Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2503

Scientists in Portland, Ore., just succeeded in creating the first genetically modified human embryo in the United States, according to Technology Review. A team led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health & Science University is reported to “have broken new ground both in the number of embryos experimented upon and by demonstrating that it is possible to safely and efficiently correct defective genes that cause inherited diseases.”

The U.S. team’s results follow two trials—one last year and one in April—by researchers in China who injected genetically modified cells into cancer patients. The research teams used CRISPR, a new gene-editing system derived from bacteria that enables scientists to edit the DNA of living organisms.

The era of human gene editing has begun.

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Many of you will likely already know who Professor George Church is and that he is an important and senior member of the research community engaged in treating the aging processes to prevent or reverse age-related diseases, not to mention all kinds of other applications for genetic engineering. For those who are not familiar with him a short bio follows.

George Church is a professor at Harvard & MIT, the co-author of over 425 papers, 95 patent publications and the book Regenesis. He developed the methods used for the first genome sequence back in 1994 and he was instrumental in reducing the costs since then using next generation sequencing and nanopores plus barcoding, DNA assembly from chips, genome editing, writing and re-coding.

He co-initiated the Genome projects in 1984 and 2005 to create and interpret the world’s only open-access personal precision medicine datasets. He was also involved in launching the BRAIN Initiative in 2011.

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When James Vlahos’ father was dying from terminal cancer, he decided to preserve as many memories as possible and code them into a chatbot (Dadbot) that could run on his cell phone.

In A Son’s Race to Give His Dying Father Artificial Immortality, James Vlahos recounts his efforts to turn the story of his father’s life — as told by his 80-year-old Dad in his final months after being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer — into what Vlahos calls a Dadbot.

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After IBM’s Watson won on Jeopardy, the question was bound to come up: Will artificial intelligence replace doctors? Dr. Robert M. Wachter, MD, Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine and Chair, Department of Medicine, at University of California, San Francisco, and author of New York Times bestseller The Digital Doctor, is answering this question at The Doctors Company’s 2016 Executive Advisory Board.

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Researchers in Cambridge have created a new approach for creating and transplanting artificial bile ducts with the aim of treating liver disease in children and reducing the need for transplants.

The research, published in the journal Nature Medicine, shows how the researchers grew 3D cell structures and transplanted them into mice[1]. These structures then developed into functional bile ducts.

The bile ducts are long, tubular structures that carry bile secreted by the liver which is critical for helping us to digest our food. When these ducts do not function properly, such as in childhood diseases like biliary atresia, it can lead to a damaging buildup of bile in the liver.

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Link to Prof. George Church’s website.

Prof. Chuch’s Bio

George Church is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of Personal Genome Project, the world’s only open-access information on human Genomic, Environmental & Trait data (GET). Prof. Chruch recieved his PhD in 1984 at Harvard University, his PhD thesis included the first methods for direct genome sequencing, molecular multiplexing & barcoding.

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