Lifeboat Foundation

A genetic technique makes plants produce more food from sunlight — a key step in feeding the growing global population, scientists say.

Luv it! Wait until we make the marriage of QC meets Synbio — QC for the infrastructure and communications, and Synbio makes us all connected.

Cambridge, MA (Scicasts) — Synthetic biology allows scientists to design genetic circuits that can be placed in cells, giving them new functions such as producing drugs or other useful molecules. However, as these circuits become more complex, the genetic components can interfere with each other, making it difficult to achieve more complicated functions.

MIT researchers have now demonstrated that these circuits can be isolated within individual synthetic “cells,” preventing them from disrupting each other. The researchers can also control communication between these cells, allowing for circuits or their products to be combined at specific times.

Continue reading “Synthetic Cells to Isolate Genetic Circuits Created” »

A team of scientists in China has become the first to treat a human patient with the groundbreaking CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique. While the results of the trial are uncertain, it’s a historic milestone that should serve as a serious wakeup call to the rest of the world.

Scientists have discovered a new way to edit DNA that could fix “broken genes” in the brain, cure previously incurable diseases and potentially even extend the human lifespan.

The breakthrough – described as a “holy grail” of genetics – was used to partially restore the sight of rats blinded by a condition which also affects humans.

Previously researchers were not able to make changes to DNA in eye, brain, heart and liver tissues.

Continue reading “DNA-editing breakthrough could fix ‘broken genes’ in the brain, delay ageing and cure incurable diseases” »

I said over a year ago that if the US will not do it China will. Whilst there was talk about a moratorium on CRISPR in the US the Chinese were forging ahead and taking steps to become a world leader in biotech. Well here we are, they have deployed CRISPR in humans for cancer and this is only the start. As George Church advocates, we should have appropriate engineering safety measures in place but we should push ahead and do these things.

The move by Chinese scientists could spark a biomedical duel between China and the United States.

Chinese scientists are attempting to use CRISPR to develop a new treatment for cancer patients, and the U.S. will soon follow their lead.

More supporting data that higher education is good for longevity.

National Academy of Sciences.

In Brief:

Researchers at MIT have developed an easy-to-use “biological programming language” that allows genetic engineers (or just about anyone) to design biological circuits and “hack” the genomes of living cells.

The evolution of human technology has proceeded in lockstep with the biological evolution of our species. For millions of years we were content with our primitive Oldowan choppers and Acheulean bifaces; in the Neolithic, we started playing with more sophisticated tools, and the Bronze and Iron ages followed in quick succession.

Continue reading “We’ve Figured Out How to Program Living Cells” »

Tinier than the AIDS virus—that is currently the circumference of the smallest transistors. The industry has shrunk the central elements of their computer chips to fourteen nanometers in the last sixty years. Conventional methods, however, are hitting physical boundaries. Researchers around the world are looking for alternatives. One method could be the self-organization of complex components from molecules and atoms. Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and Paderborn University have now made an important advance: the physicists conducted a current through gold-plated nanowires, which independently assembled themselves from single DNA strands. Their results have been published in the scientific journal Langmuir.

At first glance, it resembles wormy lines in front of a black background. But what the electron microscope shows up close is that the nanometer-sized structures connect two electrical contacts. Dr. Artur Erbe from the Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research is pleased about what he sees. “Our measurements have shown that an electrical current is conducted through these tiny wires.” This is not necessarily self-evident, the physicist stresses. We are, after all, dealing with components made of modified DNA. In order to produce the nanowires, the researchers combined a long single strand of genetic material with shorter DNA segments through the base pairs to form a stable double strand. Using this method, the structures independently take on the desired form.

“With the help of this approach, which resembles the Japanese paper folding technique origami and is therefore referred to as DNA-origami, we can create tiny patterns,” explains the HZDR researcher. “Extremely small circuits made of molecules and atoms are also conceivable here.” This strategy, which scientists call the “bottom-up” method, aims to turn conventional production of electronic components on its head. “The industry has thus far been using what is known as the ‘top-down’ method. Large portions are cut away from the base material until the desired structure is achieved. Soon this will no longer be possible due to continual miniaturization.” The new approach is instead oriented on nature: molecules that develop complex structures through self-assembling processes.

Continue reading “Computers made of genetic material? Researchers conduct electricity using DNA-based nanowires” »