. Our goal was to get researchers thinking about a bacterial explanation for diseases of the aging, and to get them to begin considering the Marshall Protocol as an anti-aging option.

Aubrey de Grey is always surrounded by people, be they prestigious presenters, researchers, conference organizers, or any of his small army of energized volunteers for which he plays field marshall.

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This is a video of the presentation made by Prof Trevor Marshall at the Aging conference at the University of California, Los Angeles, on June 29, 2008.

For those who have access to a high-speed internet connection and fast computer, better version of this video, in High Definition is . Also available: the related abstract and Conference details.

Translational medicine. The concept was invoked frequently last week at the Days of Molecular Medicine Conference (DMM). It’s an approach to medicine in which researchers are urged to take the data they have collected in the laboratory and find a way to apply it directly to patients. The term also suggests that researchers and doctors must work together, and that collaboration among researchers in different fields is essential if medicine is to advance.

Our group in front of the Karolinska Institute

The Marshall Protocol epitomizes translational medicine, which is why, in my opinion, our poster presentations at the Conference were, for the most part, viewed with great interest and optimism.

The researchers who filled the lecture and poster halls at DMM had travelled to Sweden from the most prestigious universities in the world. It didn’t take long to realize that many of them have spent their entire careers looking for faulty genes that might be able to cause mental illnesses such as autism or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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Join biomedical researcher Dr. Trevor Marshall as he explores the molecular data that forms the backbone of the Marshall Protocol.

A few months ago I submitted an abstract to the committee planning the upcoming Days of Molecular Medicine Conference, which will be held this April in Karolinska Sweden. A week ago, I was quite happy to learn that my abstract was accepted and that I will be giving a poster presentation at the conference. The subject: “Cognitive dysfunction in women with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: examining the role of the endometrium, the nuclear receptors, and the antimicrobial peptides.” So if all goes as planned, I’m headed to Sweden in about a month. I’m excited for many reasons, one of them being that before starting the Marshall Protocol I never thought I’d be able to board a plane again - the pressure changes and noise were too much for my head to tolerate. Yet, two 3/4 years later, here I am traveling half-way across the world, talking about many cognitive issues that were once a problem for me - a problem that has largely subsided.

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