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Nonviral CRISPR Delivery Using Gold Nanoparticles a Success

Muscle from a mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Fibrous scar tissue is in blue and healthy muscle is in pink. CONBOY LAB AND MURTHY LAB While promising, applications of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing have so far been limited by the challenges of delivery—namely, how to get all the CRISPR parts to every cell that needs them. In a study published today (October 2) in Nature Biomedical Engineering, researchers have successfully repaired a mutation in the gene for dystrophin in a mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy by injecting a vehicle they call CRISPR-Gold, which contains the Cas9 protein, guide RNA, and donor DNA, all wrapped around a tiny gold ball.

The authors have made “great progress in the gene editing area,” says Tufts University biomedical engineer Qiaobing Xu, who did not participate in the work but penned an accompanying commentary. Because their approach is nonviral, Xu explains, it will minimize the potential off-target effects that result from constant Cas9 activity, which occurs when users deliver the Cas9 template with a viral vector.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a degenerative disease of the muscles caused by a lack of the protein dystrophin. In about a third of patients, the gene for dystrophin has small deletions or single base mutations that render it nonfunctional, which makes this gene an excellent candidate for gene editing. Researchers have previously used viral delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 components to delete the mutated exon and achieve clinical improvements in mouse models of the disease.

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Scientists Just Used Gene Editing to Remove a Fatal Blood Disorder From Human Embryos

A team of researchers from Sun Yat-sen University have used gene editing to correct a potentially fatal blood condition. This world-first accomplishment represents the first step to a future where we literally edit disease out of our bodies.

Beta-thalassemia is a blood disorder that plagues individuals throughout the entirety of their lives. There is no truly viable cure. The only real hope that people have of overcoming this disease is either a stem cell or bone marrow transplant; however, these procedures are rarely performed due to the life-threatening risk that comes with them.

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Michio Kaku, Gregory Stack, And Yue Shao: Synthetic Human Embryos And Genetic Engineering [Opinion]

Michio Kaku and Gregory Scott discuss different aspects of genetic engineering in the video below. According to Kaku and Scott, parents will soon have different genetic engineering choices to make about their children. In addition, recent discoveries by Yue Shao have yielded a new classification of parentless synthetic human embryos.

With Yue Shao’s discovery, genetic engineers might be learning to grow synthetic human embryos from anonymous stem cells donated from IVF clinics. How far this genetic engineering technology goes remains to be seen.

Michio Kaku and Gregory Scott speak about the ethical concerns of genetic engineering in the Michio Kaku video below beginning at the 29-minute mark. However, Yue Shao’s statements to MIT about the accidental discovery of how to engineer synthetic human embryos out of stem cells raises more ethical concerns.

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Creating Human Beings from Skin Cells Is Possible

Stem cell research is one of my absolute favorite topics. This amazing field does not only reveal to us how our bodies function and develop, but also holds promising future applications that could help us treat severe diseases, which would not be treated otherwise. However, stem cell research can do more than just treat diseases. In this article, I will highlight the latest scientific breakthroughs to show you how we can turn a simple skin cell into a fully-grown genetically-engineered human being all thanks to the power of stem cells and genetic engineering.

Desperate times call for desperate measures

The field of stem cell research began in 1981 with the discovery of the embryonic stem cells by Martin Evans at Cardiff University, UK. In 1998, stem cells research became a hot topic in the mainstream media after scientists isolated human embryonic stem cells and grew them in the lab for the first time. Due to this breakthrough, stem cell research faced a lot of resistance from the general public. It raised questions about life, consciousness and human rights. At what point does one consider life to begin? If an embryo can develop into an individual, is it justifiable to destroy it or even use it for scientific research? This led the U.S. government to limit the federal funding of research on human embryonic stem cells because these embryos were destroyed in the process.

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Scientists discover ‘master gene’ crucial for successful pregnancy

S cientists have edited human embryos for the first time in the UK to discover a “master gene” that underpins successful pregnancies. The “game-changing” research promises improved IVF outcomes and a breakthrough in understanding why so many pregnancies fail.

The Government-funded investigation, undertaken by the Francis Crick Institute, is the first to prove that gene editing can be used to study the genetic behaviour of human embryos in their first few days of life.

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A DNA nanorobot is programmed to pick up and sort molecules into predefined regions

Imagine a robot that could help you tidy your home: roving about, sorting stray socks into the laundry and dirty dishes into the dishwasher. While such a practical helper may still be the stuff of science fiction, Caltech scientists have developed an autonomous molecular machine that can perform similar tasks—at the nanoscale. This “robot,” made of a single strand of DNA, can autonomously “walk” around a surface, pick up certain molecules and drop them off in designated locations.

The work was done in the laboratory of Lulu Qian, assistant professor of bioengineering. It appears in a paper in the September 15 issue of Science.

Why Nanobots?

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The Libertarian Futurist’s Case for Avoiding War and Military Entanglements

My new policy article for the HuffPost on why more than ever we need to avoid war and armed conflict:


Some of the early years of my adult life were in conflict zones as a journalist—which included covering the Pakistan/Indian Kashmir conflict for the National Geographic Channel and The New York Times Syndicate. War zones are terrifying. One always is worried about bullying soldiers, speeding armed military vehicles, stray bullets, and whether there’s a roadside bomb on your path. Anyone that approaches you is suspect and could be carrying ready-to-detonate explosives.

One thing conflict zones teach you is that freedom is precious. The nearly 70-year Kashmir conflict has approximately a half million soldiers involved, so even if they’re supposedly on your side (depending on what country you’re in), you still feel under siege. My time in certain parts of Sudan, Israel, Palestine, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Eritrea, Mali, and Yemen left me with the same feeling.

We face an unusual time with President Trump, whose bold behavior could prove dangerous to stable foreign policy. This situation has now become even more worrisome this month when Russia’s Vladimir Putin, according to RT, said publicly that whoever “leads in artificial intelligence will rule the world.” Some experts believe we will have an AI equivalent to human intelligence in less than 10 years time—which means in 15–20 years time, AI will far outdo human thinking and could be in control of all nuclear weaponry on the planet.

For this reason, nothing is more critical for nations and peoples to strive for peaceful times and to get along with one another. In any kind of modern conflict or 21st Century arms race—AI, genetic engineering, or nuclear arms—we likely will lose some of our freedoms and sense of security.

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Is Human Genetic Modification Possible?

Short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, CRISPR is a revolutionary gene editing technique that’s taken the scientific world by storm. Both ultra-precise and easy to access, CRISPR could be the next step towards wiping out genetically inherited diseases and even curing cancers. A host of exciting CRISPR concepts are currently undergoing clinical trials and proof-of-concept experiments, with one particularly controversial focus — human embryos.

A “cut and paste” concept

While there have been rumours coming out of China for years, US scientists have now confirmed that the first attempts to create genetically modified human embryos have been a success. Led by researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, the study used CRISPR to change the DNA of multiple one-cell human embryos. Basically, this allowed them to “snip” out segments of a particular genome and switch them with customised replacements. As in previous cases, the embryos were terminated several days after creation to prevent them from developing into foetuses.

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