Lifeboat Foundation

One proven method for tracking down the genetic origins of diseases is to knock out a single gene in animals and study the consequences this has for the organism. The problem is that for many diseases, the pathology is determined by multiple genes, complicating the task for scientists trying to pinpoint the contribution of any single gene to the condition. To do this, they would have to perform many animal experiments – one for each desired gene modification.

Researchers led by Randall Platt, Professor of Biological Engineering at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich in Basel, have now developed a method that will greatly simplify and speed up research with laboratory animals: using the CRISPR-Cas gene scissors, they simultaneously make several dozen gene changes in the cells of a single animal, much like a mosaic.

While no more than one gene is altered in each cell, the various cells within an organ are altered in different ways. Individual cells can then be precisely analyzed. This enables researchers to study the ramifications of many different gene changes in a single experiment.

Discovering And Developing Medicines To Keep You Biologically Young — Dr. Marco Quarta, Ph.D. — Co-Founder and CEO, Rubedo Life Sciences; CEO, Phaedon Institute.

Dr. Marco Quarta, Ph.D. is Co-Founder and CEO of Rubedo Life Sciences (https://www.rubedolife.com/), a biopharmaceutical company developing a broad portfolio of innovative therapies engineered to target cells which drive chronic age-related diseases. The company’s proprietary ALEMBIC™ drug discovery platform has engineered novel first-in-class small molecules designed to selectively target senescent cells, which play a key role in the progression of pulmonary, dermatological, oncological, neurodegenerative, fibrotic and other chronic disorders.

Continue reading “Dr. Marco Quarta, Ph.D. — Co-Founder and CEO — Rubedo Life Sciences; CEO, The Phaedon Institute” »

Many biological processes depend on chemical reactions that are localized in space and time and therefore require catalytic components that self-organize. The collective behavior of these active particles depends on their chemotactic movement—how they sense and respond to chemical gradients in the environment. Mixtures of such active catalysts generate complex reaction networks, and the process by which self-organization emerges in these networks presents a puzzle. Jaime Agudo-Canalejo of the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Germany, and his colleagues now show that the phenomenon of self-organization depends strongly on the network topology [1]. The finding provides new insights for understanding microbiological systems and for engineering synthetic catalytic colloids.

In a biological metabolic network, catalysts convert substrates into products. The product of one catalyst species acts as the substrate for another species—and so on. Agudo-Canalejo and his team modeled a three-species system. First, building on a well-established continuum theory for catalytically active species that diffuse along chemical gradients, they showed that systems where each species responds chemotactically only to its own substrate cannot self-organize unless one species is self-attracting. Next, they developed a model that allowed species to respond to both their substrates and their products. Pair interactions between different species in this more complex model drove an instability that spread throughout the three-species system, causing the catalysts to clump together. Surprisingly, this self-organization process occurred even among particles that were individually self-repelling.

The researchers say that their discovery of the importance of network topology—which catalyst species affect and are affected by which substrates and products—could open new directions in studies of active matter, informing both origin-of-life research and the design of shape-shifting functional structures.

The intricate interplay of gene expression within living cells is akin to a well-orchestrated symphony, with each gene playing its part in perfect harmony to ensure cells function as they should. At the heart of this symphony are transcription factors (TFs), molecular maestros that regulate the expression of genes by binding to specific DNA sequences known as promoters.

Unlocking the secrets of these genome-scale regulatory networks requires a comprehensive collection of gene expression profiles, but measuring gene expression responses for every TF and promoter pair has posed a formidable challenge due to the sheer number of potential combinations, even in relatively simple organisms such as bacteria.

To tackle this challenge, researchers led by Fuzhong Zhang, professor of energy, environmental & chemical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, developed a technique called pooled promoter responses to TF perturbation sequencing (PPTP-seq).

Summary: The revolutionary field of bio-computing is making waves as DishBrain, a neural system combining 800,000 living brain cells, learns to play Pong. Recognizing the pressing need for ethical guidelines in this emerging domain, the pioneers behind DishBrain have joined forces with bioethicists in a study.

The research explores the moral considerations around biological computing systems and their potential consciousness. Beyond its innovation, the technology offers vast environmental benefits, potentially transforming the energy-consuming IT industry.

Conventional manufacturing methods such as soft lithography and hot embossing processes can be used to bioengineer microfluidic chips, albeit with limitations, including difficulty in preparing multilayered structures, cost-and labor-consuming fabrication processes as well as low productivity.

Materials scientists have introduced digital light processing as a cost-effective microfabrication approach to 3D print microfluidic chips, although the fabrication resolution of these microchannels are limited to a scale of sub-100 microns.

In a new report published in Microsystems and Nanoengineering, Zhuming Luo and a scientific team in biomedical engineering, and chemical engineering in China developed an innovative digital light processing method.

When you think about it, it seems impossible: a microscope so small and lightweight you can carry it like a keychain. But enter the Make-roscope, an invention of Jeremy De Leon, a 28-year-old Manufacturing Engineering graduate of Mapua University.

Used with a smartphone or tablet—simply place the Make-roscope on top of the gadget’s front camera—the invention can magnify organisms up to 400 times. And because it is made of food-grade silicone and a special type of lens, it is also handy, waterproof, and will be good to use for a very long time. While the principles behind pocket microscopes already exist, Jeremy’s new design innovation provides better ease of use.

Jeremy’s Make-roscope kit, which includes an information card, tweezers, keychain, cleaning cloth, blank glass slides, prepared specimen, pipette, specimen tubes, and cotton swabs, won the biggest prize in the Philippine leg of the James Dyson Award out of 47 entries from 12 universities. Jeremy says he will use the P330,000 prize money to further develop his invention.

The idea that genetic modification can improve humanity isn’t new, but it has taken some interesting turns within the scientific community over the past few years. One of the most notable comes from the mind of He Jiankui, a Chinese scientist whose gene editing of human babies led to infamy and a prison sentence. Now, He, known as JK to friends, thinks that gene-edited humans could be the future of our species.

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“As a child, I wished for a robot that would explain others’ emotions to me” says Sharifa Alghowinem, a research scientist in the Media Lab’s Personal Robots Group (PRG). Growing up in Saudi Arabia, Alghowinem says she dreamed of coming to MIT one day to develop Arabic-based technologies, and of creating a robot that could help herself and others navigate a complex world.

In her early life, Alghowinem faced difficulties with understanding social cues and never scored well on standardized tests, but her dreams carried her through. She earned an undergraduate degree in computing before leaving home to pursue graduate education in Australia. At the Australian National University, she discovered affective computing for the first time and began working to help AI detect human emotions and moods, but it wasn’t until she came to MIT as a postdoc with the Ibn Khaldun Fellowship for Saudi Arabian Women, which is housed in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering, that she was finally able to work on a technology with the potential to explain others’ emotions in English and Arabic. Today, she says her work is so fun that she calls the lab “my playground.”

Alghowinem can’t say no to an exciting project. She found one with great potential to make robots more helpful to people by working with Jibo, a friendly robot companion developed by the founder of the Personal Robots Group (PRG) and the social robot startup Jibo Inc., MIT Professor and Dean for Digital Learning Cynthia Breazeal’s research explores the potential for companion robots to go far beyond assistants who obey transactional commands, like requests for the daily weather, adding items to shopping lists, or controlling lighting. At the MIT Media Lab, the PRG team designs Jibo to make him an insightful coach and companion to advance social robotics technologies and research. Visitors to the MIT Museum can experience Jibo’s charming personality.