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Category: bioengineering – Page 73

After a decade, CRISPR gene editing is a ‘revolution in progress.’ What does the future hold?

But every once in a while, an idea is so powerful and so profound its effects are felt much faster.

That’s been the case with CRISPR gene editing, which celebrates a 10th anniversary this month. It has already had a substantial impact on laboratory science, improving precision and speeding research, and it has led to clinical trials for a handful of rare diseases and cancers.

Over the next decade, scientists predict, CRISPR will yield multiple approved medical treatments and be used to modify crops, making them more productive and resistant to disease and climate change.

How Our Brains Turn Into Smarter Disease Fighters

CRISPR gene editing created the G795A amino acid which was introduced to microglia derived from human stem cells. Researchers were able to transplant the donor microglia immune cells into humanized rodent models while administering an FDA-approved cancer drug called pexidartinib. The inclusion of the amino acid cause the donated microglia to thrive and resist the drug, while the host microglia died. The findings open the door for new methods of using microglia to treat a range of neurodegenerative disorders.

Network Neuroscience Theory — The Best Predictor of Intelligence

Researchers have been working for many years to comprehend the relationship between brain structure, functional connectivity, and intelligence. A recent study provides the most comprehensive understanding to date of how different regions of the brain and neural networks contribute to a person’s problem-solving ability in a variety of contexts, a trait known as general intelligence.

The researchers recently published their findings in the journal Human Brain Mapping.

The research, led by Aron Barbey, a professor of psychology, bioengineering, and neuroscience at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and first author Evan Anderson, a researcher for Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. working at the Air Force Research Laboratory, employed the technique of “connectome-based predictive modeling” to evaluate five theories on how the brain leads to intelligence.

I Edited Human DNA at Home With a DIY CRISPR Kit

I never thought I’d order live human kidney cells to my address, but that all changed when I found out about biohacker Jo Zayner’s at-home genetic engineering class.

You may know Jo Zayner, a “biohacker” who has been in the vanguard of scientific self-experimentation for years, from their role in Netflix’s 2019 docuseries Unnatural Selection. The series shows Zayner attempting to edit their DNA by injecting themselves with CRISPR, a gene-editing technology. The action inspired a firestorm of criticism.

Zayner is also known for a variety of other bold moves, such as claiming to create a DIY at-home COVID vaccine in 2020 and executing their own fecal microbiome transplant.

Why Are We Sending a Plastic-Eating Enzyme to Space? | Mashable

On Nov. 26, 2022 a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket departed from departed from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to deliver supplies to the International Space Station. Among the 7,700 pounds of cargo on board, it is safe to say that the smallest delivery that day were a bunch of frozen bacteria.

In an interdisciplinary collaboration, a group of scientists from MIT Media Lab, NREL, Seed Health and others, bioengineered a plastic-eating bacteria to be able to upcycle plastics. Mashable met with some of them to find out how the bacteria works, why it was it was sent to space, and how it can help humanity tackle plastic pollution in space as well as on Earth.

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CRISPR’s Wild First Decade Only Scratches the Surface of Its Potential

You’ve seen the headlines. The FDA approved its use in tackling the underlying genetic mutation for sickle cell disease. Some researchers edited immune cells to fight untreatable blood cancers in children. Others took pig-to-human organ transplants from dream to reality in an attempt to alleviate the shortage of donor organs. Recent work aims to help millions of people with high cholesterol—and potentially bring CRISPR-based gene therapy to the masses—by lowering their chances of heart disease with a single injection.

But to Dr. Jennifer Doudna, who won the Nobel Prize in 2020 for her role in developing CRISPR, we’re just scratching the surface of its potential. Together with graduate student Joy Wang, Doudna laid out a roadmap for the technology’s next decade in an article in Science.

If the 2010s were focused on establishing the CRISPR toolbox and proving its effectiveness, this decade is when the technology reaches its full potential. From CRISPR-based therapies and large-scale screens for disease diagnostics to engineering high-yield crops and nutritious foods, the technology “and its potential impact are still in their early stages,” the authors wrote.

Surprising Discovery: MIT Neuroscientists Find That Adult Brain Is Filled With Millions of “Silent Synapses”

MIT neuroscientists have found that the adult brain is filled with millions of “silent synapses” — immature connections between neurons that are not active until they are needed to help create new memories.

It was previously believed that silent synapses only existed during early development, playing a role in helping the brain learn new information encountered in early life. However, the new MIT

MIT is an acronym for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a prestigious private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was founded in 1861. It is organized into five Schools: architecture and planning; engineering; humanities, arts, and social sciences; management; and science. MIT’s impact includes many scientific breakthroughs and technological advances. Their stated goal is to make a better world through education, research, and innovation.

When WIll We Upload Our Minds To Other Species?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=3AQPgchedUw&feature=share

This video explores aliens, mind uploading to other species (like in Avatar), genetic engineering, and future robots. Watch this next video about digital immortality: https://youtu.be/sZdWN9pbbew.
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DARPA Wants to Develop a Drug to Make People Resistant to Extreme Cold

Last week, Rice University in Houston announced that one of its assistant professors of bioengineering, Jerzy Szablowski, received a Young Faculty Award from DARPA to research non-genetic drugs that can “temporarily enhance the human body’s resilience to extreme cold exposure.”

Thermogenesis is the use of energy to create heat, and our bodies have two different ways of doing this. One is shivering, which we’re all familiar with. The other, which Szablowski simply calls non-shivering thermogenesis, involves burning off brown adipose tissue (BAT), or brow n fat.

This type of fat exists specifically to warm us up when we get cold; it stores energy and only activates in cold temperatures. Most of our body fat is white fat. It builds up when we ingest more calories than we burn and stores those calories for when we don’t get enough energy from food. An unfortunate majority of American adults have the opposite problem: too much white fat, which increases the risk of conditions like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.