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Archive for the ‘bioengineering’ category: Page 73

Oct 12, 2017

Roundtable: Is human gene editing ethical?

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics, health

I join this 30 min panel with scientists and a mother with a down syndrome child on Turkish national television to debate genetic editing. I adovcate for allowing genetic editing to improve the human race, despite fears:


Better, stronger, disease-free humans. Editing human DNA could save lives and enhance them. But should we be playing god?
Genes determine our health, looks, the way we function. They’re the ingredients for life. The idea that we could one day change them is an exciting prospect, but also an ethical minefield. As science moves closer towards gene editing, the concern is that it could go too far and even create a new elite group of enhanced humans.

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Oct 8, 2017

CRISPR Is on the Cusp of Eradicating a Host of Diseases

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

Thanks to the gene editing tool CRISPR, the global medical community is on the brink of treating a host of serious diseases, if not eradicating them.

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Oct 3, 2017

Gold nanoparticle used to replace virus in new CRISPR approach

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics, nanotechnology

(Phys.org)—A team of researchers from the University of California and the University of Tokyo has found a way to use the CRISPR gene editing technique that does not rely on a virus for delivery. In their paper published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, the group describes the new technique, how well it works and improvements that need to be made to make it a viable gene editing tool.

CRISPR-Cas9 has been in the news a lot lately because it allows researchers to directly edit genes—either disabling unwanted parts or replacing them altogether. But despite many success stories, the technique still suffers from a major deficit that prevents it from being used as a true medical tool—it sometimes makes mistakes. Those mistakes can cause small or big problems for a host depending on what goes wrong. Prior research has suggested that the majority of mistakes are due to delivery problems, which means that a replacement for the virus part of the technique is required. In this new effort, the researchers report that they have discovered just a such a replacement, and it worked so well that it was able to repair a in a Duchenne muscular dystrophy mouse model. The team has named the CRISPR-Gold, because a gold nanoparticle was used to deliver the molecules instead of a virus.

The new package was created by modifying a bit of DNA to cause it to stick to a gold nanoparticle and then a Cas9 protein and also an RNA guide. The package was then coated with a polymer that served as a containment casing—one that also triggered endocytosis (a form of cell transport) and helped the molecules escape endosomes once inside the target cells. The molecules then set to work—the Cas9 cut the target DNA strand, the guide RNA showed what needed to be done and a DNA strand was placed where a mutation had existed. The result was a gene free of a mutation that causes Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

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Oct 3, 2017

Nonviral CRISPR Delivery Using Gold Nanoparticles a Success

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics, nanotechnology

Muscle from a mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Fibrous scar tissue is in blue and healthy muscle is in pink. CONBOY LAB AND MURTHY LAB While promising, applications of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing have so far been limited by the challenges of delivery—namely, how to get all the CRISPR parts to every cell that needs them. In a study published today (October 2) in Nature Biomedical Engineering, researchers have successfully repaired a mutation in the gene for dystrophin in a mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy by injecting a vehicle they call CRISPR-Gold, which contains the Cas9 protein, guide RNA, and donor DNA, all wrapped around a tiny gold ball.

The authors have made “great progress in the gene editing area,” says Tufts University biomedical engineer Qiaobing Xu, who did not participate in the work but penned an accompanying commentary. Because their approach is nonviral, Xu explains, it will minimize the potential off-target effects that result from constant Cas9 activity, which occurs when users deliver the Cas9 template with a viral vector.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a degenerative disease of the muscles caused by a lack of the protein dystrophin. In about a third of patients, the gene for dystrophin has small deletions or single base mutations that render it nonfunctional, which makes this gene an excellent candidate for gene editing. Researchers have previously used viral delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 components to delete the mutated exon and achieve clinical improvements in mouse models of the disease.

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Sep 30, 2017

Scientists Just Used Gene Editing to Remove a Fatal Blood Disorder From Human Embryos

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

A team of researchers from Sun Yat-sen University have used gene editing to correct a potentially fatal blood condition. This world-first accomplishment represents the first step to a future where we literally edit disease out of our bodies.

Beta-thalassemia is a blood disorder that plagues individuals throughout the entirety of their lives. There is no truly viable cure. The only real hope that people have of overcoming this disease is either a stem cell or bone marrow transplant; however, these procedures are rarely performed due to the life-threatening risk that comes with them.

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Sep 24, 2017

Michio Kaku, Gregory Stack, And Yue Shao: Synthetic Human Embryos And Genetic Engineering [Opinion]

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics

Michio Kaku and Gregory Scott discuss different aspects of genetic engineering in the video below. According to Kaku and Scott, parents will soon have different genetic engineering choices to make about their children. In addition, recent discoveries by Yue Shao have yielded a new classification of parentless synthetic human embryos.

With Yue Shao’s discovery, genetic engineers might be learning to grow synthetic human embryos from anonymous stem cells donated from IVF clinics. How far this genetic engineering technology goes remains to be seen.

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Sep 24, 2017

Creating Human Beings from Skin Cells Is Possible

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics, government, neuroscience

Stem cell research is one of my absolute favorite topics. This amazing field does not only reveal to us how our bodies function and develop, but also holds promising future applications that could help us treat severe diseases, which would not be treated otherwise. However, stem cell research can do more than just treat diseases. In this article, I will highlight the latest scientific breakthroughs to show you how we can turn a simple skin cell into a fully-grown genetically-engineered human being all thanks to the power of stem cells and genetic engineering.

Desperate times call for desperate measures

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Sep 24, 2017

He Hacked a Way to Talk to Plants — and They Talk Back

Posted by in category: bioengineering

Bioengineer Keenan Pinto designed an application that helps hydroponic farmers “talk” to their plants.

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Sep 21, 2017

Scientists discover ‘master gene’ crucial for successful pregnancy

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics, government

S cientists have edited human embryos for the first time in the UK to discover a “master gene” that underpins successful pregnancies. The “game-changing” research promises improved IVF outcomes and a breakthrough in understanding why so many pregnancies fail.

The Government-funded investigation, undertaken by the Francis Crick Institute, is the first to prove that gene editing can be used to study the genetic behaviour of human embryos in their first few days of life.

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Sep 16, 2017

Dangerous Things

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, evolution

We believe our bodies are our own, to do with what we want. Biohacking is leading the next phase of human evolution, and we’re excited to be a part of it.

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