Lifeboat Foundation

Beautiful.

Researchers at the University of California San Diego and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have come up with a strategy for using synthetic biology in therapeutics. The approach enables continual production and release of drugs at disease sites in mice while simultaneously limiting the size, over time, of the populations of bacteria engineered to produce the drugs. The findings are published in the July 20 online issue of Nature.

Continue reading “Synthetic biology used to limit bacterial growth and coordinate drug release” »

This is amazing. I can see so much usage for this technique in the future in battling blood cancers, hemophilia, and other treatments beyond heart surgery and kidney dialysis.

Coating dialysis tubes with a water-repellent material leaves red blood cells unscathed.

Why Plants? Part III – Rise of The Plant Machines by Orlando de Lange.

Everyone talks about the rise of the robots. What about the rise of the “Vegetation/ Plant Machines?”

In part 3 of our series on plant synthetic biology, Orlando de Lange (@SeaGreenODL) of The New Leaf blog introduces how synbio approaches are being used to develop novel disease resistant crops, overcoming some of the challenges faced by monoculture farming.

Continue reading “Musings on Synthetic Biology and Crop Disease Resistance” »

Matthew foster from Ripon, North Yorkshire, underwent a new NHS procedure for his acid reflux, involving an electric needle which fires low voltage electricity waves at the stomach valve.

New method for tracking single cells; definitely could be interesting for genetic mutation research such as cancer, Parkinson, etc.

As far as the scientists are concerned, the new possibilities that these programs offer should be available to as many researchers around the world as possible. Therefore the software is freely available, and can be downloaded from the following link: http://www.bsse.ethz.ch/csd/software/ttt-and-qtfy.html

Technical obstacles were removed as far as possible. “Our focus was on making the application also available to researchers who do not have background IT know-how,” Schroeder explains. And the application appears to work well: Two high-ranking publications can be traced back to the spyware for cells.

Continue reading “A new tracking and quantification tool for single cells” »

Dark Net v. Law Enforcement — who is winning and who is struggling.

The Dark web is a privileged place for cyber criminals that, under specific conditions, could operate in anonymity.

The United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has published its annual report that contains a specific mention to the illicit trade of goods and drugs in this hidden part of the web.

Continue reading “Law enforcement and the Dark Web, a never ending battle” »

SENS has a fund match for its current campaign on lifespan.io, if you are concerned about cancer like me and you want to help directly fund a lab working on solutions please think about donating. smile

There is a month left to go in the SENS crowdfunding campaign that aims to accelerate development of an important component of a universal cancer therapy, a way to block the mechanisms of telomere lengthening that every type of cancer depends upon. The SENS Research Foundation and Lifespan.io volunteers are looking for donors to put up matching funds of a few thousand dollars or more, in order to take that news and that inducement to a number of conferences and other events over the next few weeks. More than 150 people have donated to the campaign to date, and we’d like to triple that number in the next 30 days.

To start things off, I’ll offer up $2,000 of my own funds: the next $2,000 in donations to this SENS cancer research initiative will be matched dollar for dollar. That is a start, and if you can join in to help out, please contact me to let me know. Can you help to make a difference here?

Continue reading “Matching Fund Donors Sought for SENS Universal Cancer Therapy Crowdfunding” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=XzTXaUltXUA

In 2011, two visionary doctors from the Texas Heart Institute successfully replaced a dying man’s heart with a ‘continuous flow’ device they developed.

Arthritis sufferers have been offered new hope after scientists grew a ‘living hip’ in the lab which not only replaces worn cartilage but stops painful joints returning.

Researchers in the US have used stem cells to grow cartilage in the exact shape of a hip joint while also genetically engineering the tissue to release anti-inflammatory molecules to fend off the return of arthritis.

The idea is to implant the perfectly shaped cartilage around the joint to extend its life before arthritis has caused too much damage to the bone.

Continue reading “‘Living hip’ grown in lab genetically engineered to stop arthritis” »