Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 2852

Nature News reports of a growing concern over different standards for DNA screening and biosecurity:

“A standards war is brewing in the gene-synthesis industry. At stake is the way that the industry screens orders for hazardous toxins and genes, such as pieces of deadly viruses and bacteria. Two competing groups of companies are now proposing different sets of screening standards, and the results could be crucial for global biosecurity.

“If you have a company that persists with a lower standard, you can drag the industry down to a lower level,” says lawyer Stephen Maurer of the University of California, Berkeley, who is studying how the industry is developing responsible practices. “Now we have a standards war that is a race to the bottom.”

For more than a year a European consortium of companies called the International Association of Synthetic Biology (IASB) based in Heidelberg, Germany, has been drawing up a code of conduct that includes gene-screening standards. Then, at a meeting in San Francisco last month, two of the leading companies — DNA2.0 of Menlo Park, California, and Geneart of Regensburg, Germany — announced that they had formulated a code of conduct that differs in one key respect from the IASB recommendations.”

Read the entire article on Nature News.

Also read “Craig Venter’s Team Reports Key Advance in Synthetic Biology” from JCVI.

Abstract:

President Obama disbanded the President’s Council on Bioethics after it questioned his policy on embryonic stem cell research. White House press officer Reid Cherlin said that this was because the Council favored discussion over developing a shared consensus. This column lists a number of problems with Obama’s decision, and with his position on the most controversial bioethical issue of our time.

Bioethics and the End of Discussion

In early June, President Obama disbanded the President’s Council on Bioethics. According to White House press officer Reid Cherlin, this was because the Council was designed by the Bush administration to be “a philosophically leaning advisory group” that favored discussion over developing a shared consensus. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/us/politics/18ethics.html?_r=2

Shared consensus? Like the shared consensus about the Mexico City policy, government funding of Embryonic Stem Cell Research for new lines, or taxpayer funded abortions? All this despite the fact that 51% of Americans consider themselves pro-life? By allowing publicly-funded Embryonic Stem Cell Research only on existing lines, President Bush made a decision that nobody was happy with, but at least it was an honest compromise, and given the principle of second effect, an ethically acceptable one.

President Obama will appoint a new bioethics commission, one with a new mandate and that “offers practical policy options,” Mr. Cherlin said.

Practical policy options? Like the ones likely to be given by Obama’s new authoritative committee to expediently promote the license to kill the most innocent and vulnerable? But that is only the start. As the baby boomers bankrupt Social Security, there will be a strong temptation to expand Obama’s mandate to include the aging “useless mouths”. Oregon and the Netherlands have already shown the way—after all, a suicide pill is much cheaper than palliative care, and it’s much more cost-effective to kill patients rather than care for them. (http://www.euthanasia.com/argumentsagainsteuthanasia.html)

Evan Rosa details many problems with Obama’s decision to disband the Council (http://www.cbc-network.org/research_display.php?id=388), but there are additional disturbing implications:

First, democracies are absolutely dependent on discussion. Dictators have always suppressed free discussion on “sensitive” subjects because it is the nature of evil to fear criticism. This has been true here in the United States, too—in the years leading up to the Civil War, Southern senators and representatives tried to squelch all discussion on slavery. Maybe their consciences bothered them.

Second, no matter how well-meaning the participants may be, consensus between metaphysically opposed parties is impossible in some matters (such as the humanity of a baby a few months before he or she is born, the existence of God, consequentialist vs. deontological reasoning, etc.). The only way to get “consensus” in such situations is by exercising the monopoly of force owned by the government.

Third, stopping government-sponsored discussion on bioethics sets a dangerous precedent for the ethics surrounding nanotechnology. There are numerous ethical issues that nanotechnology is raising, and will continue to raise, that desperately require significant amounts of detailed discussion and deep thinking.

Tyrants begin by marginalizing anyone who disagrees with them, calling them hate-mongering obstructionists (or worse). In addition, they will use governmental power to subdue any who dare oppose their policies.

The details of the dismissal of the Council clearly shows this tendency, though the Council members are not acting very subdued. As one of them supposedly put it, “Instead of meeting at seminars, now we’ll be meeting on Facebook.”

On March 9, Obama removed restrictions on federal funding for research on embryonic stem cell lines derived by means that destroy human embryos.

On March 25, ten out of the eighteen members of the Council questioned Obama’s policy (http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=3298).

In the second week of June, Obama fired them all.

Could it be that Obama doesn’t want discussion? We can see what happens if someone gives him advice that he doesn’t want.

Oprah Winfrey’s favorite physician Dr. Mehmet Oz, told her and Michael Fox that “the stem cell debate is dead” because “the problem with embryonic stem cells is that [they are]… very hard to control, and they can become cancerous” (http://www.oprah.com/media/20090319-tows-dr-oz-brain). Besides, induced pluripotent cells can become embryonic, thereby negating the very difficult necessity of cloning.

So “harvesting” embryonic stem cells is not only ethically problematic (i.e. wrong), but it is also scientifically untenable. Obama supports it anyway.

Maybe he could fire Oprah.

Tihamer Toth-Fejel, MS
General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems
Michigan Research and Development Center

Unique opportunity to sponsor research investigating an infectious cause and potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease



Alzheimer’s disease afflicts some 20 million people world-wide, over 5 million people of whom reside in the United States. It is currently the seventh-leading cause of death in the US. The number of people with the disease is predicted to increase by over 50% by 2030. The economic as well as emotional costs are huge, the costs being estimated as more than $148 billion each year (direct and indirect, for of all types of dementia, to Medicare, Medicaid and businesses).

The causes of Alzheimer’s disease are unknown, apart from the very small proportion with familial disease. We are investigating the involvement of infectious agents in the disease, with particular emphasis on the virus that causes oral herpes/cold sores/fever blisters. We discovered that most elderly humans harbour this virus in their brains and that in those (and only those) who possess a certain genetic factor, the virus confers a strong risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Also, we found that the virus is directly involved with the characteristic abnormalities seen in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients.

There are several treatment possibilities available to combat this virus and all would be suitable candidates as therapies in Alzheimer’s disease. However, much more research is needed before trials of these agents for Alzheimer’s disease in humans can begin.

In these financially difficult times many funding bodies have to prioritise projects based around long established hypotheses. Projects involving new avenues of investigation can receive very positive comments by scientific reviewers, yet are rarely funded, as they almost always appear risky compared with projects largely confirming or expanding existing ideas. Such conservative projects are almost guaranteed to produce useful data, though with modest impact. This situation can mean that research proposals with the potential to transform our understanding of a disease and offer new approaches to its treatment never reach the threshold for funding and are not implemented, even though the potential and quality of the science is acknowledged by reviewers and funding panel.

It appears that our work examining a viral cause for Alzheimer’s disease is in this category. Despite our publishing a large number of potentially very exciting papers on this topic, and despite our research projects being reviewed favourably by scientific referees, few funding panels are prepared to commit resources to fund our work, as by doing so they deny funding to other more straightforward, very low risk projects.

We are therefore actively seeking sponsorship for several projects of varying costs to investigate the interaction of virus and specific genetic factor, the pathways of viral damage in the brain, and the effects of antiviral agents. All the projects would provide significant evidence strengthening the case for trialling antiviral agents in Alzheimer’s disease.

Antiviral agents would inhibit a likely major cause of the disease in contrast to current treatments, which merely inhibit the symptoms.

If any Lifeboat member knows of a company or individual that would be interested in sponsoring some of our research on Alzheimer’s disease then please contact me for further details.

Ruth Itzhaki

Contact details:

[email protected]

Faculty of Life Sciences, Moffat Building, The University of Manchester, Manchester M60 1QD, UK


Further reading:

The Times, London

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article5295794.ece

Journal of Pathology
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121411445/abstract

The Lancet
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140&#4…5/abstract


I would gladly email any further information.

The air is buzzing. People are talking about health more than ever before, and it’s good news for patients. Technology is making it possible for patients to take an active role in “participatory medicine”, partnering with their doctors to decide on the best course of action for their health.

Over the next few months, these 6 events will bring together patients, researchers, doctors, and health enthusiasts. Discussions, partnerships, and innovations will emerge. Keep your eye on these, and attend if you can!

1. TEDMED — October 27–30, http://www.tedmed.com
The medical version of the legendary TED conferences. From the TEDMED site: “The fifth in a series created by Marc Hodosh and Richard Saul Wurman, TEDMED celebrates conversations that demonstrate the intersection and connections between all things medical and healthcare related: from personal health to public health, devices to design and Hollywood to the hospital.” This year’s speakers include Dean Kamen, Craig Venter, Sanjay Gupta and Goldie Hawn..

2. Transform — September 13–15, http://centerforinnovation.mayo.edu/transform
A collaborative symposium at The Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation. From the Transform site: “Transform brings together a dynamic group of speakers and participants from inside and outside the health care industry to explore the intersections between human experience, health care delivery and new business models. Join us to imagine and create innovative ways to deliver a better health care experience in a 21st century world.”

3. Health 2.0 — October 6–7, http://www.health2con.com
Next-generation health companies and patient advocates converge. From the Health 2.0 site: “With more than a hundred speakers and hundreds of new healthcare demos and technologies on display on stage and in the exhibit hall, you’ll get a sweeping overview of the ways that information technology and the web are changing healthcare in areas from online search to health focused online communities and social networks.”

4. Web Strategies for Health Communication — July 19–24, http://webstrategiesforhealth.com
A new course by Dr. Lisa Gualtieri at Tufts University School of Medicine. From the Web Strategies site: “The Summer Institute on Web Strategies for Health Communication covers how to develop and implement a Web strategy to drive a health organization’s online presence, specifically the processes for selecting, using, managing, and evaluating the effectiveness of Web technologies for health communication.”

5. Singularity University — July-August, http://singularityu.org
Graduate studies program started by Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. From the Singularity University site: “Singularity University aims to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges.” Biotechnology and Medicine are two of the tracks they offer..

6. Regenstrief Conference — Sept 23–35, http://www.regenstrief.org/conferences/2009
An invitation-only unconference, but one to watch. From the Regenstrief site: “The theme for this year’s conference is Open Health Methodologies. Participants include: Clay Shirky (open source), Dr. Roni Zeiger (Google Health), and Mark Surman (Mozilla).”

If you aren’t able to attend, let us know what you think are the most important issues in health today and we’ll make sure to represent your ideas. Good things will come from all the buzz — the future of health care and health research is bright.

U.S. News and World Report — May 12, 2009, by KEVIN McGILL

BATON ROUGE, La.—Combining human and animal cells to create what are sometimes called “human-animal hybrids” would be a crime in Louisiana, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, under legislation approved Tuesday by a state Senate panel.

Scientific researchers in some areas have tried to create human embryonic stem cells, which scientists say could be used to develop treatment for a variety of human ailments, by placing human DNA into animal cells. But such practices are controversial for a number of reasons.

Sen. Danny Martiny’s bill, approved without objection by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was designed to outlaw such practices. It defines and criminalizes various ways of making human-animal hybrids, including combining human sperm and an animal egg, combining animal sperm with a human egg, and the use of human brain tissue or neural tissue to develop a human brain in an animal.

The bill by Martiny, R-Kenner, goes next to the full Senate.

Attorney Dorinda Bordlee, an anti-abortion activist and an opponent of human embryonic stem cell research, said the bill would not stop common medical practices such as the use of pig valves in human heart surgery; nor would it prohibit research in which human brain cells are grown in mouse brains. The growth of a few thousand cells in a mouse brain would not violate the bill’s prohibition of a “non-human life form engineered such that it contains a human brain or a brain derived wholly or predominantly from human neural tissues,” Bordlee said.

The idea of using animal-human “hybrid” embryos drew fire last year in Britain as authorities pondered whether to let scientists try it. Opponents objected to mixing human and animal material and worried that such research could lead to genetically modified babies.

Another element of the argument: Regardless of whether animal cells are used, the creation of embryonic stem cells for research is opposed by some because it destroys the embryo, considered by some to be a human life.

A report earlier this year by researchers with Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., cast doubt on the effectiveness of using human DNA in animal eggs to make hybrid cloned embryos. The animal eggs don’t reprogram human DNA in the right way to generate stem cells, researchers reported.

(Crossposted on the blog of Starship Reckless)

Eleven years ago, Random House published my book To Seek Out New Life: The Biology of Star Trek. With the occasion of the premiere of the Star Trek reboot film and with my mind still bruised from the turgid awfulness of Battlestar Galactica, I decided to post the epilogue of my book, very lightly updated — as an antidote to blasé pseudo-sophistication and a reminder that Prometheus is humanity’s best embodiment. My major hope for the new film is that Uhura does more than answer phones and/or smooch Kirk.

Coda: The Infinite Frontier

star-trekA younger science than physics, biology is more linear and less exotic than its older sibling. Whereas physics is (mostly) elegant and symmetric, biology is lunging and ungainly, bound to the material and macroscopic. Its predictions are more specific, its theories less sweeping. And yet, in the end, the exploration of life is the frontier that matters the most. Life gives meaning to all elegant theories and contraptions, life is where the worlds of cosmology and ethics intersect.

Our exploration of Star Trek biology has taken us through wide and distant fields — from the underpinnings of life to the purposeful chaos of our brains; from the precise minuets of our genes to the tangled webs of our societies.

How much of the Star Trek biology is feasible? I have to say that human immortality, psionic powers, the transporter and the universal translator are unlikely, if not impossible. On the other hand, I do envision human genetic engineering and cloning, organ and limb regeneration, intelligent robots and immersive virtual reality — quite possibly in the near future.

Furthermore, the limitations I’ve discussed in this book only apply to earth biology. Even within the confines of our own planet, isolated ecosystems have yielded extraordinary lifeforms — the marsupials of Australia; the flower-like tubeworms near the hot vents of the ocean depths; the bacteriophage particles which are uncannily similar to the planetary landers. It is certain that when we finally go into space, whatever we meet will exceed our wildest imaginings.

Going beyond strictly scientific matters, I think that the accuracy of scientific details in Star Trek is almost irrelevant. Of course, it puzzles me that a show which pays millions to principal actors and for special effects cannot hire a few grad students to vet their scripts for glaring factual errors (I bet they could even get them for free, they’d be that thrilled to participate). Nevertheless, much more vital is Star Trek’s stance toward science and the correctness of the scientific principles that it showcases. On the latter two counts, the series has been spectacularly successful and damaging at the same time.

The most crucial positive elements of Star Trek are its overall favorable attitude towards science and its strong endorsement of the idea of exploration. Equally important (despite frequent lapses) is the fact that the Enterprise is meant to be a large equivalent to Cousteau’s Calypso, not a space Stealth Bomber. However, some negative elements are so strong that they almost short-circuit the bright promise of the show.

I cannot be too harsh on Star Trek, because it’s science fiction — and TV science fiction, at that. Yet by choosing to highlight science, Star Trek has also taken on the responsibility of portraying scientific concepts and approaches accurately. Each time Star Trek mangles an important scientific concept (such as evolution or black hole event horizons), it misleads a disproportionately large number of people.

The other trouble with Star Trek is its reluctance to showcase truly imaginative or controversial ideas and viewpoints. Of course, the accepted wisdom of media executives who increasingly rely on repeating well-worn concepts is that controversial positions sink ratings. So Star Trek often ignores the agonies and ecstasies of real science and the excitement of true or projected scientific discoveries, replacing them with pseudo-scientific gobbledygook more appropriate for series like The X-Files, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. Exciting ideas (silicon lifeforms beyond robots, parallel universes) briefly appear on Star Trek, only to sink without a trace. This almost pathological timidity of Star Trek, which enjoys the good fortune of a dedicated following and so could easily afford to cut loose, does not bode well for its descendants or its genre.

trekmovie2w

On the other hand, technobabble and all, Star Trek fulfills a very imporant role. It shows and endorses the value of science and technology — the only popular TV series to do so, at a time when science has lost both appeal and prestige. With the increasing depth of each scientific field, and the burgeoning of specialized jargon, it is distressingly easy for us scientists to isolate ourselves within our small niches and forget to share the wonders of our discoveries with our fellow passengers on the starship Earth. Despite its errors, Star Trek’s greatest contribution is that it has made us dream of possibilities, and that it has made that dream accessible to people both inside and outside science.

Scientific understanding does not strip away the mystery and grandeur of the universe; the intricate patterns only become lovelier as more and more of them appear and come into focus. The sense of excitement and fulfillment that accompanies even the smallest scientific discovery is so great that it can only be communicated in embarrassingly emotional terms, even by Mr. Spock and Commander Data. In the end these glimpses of the whole, not fame or riches, are the real reason why the scientists never go into the suspended animation cocoons, but stay at the starship chart tables and observation posts, watching the great galaxy wheels slowly turn, the stars ignite and darken.

Star Trek’s greatest legacy is the communication of the urge to explore, to comprehend, with its accompanying excitement and wonder. Whatever else we find out there, beyond the shelter of our atmosphere, we may discover that thirst for knowledge may be the one characteristic common to any intelligent life we encounter in our travels. It is with the hope of such an encounter that people throng around the transmissions from Voyager, Sojourner, CoRoT, Kepler. And even now, contained in the sphere of expanding radio and television transmissions speeding away from Earth, Star Trek may be acting as our ambassador.

May 2: Many U.S. emergency rooms and hospitals crammed with people… ”Walking well” flood hospitals… Clinics double their traffic in major cities … ER rooms turn away EMT cases. — CNN

Update May 4: Confirmed cases of H1N1 virus now at 985 in 20 countries (Mexico: 590, 25 deaths) — WHO. In U.S.: 245 confirmed U.S. cases in 35 states. — CDC.

“We might be entering an Age of Pandemics… a broad array of dangerous emerging 21st-century diseases, man-made or natural, brand-new or old, newly resistant to our current vaccines and antiviral drugs…. Martin Rees bet $1,000 that bioterror or bioerror would unleash a catastrophic event claiming one million lives in the next two decades…. Why? Less forest, more contact with animals… more meat eating (Africans last year consumed nearly 700 million wild animals… numbers of chickens raised for food in China have increased 1,000-fold over the past few decades)… farmers cut down jungle, creating deforested areas that once served as barriers to the zoonotic viruses…” — Larry Brilliant, Wall Street Journal


About

DIYbio is an organization that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists, and DIY biological engineers who value openness and safety. This will require mechanisms for amateurs to increase their knowledge and skills, access to a community of experts, the development of a code of ethics, responsible oversight, and leadership on issues that are unique to doing biology outside of traditional professional settings.

What is DIYbio in 4 minutes?

Get Involved

You can read about current events and developments in the DIYbio community by reading or subscribing to the blog.

Get in contact or get involved through discussions on our mailing list, or by attending or hosting a local DIYbio meetup.

The mailing list is the best way to find out what’s happening with DIYbio right now. There is also a low-traffic announce list.

Find out about our featured projects, including our plans for public wetlabs, global FlashLab experiments, and our innovation of next-gen lab equipment on the Projects page.

If you ever swore to yourself (or to another) that you’d never get a tattoo, you may just want to reconsider. You may within just a couple of years have a very good reason to get one made out of “nanoink”.

As recently reported on Discovery News, “nanoink” allows for monitoring blood glucose in real-time right under the skin. It does so by using a hydrophobic nanoparticle that changes colors as glucose levels rise and fall. The ink consists of a glucose-detecting molecule, a color changing dye and a molecule that mimics glucose. These three particles continuously swish around inside a 120-nm orb. When glucose is present, the glucose-detecting molecule attaches and glows yellow; if absent, the ink turns orange.

The use of this technology has the advantage over traditional glucose monitoring, of course, in that there is a one-time needle stick for placing the tattoo over the tens of thousands of sticks that a diabetic will need to have over a lifetime.

Another advantage of nanoink tattooing: they can be removed. At least one researcher from Brown University has developed tattoo ink with microencapsulated beads coated with a polymer that when broken with a single laser treatment can simply be expelled from the body, as opposed to multiple laser removal treatments for conventional tattoos.

Diabetes isn’t the only disease candidate for using this technology. The original research involving nanoink tattoos was for monitoring sodium levels in the body, but then it occurred to researchers that glucose could be infinitely more useful as a disease target. The potential uses for “nanoink” as a monitoring technology are almost limitless; for chronic disease monitoring, once the concept can be proven to work for more complex molecules such as glucose, almost any disease could be monitored from heart disease to hyperthyroid to various blood disorders.

According to the researchers at Draper Laboratories studying this technology, the tattoo doesn’t have to be a huge Tweety bird on your ankle or heart on your shoulder; in fact, according to one of the Draper researchers, the tattoo could be just a “few millimeters in size and wouldn’t have to go as deep as a normal tattoo”.
Disease monitoring nano-tattoos, therefore, can be both tiny and painless. Of course, they could be stylish, too, but the nanoink is likely to cost a pretty penny—so before you are imagine a giant tribal arm stamp to monitor your heart disease, you may have to think again.

It may be at least two years before tattoos for monitoring your diabetes are available on the market—so unfortunately, those strips and sticking of fingers and thumbs aren’t going away for diabetics any time soon. But hopefully, someday in the not so distant future, nanotechnology will make the quality of life just a little bit better for diabetics and perhaps improve the disease management for other chronic diseases like heart disease and others as well. In the meantime, you can dream up what you want your “nanoink” tattoo to look like.

Summer Johnson, PhD
Column Editor, Lifeboat Foundation
Executive Managing Editor, The American Journal of Bioethics

Over 300 Women Share Experiences, Treatments for Painful, Common Chronic Conditions

CureTogether, a Health 2.0 Startup based in Silicon Valley, has released the first crowdsourced books on vulvodynia and endometriosis: two common, poorly understood conditions causing daily pain for millions of women. Assembled from the input of 190 and 137 women living with these respective conditions, “Vulvodynia Heroes” and “Endometriosis Heroes” are the product of an ongoing online research study at http://www.curetogether.com.

“Patients came together and decided what symptoms and treatments they wanted to track. They went on to diligently gather detailed, quantitative data on their bodies and experiences,” said Alexandra Carmichael, co-Founder of CureTogether. “The hope of this book is to spread awareness, reach out to people in pain who may not have heard of endometriosis, and increase interest and funding for future research.”

“These heroes are pioneers not just in investigating their own condition, but in developing self-cure practices that others can follow.”, said Gary Wolf, Contributing Editor of Wired and Blogger at The Quantified Self. “Many other women who are suffering will find this very helpful and inspiring,” said Elizabeth Rummer, MSPT at the Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center in San Francisco. A patient with endometriosis added, “This is great. I am just starting to really appreciate what awesome power CureTogether can have.”

Endometriosis is a painful chronic condition that affects 5–10% of women, and vulvodyna affects up to 16% of women at some point in their lives. They are two of the most active condition communities at CureTogether, with information about symptoms, treatments, and causes added by over 300 women. The books are available at http://www.curetogether.com/VHeroes and http://www.curetogether.com/EHeroes.

About CureTogether

CureTogether launched in 2008 to help people anonymously track and compare health data — to better understand their bodies, make more informed treatment decisions and contribute data to research. Starting with 3 conditions (Migraine, Endometriosis and Vulvodynia), its members have since expanded it to support 228 conditions.

*Please note that the information in Vulvodynia Heroes and Endometriosis Heroes and at CureTogether.com does not constitute medical advice.

For more information, please contact Alexandra Carmichael at 650−533−2163 or [email protected]