Continue reading “10 companies that want to make chemotherapy easier for patients — Bioquark Inc.” »
Tissue engineering makes further progress for repairing damaged joints.
Writing in The Lancet, Swiss doctors report that cartilage cells harvested from patients’ own noses have been used to successfully produce cartilage transplants for the treatment of the knees of 10 adults (aged 18–55 years) whose cartilage was damaged by injury. Two years after reconstruction, most recipients reported improvements in pain, knee function, and quality of life, as well as developing repair tissue that is similar in composition to native cartilage.
Despite this promising start, however, the effectiveness of the procedure needs to be rigorously assessed in larger randomised trials compared to conventional treatments and with longer follow up before any firm conclusions can be drawn about its use in routine clinical practice, say the authors.
Using cells from the cartilage in patients’ noses, Swiss doctors have successfully made patches to treat 10 adults whose knee cartilage was damaged by injury.
Two years after the transplants, most of the patients grew new cartilage in their knees and reported improvements in pain, knee function and quality of life.
“We have developed a new, promising approach to the treatment of articular cartilage injuries,” said lead researcher Ivan Martin, a professor of tissue engineering at the University of Basel. The articular cartilage is the tissue that covers and protects the ends of the knee bones, and injuries to it can lead to degenerative joint conditions like osteoarthritis.
Continue reading “Cartilage from nose is used to repair bum knees” »
https://youtube.com/watch?v=v-qVBko0r0U
Mars colonization — getting there is only a small part of the equation. The bigger problem is how to survive. Synthetic biology may be able to help.
In an open-access paper published Thursday (Oct. 13, 2016) in the journal Nature Protocols, University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have published details of how to fabricate and use neural microelectrocorticography (μECoG) arrays made with transparent graphene in applications in electrophysiology, fluorescent microscopy, optical coherence tomography, and optogenetics.
Graphene is one of the most promising candidates for transparent neural electrodes, because the material has a UV to IR transparency of more than 90%, in addition to its high electrical and thermal conductivity, flexibility, and biocompatibility, the researchers note in the paper. That allows for simultaneous high-resolution imaging and optogenetic control.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=khjY5LWF3tg
We live in an age of transformative scientific powers, capable of changing the very nature of the human species and radically remaking the planet itself.
Advances in information technologies and artificial intelligence are combining with advances in the biological sciences; including genetics, reproductive technologies, neuroscience, synthetic biology; as well as advances in the physical sciences to create breathtaking synergies — now recognized as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Continue reading “The 4 big ethical questions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution” »
When you read about what some startups are doing these days it seems like you’re reading a sci-fi book. Earlier this year we published an article titled “3 Companies Building Nanorobot Companies” and we talked about using software, robots, and synthetic biology to engineer synthetic organisms (essentially nanorobots) that can be used to create efficiencies. According to BCC Research, the global market for microbes and microbial products was projected to approach $154.7 billion in 2015 and almost double to $306 billion by 2020. Healthcare is largest consumer of microbes (61%) followed by energy (24%) and manufacturing (13%). The massive size of the microbe industry is just begging for a bit of disruptive technology to address it and that’s exactly what Zymergen is getting up to.
Founded in 2013, San Francisco startup Zymergen has taken in a total of $174 million from a whole slew of investors that include Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Softbank. Their most recent funding round of $130 million closed just last week and was led by Softbank, a publicly traded Japanese technology conglomerate. This should come as no surprise considering Softbank has recently announced their intention to become the world’s number one technology investor with up to $100 billion allocated to investing in future technology companies.
A webinar presented by: James Goldmeyer, PhD
The use of CRISPR-Cas9 for gene editing has opened up many new avenues for scientific exploration around gene function. The rapid expansion of the field has led to a wide range of technology formats for use in both gene knockout and precision knockin genome engineering experiments. The seemingly ever-increasing toolset has also led to a widening knowledge gap for newcomers to the field to overcome in determining the proper reagents for performing experiments.
During this webinar we will discuss the basics of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and the key criteria and decision points in selecting reagents based on your desired application. We will review all types of guide RN…A and Cas9 nuclease formats and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.
