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Category: genetics

Neurons created from chemically induced neural stem cells. The cells were created from skin cells that were reprogrammed into neural stem cells using a cocktail of only nine chemicals. This is the first time cellular reprogramming has been accomplished without adding external genes to the cells. (credit: Mingliang Zhang, PhD, Gladstone Institutes)

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have used chemicals to transform skin cells into heart cells and brain cells, instead of adding external genes — making this accomplishment a breakthrough, according to the scientists.

The research lays the groundwork for one day being able to regenerate lost or damaged cells directly with pharmaceutical drugs — a more efficient and reliable method to reprogram cells and one that avoids medical concerns surrounding genetic engineering.

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A genetic therapy has improved the vision of patients who would otherwise have gone blind.

A clinical study by British scientists has shown that the improvement is long-lasting and so the therapy is suitable to be offered as a treatment.

The researchers will apply for approval to begin trials to treat more common forms of blindness next year.

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The results pointed to MC1R, known previously as a gene for red hair and freckles.

Scientists say they have made a leap in knowing why some people retain their youthful looks while others age badly.

The new study is the first time that “a gene has been found that explains, in part, why some people look older and others younger for their age”, Manfred Kayser, a professor of forensic molecular genetics at Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands and a senior author on the study, said in a statement.

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There’s a precision genetic tool being put to work in crop breeding that offers benefits for future elite, high-performing crops. Pioneer is moving forward with work on a commercial hybrid.

With CRISPR-Cas it’s possible to do precision gene insertions (or deletions) in a crop genome that boost productivity or enhance other traits. This isn’t a GMO because the work done involves traits from the same species — corn gene into a corn plant, for example.

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“[Using DNA,] you could fit all the knowledge in the whole world inside the trunk of your car,” Twist Bioscience CEO Emily Leproust told TechCrunch.

Twist Bioscience, a startup making and using synthetic DNA to store digital data, just struck a contract with Microsoft and the University of Washington to encode vast amounts of information on synthetic genes.

Big data means business and the company able to gather a lot of it is very valuable to investors and stockholders. But that data needs to be stored somewhere and can cost a lot for the upkeep.

Digital data stored on media also has a finite shelf life. But researchers have discovered new ways to stuff digital information over the last few years – including in our DNA, which can last thousands of years intact.

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We definitely need precision medicine. If you don’t believe it is worth that; then I have a few widows & widowers who you should speak to; I have parents that you should speak with; I have a list of sisters & brothers that you should speak with; and I have many many friends (including me) that you should speak with about how we miss those we love because things like precision medicine wasn’t available and could have saved their lives.

Precision medicine is the theme for the 10th annual symposium of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Nano Biotechnology, Friday, April 29, 2016 at 9 a.m. in the Owens Auditorium at the School of Medicine. This year’s event is cohosted by Johns Hopkins Individualized Health Initiative (also known as Hopkins in Health) and features several in Health affiliated speakers.

By developing treatments that overcome the limitations of the one-size-fits-all mindset, precision medicine will more effectively prevent and thwart disease. Driven by data provided from sources such as electronic medical records, public health investigations, clinical studies, and from patients themselves through new point-of-care assays, wearable sensors and smartphone apps, precision medicine will become the gold standard of care in the not-so-distant future. Before long, we will be able to treat and also prevent diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, and cancer with regimes that are tailor-made for the individual.

Hopkins in Health is a signature initiative of Johns Hopkins University’s $4.5 billion Rising to the Challenge campaign is a collaboration among three institutions: the University, the Johns Hopkins Health System, and the Applied Physics Laboratory. These in Health researchers combine clinical, genetic, lifestyle, and other data sources to create innovative tools intended to improve decision-making in the prevention and treatment of a range of conditions, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, and infectious disease. The goal is to “provide the right care to the right person at the right time.”

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My new Vice Motherboard article on environmentalism and why going green isn’t enough. Only radical technology can restore the world to a pristine condition—and that requires politicians not afraid of the future:

I’m worried that conservatives like Cruz will try to stop new technologies that will change our battle in combating a degrading Earth

But there are people who can save the endangered species on the planet. And they will soon dramatically change the nature of animal protection. Those people may have little to do with wildlife, but their genetics work holds the answer to stable animal population levels in the wild. In as little as five years, we may begin stocking endangered wildlife in places where poachers have hunted animals to extinction. We’ll do this like we stock trout streams in America. Why spend resources in a losing battle to save endangered wildlife from being poached when you can spend the same amount to boost animal population levels ten-fold? Maye even 100-fold. This type of thinking is especially important in our oceans, which we’ve bloody well fished to near death.

As a US Presidential candidate who believes that all problems can be solved by science, I believe the best way to fix all of our environmental dilemmas is via technological innovation—not attempting to reverse our carbon footprint, recycle more, or go green.

As noted earlier, the obvious reason going green doesn’t work—even though I still think it’s a good disciplinary policy for humans—is the sheer impossibility of getting the developed world to stop… well, developing. You simply cannot tell an upcoming Chinese family not to drive cars. And you can’t tell a burgeoning Indian city to only use renewable resources when it’s cheaper to use fossil fuels. You also can’t tell indigenous Brazilian parents to stop poaching when their children are hungry. These people will not listen. They want what they want, and are willing to partially destroy the planet to get it—especially when they know the developed world already possesses it.

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Nano-particles to treat Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.

A new therapeutic strategy for treating Acute Myeloid Leukaemia could involve using nano-particles to deliver a genetic molecule to fight the disease.

The nanoparticles carrying microRNA miR-22, (a small non-coding RNA molecule that regulates gene expression), showed therapeutic potential in mouse models of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).

AML is a form of cancer of the blood cells which, despite intensive chemotherapy, is often fatal within one or two years from diagnosis.

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Lesson in Vitamin D.

Low levels of vitamin D in black teens correlates with low activity of a major mechanism for controlling gene expression that may increase their risk of cancer and other disease, researchers report.

Their study measured vitamin D levels as well as levels of global DNA methylation in 454 healthy individuals age 14–18. In this group, 99 percent of the white teens had adequate vitamin D levels, 66 percent of the black teens were vitamin D-deficient and all the black teens had lower levels of methylation compared to their white peers, said Dr. Haidong Zhu, molecular geneticist at the Georgia Prevention Institute at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.

When they looked at another group of 58 young black individuals also with low vitamin D and methylation levels who received varying doses of vitamin D supplements for 16 weeks, they found a dose response: the more vitamin D received, the higher the methylation activity, said Zhu, corresponding author of the study in the journal PLOS ONE.

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BOSTON: In an intriguing approach to the fight against cancer, researchers for the first time have used light to prevent and reverse tumors using a technique called optogenetics to manipulate electrical signaling in cells.

Scientists at Tufts University performed optogenetics experiments on frogs, often used in basic research into cancer because of the biological similarities in their tumors to those in mammals, to test whether this method already used in brain and nervous system research could be applied to cancer.

“We call this whole research program cracking the bioelectric code,” said biologist Michael Levin, who heads the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology.

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