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Category: genetics

Summary: Will gene drive wipe out malaria-causing mosquitoes, or will the genetic technology that ‘spreads like wildfire’ cause a catastrophe? Gene drive raises hopes and fears as a team of scientists funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are using it to wipe out the mosquitoes that carry malaria, to eradicate the disease. [This article first appeared on LongevityFacts. Follow us on Reddit | Google+ | Facebook. Author: Brady Hartman.]

In a basement lab at the Imperial College London (ICL), a group of researchers led by Andrew Hammond are on a mission to wipe out malaria. The scientists are funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and are using a technology called gene drive – a souped-up form of genetic engineering designed to wipe out the mosquitoes that carry the disease.

The lab contains cages of mosquitoes modified with the gene drive, along with an additional gene that makes their eyes and other body parts glow red under laser light.

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Summary: Can a gene fuel obesity? Variants of a gene called ‘ankyrin-B’ – a gene carried by millions of Americans – could cause individuals to put on pounds through no fault of their own. [This article first appeared on LongevityFacts. Follow us on Reddit | Google+ | Facebook. Author: Brady Hartman]

We often attribute obesity to eating too much and exercising too little. However, the evidence is growing that at least some of our weight gain is predetermined by our genes. And if a simple genetic variant causes weight gain, then it’s a prime target for gene editing.

New research from the University of North Carolina suggests that variants in a gene called ankyrin-B, a gene carried by millions of Americans, could cause individuals to gain weight through no fault of their own.

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“If something goes wrong, I can just chop off that part of the skin.” Josiah Zayner took a swig from his beer and squinted into the spotlight. He was already kind of drunk. He also hadn’t bothered to write a speech. Tattooed and heavily pierced with a shock of blue-gray hair, he shuffled around uneasily on stage. But 150-odd people had flown in from around the country to hear him speak—the mad pirate-king of biotech. “It all is coming from my heart,” he said, choking up a little. “Everything you’re going to hear today is me to the core.” Advertisement Zayner’s audiencesat in the fashionably…

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DARPA has a new surveillance program in the works, and it doesn’t involve training human agents or AI operators. Instead, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Defense wants to genetically engineer plant-based sensors as battlefield spy tech.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the think-tank that’s under the U.S. Department of Defense, recently announced that it’s working on a new project that could change how pertinent information is gathered on the battlefield. The project, dubbed the Advanced Plant Technologies (APT) program, examines the possibility of turning plants into next-generation surveillance technology.

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It’s all a question of money. We should come up with enough money for funding this so that we can clone a perfect genetic match of every organ in the body by 2025. It will solve the organ shortage issue, and nip the illegal black market organ industry in the bud.

The FDA said it is looking into “regenerative medicine.”

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On Wednesday—for only the second time—the Food and Drug Administration approved a cutting-edge therapy that genetically modifies a patient’s blood cells in order to attack cancer. This time the therapy, known as CAR T-cell therapy, is designed to treat aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

In August, the FDA approved the first CAR T-cell therapy, for a drug called Kymriah designed for children and young adults whose leukemia doesn’t respond to standard treatments. The FDA’s approval of Yescarta, manufactured by Kite Pharma, comes just a few months after its first approval—an indication of just how quickly the field of immunotherapy is moving. Several other companies also have CAR-T therapies in the works.

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[p]Patients with junctional epidermolysis bullosa (JEB) carry mutations in genes that encode components of the basement membrane, which ensures the integrity between the epidermis and the dermis, such as laminin-332. These mutations cause blistering of the skin and chronic wounds. Following initial treatment of an adult patient with a limited affected region, Michele De Luca and colleagues reconstruct the full epidermis of a 7-year-old patient with autologous transgenic cells transduced with a virus vector carrying the non-mutated form of laminin-322.

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For the first time ever, scientists have attempted to cure a person’s disease by editing a gene inside the body.

Scientists used an IV to inject a patient with billions of copies of a corrective gene and a genetic tool to cut his DNA in a specific spot. “We cut your DNA, open it up, insert a gene, stitch it back up.”

Scientists have edited people’s genes in the past, but that work involved altering cells inside a lab and then returning them to the body, whereas the latest experiment was performed inside a person’s body.

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