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Category: genetics

How cool is this!

Rendering of a virus used in the MIT experiments. The light-collecting centers, called chromophores, are in red, and chromophores that just absorbed a photon of light are glowing white. After the virus is modified to adjust the spacing between the chromophores, energy can jump from one set of chromophores to the next faster and more efficiently. (credit: the researchers and Lauren Alexa Kaye)

MIT engineers have achieved a significant efficiency boost in a light-harvesting system, using genetically engineered viruses to achieve higher efficiency in transporting energy from receptors to reaction centers where it can be harnessed, making use of the exotic effects of quantum mechanics. Emulating photosynthesis in nature, it could lead to inexpensive and efficient solar cells or light-driven catalysis,

This achievement in coupling quantum research and genetic manipulation, described this week in the journal Nature Materials, was the work of MIT professors Angela Belcher, an expert on engineering viruses to carry out energy-related tasks, and Seth Lloyd, an expert on quantum theory and its potential applications, and 15 collaborators at MIT and in Italy.

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The first attempt at using gene therapy to prevent regular aging allegedly happened last month in what could spell the beginning of a new era in do-it-yourself genetic modification.

CEO and founder of BioViva Sciences USA Inc, Liz Parrish, claims she underwent gene therapy at an undisclosed location in Latin America where she received two forms of treatment, including muscle mass enhancement and therapy to increase the length of the telomeres, the DNA caps which protect the chromosome from deterioration and are associated with longer life span.

Parrish announced in a Reddit AMA that she had gone through the therapy and if successful she plans to roll out a public offering in three to five years despite neither treatment being FDA approved. The results of the therapy are yet unknown and she says she feels no different so far but believes it will be months before any changes occur. If successful her body, in theory, should begin to de-age.

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Micah's DNA Brendan I. Koerner at Wired, explores the ramifications of the authorities requesting DNA from ancestry sites:

Mitch Morrissey, Denver’s district attorney and one of the nation’s leading advocates for familial DNA searching, stresses that the technology is “an innovative approach to investigating challenging cases, particularly cold cases where the victims are women or children and traditional investigative tactics fail to yield a solid suspect.” Familial DNA searches have indeed helped nab people who might otherwise have evaded justice. In the most celebrated example, Los Angeles police arrested a man believed to be the Grim Sleeper serial killer after discovering that the crime scene DNA shared a significant number of genetic markers with that of a convicted felon—who turned out to be the man’s son.

But the well-publicized success stories obscure the fact that familial DNA searches can generate more noise than signal. “Anyone who knows the science understands that there’s a high rate of false positives,” says Erin Murphy, a New York University law professor and the author of Inside the Cell: The Dark Side of Forensic DNA. The searches, after all, look for DNA profiles that are similar to the perpetrator’s but by no means identical, a scattershot approach that yields many fruitless leads, and for limited benefit. In the United Kingdom, a 2014 study found that just 17 percent of familial DNA searches “resulted in the identification of a relative of the true offender.”

The technology’s limitations have the potential to cause real harm: What if Michael Usry was not a filmmaker, for example, but rather a high school teacher whose alleged involvement in a girl’s murder was leaked to the media? Yet despite all that can go wrong, few states have developed guidelines. California, Colorado, Virginia, and Texas have detailed policies regarding how and when familial DNA searches can take place; Maryland and the District of Columbia explicitly forbid the technique. Elsewhere in the nation, cops are largely free to search as they see fit, which is why Idaho Falls police decided it was OK to sift through an Ancestry database of genetic data from thousands of people with no criminal records.

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A team from Stanford University might have made a breakthrough that could change the lives of people with missing limbs. Researchers have developed an artificial substitute for skin that is capable of sensing when it is being touched and sending that data to the nervous system. It’s hoped that technology like this could be used to build futuristic prostheses that could be wired into the nervous systems of amputees. In addition, not only will these people be able to know if they’re touching something, they’ll also know how much pressure is being used.

Put very simply, the skin is comprised of two layers of rubbery plastic skin with a flexible circuit printed on, courtesy of the folks at Xerox Parc. Sandwiched between the two is a run of carbon nanotubes, which conduct electricity when they’re pushed closer together. The harder the compression, the more current passes between them, which is how the skin can understand differences in pressure.

That, however, isn’t enough, since that data would still have to be transmitted somehow into the user’s brain. In the end, the team opted to harness a field of science called optogenetics, which involves genetically-engineering cells so that they react to specific frequencies of light. By creating optogenetic neurons that are capable of sensing light patterns, the team proved that it’s possible to make this technology work in a person.

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Nature has had billions of years to perfect photosynthesis, which directly or indirectly supports virtually all life on Earth. In that time, the process has achieved almost 100 percent efficiency in transporting the energy of sunlight from receptors to reaction centers where it can be harnessed—a performance vastly better than even the best solar cells.

One way plants achieve this efficiency is by making use of the exotic effects of quantum mechanics—effects sometimes known as “quantum weirdness.” These effects, which include the ability of a particle to exist in more than one place at a time, have now been used by engineers at MIT to achieve a significant efficiency boost in a light-harvesting system.

Surprisingly, the MIT researchers achieved this new approach to solar energy not with high-tech materials or microchips—but by using genetically engineered viruses.

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BioViva made headlines last week after announcing that they had become the first company to administer anti-aging gene therapy on a human subject. But missing from the press release was exactly how this would work, the likelihood of its success, and the consequences. How better to address this then, than to hear from ‘Patient 0’ herself, Liz Parrish, the company’s CEO who will be undertaking the treatment.

Yesterday (October 11), she took part in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), answering a range of questions submitted by Reddit users seeking to find out more about this supposedly pioneering study.

Here are ten things we learned from Liz Parrish’s Reddit AMA.

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Aging is 100% genetic, the reason you go from infant to child to adult to old age.

We need to be scrutinizing Progeria, and the case of the girl who died at 20 and was stuck at the age of a toddler, for the key to the genes that will pause aging. While nanotechnology advances parallel with the cure for all diseases.

Once a bucket of genes linked to aging is removed, the lifespan of cells increases significantly, American scientists discovered during ten years of meticulous research, stressing that the results could be applied to humans.

An “exhaustive, ten-year effort” allowed scientists at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and the University of Washington to identify some 238 genes which could be targeted to improve human health and possibly extend life spans by 60 percent. The paper was published on Thursday in the journal Cell Metabolism.

‘Yoga for people of color’ is racist – conservative radio host http://t.co/FFT0agBL7Opic.twitter.com/oaOA4H0ALn — RT (@RT_com) October 11, 2015

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Liz Parrish is the Founder and CEO of BioViva Sciences USA Inc. BioViva is committed to extending healthy lifespans using gene therapy. Liz is known as “the woman who wants to genetically engineer you,” she is a humanitarian, entrepreneur and innovator and a leading voice for genetic cures. As a strong proponent of progress and education for the advancement of gene therapy, she serves as a motivational speaker to the public at large for the life sciences. She is actively involved in international educational media outreach and sits on the board of the International Longevity Alliance (ILA). She is an affiliated member of the Complex Biological Systems Alliance (CBSA) whose mission is to further scientific understanding of biological complexity and the nature and origins of human disease. She is the founder of BioTrove Investments LLC and the BioTrove Podcasts which is committed to offering a meaningful way for people to learn about and fund research in regenerative medicine. She is also the Secretary of the American Longevity Alliance (ALA) a 501©(3) nonprofit trade association that brings together individuals, companies, and organizations who work in advancing the emerging field of cellular & regenerative medicine with the aim to get governments to consider aging a disease. I am not a medical doctor or scientist. I can not answer details of therapy. I would like to discuss my experience of creating BioViva, organizing the gene therapies, and then finally being able to administer it to the first human.

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BOSTON, Sept. 29, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Veritas Genetics today announced that the company is making it possible for participants in the Personal Genome Project (PGP) to be among the first to get their whole genome sequenced and interpreted for less than a $1,000.

Led by Veritas Genetics Co-Founder Dr. George Church, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Personal Genome Project, PGP is a long-term effort to sequence thousands of complete genomes to enable research into personal genomics and personalized medicine. PGP has more than 16,000 participants worldwide.

The “$1,000 Genome” has long been considered the tipping point when sequencing and interpreting the human genome becomes commonplace and begins to rapidly increase what is known and to dramatically impact healthcare. The catchphrase underscores how far science has come since the actual cost of the Human Genome Project, estimated at $2.7 billion spent over a decade.

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