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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1376

😀 This could to more complex organisms being resurrected.

Deep in the tissues of sea anemones, corals, and jellyfish are strange yellow cells which are genetically distinct from the marine animals.

More than a century after these cells were first assigned a now forgotten genus, a new paper has resurrected the name and described six new species from around the world.

“Because our team comprises scientists from seven countries, we were able to collect all of these samples, and some during the global pandemic,” said lead author of the study, biologist Todd LaJeunesse from Penn State University.

Continue reading “After 140 Years, Biologists Have ‘Resurrected’ The Genus of These Weird Yellow Cells” | >

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U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the organization that administers America’s Spec Ops forces, says it will soon start clinical trials of an “anti-aging pill” that could halt some naturally degenerative effects of aging.

“We have completed pre-clinical safety and dosing studies in anticipation of follow-on performance testing in fiscal year 2022,” Navy Commander Tim Hawkins, a SOCOM spokesperson, told Breaking Defense.

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Most biological traits are inherited via genes, but there are exceptions to this rule. Two teams from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have been investigating the location of centromeres—specific sites on chromosomes that are essential for cell division. They found that in the small worm Caenorhabiditis elegans, the transmission of the correct location of these sites to the offspring is not mediated by genes, but by an epigenetic memory mechanism. These results have been published in the journal PLOS Biology.

Living organisms, from humans to microscopic worms, inherit physical and sometimes behavioral traits from their parents. The transmission of biological traits is usually mediated by DNA which is replicated at each cell division and contains the genes. However, some characteristics can be transmitted from one generation to the next independently of genes: these are epigenetic phenomena.

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In 2017, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers broke his right collarbone in a game against the Minnesota Vikings. Typically, it takes about 12 weeks for a collarbone to fully heal, but by mid-December fans and commentators were hoping the three-time MVP might recover early and save a losing season.

So did Xudong Wang, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert in creating thin, movement-powered medical devices. “I started wondering if we could provide a new solution to bring athletes back to the field quicker than ever,” Wang says.

Researchers know that electricity can help speed up bone healing, but “zapping” fractures has never really caught on, since it requires surgically implanting and removing electrodes powered by an external source.

A major update of that same electrostimulation concept, Wang’s latest invention didn’t come in time to help the 2017 Packers–however, it may help many others by making electrostimulation a much more convenient option to speed up bone healing.

His thin, flexible device is self-powered, implantable and bioresorbable, so once the bone is knitted back together, the device’s components dissolve within the body.

Continue reading “Self-powered implantable device stimulates fast bone healing, then disappears without a trace” | >

The researchers also showed that they could restore normal cognitive function in mice with these genetic mutations by artificially turning down hyperactivity in neurons of the AD thalamus. The approach they used, chemogenetics, is not yet approved for use in humans. However, it may be possible to target this circuit in other ways, the researchers say.

Summary: Certain genes that are mutated or missing in those with schizophrenia and autism cause similar dysfunction in neural networks within the thalamus.

Source: MIT

Many neurodevelopmental disorders share similar symptoms, such as learning disabilities or attention deficits. A new study from MIT has uncovered a common neural mechanism for a type of cognitive impairment seen in some people with autism and schizophrenia, even though the genetic variations that produce the impairments are different for each condition.

Continue reading “Common Mechanism Underlies Some Behavioral Traits Seen in Autism and Schizophrenia” | >

Nano-Magnetics For Wireless Brain-Computer Interfaces & Precision Medicine — Dr. Sakhrat Khizroev, Ph.D., University of Miami.

Dr. Sakhrat Khizroev is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the College of Engineering of the University of Miami, with a secondary appointment at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Miller School of Medicine.

Dr Khizroev’s laboratory conducts research on nano-magnetics and spintronics applications ranging from energy-efficient information processing to precision medicine. From 2011 to 2018, he was a Professor (tenured) of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Florida International University, with a joint appointment at the College of Medicine, where he co-founded and spearheaded the university-wide initiative on personalized nanomedicine.

Continue reading “Dr Sakhrat Khizroev PhD — Nano-Magnetics For Wireless Brain-Computer Interfaces & Precision Medicine” | >

Researchers aboard the ISS have announced the first successful use in space for a new technique for studying DNA repair in yeast. Astronauts aboard the space station have demonstrated a successful CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing method. An organism can suffer damaged DNA occurring during normal biological processes or as the result of environmental causes.

In both humans and animals, damaged DNA can lead to cancer. However, there are multiple natural strategies inside cells that allow damaged DNA to be repaired. NASA is working hard on studying DNA repair in space because astronauts traveling outside of the atmosphere have an increased risk of DNA damage due to ionizing radiation.

Until now, technological and safety obstacles have limited research into the issue. Now astronauts aboard the ISS have developed a new method for studying DNA repair in yeast cells that can be conducted completely in space. The process uses CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology to create precise damage in DNA strands to allow DNA repair mechanisms to be observed.

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Businesses around the world rushed Saturday to contain a ransomware attack that has paralyzed their computer networks, a situation complicated in the U.S. by offices lightly staffed at the start of the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

It’s not yet known how many organizations have been hit by demands that they pay a ransom in order to get their systems working again. But some cybersecurity researchers predict the attack targeting customers of software supplier Kaseya could be one of the broadest ransomware attacks on record.

It follows a scourge of headline-grabbing attacks over recent months that have been a source of diplomatic tension between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin over whether Russia has become a safe haven for cybercriminal gangs.

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A year after University at Buffalo scientists demonstrated that it was possible to produce millions of mature human cells in a mouse embryo, they have published a detailed description of the method so that other laboratories can do it, too.

The ability to produce millions of mature human in a living organism, called a chimera, which contains the cells of two species, is critical if the ultimate promise of to treat or cure is to be realized. But to produce those mature cells, human primed stem cells must be converted back into an earlier, less developed naive state so that the can co-develop with the inner cell mass in a blastocyst.

The protocol outlining how to do that has now been published in Nature Protocols by the UB scientists. They were invited to publish it because of the significant interest generated by the team’s initial publication describing their breakthrough last May.

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