It could be lighter, thinner, more flexible and tougher than steel.
Category: bioengineering – Page 229
Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Announces Contract with U.S. Army to Deliver Dragon Silk
ANN ARBOR, Mich., –July 12, 2016- Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc. (OTCQB: KBLB) (“Company”), the leading developer of spider silk based fibers, today announced that it has received a contract valued at up to $1.0 million, if the option phase is awarded, for the development of high performance fibers for protective apparel applications. Under the fully funded base effort, valued at $99,962, the Company will deliver ballistic shoot packs constructed from its proprietary Dragon Silk™ material for performance testing. These shoot packs will be tested and evaluated for critical Soldier protective applications including ballistic impact. If awarded, the option phase will significantly expand this work with the US Army.
“Dragon Silk scores very highly in tensile strength and elasticity, which makes it one of the toughest fibers known to man and the ideal material for many applications,” stated Jon Rice, COO. “Providing material for this ballistic shoot pack initiative is an important next step for Kraig and spider silk. This contract reinforces the many significant potential applications for recombinant spider silk. Today is a great day for spider silk.”
“We’re proud to be working with the Department of Defense to assess the exciting potential of spider silk for military applications,” stated Kim K Thompson, CEO and founder of Kraig Biocraft Laboratories. “We are honored that the U.S. Army has selected us for this program. This effort will provide Kraig Labs with the opportunity to validate our longstanding belief that spider silk technology has had an incredible potential for protective and lifesaving materials and expand our ability to design and engineer innovative materials solutions.”
Microfluidic Chips Made of Silk Replicate Human Tissues for Drug Testing, Implantable Applications
At the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) and Tufts University a team has developed a microfluidic chip that mimics human tissue for use in drug testing applications. The chip is based on a silk gel that overcomes the limitations of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a silicon material widely used to host living cells within microfluidic devices. As an example, PDMS has problems handling lipids, absorbing them instead of letting them move freely along with other nearby compounds and so not applicable with lipid-based compounds. Additionally, PDMS is not biodegradable and so a small device based on it can’t easily be used as an implantable. Silk, on the other hand, just needed a bit of engineering to make a candidate that overcomes many of PDMS’s limitations.
From Plough to Pipette
In part 2 of our plant synthetic biology series we teamed up with Cameron Tout of the Legume Laboratory blog to introduce some of the tools of plant synbio and how these are being applied to agriculture.
Over 9000 years ago the first domesticated varieties of wheat were created in South West Asia. What was remarkable about these plants is that they were selected by humans to retain their seeds rather than dispersing them by wind. This meant that wheat became dependent on farmers for propagation, but allowed people to harvest grain without the pods shattering in their hands.
Since then, humans have been modifying plants in ever more sophisticated ways, the 20th century saw the introduction of mutation breeding and hybrid technology, resulting in massive gains in crop yields.
FDA study using genetically engineered cells to treat cancer kills three people
(NaturalNews) Earlier this month, Juno Therapeutics, a pioneer in the field of treating cancer using genetically engineered cells, had to halt the development of its lead treatment after the death of three leukemia patients enrolled in the study.
The Seattle-based biotech company reported that the deaths of all three patients, who were in their 20s, were linked to swelling in the brain. The swelling occurred after the company added a second chemotherapy drug to the treatment procedure.
The news of the patient deaths is a big blow for the biotech startup that is developing a new experimental therapy known as chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (or CART) immunotherapy. The setback will likely delay the company’s aim of introducing it to the market by 2017, Juno executives said in a conference.
Engineers Design Programmable RNA Vaccines That Protext Against Ebola and H1N1 Influenza
A newly published study details how engineers developed programmable RNA vaccines that work against Ebola, H1N1 influenza, and a common parasites in mice.
MIT engineers have developed a new type of easily customizable vaccine that can be manufactured in one week, allowing it to be rapidly deployed in response to disease outbreaks. So far, they have designed vaccines against Ebola, H1N1 influenza, and Toxoplasma gondii (a relative of the parasite that causes malaria), which were 100 percent effective in tests in mice.
The vaccine consists of strands of genetic material known as messenger RNA, which can be designed to code for any viral, bacterial, or parasitic protein. These molecules are then packaged into a molecule that delivers the RNA into cells, where it is translated into proteins that provoke an immune response from the host.
A new experimental system sheds light on how memory loss may occur
Two interconnected brain areas — the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex — help us to know where we are and to remember it later. By studying these brain areas, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the National Cancer Institute have uncovered new information about how dysfunction of this circuit may contribute to memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease. Their results appear in Cell Reports.
“We created a new mouse model in which we showed that spatial memory decays when the entorhinal cortex is not functioning properly,” said co-corresponding author Dr. Joanna Jankowsky, associate professor of neuroscience at Baylor. “I think of the entorhinal area as a funnel. It takes information from other sensory cortices — the parts of the brain responsible for vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste — and funnels it into the hippocampus. The hippocampus then binds this disparate information into a cohesive memory that can be reactivated in full by recalling only one part. But the hippocampus also plays a role in spatial navigation by telling us where we are in the world. These two functions converge in the same cells, and our study set out to examine this duality.”
The new mouse model was genetically engineered to carry a particular surface receptor on the cells of the entorhinal cortex. When this receptor was activated by administering the drug ivermectin to the mice, the cells of the entorhinal cortex silenced their activity. They stopped funnelling information to the hippocampus. This system allowed the scientists to turn off the entorhinal cortex, and to determine how this affected hippocampal function.
ODNI wants help securing biometric systems
Glad they are doing something on this because my biggest concern on biometrics and systems storing other people’s DNA/ bio information is criminals hacking in and collecting bio information on people and reselling it on the Dark Web. With this type of information; criminals can do many interesting things especially if they have access to a gene editing kit, or 3D printers, etc. We have seen how easy it is to create gene editing kits and selling them on the net for $129 each. And, how 3D printers can replicate synthetic skin, contacts mimicking eye structures, etc. So, criminals can do some amazing things once they have access to anyone’s biometrics information.
A biometric system to verify travelers exiting the country could be in effect as soon as 2018.
By Kayla Nick-Kearney.