Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: genetics

Image of a group of killer T cells (green and red) surrounding a cancer cell (blue, center) (credit: NIH)

Chinese doctors have reported success with a new type of immunotherapy for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer: 33 out of 35 patients in a clinical trial had clinical remission within two months.

The researchers used a type of T cell called “chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T.” In a phase I clinical trial in China, the patient’s own T cells were collected, genetically reprogrammed in a lab, and injected back into the patient. The reprogramming involved inserting an artificially designed gene into the T-cell genome, which helped the genetically reprogrammed cells find and destroy cancer cells throughout the body.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Somewhere in the Midwest, a restaurant is frying foods with oil made from gene-edited soybeans. That’s according to the company making the oil, which says it’s the first commercial use of a gene-edited food in the U.S.

Calyxt said it can’t reveal its first customer for competitive reasons, but CEO Jim Blome said the oil is “in use and being eaten.”

The Minnesota-based company is hoping the announcement will encourage the food industry’s interest in the oil, which it says has no trans fats and a longer shelf life than other soybean oils. Whether demand builds remains to be seen, but the oil’s transition into the food supply signals gene editing’s potential to alter foods without the controversy of conventional GMOs, or genetically modified organisms.

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Dr. Barzilai is a chaired Professor of Medicine and Genetics and Director of the biggest Center in the world to study the Biology of Aging.

“Nir is our keynote speaker this year because, quite honestly, if I’d only given him half an hour there is no way he could do justice to his role in our movement. His scientific contributions have been world-leading for decades, but in recent years he has done so much more: he has taken a prominent role in two important rejuvenation startups, and he has also employed his exceptional political skills in forging invaluable new understandings between the biomedical gerontology and regulatory communities. Plus, he’s almost as entertaining a speaker as me!”, says Aubrey de Grey.

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The APOE gene, or the “forgetting gene,” has been proven to influence Alzheimer’s risk. So a team of scientists is exploring the effect of gene therapy on people with the riskiest version of the gene.

If it works, the pay-off could be huge.

Gene therapy involves transplanting specific genetic material into human cells in order to correct genetic problems, and is typically attempted on diseases with a singular cause. Alzheimer’s doesn’t seem to have one singular cause — but since the risk of developing it is so strongly associated with the APOE gene, it’s certainly worth a try.

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Learning to deal with lignin is important for recycling and space settlements. Unused biomass on space settlements and long-term voyages is something that just can’t be tolerated. The same problem exists in dealing with plant waste on earth. A new process helps convert it into a precursor for polyester, which can be used for all kinds of other materials.

Plant cells are composed of three main substances: cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. According to Yining Zeng, Michael E. Himmel, and Shi-You Ding in Biotechnology for Biofuels, the composition amounts to “40 to 50% of cellulose, 15 to 25% hemicelluloses, 20 to 25% lignin, and 5 to 10% other components.[1]” For the most part, the only truly useful part is the cellulose and the hemicellulose. The lignin is usually just thrown away. The most common use is fuel for heating units. That’s right. They just burn it.

lignin_procesing_into_polyester_precursor

We can’t keep doing it that way. However, there really isn’t an alternative. Until now. A recent article in Science Daily referenced a new journal article about the use of Novosphingobium aromaticivorans. This is “genus of Gram-negative bacteria that includes N. taihuense, which can degrade aromatic compounds such as phenol, aniline, nitrobenzene and phenanthrene.[2]” Using genetic engineering, they deleted certain genes which allowed the microbe to convert lignin into 2-pyrone-4–6-dicarboxylic acid, which can be converted into polyester. The detailed information is available for free download and was published under the title “Funneling aromatic products of chemically depolymerized lignin into 2-pyrone-4–6-dicarboxylic acid with Novosphingobium aromaticivorans.[3]”

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Going forward into our exponential future…

“By our very nature, we humans are linear thinkers. We evolved to estimate a distance from the predator or to the prey, and advanced mathematics is only a recent evolutionary addition. This is why it’s so difficult even for a modern man to grasp the power of exponentials. 40 steps in linear progression is just 40 steps away; 40 steps in exponential progression is a cool trillion (with a T) – it will take you 3 times from Earth to the Sun and back to Earth.” –Alex M. Vikoulov, The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution.

Today is a special day for me. My AI assistant Ava scheduled few hours aside from my otherwise busy daily lineup to relive select childhood and adolescence memories recreated in virtual reality with a help of a newly developed AI technique ‘Re: Live’. Ava is my smart home assistant, too. I can rearrange furniture in any room, for example, just by thinking. Digital landscape wallpaper is changed by Ava by knowing my preferences and sensing my moods.

I still like to sleep in an old-fashioned natural way from time to time, even though it’s now optional with accelerated sleep simulation and other sleep bypassing technologies. So, when I opt to sleep, I like falling asleep and waking up on a virtual cloud projected directly to my consciousness, as most VR experiences are streamed via optogenetics.

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