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Biohackers push back as the scientific establishment charts a course through the ethics of genetic interference.
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Category: bioengineering – Page 188
For those interested in life extension and bionic / cyborg type enhancements, this CMU Robotics Institute Seminar gives an overview of the background and current developments in artificial vision. José Alain Sahel MD is a world leading ophthalmologist with a lengthy bio and numerous honors and appointments.
For those interested in life extension and bionic / cyborg type enhancements, this CMU Robotics Institute Seminar gives an overview of the background and current developments in artificial vision. José Alain Sahel MD is a world leading ophthalmologist with a lengthy bio and numerous honors and appointments.In the future, if you’re going blind, these sight restoration technologies may be used to remediate your vision loss.
Three major ideas are covered. 1) Implanting arrays of tiny 3-color LEDs under a failed retina to stimulate still-okay cells, and 2) using gene therapy to express a novel photoreceptor, borrowed from algae, to restore a form of sight to failed cells. These can be done together. Lots of studies in mice, primates, and humans. Some coverage is also given to 3) directly implanting electronics in the brain to send complete images to vision centers, but this is still at an early stage.
None of this is anywhere near total restoration. The patients can make out a few words for the first time. And unlike normal vision, the range of light intensity levels remains very narrow. But obviously it’s much better than nothing and will get better over time.
As a point of humor, he tells the story of one of his blind patients who totally redesigned one of his experiments for him.
In a controversial move, a senior US scientific committee has given the green light to one of the most contentious forms of genome editing: where genetic changes made to human embryos will then be inherited by following generations.
For the first time, a panel of experts from two of the most recognised scientific institutions in the US has advised that this process – called germline editing – should be seriously considered as an option in the future, and not outright prohibited.
It’s a considerably more positive tone than the assessment of an international summit of scientists in December 2015, which declared that it would be “irresponsible to proceed” with germline editing unless safety issues and social consensus could be satisfied.
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While the recent cases of Ebola and Zika contributed to an emphasis on research, response, and policy related to EIDs, the meeting also had presentations on emerging biotechnologies. Of particular note was the Synthetic Biology panel, which focused on the current state of synthetic biology, its use in the health security defense enterprise, and the policy conundrums that need to be addressed.
Synthetic Biology – Complexity through Simplification
The first presenter, Dr. Christopher Voigt of the Synthetic Biology Center at MIT, noted that synthetic biology was the application of engineering principles to biological systems. The end goal of this bioengineering framework is to leverage ever-increasing computer capabilities to simplify both the designing and writing of genomic sequences. Further simplification would then allow for the creation of more complex systems.
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CRISPR/Cas9, a powerful gene editing technique that has already been used in a human, is thought by many as a “cut and paste” for DNA in living organisms. While in a sense that is what happens, delivering the ribonucleoprotein that does the genetic editing and the RNA that hones in on the target, into the cellular nucleus without being damaged is a challenge. That is why the efficiency of successful edits remains very low. Researchers at University of Massachusetts Amherst have now come up with nanoparticles that protect the protein and RNA as they’re brought to their work site.
The nanoparticles are engineered around their cargo and have shown a 90% success rate of getting the cargo into the nucleus, and a 30% editing efficiency, which is “remarkable” according to the researchers. So far the team has tested their technique on cultured cells, but they’re already working on trying the same in laboratory animals. As part of their research, they developed a novel way of tracking the Cas9 protein inside the cells, something that will certainly help other scientists in this area.
“By finely tuning the interactions between engineered Cas9En protein and nanoparticles, we were able to construct these delivery vectors. The vectors carrying the Cas9 protein and sgRNA come into contact with the cell membrane, fuse, and release the Cas9:sgRNA directly into the cell cytoplasm,” in a statement said Vincent Rotello, lead author of the study in ACS Nano. “Cas9 protein also has a nuclear guiding sequence that ushers the complex into the destination nucleus. The key is to tweak the Cas9 protein,” he adds. “We have delivered this Cas9 protein and sgRNA pair into the cell nucleus without getting it trapped on its way. We have watched the delivery process live in real time using sophisticated microscopy.”
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Yep; we know and we can even design them to make their own.
You could now 3D print your own tiny walking “bio-bots” powered by living muscle cells and controlled with electrical and light pulses, thanks to a new gennext robot ‘recipe’ developed by scientists.
This can result in exciting possibilities where these “systems could one day demonstrate complex behaviours including self-assembly, self-organisation, self-healing, and adaptation of composition and functionality to best suit their environment,” researchers said.
“The protocol teaches every step of building a bio-bot, from 3D printing the skeleton to tissue engineering the skeletal muscle actuator, including manufacturers and part numbers for every single thing we use in the lab,” said Ritu Raman, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the US.
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By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) — Powerful gene editing tools may one day be used on human embryos, eggs and sperm to remove genes that cause inherited diseases, according to a report by U.S. scientists and ethicists released on Tuesday.
The report from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy of Medicine said scientific advances make gene editing in human reproductive cells “a realistic possibility that deserves serious consideration.”
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‘Caged’ non-fluorescent carbon dot enters the cancer cell, loses its caging and lights up. Credit: University of Illinois.
Tiny carbon dots have, for the first time, been applied to intracellular imaging and tracking of drug delivery involving various optical and vibrational spectroscopic-based techniques such as fluorescence, Raman, and hyperspectral imaging. Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated, for the first time, that photo luminescent carbon nanoparticles can exhibit reversible switching of their optical properties in cancer cells.
“One of the major advantages of these agents are their strong intrinsic optical sensitivity without the need for any additional dye/fluorophore and with no photo-bleaching issues associated with it,” explained Dipanjan Pan, an assistant professor of bioengineering and the leader of the study. “Using some elegant nanoscale surface chemistry, we created a molecular ‘masking’ pathway to turn off the fluorescence and then selectively remove the mask leading to regaining the brightness.
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