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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1753

A gene therapy trial performed on mice may foreshadow yet another way to hack fitness. In a study done by a team at Washington University in St. Louis’ medical school, mice quickly built muscle mass and reduced obesity after receiving the therapy, even while eating a diet high in fat and not exercising. The results were published last week in a paper in Science Advances.

The gene targeted was FST, which is responsible for making a protein called follistatin. In humans and most other mammals, follistatin helps grow muscle and control metabolism by blocking a protein called myostatin, which acts to restrain muscle growth and ensure muscles don’t get too big.

The researchers injected eight-week-old mice with a virus carrying a healthy FST gene (gene therapy involves adding healthy copies of a gene to cells, usually using a virus as a deliveryman).

Over a period of 18 weeks, or about 4 months, the team observed that the muscle mass of the treated mice more than doubled, as did their strength level. They also experienced reduced damage related to osteoarthritis, less inflammation in their joints, and had healthier hearts and blood vessels than mice that didn’t receive the gene therapy —even though all the mice ate the same high-fat diet and did the same amount of exercise.

Continue reading “Forget Exercise—These Mice Got Ripped With Gene Therapy” | >

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — First is was monkeys, then dogs.

Now, researchers are turning to cows in hopes of developing a treatment for the coronavirus.

Scientists at SAb Biotherapeutics in South Dakota created an embryo via genetic engineering that contains human chromosomes. The embryo was then implanted into cattle. The cows gave birth to calves that internally function similarly to a person, specifically with regards to the human immune system.

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Various stem cell sources are being explored to treat diabetes since the proof-of-concept for cell therapy was laid down by transplanting cadaveric islets as a part of Edmonton protocol in 2000. Human embryonic stem (hES) cells derived pancreatic progenitors have got US-FDA approval to be used in clinical trials to treat type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). However, these progenitors more closely resemble their foetal counterparts and thus whether they will provide long-term regeneration of adult human pancreas remains to be demonstrated. In addition to lifestyle changes and administration of insulin sensitizers, regeneration of islets from endogenous pancreatic stem cells may benefit T2DM patients. The true identity of pancreatic stem cells, whether these exist or not, whether regeneration involves reduplication of existing islets or ductal epithelial cells transdifferentiate, remains a highly controversial area. We have recently demonstrated that a novel population of very small embryonic-like stem cells (VSELs) is involved during regeneration of adult mouse pancreas after partial-pancreatectomy. VSELs (pluripotent stem cells in adult organs) should be appreciated as an alternative for regenerative medicine as these are autologous (thus immune rejection issues do not exist) with no associated risk of teratoma formation. T2DM is a result of VSELs dysfunction with age and uncontrolled proliferation of VSELs possibly results in pancreatic cancer. Extensive brainstorming and financial support are required to exploit the potential of endogenous VSELs to regenerate the pancreas in a patient with diabetes.

Diabetes is one of the major non-communicable diseases in the world with majority of patients belonging to India, China and USA. Along with associated complications like heart disease and stroke, diabetes results in increased morbidity and mortality and it is expected that by the year 2025, India alone will have more than 70 million diabetics1,2. Diabetes is a metabolic disorder associated with progressive loss or dysfunction of β-cells of pancreas. Onset of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) occurs when the β-cell mass is reduced to less than 20 per cent due to autoimmune effect, whereas the declining β-cell mass is unable to meet the age-related increased insulin demands of the body in type 2 (T2DM) as a result of insulin resistance and in due course the β-cells are lost by apoptosis. Thus, in both T1 and T2DM, restoration of a functional β-cell mass constitutes the central goal of diabetes therapy.

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Millions of people in India and Bangladesh are in the path of a cyclone which is due to make landfall in less than 36 hours, bringing damaging winds and heavy rain to a region already struggling with the coronavirus pandemic.

Super Cyclone Amphan became the strongest storm ever recorded in the Bay of Bengal on Monday night, after intensifying with sustained wind speeds of up to 270 kilometers per hour (165 miles per hours), according to data from the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

Amphan has weakened slightly since, but the storm is still the equivalent of a Category 3 Atlantic hurricane, with winds speeds up to 185 kph (115 mph).

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Moderna has accelerated its manufacturing capacity for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate mRNA-1273 and additional future products through a 10-year agreement with Lonza announced today by the companies.

The companies agreed to establish manufacturing suites for Moderna at Lonza’s facilities in the U.S. and Switzerland for the production of mRNA-1273. Technology transfer is expected to begin in June, with the first batches of mRNA-1273 set to be manufactured at Lonza’s U.S. site in July.

Moderna and Lonza also said they intend to establish additional production suites across Lonza’s worldwide facilities, ultimately allowing for the manufacture of material equivalent to up to 1 billion doses of mRNA-1273 per year for use worldwide, based on the currently expected dose of 50 mcg.

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Then there is the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19), a multi-institutional initiative that includes The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Allen Institute for AI, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), Microsoft, and the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The goal of this initiative is to create new natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to scour scientific and medical literature to help researchers prioritize potential therapies to evaluate for further study. AI is also being used to automate screening at checkpoints by evaluating temperature via thermal cameras, as well as modulations in sweat and skin discoloration. What’s more, AI-powered robots have even been used to monitor and treat patients. In Wuhan, the original epicenter of the pandemic, an entire field hospital was transitioned into a “smart hospital” fully staffed by AI robotics.

Any time of great challenge is a time of great change. The waves of technological innovation that are occurring now will echo throughout eternity. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics are experiencing a call to mobilization that will forever alter the fabric of discovery in the fields of bioengineering, biomimicry and artificial intelligence. The promise of tomorrow will be perpetuated by the pangs of today. It is the symbiosis of all these fields that will power future innovations.

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In an effort to create first-of-kind microelectronic devices that connect with biological systems, University of Maryland (UMD) researchers are utilizing CRISPR technology in a novel way to electronically turn “on” and “off” several genes simultaneously. Their technique, published in Nature Communications, has the potential to further bridge the gap between the electronic and biological worlds, paving the way for new wearable and “smart” devices.

“Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, we now have an even deeper understanding of how ‘smart’ devices could benefit the general population,” said William E. Bentley, professor in UMD’s Fischell Department of Bioengineering and Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR), and director of the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices. “Imagine what the world would be like if we could wear a device and access an app on our smartphone capable of detecting whether the wearer has the active virus, generated immunity, or has not been infected. We don’t have this yet, but it is increasingly clear that a suite of technologies enabling rapid transfer of information between biology and electronics is needed to make this a reality.”

With such a , this information could be used, for example, to dynamically and autonomously conduct effective contact tracing, Bentley said.

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“The number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in Austria dropped from 90 to 10 cases per one million people, two weeks after the government required everyone to wear a face mask on April 6.”

Austria managed to slow down the rate of coronavirus cases in the country by 90% after requiring everyone to wear a face mask. Meanwhile, other countries are struggling to keep the number of cases and fatalities low.

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A team of researchers with members from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the Barnes Group Advisors found that controlling spatter during laser-powder bed fusion can reduce defects in metal-based 3D printing. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes studying the additive manufacturing printing methodology and what they learned about it. Andrew Polonsky and Tresa Pollock with the University of California, Santa Barbara have published a Perspective piece on the work done by the team in the same journal issue.

As additive manufacturing printing methodologies mature, are being tested to find out if they might be used in 3D printers to create new products. In recent years, this has extended to metals. One such technique is called laser-powder bed fusion (L-PBF). It involves the use of a high-powered laser to melt and fuse metallic powders layer by layer to produce a 3D part. It has been hoped that the technique could eventually be used for aerospace and biomedical applications. But thus far, such efforts have fallen short due to the large number of defects that occur with the process. In this new effort, the researchers have discovered a way to reduce such defects, perhaps paving the way for the technique to finally fulfill its promise.

To better understand why the L-PBF process leads to so many defects (such as undesired pores) the researchers conducted X-ray synchrotron experiments and built predictive multi-physics models to gain a better understanding of what occurs during printing. One of their goals was to better understand how energy is absorbed during with powder layers that are only a few particles thick.

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