Lifeboat Foundation

Major advancement in Gene Editing.

A team involving Kobe University researchers has succeeded in developing ‘Target-AID’, a genome editing technique that does not cleave the DNA. The technique offers, through high-level editing operation, a method to address the existing issues of genome editing. It is expected that the technique will be applied to gene therapy in the future in addition to providing a powerful tool for breeding useful organisms and conducting disease and drug-discovery research. The findings were published online in Science on August 5.

The team consists of Project Associate Professor NISHIDA Keiji and Professor KONDO Akihiko (Graduate School of Science, Technology and Innovation, Kobe University) as well as Associate Professor YACHIE Nozomu (Synthetic Biology Division, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo) and Professor HARA Kiyotaka (Department of Environmental Sciences, Graduate School of Nutritional and Environmental Sciences, University of Shizuoka).

Continue reading “Researchers succeed in developing a genome editing technique that does not cleave DNA” »

It echoes the nanite and nanobot technology seen in science fiction TV series like Star Trek and Red Dwarf, where swarms of microscopic robots can be used to repair damaged tissue.

Researchers at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, and the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya, built their nanobots using a form to DNA origami to create hollow shell-like structures.

Drugs could then be placed inside these before they were chemically locked shut with particles of iron oxide.

Continue reading “Mind-controlled nanobots could be used to treat depression or epilepsy” »

Researchers released drugs into a cockroach using only the thoughts of a man hooked up to an EEG machine.

To help stem the tide of rhino poaching, some biotech companies such as Pembient are seeking to develop and manufacture synthetic horns that are biologically identical to the real thing. The thinking behind this is that the availability of bio-identical fake horns at a substantially lower price than wild horns would cause demand to shift towards the synthetic substitutes, which would reduce people’s incentives to poach rhinos.

I have argued previously that—from the perspective of what would be most effective in curbing poaching—the synthetic horns should not be made to be perfect fakes, i.e., bio-identical. Instead, the synthetic horns should be engineered to be (i) difficult to distinguish from wild horns but (ii) undesirable or unappealing in some respect so that buyers would place little value on them. This proposal makes use of a phenomenon in economics known as adverse selection, which occurs when buyers in a market are unable to distinguish between high- and low-quality products, and their lack of information drives down demand—and, hence, prices—enough that high-quality products (which would be wild horns in the context of rhino horns) cease to be supplied by sellers.

For conservationists and others who are concerned about the fate of the rhinos, it is critical to understand why biotech companies would prefer making bio-identical synthetic horns—rather than undesirable fakes—because of the implications this has for conservation policies. Simply put, it would be more profitable to produce and sell perfect fakes rather than synthetic horns that would be considered undesirable. All else being equal, putting out undesirable fakes that buyers cannot distinguish from the real ones, by reducing demand for horns, would lead to lower prices in the horn market compared to the case with bio-identical synthetic horns. This, of course, would generate less revenue for the producers of synthetic horns.

Continue reading “Can Biotech Companies Save The Rhinos?” »

Check it out! Finally! Now get ready to mass produce synthetic diamonds for QC, medical tech, etc.

Every additive manufacturing (AM) system offers the potential for endless creativity. As designers learn to embrace the possibilities offered by digital design and AM, the number of applications for the technology increases. Everything has its limits, however, and for AM those limits are sometimes related to materials.

Continue reading “Lockheed Martin Submits Patent for 3D Printed Synthetic Diamond” »

Biology is the world’s greatest manufacturing platform, according to MIT spinout Ginkgo Bioworks.

The synthetic-biology startup is re-engineering yeast to act as tiny organic “factories” that produce chemicals for the flavor, fragrance, and food industries, with aims of making products more quickly, cheaply, and efficiently than traditional methods.

“We see biology as a transformative technology,” says Ginkgo co-founder Reshma Shetty PhD ’08, who co-invented the technology at MIT. “It is the most powerful and sophisticated manufacturing platform on the planet, able to self-assemble incredible structures at a scale that is far out of reach of the most cutting-edge human technology.”

Excellent! Super human capabilities at work via brain-controlled robotics.

Eight people who spent years paralyzed from spinal cord injuries have regained partial control of their lower limbs as well as some sensation following work with brain-controlled robotics. Five of the participants had been paralyzed for at least five years and two had been paralyzed for more than ten.

It took seven months of training before most of the subjects saw any changes. After a year, four patients’ sensation and muscle control changed significantly enough that doctors upgraded their diagnoses from complete to partial paralysis.

Continue reading “Robotic Brain Training Relieves Paralysis in Duke Study” »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6eDDIyS_EA

Longevity sticker shock is holding back progress in rejuvenation biotechnology.

Filmed at BIL 2016 in Los Angeles.

http://democracynow.org — A new article in the medical journal The Lancet has concluded much of the Northern Hemisphere will be too hot by 2085 to host the Summer Olympics. Researchers are projecting only eight cities in the hemisphere outside of Western Europe would be cool enough to host the Games. This includes just three cities in North America: Calgary, Vancouver and San Francisco. The list of cities where it could be too hot is staggering: Istanbul, Madrid, Rome, Paris, Budapest, Tokyo, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles—and the list goes on. Extreme high temperatures have already impacted the athletic world. In 2007, high heat forced the cancellation of the Chicago Marathon. At this year’s U.S. Olympic marathon trials in Los Angeles, 30 percent of the runners dropped out of the race due to the heat. For more, we speak with Kirk Smith, lead author of the article and professor of global environmental health at the University of California, Berkeley.

Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET: http://democracynow.org

Continue reading “Climate Study: By 2085 All U.S. Cities Except San Francisco Will Be Too Hot to Host Summer Olympics” »