Lipid nanoparticles containing genetic drugs can be bioengineered to tune their biodistribution and induce organ-specific gene regulation.
Category: genetics – Page 339
Can Rejuvenation Biotech Help Boost Immune Response to Infectious Diseases? Aging of the immune system makes reduces immune response in elderly — 3 main reasons: cell loss (naive t-cells), accumulation of cells we don’t want (death resistant cells), and changes to internal constitution of the cells.
Early stage research by Janko Nikolich-Žugich indicates that the naive T-cells* produced by the thyamus may not work properly because of something going on with the lymph nodes.
Also vaccines don’t really work well in the elderly either because of other parts of the immune system not working so well.
* T-cells as part of the adaptive immune system rely for it’s function on genetic diversity.
Research involving bowhead whales has suggested that it may one day be possible to extend the human lifespan to 200 years.
From the demigods of Greek mythology to the superheroes of 20th century comic books, we’ve been intrigued by the idea of human enhancement for quite a while, but we’ve also worried about negative consequences. Both in the Greek myths and modern comics and television, each enhanced human has been flawed in some way.
In the area of lifespan enhancement, for instance, Tithonus, though granted eternal life, shrunk and shriveled into a grasshopper, because his immortal girlfriend Eos, forgot to ask Zeus to give him eternal youth. Achilles, while super strong and agile, had a weak spot at the back of his heal, and Superman would lose his power if exposed to “kryptonite”. As for Khan’s people, their physical superiority, both physical and mental, made them overly ambitious, causing a third world war that nearly destroyed humanity in the Star Trek backstory.
The human cerebral cortex is important for cognition, and it is of interest to see how genetic variants affect its structure. Grasby et al. combined genetic data with brain magnetic resonance imaging from more than 50,000 people to generate a genome-wide analysis of how human genetic variation influences human cortical surface area and thickness. From this analysis, they identified variants associated with cortical structure, some of which affect signaling and gene expression. They observed overlap between genetic loci affecting cortical structure, brain development, and neuropsychiatric disease, and the correlation between these phenotypes is of interest for further study.
Science, this issue p. eaay6690.
Dr. Susan White and her genetics team treated two triplets from a family who had an undiagnosed neurodegenerative disorder in 2014. After one year of age, the children’s developmental skills declined. They lost visual coordination. Feeding and swallowing food became impossible. The children developed intractable seizures.
Exactly what led to their neurodegeneration was a mystery.
“As you can imagine, that was just a horrendous experience for their family and we suspected a genetic condition because of that pattern of problems occurring in both children,” White, an associate professor at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and Victorian Clinical Genetics Services (VCGS), said in an interview with Being Patient.
Given the rapid development of virtual reality technology, we may very well be moving toward a time when we’re able to manage the brain’s memories.
Could we develop a similar capability? That may depend heavily upon a handful of ambitious attempts at brain-computer interfacing. But science is moving in baby steps with other tactics in both laboratory animals and humans.
Thus far, there have been some notable achievements in rodent experiments, that haven’t done so well with humans. We don’t have a beam that can go into your mind and give you 60 years worth of new experiences. Nevertheless, the emerging picture is that the physical basis of memory is understandable to the point that we should be able to intervene — both in producing and eliminating specific memories.
In a recently published fundamental review dedicated to the diagnostics of viral infections, a Russian research team featuring MIPT researchers was the first to systematically describe and summarize the cutting-edge technologies in the rapidly developing field of genetics. A number of new effective methods of virus detection have been developed over the past few years, including those targeted at unknown pathogens. The authors described the so-called high-throughput next-generation sequencing as a potent new approach. The method promises to revolutionize the detection and analysis of new pathogenic viruses, but it will be at least several years until it is introduced into mainstream clinical practice.
In response to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, an authoritative global scientific journal, aptly named Viruses, published a fundamental review of problems related to identifying and studying emerging pathogens, such as the notorious coronavirus.
“There are, by various statistical estimations, over 320,000 various viruses infecting mammals,” said Kamil Khafizov, a researcher at MIPT’s Historical Genetics, Radiocarbon Analysis and Applied Physics Lab and one of the review’s authors. “But up to date, less than 1% of this vast multitude has been studied.”
Epigenetic clocks are a fascinating new technology, but some potential applications are controversial.
Scientists around the world are tracking at least eight strains of coronavirus around the world, using genetic detective work to show how the virus spreads.
Researchers say the virus appears to mutate very slowly, with only tiny differences between the different strains, and that none of the strains of the virus is more deadly than another.
They also say it does not appear the strains will grow more lethal as they evolve.