COVER STORY: The epigenetic clock uses DNA methylation to calculate the metric of “epigenetic age”. Epigenetic age acceleration (epigenetic > chronological age) has been repeatedly linked to pediatric asthma and allergic disease, demonstrating its potential as a diagnostic biomarker. However, questions remain about the accuracy and utility of epigenetic clocks in children.
This review by researchers at University of British Columbia examines the most used current epigenetic clocks and details the associations between epigenetic age acceleration and asthma/allergic disease. They explore the potential of the epigenetic clock as a biomarker for asthma and discuss the need for a pediatric epigenetic clock that is accurate in blood samples in order to maximize the utility of this powerful tool.
In a new study, Abudayyeh and Gootenberg led a team of scientists on a quest to identify and characterize Fanzor enyzmes in large-scale genetic databases. Their genetic mining venture, published in Science Advances, outlines the discovery of over 3,600 Fanzors in eukaryotes, including algae, snails, amoebas and the viruses that infect them.
Fanzors evolved new features to survive and thrive in eukaryotes
Five distinct families of Fanzors could be identified from the study data. By comparing the biological makeup of these families, Abudayyeh and colleagues could track their evolutionary history. Fanzors most likely evolved from proteins called TnpB, which are encoded in transposons – mobile genetic elements often nicknamed “jumping genes”. In Nature, the McGovern team hypothesized that the TnpB gene may have “jumped” from bacteria to eukaryotes in a genetic “shuffling” many years ago. Abudayyeh and Gootenburg’s new study and genetic tracing implies that this event likely occurred several times, with Fanzors “jumping” from viruses and symbiotic bacteria. Their analyses also suggest that once these genes had made their way into eukaryotes, they evolved new features that promoted their survival, including the ability to enter a cell’s nucleus and access its DNA.
Scientists have successfully gene-edited chickens to make them partially resistant to the bird flu and believe full immunity may be within reach.
Scientists from the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute have successfully gene-edited chickens to make them partially resistant to the bird flu but experts argue that only full immunity can see the danger of the virus eradicated.
This is according to a report by BBC News published this week.
Influenza A viruses, which are responsible for causing bird flu, can be divided into many subtypes based on the surface proteins hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). While certain bird flu subtypes are less dangerous, others are more virulent and capable of causing serious illness.
The Collective Intelligence of Cells During Morphogenesis: What Bioelectricity Outside the Brain Means for Understanding our Multiscale Nature with Michael Levin — Incredible Minds.
Recorded: April 29, 2023.
Each of us takes a remarkable journey from physics to mind: we start as a blob of chemicals in an unfertilized quiescent oocyte and becomes a complex, metacognitive human being. The continuous process of transformation and emergence that we see in developmental biology reminds us that we are true collective intelligences – composed of cells which used to be individual organisms themselves. In this talk, I will describe our work on understanding how the competencies of single cells are harnessed to solve problems in anatomical space, and how evolution pivoted this scaling of intelligence into the familiar forms of cognition in the nervous system. We will talk about diverse intelligence in novel embodiments, the scaling of the cognitive light cone of all beings, and the role of developmental bioelectricity as a cognitive glue and as the interface by which mind controls matter in the body. I will also show a new synthetic life form, and discuss what it means for bioengineering and ethics of human relationships to the wider world of possible beings. We will discuss the implications of these ideas for understanding evolution, and the applications we have developed in birth defects, cancer, and traumatic injury repair. By merging deep ideas from developmental biophysics, computer science, and cognitive science, we not only get a new perspective on fundamental questions of life and mind, but also new roadmaps in regenerative medicine, biorobotics, and AI.
Michael Levin received dual undergraduate degrees in computer science and biology, followed by a PhD in molecular genetics from Harvard. He did his post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School, and started his independent lab in 2000. He is currently the Vannevar Bush chair at Tufts University, and an associate faculty member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard. He serves as the founding director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts. His lab uses a mix of developmental biophysics, computer science, and behavior science to understand the emergence of mind in unconventional embodiments at all scales, and to develop interventions in regenerative medicine and applications in synthetic bioengineering. They can be found at www.drmichaellevin.org/
The most common screening test for prostate cancer — a measure of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, levels — so often suggests cancer where there is none that clinical guidelines no longer recommend the test for men over 70 and leave the decision up to younger patients.
Scientists at Stanford Medicine and their collaborators aim to make PSA screening more accurate — by calibrating PSA levels to each man’s genetics. Applying this type of personalization could significantly reduce overdiagnosis and better predict aggressive disease. Their research was published June 1 in Nature Medicine.
In addition to the regular blood-based PSA test, such personalized screening would require a germline genetic test, typically done on saliva, blood or cheek swab samples, to look for inherited genetic variants that affect PSA levels.
In this webinar, three experts will discuss how Precision NanoSystems’ modular microfluidic platform technologies and analytics can help scientists successfully design, develop, test, and scale-up promising mRNA-LNP vaccines and therapeutics from concept to clinic. Don’t miss this webinar, now available on demand.
Nucleic acids (e.g., siRNA, mRNA and saRNA) can be designed and formulated to silence, express, and edit specific genes providing a flexible and powerful approach to preventing and treating diseases. The recent commercialization and widespread distribution of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines has exemplified the massive potential of this new class of genomic medicines and vaccines to effectively thwart emerging viral threats and treat a wide range of challenging diseases. Part of developing a successful mRNA therapeutic or vaccine is choosing a delivery mechanism that protects the nucleic acids on the way to their target tissue. Encapsulating mRNA in lipid nanoparticles has proven to be one of the best vehicles for overcoming extracellular and intracellular barriers and safely delivering the treatment. Several mRNA-LNP formulations that target things like viral infections and cancers are being evaluated clinically.
In this webinar, three experts will discuss how Precision Nanosystems’ modular microfluidic platform technologies and analytics can help scientists successfully design, develop, test, and scale-up promising mRNA-LNP vaccines and therapeutics from concept to clinic. They will provide an overview of Precision NanoSystem’s Biopharma Services, and share examples from internal R&D work that demonstrate the versatility of the genetic medicine toolbox for rapidly developing RNA-LNP vaccines. You’ll also learn about Precision NanoSystem’s BioAssay services and the capabilities that are available to facilitate and accelerate drug development projects.
Researchers at Columbia University have developed a probiotic-guided chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T platform that uses engineered bacteria to infiltrate and produce synthetic antigen targets, enabling CAR-T cells to find, identify, and destroy tumor cells in situ. The results of in vivo preclinical tests suggest that the combined ProCAR cell therapy platform could expand the scope of CAR-T cell therapy to include difficult-to-target solid tumors.
Tal Danino, PhD, and Rosa L. Vincent, PhD, at Columbia University’s department of biomedical engineering, and colleagues, reported on their developments in Science, in a paper titled “Probiotic-guided CAR-T cells for solid tumor targeting,” in which they concluded, “These findings highlight the potential of the ProCAR platform to address the roadblock of identifying suitable CAR targets by providing an antigen that is orthogonal to both healthy tissue and tumor genetics … Overall, combining the advantages of tumor-homing bacteria and CAR-T cells provides a new strategy for tumor recognition and, in turn, builds the foundation for engineered communities of living therapies.”
Immunotherapies using CAR-T cells have proven successful in treating some types of blood cancers, but their efficacy against solid tumors remains elusive. A key challenge facing tumor-antigen targeting immunotherapies like CAR-T is the identification of suitable targets that are specifically and uniformly expressed on solid tumors, the authors noted. “A key challenge of antigen-targeted cell therapies relates to the expression patterns of the antigen itself, which makes the identification of optimal targets for solid tumor cell therapies an obstacle for the development of new CARs.” Solid tumors express heterogeneous and nonspecific antigens and are poorly infiltrated by T cells. As a result, the approach carries a high risk of fatal on-target, off-tumor toxicity, wherein CAR-T cells attack the targeted antigen on healthy vital tissues with potentially fatal effects.
In a recent study led by Ravi Salgia, M.D., Ph.D., the Arthur & Rosalie Kaplan Chair in Medical Oncology, a team of researchers from City of Hope, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States, and other institutions found that nongenetic mechanisms are important in lung cancer patients who develop a resistance to one cancer therapy. Their findings were published in the October 13 issue of the journal Science Advances.
The team’s study explored resistance to the anti-cancer medication sotorasib in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Sotorasib inhibits a specific mutation of a protein, KRAS G12C, that causes unchecked cell growth.
The researchers’ findings suggest that, initially, most tumor cells are sensitive to sotorasib. But some cells can become tolerant to therapeutic treatment without resorting to genetic mutations or alterations by manipulating the KRAS-sotorasib interaction network. Furthermore, they found that if sotorasib treatment is withheld, the tumor cells revert to becoming sensitive again, implying that the phenomenon is reversible and thus is driven by nongenetic mechanisms.
Researchers at Tokyo Tech have demonstrated that in-cell engineering is an effective method for creating functional protein crystals with promising catalytic properties. By harnessing genetically altered bacteria as a green synthesis platform, the researchers produced hybrid solid catalysts for artificial photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis is how plants and some microorganisms use sunlight to synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water.
