We would like to welcome our newest staff member, Dr. Duncan MacLaren. Dr. MacLaren has completed his first week of work at Alcor and is diving energetically into our research.

Duncan has long been interested in curing aging. His life since 1980 has involved developing tools to find out how humans work, and he has studied several sciences from physics and chemistry to the whole-person biological level. Until recently he was focused on reversing aging and has had some success there; but due to a near death experience in his family, he has shifted his focus to cryonics, so that once the anti-aging field has matured, we can restore our patients to healthy, youthful life.

Duncan has Bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry, Biochemistry-Biophysics, Chemical Engineering, Mathematics, and English from Oregon State University. In 1996 he received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from UCLA while in the laboratory of Steven Clarke. He co-founded Vivogen in 2000, a company focused on gerentology research and genetic testing.

PUBLICATIONS
C. Ryttersgaard, S.C. Griffith, M.R. Sawaya, D.C. MacLaren, S. Clarke, and T.O. Yeates. Crystal structure of human L-isoaspartyl methyltransferase. Journal of Biological Chemistry, (2002), 277, 10642-10646.

D.C. MacLaren, T. Toyokuni, S.R. Cherry, J.R. Barrio, M.E. Phelps, H.R. Herschman, S.S. Gambhir. PET Imaging of Transgene Expression. Review. Biological Psychiatry, 48 (5), (2000) 337-348.

H.R. Herschman, D.C. MacLaren, M. Iyer, M. Namavari, K. Bobinski, L. A. Green, L. Wu, A.J. Berk, T. Toyokuni, J.R. Barrio, S.R. Cherry, M.E. Phelps, E.P. Sandgren, S.S. Gambhir. Seeing is believeing: Non-invasive, quantitative and repetitive imaging of reporter gene expression in living animals, using positron emission tomography. Review. J. Neuroscience Research, 59 (6), (2000) 699-705.

S.S. Gambhir, J.R. Barrio, M.E. Phelps, M. Iyer, M. Namavari, N. Satyamurthy, L. Wu, L.A. Green, E. Bauer, D.C. MacLaren, K. Nguyen, A.J. Berk, S.R. Cherry, H.R. Herschman. Imaging adenoviral-directed reporter gene expression in living animals with positron emission tomography. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A , 96, (1999) 2333-2338

D.C. MacLaren, S. Sharfstein, S.S. Gambhir, N. Satyamurthy, et al. Repetitive, Non-invasive Imaging of the Dopamine D2 Receptor as a Reporter Gene in Living Animals. Gene Therapy, 6 (1999) 785-791

S.S. Gambhir; J.R. Barrio; L. Wu; M. Iyer; et al. Imaging of adenoviral-directed herpes simplex virus type 1 thymidine kinase reporter gene expression in mice with radiolabeled ganciclovir. J Nuclear Med, 39 (11), (1998) 2003-2011.

H.R. Herschman, S. Sharfstein, S.S. Gambhir, D.C. Maclaren, S. Cherry, A. Srinivasan, N. Satyamurthy, J.R. Barrio, and M.E. Phelps. In Vivo Imaging of Gene Expression Associated with Cell Replication. J Nuclear Med, 38(5), (1997) 250.

E. Kim, J.D. Lowenson, D.C. MacLaren, S. Clarke, and S.G. Young, Deficiency of a protein-repair enzyme results in the accumulation of altered proteins, retardation of growth, and fatal seizures in mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 94, (1997) 6132-6137

D.C. MacLaren, and S. Clarke, “Rapid Mapping of P1 Clones: The Mouse L-isoaspartyl/D-Aspartyl Methyltransferase Gene”. Genomics, 35, (1996) 299-307

D.C. MacLaren, and S. Clarke, “Expression and Purification of a Human Recombinant Methyltransferase that Repairs Damaged Proteins”, Protein Expression and Purification, 6, (1995) 99-108.

D.C. Maclaren, C.M. O’Connor, Y. Xia, M. Mehrabian, I. Klisak, R.S. Sparkes, S. Clarke, and A.J. Lusis, “The L-Isoaspartyl/D-Aspartyl Protein Methyltransferase Gene Maps to Human Chromosome 6q22.3-6q24 and the Syntenic Region of Mouse Chromosome 10”, Genomics, 14, (1992) 852-856.

D.C. MacLaren, R.M. Kagan, and S. Clarke, “Alternative Splicing of the Human Isoaspartyl Protein Carboxyl Methyltransferase RNA Leads to the Generation of a C-terminal -RDEL Sequence in Isozyme II”, Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun., 185, (1992) 277-283.

D.A. Stams, T.D. Thomas, D.C. MacLaren, D. Ji, and T.H. Morton, “Empirical and ab Initio Estimates of the Stabilities of Fluorine-Containing Cations”, J. Am. Chem. Soc., (1990) 1427-34.

T.X. Carroll, D. Ji, D.C. MacLaren, and T.D. Thomas, “Relativistic Corrections to Reported Sulfer 1s Ionization Energies”,J. Elec. Spec., 42 (1987) 281-284

There will be a Board of Directors meeting for MAY this coming Saturday, May 5, at 11:00 am Arizona time. All are welcome to attend. The meeting usually takes one to two hours, and is followed by a buffet lunch.
Location:
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
7895 East Acoma Drive Suite 110
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
Phone: (480) 905-1906

The 7th Alcor Conference, from October 5-7, 2007, will be held at the Scottsdale Hilton. Early bird registration will open in a few weeks.
An exciting array of speakers have been confirmed, including:
– Steve Bridge
– Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D.
– Steven Harris, M.D.
– Chris Heward, Ph.D.
– Calvin Mercer, Ph.D.
– Ralph Merkle, Ph.D.
– Christine Peterson
– Michael West, Ph.D.
– Brian Wowk, Ph.D.
Read about their talks here. And watch for upcoming registration announcements.

For a limited time, pre-order the 2006 Alcor Conference DVD set at 25% off regular price. Your DVD set includes these conference presentations: Brian Wowk, PhD: The Cryobiological Basis of Cryonics Ralph Merkle, PhD: Nanotechnology and Cryonics Robert A. Freitas Jr., JD: Nanomedicine: The Path Forward Aubrey de Grey, PhD: SENS: A Precursor to Cryonics Revival Cryonics Public Policy Panel … And More! Plus, candid interviews of conference attendees and a guided tour of the Alcor facility. Order the 2006 Conference DVD Set.