Lifeboat Foundation

The first attempt in the United States to use a gene editing tool called CRISPR against cancer seems safe in the three patients who have had it so far, but it’s too soon to know if it will improve survival, doctors reported Wednesday.

The doctors were able to take immune system cells from the patients’ blood and alter them genetically to help them recognize and fight cancer, with minimal and manageable side effects. The treatment deletes three genes that might have been hindering these cells’ ability to attack the disease, and adds a new, fourth feature to help them do the job.

“It’s the most complicated genetic, cellular engineering that’s been attempted so far,” said the study leader, Dr. Edward Stadtmauer of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “This is proof that we can safely do gene editing of these cells.”

Compound that robs tumors of essential amino acid headed for clinical trials.

If we want to reach Mars, we may have to upgrade our DNA.

Scientists Announce Promising New Dengue Vaccine : Goats and Soda Dengue afflicts nearly 400 million people worldwide every year, but a vaccine has remained elusive. New research offers a path forward.

The future of microrobots!

Circa 2009

March 19, 2009 Researchers at the University of Miami and at the Universities of Tokyo and Tohoku, Japan, have been able to prove the existence of a “spin battery,” that could have significant applications including much faster, less expensive and use less energy consuming computer hard drives with no moving parts, and could even be developed to power cars.

A “spin battery” is “charged” by applying a large magnetic field to nano-magnets in a device called a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). Like a toy car, the spin battery is “wound up” by applying a large magnetic field — no chemistry involved.

Continue reading “Theoretical spin battery could see magnet powered cars” »

The strain is a part of the Group M version of HIV-1, the same family of virus subtypes to blame for the global HIV pandemic, according to Abbott Laboratories, which conducted the research along with the University of Missouri, Kansas City. The findings were published Wednesday in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, a division of Seattle’s Allen Institute, is making a total of $7.5 million in awards to its latest class of five biomedical researchers.

The themes for this year’s Allen Distinguished Investigators focus on stem cell therapies and single-cell interactions in their native environments.

“The field of stem cell biology has the potential to change how we treat diseases by helping precision medicine, and there’s so much we still don’t understand about the interplay between cells in living tissues or organs,” Kathy Richmond, director of the Frontiers Group, said today in a news release.

A species of worm that can infect human eyes has done it again, and this time it chose a 68-year-old woman from Nebraska. The woman is thought to be only the second human victim of these worms ever documented. But the incident signals they could become an emerging parasitic disease in the U.S.

The disturbing details of the case were laid out in a paper published this October in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. The woman’s doctors, as well as researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, contributed to the paper.