Methuselah Zoom Conference

In November 2020 I was invited to give a presentation in a Zoom conference organised by Methusela Health. This PDF file contains a transcript of what I presented (with a few minor modifications). It also contains some further notes that the conference stimulated me into making.

The web site that contains recordings of the Methuselah meeting presentations is HERE.

The PDF of my presentation (and extra notes) is HERE.

An after-thought

I have blandly assumed that micro-organisms display MAMPs "willy nilly" as a strategy to get into sickening cells as early as possible. However, a little thought leads to the hyoothesis that they ramp up MAMP expression whenever they "sniff" the presence of ailing cells. Dogs (using the armamentarium provided by single constituent cells) appear to be able to sniff out many conditions much earlier than assays devised by humans. It now appears that dogs may be able to pick up Covid-19 infection many days earlier than our most sophisticated tests. So, this idea makes good sense (rather than wildly sacrificing large numbers of bacteria before they have a chance to "invade" sickening cells).

So, how can this be compatible with the observation that genetic ablation of TLR activity renders multicellular organisms more susceptible to infection? The answer may be analogous to the observations that immune deficiencies lead to an increased incidence of auto-immunity. Simplistically, it should do the opposite. However, when the immune system is regarded as a system that is aimed at clearing cellular debris, this no longer seems so counter-intuitive. Similarly, the disabling of TLR recognition affects both recognition of MAMPs and DAMPs (damage associated membrane patterns). So debris is poorly cleared. Debris is the feast upon which bacterial detritophiles dine. Removing TLR recognition may deny them early access but their meal is not taken away; on the contrary, it accumulates.