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Category: bioengineering – Page 4

Engineered gut bacteria improve survival outcomes in colorectal cancer tumors

In a new study that combines synthetic biology with cancer immunotherapy, researchers from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine) and Central South University in China have developed an engineered strain of gut-homing bacteria that stimulates potent antitumor immune responses against colorectal cancer (CRC).

Antitumor immune responses refer to the actions taken by the body’s immune system to recognize, attack, and destroy . It operates like the body’s internal surveillance system, spotting rogue cells (like ) and activating its defense forces to eliminate them.

Harnessing the immune system to fight cancer offers a powerful and precise approach to disease control. Unlike traditional treatments such as chemotherapy or radiation, which can harm healthy cells, immune responses can selectively target and destroy cancer cells with high specificity.

The latest on nucleotide therapy development

Oligonucleotide therapies — engineered strands of DNA or RNA — are transforming modern medicine. These cutting-edge treatments bring a new level of precision in combating disease by targeting specific genes to be silenced, activated or edited. “Nucleotide therapeutics allow us to design predictable outcomes by modifying sequences to address almost any condition,” says Peter Guterstam, product manager at biotechnology company Cytiva.

Due to an influx of research in recent years, many nucleotide-based drug candidates, including genetic therapies and vaccines for cancer and viral infections, are now in advanced clinical trial stages. “The development timeline is much quicker than we are used to,” notes Guterstam.

Significant challenges arise during development of RNA and DNA based therapies. From mRNA vaccines to gene editing, scientists are refining delivery methods, optimizing synthesis, and tackling scaling hurdles.

Next-generation T cell immunotherapies engineered with CRISPR base and prime editing: challenges and opportunities

T cells can be reprogrammed with transgenic antigen recognition receptors, including chimeric antigen receptors and T cell receptors, to selectively recognize and kill cancer cells. Such adoptive T cell therapies are effective in patients with certain haematological cancers but challenges persist, including primary and secondary resistance, a lack of efficacy in patients with solid tumours, a narrow range of targetable antigens, and time-consuming and complex manufacturing processes. CRISPR-based genome editing is a potent strategy to enhance cellular immunotherapies. Conventional CRISPR–Cas9 systems are useful for gene editing, transgene knock-in or gene knockout but can result in undesired editing outcomes, including translocations and chromosomal truncations. Base editing and prime editing technologies constitute a new generation of CRISPR platforms and enable highly precise and programmable installation of defined nucleotide variants in primary T cells. Owing to their high precision and versatility, base editing and prime editing systems, hereafter collectively referred to as CRISPR 2.0, are advancing to become the new standard for precision-engineering of cellular immunotherapies. CRISPR 2.0 can be used to augment immune cell function, broaden the spectrum of targetable antigens and facilitate streamlined production of T cell therapies. Notably, CRISPR 2.0 is reaching clinical maturity, with multiple clinical trials of CRISPR 2.0-modified cellular therapies currently ongoing. In this Review, we discuss emerging CRISPR 2.0 technologies and their progress towards clinical translation, highlighting challenges and opportunities, and describe strategies for the use of CRISPR 2.0 to advance cellular immunotherapy for haematological malignancies and solid tumours in the future.

#CRISPR9

Several persistent challenges limit the efficacy and applicability of adoptive T cell therapies for cancer, including suboptimal function and/or persistence in vivo, a narrow range of targetable antigens and complex manufacturing processes. This Review discusses the potential of ‘CRISPR 2.0’ precision gene-editing platforms, such as base editing and prime editing to address all of these challenges, and describes the progress made towards clinical translation of these technologies.

Researchers trace genetic code’s origins to early protein structures

Genes are the building blocks of life, and the genetic code provides the instructions for the complex processes that make organisms function. But how and why did it come to be the way it is?

A recent study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign sheds new light on the origin and evolution of the , providing valuable insights for genetic engineering and bioinformatics. The study is published in the Journal of Molecular Biology.

“We find the origin of the genetic code mysteriously linked to the dipeptide composition of a proteome, the collective of proteins in an organism,” said corresponding author Gustavo Caetano-Anollés, professor in the Department of Crop Sciences, the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, and Biomedical and Translation Sciences of Carle Illinois College of Medicine at U. of I.

AI-powered CRISPR could lead to faster gene therapies

Stanford Medicine researchers have developed an artificial intelligence tool to help scientists better plan gene-editing experiments. The technology, CRISPR-GPT, acts as a gene-editing “copilot” supported by AI to help researchers—even those unfamiliar with gene editing—generate designs, analyze data and troubleshoot design flaws.

The model builds on a tool called CRISPR, a powerful gene-editing technology used to edit genomes and develop therapies for . But training on the tool to design an experiment is complicated and time-consuming—even for seasoned scientists. CRISPR-GPT speeds that process along, automating much of the experimental design and refinement. The goal, said Le Cong, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and genetics, who led the technology’s development, is to help scientists produce lifesaving drugs faster.

The paper is published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Engineers develop technology that stimulates heart cells with light

In a new study, University of California, Irvine chemical and biomolecular engineering researchers report the creation of biomolecules that can help grow light-sensitive heart muscle cells in the laboratory. The development enables a biotechnology that could deliver light-triggered signals to the heart, improving its function, without requiring genetic modifications or invasive procedures.

“We show for the first time that light can be converted into cardiac stimulatory cues, with made of biomolecules,” said Herdeline Ann Ardoña, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering. “This can be beneficial for downstream medical applications, such as in cardiac pacemaking technologies, or helping direct therapeutic patient-derived stem to better mimic adult heart cell features.”

The findings are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper’s co-first authors are recent Ph.D. graduate Sujeung Lim, and Ze-Fan Yao, previous postdoctoral scholar in the Ardoña Research Group.

Ultra-flat optic pushes beyond what was previously thought possible

Cameras are everywhere. For over two centuries, these devices have grown increasingly popular and proven to be so useful, they have become an indispensable part of modern life.

Today, they are included in a vast range of applications—everything from smartphones and laptops to security and to cars, aircraft, and satellites imaging Earth from high above. And as an overarching trend toward miniaturizing mechanical, optical, and electronic products continues, scientists and engineers are looking for ways to create smaller, lighter, and more energy-efficient cameras for these technologies.

Ultra-flat optics have been proposed as a solution for this engineering challenge, as they are an alternative to the relatively bulky lenses found in cameras today. Instead of using a curved lens made out of glass or plastic, many ultra-flat optics, such as metalenses, use a thin, flat plane of microscopic nanostructures to manipulate light, which makes them hundreds or even thousands of times smaller and lighter than conventional camera lenses.

Rice research team on quest to engineer computing systems from living cells

Rice University biosciences professor Matthew Bennett has received a $1.99 million grant from the National Science Foundation to lead research on engineered bacterial consortia that could form the basis of biological computing systems. The four-year project will also involve co-principal investigators Kirstin Matthews, Caroline Ajo-Franklin and Anastasios Kyrillidis from Rice along with Krešimir Josić from the University of Houston. The research team aims to develop platforms that integrate microbial sensing and communication with electronic networks, paving the way for computing systems constructed from living cells instead of traditional silicon-based hardware.

The project highlights the growing potential of synthetic biology, where microbes are examined not just as living organisms but as processors of information. If successful, Bennett’s research could accelerate medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring and the development of next-generation computing applications.

“Microbes are remarkable information processors, and we want to understand how to connect them into networks that behave intelligently,” Bennett said. “By integrating biology with electronics, we hope to create a new class of computing platforms that can adapt, learn and respond to their environments.”

Scientists Turned Our Cells Into Quantum Computers—Sort Of

For the protein qubit to “encode” more information about what is going on inside a cell, the fluorescent protein needs to be genetically engineered to match the protein scientists want to observe in a given cell. The glowing protein is then attached to the target protein and zapped with a laser so it reaches a state of superposition, turning it into a nano-probe that picks up what is happening in the cell. From there, scientists can infer how a certain biological process happens, what the beginnings of a genetic disease look like, or how cells respond to certain treatments.

And eventually, this kind of sensing could be used in non-biological applications as well.

“Directed evolution on our EYFP qubit could be used to optimize its optical and spin properties and even reveal unexpected insights into qubit physics,” the researchers said. “Protein-based qubits are positioned to take advantage of techniques from both quantum information sciences and bioengineering, with potentially transformative possibilities in both fields.”

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