Lifeboat Foundation

ADS Codex translates binary data into nucleotides that can be sequenced in molecules as files for later retrieval, bringing potential cost savings and compact ‘cold storage.’

In support of a major collaborative project to store massive amounts of data in DNA

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a molecule composed of two long strands of nucleotides that coil around each other to form a double helix. It is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms that carries genetic instructions for development, functioning, growth, and reproduction. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).

Through a process known as RNA interference (RNAi), scientists have been able to modify the genetic make-up of the daddy long-legs arachnid so that its distinctive spindly limbs become twice as short.

This process – which uses a gene’s own DNA sequence and small fragments of RNA to turn the gene off – was applied to the Phalangium opilio species, one of the most common species of daddy long-legs in the world.

The result is effectively a daddy short-legs instead of a daddy long-legs. The team behind the work is hoping that the experiments can teach us more about how these elongated limbs evolved in the first place.

Gene-editing technique CRISPR may deliver new treatments for genetic diseases—and it’s already being tested on patients.

17:22 minutes.

In one of the first clinical applications of the technique, last month researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that CRISPR had stopped a genetic disease called amyloidosis, which occurs when an abnormal protein accumulates in your organs. They’re not the only group moving toward using CRISPR on humans; recently, the FDA approved a human clinical trial that will use the technique to edit genes responsible for sickle cell disease.

A new tool helps researchers explore the types of cells that make up brain organoids — clusters of cells that can mimic the basic structure, function and development of different parts of the brain.

The software, detailed in Cell Stem Cell, maps information about when and where genes are expressed in brain organoids onto a reference atlas of the developing mouse brain. Scientists can use the resulting overlay to develop organoids that better recapitulate the developing brain, the team says, or to uncover the effects of gene mutations and other experimental perturbations.

Brain organoids derived from the cells of people with conditions such as autism have proved useful in capturing neuronal abnormalities. But the findings are muddied by methodological differences in how researchers develop these lab-grown blobs. Advanced techniques to profile gene expression in single cells have made it easier to identify the cell types in any given organoid. But it’s remained difficult to map those cell types onto different brain regions.

Three pioneering technologies have forever altered how researchers do their work and promise to revolutionize medicine, from correcting genetic disorders to treating degenerative brain diseases.

Some mutations that disable SCN2A, one of the genes most strongly linked to autism, can unexpectedly make neurons hyperexcitable, a study in mice shows. The findings may help explain why a sizeable proportion of autistic children with mutations in SCN2A experience epileptic seizures.

Deleterious mutations in an autism-associated gene can make neurons hyperexcitable, raising the risk of epileptic seizures.

A couple people from TRIM are in TRIM-X to see how it works a second time.

In this video Dr. Fahy discusses what we can do to make the most of our thymus without the growth hormone treatment, what the timing makes sense for rejuvenation of the thymus and whether the thymus is tied to the other hallmarks of aging.

Continue reading “How To Improve On Our Thymus Health | Dr Greg Fahy Episode 5” »

Driver Clocks And Longevity — Dissecting True Functional “Drivers” Of Aging Phenotypes — Dr. Daniel Ives Ph.D., Founder and CEO — Shift Bioscience Ltd.

Dr. Daniel Ives, Ph.D. is Founder and CEO of Shift Bioscience Ltd. (https://shiftbioscience.com), a biotech company making drugs for cellular rejuvenation in humans through the application of machine-learning ‘driver’ clocks to cellular reprogramming, and is the scientific founder who first discovered the gene shifting targets upon which the Shift drug discovery platform is based.

Continue reading “Dr. Daniel Ives, Ph.D. — Founder and CEO — Shift Bioscience Ltd. — Driver Clocks And Longevity” »

Upon an otherwise unruly landscape of choppy sea and craggy peaks, the salmon farms that dot many of Norway’s remote fjords impose a neat geometry. The circular pens are placid on the surface, but hold thousands of churning fish, separated by only a net from their wild counterparts. And that is precisely the conundrum. Although the pens help ensure the salmon’s welfare by mimicking the fish’s natural habitat, they also sometimes allow fish to escape, a problem for both the farm and the environment.

In an attempt to prevent escaped fish from interbreeding with their wild counterparts and threatening the latter’s genetic diversity, molecular biologist Anna Wargelius and her team at the Institute of Marine Research in Norway have spent years working on ways to induce sterility in Atlantic salmon. Farmed salmon that cannot reproduce, after all, pose no threat to the gene pool of wild stocks, and Wargelius has successfully developed a technique that uses the gene-editing technology Crispr to prevent the development of the cells that would otherwise generate functioning sex organs.

Continue reading “A sterile solution: How Crispr could protect wild salmon” »