Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: bioengineering – Page 131

We discuss the state of the art and innovative micro- and nanoscale technologies that are finding niches and opening up new opportunities in medicine, particularly in diagnostic and therapeutic applications. We take the design of point-of-care applications and the capture of circulating tumor cells as illustrative examples of the integration of micro- and nanotechnologies into solutions of diagnostic challenges. We describe several novel nanotechnologies that enable imaging cellular structures and molecular events. In therapeutics, we describe the utilization of micro- and nanotechnologies in applications including drug delivery, tissue engineering, and pharmaceutical development/testing. In addition, we discuss relevant challenges that micro- and nanotechnologies face in achieving cost-effective and widespread clinical implementation as well as forecasted applications of micro- and nanotechnologies in medicine.

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‘Through advances in medical devices and synthetic biology, DARPA’s new Advanced Acclimation and Protection Tool for Environmental Readiness (ADAPTER) program aims to develop a travel adapter for the human body, an implantable or ingestible bioelectronic carrier that can provide warfighters control over their own physiology. The integrated system will be designed to entrain the sleep cycle – either to a new time zone or back to a normal sleep pattern after night missions – and eliminate bacteria that cause traveler’s diarrhea after ingestion of contaminated food and water,’ reads a DARPA statement on the new device.”

The adapter is meant to regulate sleep patterns and protect against diarrhea.

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New research from an international team of scientists has tracked a compelling series of connections between the gut microbiome and memory. Using a novel mouse model engineered to simulate the genetic diversity of a human population, the study illustrates how genetics can influence memory via bacterial metabolites produced in the gut.

Over the past few years there has been significant research interest in the relationship between memory, cognition and the gut microbiome. While certain families of bacteria that live in our gut have been implicated in memory function, this new study set out to investigate the connection from a different angle, starting with the role genetics play in this relationship.

“To know if a microbial molecule influenced memory, we needed to understand the interaction between genetics and the microbiome,” explains co-corresponding author on the study, Antoine Snijders.

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Bioengineering professor Manu Prakash runs a lab at Stanford University that uses low-cost materials to create effective scientific devices. He returned from a recent vacation with some scuba gear — as well as a cold. While he tested negative for COVID-19, he stayed cautious and self-quarantined for two weeks. During that time, he reworked his snorkel mask into a reusable face shield for healthcare providers by combining it with a medical-grade filter. Dubbed the Pneumask, Prakash and his team tested the device and sent their findings to the FDA, which cleared it as a face shield or surgical mask, but not as a respirator. According to The Washington Post, this decision was made so that the masks could go out to healthcare workers immediately, as clearing the device as a respirator would require more time.

Manu Prakash and his team at Stanford University have turned a standard scuba mask into a reusable medical face mask.

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In November of 2019—likely, even earlier—a tiny entity measuring just a few hundred billionths of a meter in diameter began to tear apart human society on a global scale. Within a few months, the relentless voyager known as SARS-CoV-2 had made its way to every populated corner of the earth, leaving scientists and health authorities with too many questions and few answers.

Today, researchers are scrambling to understand where and how the novel coronavirus arose, what features account for the puzzling constellation of symptoms it can cause and how the wildfire of transmission may be brought under control. An important part of this quest will involve efforts to properly classify this emergent human pathogen and to understand how it relates to other we may know more about.

In a consensus statement, Arvind Varsani, a molecular virologist with ASU’s Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics and a host of international collaborators propose a new classification system, capable of situating coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2 within the enormous web of viruses across the planet, known as the virosphere.

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Synthetic biology has been described as a kind of “genetic engineering on steroids”.

Synthetic biology …Simply mentioning this term — whether at a cocktail party or on a pop culture TV show — evokes a plethora of responses. These could range from puzzled looks to questions about the somewhat famous, though likely quixotic, quest to resurrect a woolly mammoth from remnants recovered in Siberia. Also, on the radar screen is synthetic biology as applied to the development of drugs and biological weapons. But flying below the radar — and, oddly, the sweet spot for investments by governments and private industry — is a less sexy focus on the industrial uses of synthetic biology. Such uses range from environmental clean-ups to new energy sources.

What do we mean by “synthetic biology”? To keep things simple, synthetic biology has been described as a kind of “genetic engineering on steroids”. Plain, old genetic engineering includes a range of strategies, the classic one being transgenics — copying a gene from one biological species and inserting it into the cell nucleus of another species. This has enabled bacteria to produce human insulin and plants to produce their own defenses against pests and herbicides such as glyphosate. Genetic engineering also include CRISPR technology, which can function as a kind of line item editing.

In contrast, synthetic biology involves the rewriting of large segments of the genomes of organisms, resulting in what effectively are new organisms. Whereas the mammoth revival is synthetic biology and while it gets good media attention, it’s more a cartoon use of synthetic biology. On the other hand, the transformations that could occur by creating new life forms — that’s really what synthetic biology is — may not be so sexy. Yet, they could change the world.

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Now, scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a way to use gene editing system CRISPR-Cas9 to edit a mutation in human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and then turn them into beta cells. When transplanted into mice, the cells reversed preexisting diabetes in a lasting way, according to results published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

While the researchers used cells from patients with Wolfram syndrome—a rare childhood diabetes caused by mutations in the WFS1 gene—they argue that the combination of a gene therapy with stem cells could potentially treat other forms of diabetes as well.

Virtual Event

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