The latest on Liz Parrish. This is a real reporter in Australia and he does ask her a few hard questions on using white blood cells, showing results, being the only patient and so on.
Jeremy Fernandez speaks to Liz Parrish, the CEO of BioViva — an American biotech developing treatments to slow the ageing process in humans.
When Jan Scheuermann volunteered for an experimental brain implant, she had no idea she was making neuroscience history.
Scheuermann, 54 at the time of surgery, had been paralyzed for 14 years due to a neurological disease that severed the neural connections between her brain and muscles. She could still feel her body, but couldn’t move her limbs.
Unwilling to give up, Scheuermann had two button-sized electrical implants inserted into her motor cortex. The implants tethered her brain to a robotic arm through two bunches of cables that protruded out from her skull.
DNA, the stuff of life, may very well also pack quite the jolt for engineers trying to advance the development of tiny, low-cost electronic devices.
Much like flipping your light switch at home — –only on a scale 1,000 times smaller than a human hair — –an ASU-led team has now developed the first controllable DNA switch to regulate the flow of electricity within a single, atomic-sized molecule. The new study, led by ASU Biodesign Institute researcher Nongjian Tao, was published in the advanced online journal Nature Communications ( DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14471).
“It has been established that charge transport is possible in DNA, but for a useful device, one wants to be able to turn the charge transport on and off. We achieved this goal by chemically modifying DNA,” said Tao, who directs the Biodesign Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensors and is a professor in the Fulton Schools of Engineering.
Contrary to what has long been believed, the role of the sympathetic nervous system in muscle tissue goes far beyond controlling blood flow by contracting or relaxing blood vessels, according to studies conducted at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil.
With support from FAPESP and the collaboration of researchers at Mannheim University and Heidelberg University in Germany, a group of Brazilian researchers led by Isis do Carmo Kettelhut and Luiz Carlos Carvalho Navegantes at the University of São Paulo’s Ribeirão Preto Medical School (FMRP –USP) have demonstrated the importance of sympathetic innervation for the growth and maintenance of muscle mass and also for the control of movement.
Kettelhut is a full professor at FMRP -USP’s Biochemistry & Immunology Department. Navegantes is a professor in the same institution’s Physiology Department.
Got OCD; check your genes for a mutation.
A new Northwestern Medicine study found evidence suggesting how neural dysfunction in a certain region of the brain can lead to obsessive and repetitive behaviors much like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Both in humans and in mice, there is a circuit in the brain called the corticostriatal connection that regulates habitual and repetitive actions. The study found certain synaptic receptors are important for the development of this brain circuit. If these receptors are eliminated in mice, they exhibit obsessive behavior, such as over-grooming.
In recent years, we have dramatically changed our view of human genome, from a collection of DNA base pairs that was largely quite stable to one whose very structure can change. We’ve learned that higher-order structural features, such as specific configurations of repeated base pair sequences, can predispose for DNA rearrangements.
One of the most intriguing types of DNA rearrangements is copy-number variants (CNVs), deletions or duplications of parts of the genome. While CNVs range in size from a few hundred base pairs to several mega-bases affecting the copy number of one to dozens of juxtaposed genes, they are not identifiable by conventional light microscopy. It was not until a few years ago that improved technology enabled us to perform high-resolution genome-wide surveys of CNVs in individual genomes. These surveys revealed a large amount of copy number variation (at least 12,000 CNVs overlapping more than 1,000 genes), most of which represent benign polymorphic changes. CNVs are classified as rare (occurring at a frequency of 1 percent in the population) or common; collectively they cover at least 12–13 percent of the genome in the general population.
Donate to the Methuselah Foundation here at this link
Methuselah Foundation reviewed the progress they made over the past year. Much of what you’ll read in this year in review letter is very late-breaking, and leads us to believe that 2017 will be a very important year in medical developments. 2016 took us a broad step closer to fulfilling our mission statement to “Make 90 the New 50, by 2030”. Why can we say that? For starters, let’s look at several achievements to date that made this year so successful:
Posted in bioengineering, biotech/medical, business, disruptive technology, DNA, genetics, health, science, sex | Leave a Comment on Bioquark Inc. and SC21 Biotech to Collaborate on Novel Cellular Therapies for Long Term HIV Control
Orginal press: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/02/prweb14062199.htm
Bioquark, Inc., (http://www.bioquark.com) a life sciences company focused on the development of novel biologics for complex regeneration and disease reversion, and SC21 Biotech, (http://www.sc21bio.tech), a biotechnology company focused on translational therapeutic applications of autologous stem cell therapy, have announced a collaboration to focus on novel cellular reprogramming and production approaches for CCR5 Delta32 homozygous cord blood stem cells, for long-term control of HIV via transplantation.
“We are very excited about this collaboration with SC21 Biotech,” said Ira S. Pastor, CEO, Bioquark Inc. “The natural synergy of our cellular reprogramming tools and SC21 Biotech’s translational cell therapy experience, will make for a transformational opportunity in this area of HIV disease control.”
HIV-1 infection afflicts more than 35 million people worldwide. For individuals who have access to antiretroviral therapy, these drugs can effectively suppress, but not cure, HIV-1 infection. The only documented case for an HIV/AIDS cure was a patient with HIV-1 and acute myeloid leukemia who received allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation from a graft that carried the HIV-resistant CCR5-Delta32 homozygous mutation. The patient has remained without any evidence of HIV infection for more than 8 years after discontinuation of antiretroviral drug therapy.
However, identifying immune matched adult CCR5- Delta32 homozygous donors for a given patients is not readily feasible in part because the prevalence is in only about 0.8%–1% of individuals of northern European descent and much less in other ethnic groups, as well as the fact that for such transplants with adult cells there needs to be a very close HLA match between donor and patient.
In contrast, cord blood that is CCR5- Delta32 homozygous provides a major advantage in that much less stringent HLA matching is required between donor and patient. However, a technological method to cost effectively and industrially scale the production of such cells has been missing.
“We look forward to working closely with Bioquark Inc. on this exciting initiative,” said Mr. Paul Collier, Managing Director of SC21 Biotech. “The ability to apply Bioquark’s cellular reprogramming tools in order to produce industrial quantities of such precious cell lines will offer a much greater global penetration of this important therapeutic modality for HIV.”
“Bioquark has spent several years studying the evolutionarily perfected ability of bioactive moieties found in ooplasms to turn back biological time and re-set cellular regulatory state” said Dr. Sergei Paylian, Founder, CSO, and President, Bioquark Inc. “This unique initiative is one more step in our broad translation of such natural capabilities to control the progression of human diseases.”
About Bioquark, Inc.
Bioquark Inc. is focused on the development of natural biologic based products, services, and technologies, with the goal of curing a wide range of diseases, as well as effecting complex regeneration. Bioquark is developing both biological pharmaceutical candidates, as well as products for the global consumer health and wellness market segments.
About SC21 Biotech
SC21 Biotech is a novel a biotechnology company focused on translational therapeutic applications, as well as expedited, experimental access for “no option” patients, to a novel range of regenerative and reparative biomedical products and services, with the goal of reducing human degeneration, suffering, and death.
