List of the who’s who are leading some of key bio programs around nextgen bio/ living cell technologies.
According to GEN’s experts, synthetic biology isn’t yet plug-and-play, but cellular processes are being engineered into biosensing systems as well as biologics production. Soon, for tasks from theranostics to regenerative medicine, “there will be a synbio app for that.”
The new goal is to reverse aging, not only in animals, but in humans. And age reversal is essential, as significant age-related disruption has already occurred in most people due to changes in our gene expression profiles.
Gene expression patterns change with age. This influences the rate at which an individual ages, and also determines what senile disorders they are likely to contract. But innovative gene-editing methods based on a unique technology called CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) are now being successfully harnessed for use as an age-reversal therapy for humans.
In response to these breakthroughs, Life Extension® magazine sent biogerontologist Dr. Gregory M. Fahy to Harvard University to interview Dr. George Church, who is a leading developer of cutting-edge CRISPR techniques. Here, Dr. Church explains remarkable opportunities for transforming human aging that may begin to unfold sooner than most have imagined.
Small electrical currents appear to activate certain immune cells to jumpstart or speed wound healing and reduce infection when there’s a lack of immune cells available, such as with diabetes, University of Aberdeen (U.K.) scientists have found.
In a lab experiment, the scientists exposed healing macrophages (white blood cells that eat things that don’t belong), taken from human blood, to electrical fields of strength similar to that generated in injured skin. When the voltage was applied, the macrophages moved in a directed manner to Candida albicans fungus cells (representing damaged skin) to facilitate healing (engulfing and digesting extracellular particles). (This process is called “phagocytosis,” in which macrophages clean the wound site, limit infection, and allow the repair process to proceed.)
Finally, someone is getting the concept about why in tech where you’re producing technologies that ultimately support many areas of the consumer market in the form of bio/ medical, consumer commercial products, art, homes/ buildings, autos, etc. You must be more inclusive in your teams or find your product and services will plataeu as more and more competitors crowd the space over time; something that other industries have learned many many decades ago.
Because most of the quickly growing companies and startups that tend to dominate it emerged from the maker community, the 3D printing industry often seems to find itself a little sequestered from the rest of the tech industry. Part of the reason is that very few of the industry’s largest companies started or are even based in Silicon Valley. While there is more to the tech industry than Northern California, it is often treated like the popular kids’ lunch table: everyone wants to sit there, and those that are tend to ignore those that aren’t. Sure most of the world’s large tech shows and conferences include plenty of 3D printing these days, but there still isn’t as much crossover as you’d expect, and 3D printing is still treated like that weird cousin who you’re not exactly sure is going to amount to anything.
I certainly can’t speak for everyone, but it almost feels as if being off in its own corner has been good for 3D printing. It has allowed a culture that thrives on open source technology and software to take root, and proven that businesses don’t need excessive patents to be successful if they build their companies correctly. In reality, 3D printing, despite being tech- and software-driven, probably has more in common with the manufacturing industry than high tech. However for all of its varied differences, the 3D printing industry does share one thing with most of the big tech companies in the world, it has a bit of a diversity problem.
Now this is going to be very interesting. We will learn a lot about self control, stress, and how cultural condition definitely applies to how people handles different forms and types of stress. Cannot wait to see the results of this study. And, with the government taking these first steps may actually show hope.
China’s mental health record is tarred by social stigma and a lack of resources. While public initiatives are now seeking to rectify the issue, the country’s active startup ecosystem is also competing to fill the gaps.
According to a study published in 2011, a staggering 91.8 per cent of Chinese people with a mental health diagnosis never seek help. Part of that has to do with the shortage of trained mental health professionals in China, as well as the country’s psychiatrist-to-patient ratio, which is as low as 1.24 per 100,000 patients, compared to the global average of 4.15 per 100,000.
“The problem is huge,” says Jin Hsueh, the co-founder and CEO of KaJin Health, a Taiwanese startup that provides an online counseling service to people in Chinese-speaking communities. “There are [90] million [people with] depression in China, and very, very [few] that ever seek for help, talking to a doctor or therapist.”
Nice.
A gene called Prkci can point cells in the right direction, according to a new study in Developmental Biology.
In the study, USC Stem Cell researcher In Kyoung Mah from the laboratory of Francesca Mariani and colleagues demonstrated Prkci’s role in organizing cells into balls and tubes during early embryo and organ formation.
In their experiments, the researchers used mouse stem cells to form what are known as embryoid bodies, or clusters of cells that mimic the early development of embryos and organs in a Petri dish.
Diabetes 2 tie to Vitamin D issues.
First study of Emiratis’ genes highlights the links between type 2 diabetes and a deficiency in vitamin D. Soon doctors may be able to prioritise care for those who are most at risk.
ABU DHABI // The first study to examine Emirati genes and the links between type 2 diabetes and vitamin D deficiency uncovered a genetic code that identifies those susceptible to the deficiency.
While studies internationally have found links between the two conditions, it is the first time the Emirati population has been looked at specifically.
Posted in biotech/medical, food, genetics, physics
Jumping genes — not jumping beans.
“Jumping genes” are ubiquitous. Every domain of life hosts these sequences of DNA that can “jump” from one position to another along a chromosome; in fact, nearly half the human genome is made up of jumping genes. Depending on their specific excision and insertion points, jumping genes can interrupt or trigger gene expression, driving genetic mutation and contributing to cell diversification. Since their discovery in the 1940s, researchers have been able to study the behavior of these jumping genes, generally known as transposons or transposable elements (TE), primarily through indirect methods that infer individual activity from bulk results. However, such techniques are not sensitive enough to determine precisely how or why the transposons jump, and what factors trigger their activity.
Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have observed jumping gene activity in real time within living cells. The study is the collaborative effort of physics professors Thomas Kuhlman and Nigel Goldenfeld, at the Center for the Physics of Living Cells, a National Science Foundation Physics Frontiers Center.
“In this study, we were able to see that there is actually more of this jumping gene action going on than might have been expected from previous studies,” said Kuhlman, whose team performed the in vivo experiments. “What’s more, we learned that the rates at which these genes jump depend sensitively on how the cells are growing—if there is food available for the cells to grow, for example. In other words, jumping gene activation isn’t entirely random, it’s dependent on environmental feedback.”
