Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical

Efficiency trends in DNA sequencing (green) and synthesis of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA, blue) and single-stranded DNA (ssDNA, red) over the past ~35 years. The disruptive improvement in sequencing and ssDNA (oligonucleotides) synthesis technologies has improved from multiplex and miniaturization technologies in high-throughput DNA sequencing and oligo microarray technologies, respectively. (credit: Jef D. Boeke et al./Science)

Leading genomics experts have announced Genome Project-write (HGP-write), which aims to synthesize entire genomes of humans and other species from chemical components and get them to function in living cells.

As explained in Science, the goal of HGP-write is to reduce the costs of engineering large genomes, including a human genome, and to develop an ethical framework for genome-scale engineering and transformative medical applications.

Read more

Wow!

Mobile phone data may reveal an underlying mathematical connection between how we move and how we communicate that could make it easier to predict how diseases—and even ideas—spread through a population, according to an international team of researchers.

“This study really deepens our quantitative understanding of human behavior,” said Dashun Wang, assistant professor of and technology, Penn State. “We would like to think that we control our own behavior and we can do what we want to do. But, what we are starting to see with is that there is a very deep regularity underlying much of what we do.”

In a study, location and communication data collected from three international carriers showed that people move and communicate in predictable patterns, said Wang.

Read more

Interesting concept; my only concern is to individuals with nuero diseases or prone through genetics to have neuro diseases. For Dystonia patients/ victims who have copper compounds in their systems can potentially develop a form of secondary dystonia which can be terminal. Also, my years in the labs at ORNL taught us a lot about heavy metal exposures (including copper compounds); so I am a bit taken back by this article.

A new study is further burnishing copper’s reputation as an essential nutrient for human physiology. A research team led by a scientist at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that copper plays a key role in metabolizing fat.

Long prized as a malleable, conductive metal used in cookware, electronics, jewelry and plumbing, has been gaining increasing attention over the past decade for its role in certain biological functions. It has been known that copper is needed to form red blood cells, absorb iron, develop connective tissue and support the immune system.

The new findings, to appear in the July print issue of Nature Chemical Biology but published online today, establishes for the first time copper’s role in .

Read more

I believe that we have been at a tipping point for a while with the public being able to maintain their tolerance levels of paying high prices for healthcare across the globe. This article highlights this well.

Foundations like PhG, medical institutes and companies such as InnVentis and Insilico Medicine have been taking this challenge on by developing treatments and technologies such as InnVentis precision medicine technologies, Insilico’s.

Anti-aging research and treatments all used to improve the success rates and costs of treatment of diseases such as cancer. The sooner that we can bring many of these new nextgen treatments into the mainstream the better.

BTW- not to mention the benefits that other areas of technology will gain from the bio research and findings from these nextgen medical companies and foundations.

By Deena Beasley.

CHICAGO (Reuters) — Americans pay the highest prices in the world for cancer drugs, but the treatments are least affordable in lower income countries, according to the results of a new study released on Monday.

The study of cancer drug prices in seven countries, which did not take into account discounts or rebates to list prices, was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

Read more

Oregon Health & Science University is currently seeking volunteers for human testing of its “promising” HIV vaccine. If that’s not enough, the Oregon university’s approach to its ground-breaking HIV vaccine is reportedly being used to develop vaccines for other diseases and infections, including tuberculosis. While many believe the TB is virtually eradicated, it actually kills almost 2 million people every year.

As Oregon Live reports, the Oregon university’s novel HIV vaccine could equate a huge step forward in the fight against HIV, as well as give the Oregon school the confidence and research it needs to pursue vaccinations against other deadly infections. In addition to being a stepping stone toward the prevention of HIV and TB, the current vaccine trials could open the door for vaccines that would prevent malaria and hepatitis C, among others.

“HIV is the poster child because it affects so many people, but there are many other conditions that are also extremely challenging to prevent or cure.”

Read more

Trailer for The Space Between Us, starring Asa Butterfield and Britt Robertson.

In this interplanetary adventure, a space shuttle embarks on the first mission to colonize Mars, only to discover after takeoff that one of the astronauts is pregnant. Shortly after landing, she dies from complications while giving birth to the first human born on the red planet – never revealing who the father is. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Gardner Elliot – an inquisitive, highly intelligent boy who reaches the age of 16 having only met 14 people in his very unconventional upbringing. While searching for clues about his father, and the home planet he’s never known, Gardner begins an online friendship with a street smart girl in Colorado named Tulsa. When he finally gets a chance to go to Earth, he’s eager to experience all of the wonders he could only read about on Mars – from the most simple to the extraordinary. But once his explorations begin, scientists discover that Gardner’s organs can’t withstand Earth’s atmosphere.

Read more

Just more proof of the evolution of tech.

Medtronic launches virtual reality app for stents using Google Cardboard

Medtronic has launched the Aortic AR app, a virtual reality medical app for their abdominal aortic aneurysm repair stent.

Read more

On May 11, 2016, the Berggruen Philosophy and Culture Center invited Yuval Noah Harari, a professor of history at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of the international bestseller “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” to deliver a talk on “The New Inequalities” at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Prior to the talk, Harari was interviewed by BPPC director Daniel A. Bell. This is an edited transcript of the interview.

You argue in your book that material progress, for example in the agriculture revolution and industrial capitalism doesn’t necessarily contribute to human happiness. In fact, it may lead to the opposite. Can you elaborate on that?

Until the middle of the 19th century there was a complete lack of correlation between material progress and the well-being of individual humans. For thousands of years until about 1850 you see humans accumulating more and more power by the invention of new technologies and by new systems of organization in the economy and in politics, but you don’t see any real improvement in the well-being of the average person. If you are the emperor of China, then obviously you’re much better off. But if you’re an average Chinese peasant in 1850, it’s very, very hard to say that your life is any better than the life of hunter-gatherers in the Yangtze Valley 20,000 years ago. You work much harder than them, your diet is worse, you suffer far more from infectious diseases, and you suffer far more from social inequality and economic exploitation.

Read more

Gene-based circuits are about to get decidedly more sophisticated. MIT scientists have developed a method for integrating both analog and digital computing into those circuits, turning living cells into complex computers. The centerpiece is a threshold sensor whose gene expression flips DNA, converting analog chemical data into binary output — basically, complex data can trigger simple responses that match the language of regular computers.

The practical applications are huge. Along with general-purpose computing, you could have advanced sensors that trigger different kinds of chemical production depending on levels for other chemicals. You could produce insulin when there’s too much glucose, for instance, or deliver different kinds of cancer therapy. And this isn’t just talk. Clinical trials for a simple gene circuit (which will treat gut diseases) are starting within a year, so you could see these organic machines in action before too long.

Read more