Some mice receiving a therapy that includes CRISPR gene editing appear to have been cured of HIV, but safety concerns must be overcome before human trials.
Category: bioengineering – Page 146
New thermal cloaking, insect proof uniforms are on the horizon, if the U.S. can get out in front of China.
The U.S. Army’s new Futures Command is accelerating research into synthetic biotechnology to help the military develop next-generation living camouflage and other never-before-seen organisms and materials.
Dimitra Stratis-Cullum, who is overseeing the research in synthetic biology for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s Combat Capabilities Development Command, detailed the effort on Thursday at the fourth annual Defense One Tech Summit.
Circa 2014
An engineered bacterium is able to copy DNA that contains unnatural genetic letters.
Sirtuins can be activated by a lack of amino acids or of sugar, or through an increase in NAD. — David Sinclair If you have not heard of #davidsinclair then it is time you have. he is at the forefront of anti aging research and one of my heroes. While we wait for the miracle pills there are alot of thing we can do to help us age better already. #biohacking #biohacker
Can a single molecule extend lifespan?
Could be used in a portable device to genetically reprogram ones body.
Environmental conditions, such as heat, acidity, and mechanical forces, can affect the behavior of cells. Some biologists have even shown that magnetic fields can influence them. Now, for the first time, an international team reports that low-strength magnetic fields may foster the reprogramming of cellular development, aiding in the transformation of adult cells into pluripotent stem cells (ACS Nano 2014, DOI: 10.1021/nn502923s). If confirmed, the phenomenon could lead to new tools for bioengineers to control cell fates and help researchers understand the potential health effects of changing magnetic fields on astronauts.
Biologists have been building up evidence that magnetic fields affect living things, says Michael Levin, director of Tufts University’s Center for Regenerative & Developmental Biology, who was not involved in the new study. For example, plants and amphibian embryos develop abnormally when shielded from Earth’s geomagnetic field. And there’s some clinical evidence that particular electromagnetic frequencies promote bone fracture healing and wound repair (Eur. Cytokine Network 2013, DOI: 10.1684/ecn.2013.0332).
“It’s been a huge unknown how a cell senses electromagnetic fields and then translates that into a change in identity or a change in gene expression,” says Christopher J. Lengner, a cell biologist at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked with a group of bioengineers led by Jongpil Kim of Dongguk University, in Seoul, South Korea, to see if these fields could influence a process they were all interested in: reprogramming a cell’s developmental state.
Nature asked researchers and other stakeholders what hurdles remain before heritable gene editing could become acceptable as a clinical tool. Although some scientific challenges are probably surmountable, approval on a grand scale is likely to require changes to how clinical trials are run, as well as a broader consensus about the technology.
Efforts to make heritable changes to the human genome are fraught with uncertainty. Here’s what it would take to make the technique safe and acceptable.
