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Archive for the ‘genetics’ category: Page 380

May 16, 2019

Russia joins in global gene-editing bonanza

Posted by in category: genetics

Alexey Kochetov, director of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, welcomed the research programme, noting that genetics in Russia has been “chronically underfinanced” for decades. Funding for science plummeted in the 1990s following the break-up of the Soviet Union, and Russia still lags behind other major powers: in 2017, it spent 1.11% of its gross domestic product on research, compared with 2.13% in China and 2.79% in the United States.


A US$1.7-billion programme aims to develop 30 gene-edited plant and animal varieties in the next decade. A US$1.7-billion programme aims to develop 30 gene-edited plant and animal varieties in the next decade.

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May 15, 2019

Potential drug targets for ALS and FTD identified in two studies

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, neuroscience

A pair of collaborative studies led by Fen-Biao Gao, Ph.D., have identified two potential drug targets for the diseases amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The studies, which appear in Nature Neuroscience and PNAS, provide a new layer of detail about how hexanucleotide repeat expansions in the C9ORF72 gene, the most common genetic mutation responsible for both ALS and FTD, causes neuron cell death. The Nature Neuroscience study also describes a new mouse model that more closely mimics the gradual build-up of toxins in patients with the diseases.

“Understanding how these mutations lead to motor neuron damage is important to the development of new treatment approaches,” said Dr. Gao, the Governor Paul Cellucci Chair in Neuroscience Research and professor of neurology. “We know that this mutation can cause these diseases. These studies show that both and DNA repair pathways are disrupted when the mutated gene is present in cells. That makes them potentially druggable targets.”

In ALS, a progressive, neurodegenerative disorder affecting the motor neurons in the central nervous system, the C9ORF72 gene accounts for 40 percent of inherited forms of the disease and 6 percent of sporadic cases. As motor neurons die, the brain’s ability to send signals to the body’s muscles is compromised. This leads to loss of voluntary muscle movement, paralysis and eventually death from respiratory failure.

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May 15, 2019

Blood biopsy: New technique enables detailed genetic analysis of cancer cells

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

A new way to cleanly separate out cancer cells from a blood sample enables comprehensive genetic profiling of the cancer cells, which could help doctors target tumors and monitor treatments more effectively.

It is a dramatic improvement over current approaches because it also encompasses the variation among cells within a single patient.

“This could be a whole different ball game,” said Max Wicha, the Madeline and Sidney Forbes Professor of Oncology at the University of Michigan and senior physician on the study in Nature Communications.

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May 15, 2019

Dr. Matthew Roberts, CSO and SVP Innovation, Chromadex — ideaXme — Ira Pastor

Posted by in categories: aging, biotech/medical, business, chemistry, DNA, finance, genetics, health, life extension, transhumanism

May 15, 2019

Two infants treated with universal immune cells have their cancer vanish

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

In a medical first, the children were treated with genetically engineered T-cells from another person.

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May 15, 2019

Gene editing: will it make rich people genetically superior?

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics

There’s no doubt that genetic therapy won’t be cheap.

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May 15, 2019

Gene Hackers: The Young Biotech Entrepreneurs Looking To Make Billions

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Entrepreneurs are taking genetic-editing technology from the lab to the clinic with grand ambitions. But who owns the patents?

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May 14, 2019

Humans Genetically Engineered To Be Super Intelligent Could Have An IQ Of 1000

Posted by in category: genetics

Sky-high IQs are coming.

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May 13, 2019

CRISPR might soon create spicy tomatoes

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Looking for perfect heat and lots of it? Gene engineers in Brazil think they might be able to create eye-watering tomatoes.

Hot stuff: Even though chili peppers and tomato plants diverged from a common ancestor millions of years ago, tomatoes still possess the genetic pathway needed to make capsaicinoids, the molecules that make chilis hot.

Now, Agustin Zsögön from the Federal University of Viçosa in Brazil writes in the journal Trends in Plant Science that gene-editing tools like CRISPR could turn it back on.

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May 13, 2019

Study uncovers key mechanism that allows some of the world’s deadliest viruses to replicate

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Viruses are masterful invaders. They cannibalize host cells by injecting their genetic material, often making thousands of copies of themselves in a single cell to ensure their replication and survival.

Some RNA insert their genetic material as a single piece, while others chop it up into pieces. The latter are aptly named segmented viruses.

Such segmented RNA viruses—including several that cause human diseases like influenza—have been a longstanding enigma to researchers: How do they accomplish the precise copying and insertion of each segment? How do they ensure that individual segments are all copied by the same enzyme while ensuring that each segment can make different amounts of RNA? Such exquisite regulation is critical to make the correct levels of the viral proteins necessary for successful replication.

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