It sounds like the start of a Southern gothic horror thriller. Auburn University scientists have been putting alligator DNA in catfish. It’s delicious, but with less chance for infection. Don’t worry, it won’t bite back. MIT Technology Review recently highlighted the work of Rex Dunham, Baofeng Su and their colleagues at Auburn University, who have used genetic modification to reduce problems of disease in catfish farming.
Synthetic biology has made major strides towards the holy grail of fully programmable bio-micromachines capable of sensing and responding to defined stimuli regardless of their environmental context. A common type of bio-micromachines is created by genetically modifying living cells.[ 1 ] Living cells possess the unique advantage of being highly adaptable and versatile.[ 2 ] To date, living cells have been successfully repurposed for a wide variety of applications, including living therapeutics,[ 3 ] bioremediation,[ 4 ] and drug and gene delivery.[ 5, 6 ] However, the resulting synthetic living cells are challenging to control due to their continuous adaption and evolving cellular context. Application of these autonomously replicating organisms often requires tailored biocontainment strategies,[ 7-9 ] which can raise logistical hurdles and safety concerns.
In contrast, nonliving synthetic cells, notably artificial cells,[ 10, 11 ] can be created using synthetic materials, such as polymers or phospholipids. Meticulous engineering of materials enables defined partitioning of bioactive agents, and the resulting biomimetic systems possess advantages including predictable functions, tolerance to certain environmental stressors, and ease of engineering.[ 12, 13 ] Nonliving cell-mimetic systems have been employed to deliver anticancer drugs,[ 14 ] promote antitumor immune responses,[ 15 ] communicate with other cells,[ 16, 17 ] mimic immune cells,[ 18, 19 ] and perform photosynthesis.
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Working with hundreds of thousands of high-resolution images, researchers from the Allen Institute for Cell Science, a division of the Allen Institute, put numbers on the internal organization of human cells — a biological concept that has proven incredibly difficult to quantify until now.
The scientists also documented the diverse cell shapes of genetically identical cells grown under similar conditions in their work. Their findings were recently published in the journal Nature.
“The way cells are organized tells us something about their behavior and identity,” said Susanne Rafelski, Ph.D., Deputy Director of the Allen Institute for Cell Science, who led the study along with Senior Scientist Matheus Viana, Ph.D. “What’s been missing from the field, as we all try to understand how cells change in health and disease, is a rigorous way to deal with this kind of organization. We haven’t yet tapped into that information.”
Colossal Biosciences, a genetic engineering company focused on de-extincting past species, has announced $150 million in Series B funding, which it plans to use for bringing back the iconic dodo.
The resurrection of several extinct species is predicted to occur within the next five years. One company aiming to make that a reality is Texas-based startup Colossal Biosciences, founded in 2021 by some of the world’s leading experts in genomics. In May 2022, it appeared in the World Economic Forum’s list of Technology Pioneers and it won Genomics Innovation of the Year at the BioTech Breakthrough Awards.
The incorporation of exotic DNA
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a molecule composed of two long strands of nucleotides that coil around each other to form a double helix. It is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms that carries genetic instructions for development, functioning, growth, and reproduction. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).
Cyanobacteria are single-celled organisms that derive energy from light, using photosynthesis to convert atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and liquid water (H2O) into breathable oxygen and the carbon-based molecules like proteins that make up their cells. Cyanobacteria were the first organisms to perform photosynthesis in the history of Earth, and were responsible for flooding the early Earth with oxygen, thus significantly influencing how life evolved.
Geological measurements suggest that the atmosphere of the early Earth—over three billion years ago—was likely rich in CO2, far higher than current levels caused by anthropogenic climate change, meaning that ancient cyanobacteria had plenty to “eat.”
But over Earth’s multi-billion-year history, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have decreased, and so to survive, these bacteria needed to evolve new strategies to extract CO2. Modern cyanobacteria thus look quite different from their ancient ancestors, and possess a complex, fragile set of structures called a CO2-concentrating mechanism (CCM) to compensate for lower concentrations of CO2.
My recently published perspective paper has been featured by GEN Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News!
#biotechnology #genetherapy #syntheticbiology
Synthetic biology has the potential to upend existing paradigms of adeno-associated virus (AAV) production, helping to reduce the high costs of gene therapy and thus make it more accessible, according to a recent paper.
AAVs are an important vector for gene therapy, but AAV manufacturing is complex and expensive. Furthermore, first author Logan Thrasher Collins, a PhD candidate at Washington University in Saint Louis, tells GEN. “Many current industry approaches to enhancing AAV yields involve incremental process optimization. Synthetic biology has the potential to offer more radical improvements, yet is relatively underappreciated in the context of AAV production.”
In some cases, it is now possible to genetically engineer the immune system to banish cancers like T-cell leukaemia that were previously unresponsive to treatments.
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“Having focused on genetic advancements in ancient DNA for my entire career and as the first to fully sequence the Dodo’s genome, I am thrilled to collaborate with Colossal and the people of Mauritius on the de-extinction and eventual re-wilding of the Dodo. I particularly look forward to furthering genetic rescue tools focused on birds and avian conservation,” Shapiro added.
