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Category: genetics

Wilmington, DE, April 19, 2018 — Scientists at Christiana Care Health System’s Gene Editing Institute have developed a potentially breakthrough CRISPR gene-editing tool. It could allow researchers to take fragments of DNA extracted from human cells, put them into a test tube, and quickly and precisely engineer multiple changes to the genetic code, according to a new study published today in the CRISPR Journal.

Investigators at the Gene Editing Institute, which is part of the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute at Christiana Care, said their new “cell-free” CRISPR technology is the first CRISPR tool capable of making multiple edits to DNA samples “in vitro,” which means in a test tube or petri dish. The advance could have immediate value as a diagnostic tool, replicating the exact genetic mutations found in the tumors of individual cancer patients. Mutations that cause cancer to spread can differ from patient to patient, and being able to quickly identify the correct mutation affecting an individual patient can allow clinicians to implement a more targeted treatment strategy.

“With this new advance, we should be able to work with laboratory cultures and accomplish gene edits in less than a day, significantly reducing the time required for diagnostics compared to other CRISPR tools, and with much greater precision,” said Eric Kmiec, Ph.D., director of the Gene Editing Institute and principal author of the study. “This is particularly important for diagnostics linked to cancer care where time is critical.”

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We found that Caloric Restricción CR and Genetic manipulations.

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“Old age isn’t a battle,” she says, quoting Philip Roth, “old age is a massacre.” In the past few years, she has given up on screenings and scans. Not that she is lazy or suicidal. But at 76, she considers herself old enough to die. All the self-help books aimed at her age group tell her otherwise; they talk of “active ageing”, “productive ageing”, “anti-ageing”, even “reverse-ageing”, with a long life promised to anyone who makes an effort, regardless of factors such as genetics or poverty. But to her, ageing is “an accumulation of disabilities”, which no amount of physical activity or rigorous self-denial can prevent. If she has symptoms, she’ll have them investigated. But when a doctor tells her there could be an undetected problem of some kind, she won’t play along.

A great iconoclast has written a polemic about ageing that sends up New Age platitudes and is full of scepticism of the wellness industry.

Blake Morrison

Thu 12 Apr 2018 02.30 EDT Last modified on Fri 13 Apr 2018 19.10 EDT.

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Peripheral Elevation of a #Klotho Fragment Enhances Brain Function and Resilience in Young, Aging, and α-Synuclein Transgenic Mice.

Klotho is a longevity factor associated with cognitive enhancement when genetically and widely overexpressed over the lifetime of mice. Leon et al. show that peripheral delivery of a klotho fragment, αKL-F, acutely enhances cognition and neural resilience in young, aging, and disease model mice, establishing its therapeutic relevance and dissecting its underlying mechanisms.

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Biomarkers of ageing based on DNA methylation data enable accurate age estimates for any tissue across the entire life course. Horvath and Raj review the development of these ‘epigenetic clocks’ and how they link to biological ageing.

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A man in Paris has become the world’s first to successfully receive two facial transplants.

Jérôme Hamon, 43, underwent his first face transplantation procedure in 2010 to treat neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder characterized by the growth of tumors along nerves in the skin, brain and other parts of the body. Yet Hamon’s body rejected the original transplant.

In January, a team of surgeons and paramedics at Georges Pompidou European Hospital AP-HP, led by surgeon Dr. Laurent Lantieri, performed Hamon’s second transplant.

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