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The system, named Cas13D-N2V8, showed a significant reduction in the number of off-target genes and no detectable collateral damage in cell lines and somatic cells, which indicated its future potential, according to a report published in South China Morning Post newspaper on Wednesday.
Researchers have succeeded in making photosynthesis more efficient in soybean plants, in a major breakthrough that will mean less forest has to be cut down to make way for farms.
In the 1980s, biologist Dr Michael Rose started to selectively breed Drosophila fruit flies for increased longevity. Today, the descendants of the original Methuselah flies are held by biotech firm Genescient Corporation and live 4.5 times longer than normal fruit flies.
The flies’ increased lifespan is explained by a significant number of systemic genetic changes — but how many of these variations represent lessons that can be used to design longevity therapies for humans? Dr. Ben Goertzel and his bio-AI colleagues at SingularityNET and Rejuve. AI are betting the answer is quite a few.
SingularityNET and Rejuve. AI have launched a partnership with Genescient to apply advanced machine learning and machine reasoning methods to transfer insights gained from the Methuselah fly genome to the human genome. The goal is to acquire new information regarding gene therapies, drugs or nutraceutical regimens for prolonging healthy human life.
Damage to the ends of your chromosomes can create “zombie cells” that are still alive but can’t function, according to our recently published study in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.
When cells prepare to divide, their DNA is tightly wound around proteins to form chromosomes that provide structure and support for genetic material. At the ends of these chromosomes are repetitive stretches of DNA called telomeres that form a protective cap to prevent damage to the genetic material.
However, telomeres shorten each time a cell divides. This means that as cells divide more and more as you age, your telomeres become increasingly shorter and more likely to lose their ability to protect your DNA.
Is de-extinction realistic?
Scientists in the US and Australia have announced a multi-million dollar project — resurrecting the extinct Tasmanian tiger. The last known marsupial officially called a thylacine, died in the 1930s. According to the team, the extinct thylacine can be recreated using stem cells and gene-editing technology, and the first one could be “reintroduced” to the wild within 10 years.
We would strongly advocate that first and foremost we need to protect our biodiversity from further extinctions, but unfortunately we are not seeing a slowing down in species loss.
Continue reading “‘Jurassic Park’? Scientists want to resurrect Australia’s Tasmanian tiger” »
Powerful ‘grammar’ allows geneticists to display their data in interactive and scalable illustrations.
Gene therapy pioneer — dr. katherine high, MD — president, therapeutics, askbio.
Dr. Katherine High, MD, is President, Therapeutics, at Asklepios BioPharmaceutical (AskBio — https://www.askbio.com/), where she is also member of the AskBio Board of Directors, and has responsibility for driving the strategic direction and execution of pre-clinical and clinical programs of the company.
In a new study published in Nature, researchers have developed a breakthrough technique called spatial transcriptomics, which allows scientists to map tumors non-invasively and at an unprecedented resolution depth. For the first time, researchers have created a three-dimensional map of a whole prostate to an unprecedented resolution, including areas of healthy and cancerous cells. Surprisingly, the study revealed that individual prostate tumors contain a range of genetic variations, which until this point were unknown.
“We have never had this level of resolution available before, and this new approach revealed some surprising results,” said Alastair Lamb of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, who jointly led the study.
In recent years, ribonucleic acid (RNA) has emerged as a powerful tool for the development of novel therapies. RNA is used to copy genetic information contained in our hereditary material, the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and then serves as a template for building proteins, the building blocks of life. Delivery of RNA into cells remains a major challenge for the development of novel therapies across a broad range of diseases. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden together with researchers from the global biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca have investigated where and how mRNA is delivered inside the cell. They found that mRNA uses an unexpected entry door. Their results provide novel insights into the development of RNA therapeutics towards efficient delivery and lower dosages.
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) contains the genetic information required for the development and maintenance of life. This information is communicated by messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) to make proteins. mRNA-based therapeutics have the potential to address unmet needs for a wide variety of diseases, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. mRNA can be delivered to cells to trigger the production, degradation or modification of a target protein, something impossible with other approaches. A key challenge with this modality is being able to deliver the mRNA inside the cell so that it can be translated to make a protein. mRNA can be packed into lipid nanoparticles (LNPs)—small bubbles of fat—that protect the mRNA and shuttle it into cells. However, this process is not simple, because the mRNA has to pass the membrane before it can reach its site of action in the cell interior, the cytoplasm.
Researchers in the team of MPI-CBG director Marino Zerial are experts in visualizing the cellular entry routes of molecules in the cell, such as mRNA with high-resolution microscopes. They teamed up with scientists from AstraZeneca who provided the researchers with lipid nanoparticle prototypes that they had developed for therapeutic approaches to follow the mRNA inside the cell. The study is published in the Journal of Cell Biology.
Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new and potentially more effective way to deliver messenger RNA (mRNA) into cells. Their approach involves packing mRNA inside nanoparticles that mimic the flu virus—a naturally efficient vehicle for delivering genetic material such as RNA inside cells.
The new mRNA delivery nanoparticles are described in a paper published recently in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
The work addresses a major challenge in the field of drug delivery: Getting large biological drug molecules safely into cells and protecting them from organelles called endosomes. These tiny acid-filled bubbles inside the cell serve as barriers that trap and digest large molecules that try to enter. In order for biological therapeutics to do their job once they are inside the cell, they need a way to escape the endosomes.
