Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical

Even though it’s looking increasingly likely that humanity will find a way to wipe itself off the face of the Earth, there’s a chance that our creative output may live on. Servers, hard drives, flash drives, and disks will degrade (as will our libraries of paper books, of course), but a group of researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have found a way to encode data onto DNA—the very same stuff that all living beings’ genetic information is stored on—that could survive for millennia.

One gram of DNA can potentially hold up to 455 exabytes of data, according to the New Scientist. For reference: There are one billion gigabytes in an exabyte, and 1,000 exabytes in a zettabyte. The cloud computing company EMC estimated that there were 1.8 zettabytes of data in the world in 2011, which means we would need only about 4 grams (about a teaspoon) of DNA to hold everything from Plato through the complete works of Shakespeare to Beyonce’s latest album (not to mention every brunch photo ever posted on Instagram).

There are four types of molecules that make up DNA, which form pairs. To encode information on DNA, scientists program the pairs into 1s and os—the same binary language that encodes digital data. This is not a new concept—scientists at Harvard University encoded a book onto DNA in 2012—but up to now, it had been difficult to retrieve the information stored on the DNA.

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At Vanderbilt University scientists are building an artificial kidney that they envision will one day will be a standard of care over dialysis. The device consists of a silicon nanotechnology filter chip and embedded living kidney cells that would work together to mimic the functionality of a healthy kidney. The end result is expected to be about the size of a natural kidney, small enough to be implantable and powered by the body’s own blood flow.

The filter component has tiny pores that can be individually shaped to perform a specific task. These filters would sit in a series, each one performing a different filtration step. Between the filter slices there would be living kidney cells that perform tasks that the man made components are not very good at, including reabsorption of nutrients and getting rid of accumulated waste.

Here’s video with Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Dr. William Fissell, the lead scientist on the research:

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Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is often difficult to treat due to an enzyme (endonuclease DFF40/CAD (Death Fragmentation Factor, 40 kDa subunit / Caspase-Activated DNase)). This enzyme, which is essential for degrading DNA during apoptosis, appears both downregulated and improperly located inside the tumour cells. The researchers observed that overexpression of the enzyme allows the glioblastoma cells to properly degrade their DNA content.

Glioblastoma is the most aggressive manifestation of brain tumours. Due to its high invasive capacity and uncontrolled, infiltrating growth, it is particularly difficult to manage. Currently, the treatment for this disease consists of a combination of surgery (when possible), radiation and chemotherapy. Although current therapy raises the overall survival of patients by around 15 months, it remains inefficient at eradicating tumour cells and, unfortunately, recurrences are another of this cancer’s characteristics.

A team of researchers from the Institute of Neuroscience at the UAB, together with the Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge — ICO, have identified a common molecular alteration in glioblastoma. The researchers observed that the cells of this type of tumour harbour a common intrinsic defect that prevents them from degrading their genetic material during apoptosis, the most important form of programmed cell death induced by radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

This defect is related to an enzyme: the endonuclease DFF40/CAD (Death Fragmentation Factor, 40 kDa subunit / Caspase-Activated DNase). This enzyme, which is essential for degrading DNA during apoptosis, appears both downregulated and improperly located inside the tumour cells when compared with non-tumoural cells. The researchers observed that overexpression of the enzyme allows the glioblastoma cells to properly degrade their DNA content as expected in an apoptotic cell death.

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So, we’re now adding possible murder to the charges of hackers?.

The Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles paid a ransom of 17,000 U.S. dollars to hackers after two weeks of being shut out of their computer network. We talk to cyber security expert Jay Radcliffe about medical cyber vulnerabilities.

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Overview.

What is the MMTP? The MMTP is an ambitious project, designed to radically speed up the rate of progress in the field of regenerative medicine and aging research.

The project is the brainchild of our parent organisation, The International Longevity Alliance, a nonprofit foundation for science advocacy and research. The testing and discovery of compounds and treatments to delay or stop the processes of aging is a slow affair, with very few high quality, high impact studies conducted each year.

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A new chip designed for the brain is now wireless. Now that it is no longer connected using wires, will it compromise its accuracy?

The Nanyang Technological University in Singapore has developed a smart chip that can be used for neural implants in order to wirelessly transmit brain signals to the rest of the body with 95% accuracy. These neural implants, and the data that they register, are expected to help curtail symptoms of diseases like Parkinson’s, and they could also help paraplegic patients move their prosthetic limbs.

For operations, external devices can use the the 5mm by 5mm chip to receive and analyze data before sending back important details, instead of sending the entire data stream all at once. This drastically decreases its power consumption, making the tech far more viable.

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Researchers have developed a functioning miniature replica of the human brain, composed of neurons and glial cells, to help study and better understand neurological diseases.

A tiny ball of brain cells may help researchers alleviate or treat neurological diseases.

These small cellular balls act like miniature versions of the human brain, mimicking various aspects of the actual brain that include sending pulses of electric signals akin to what happens in a thinking mind. This research was reported at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.

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The facts about the CRISPR Patent.

Xconomy San Francisco —

If you ask people who don’t follow biotech too closely what they know about CRISPR, you might get two answers: genetic editing and a big patent fight.

But a new CRISPR patent highlights a lower-profile potential use for the biotechnology: genetic detection and analysis.

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