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Archive for the ‘genetics’ category: Page 387

Jan 25, 2019

DIY CRISPR: Genetic Engineering at Home

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

You can now perform CRISPR gene-editing in your kitchen!

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Jan 23, 2019

Gene Drives Work in Mice (if They’re Female)

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, genetics

Biologists have demonstrated for the first time that a controversial genetic engineering technology works, with caveats, in mammals.

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Jan 23, 2019

It’s the End of the Gene As We Know It

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

We’ve all seen the stark headlines: “Being Rich and Successful Is in Your DNA” (Guardian, July 12); “A New Genetic Test Could Help Determine Children’s Success” (Newsweek, July 10); “Our Fortunetelling Genes” make us (Wall Street Journal, Nov. 16); and so on.

The problem is, many of these headlines are not discussing real genes at all, but a crude statistical model of them, involving dozens of unlikely assumptions. Now, slowly but surely, that whole conceptual model of the gene is being challenged.

We have reached peak gene, and passed it.

Continue reading “It’s the End of the Gene As We Know It” »

Jan 22, 2019

Chinese scientist who gene-edited babies fired

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

A Chinese scientist who created what he said were the world’s first “gene-edited” babies evaded oversight and broke ethical boundaries in a quest for fame and fortune, state media said on Monday, as his former university said he had been fired.

He Jiankui said in November that he used a gene-editing technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 to alter the embryonic genes of twin girls born that month, sparking an international outcry about the ethics and safety of such research.

Hundreds of Chinese and international scientists condemned He and said any application of gene editing on human embryos for reproductive purposes was unethical.

Continue reading “Chinese scientist who gene-edited babies fired” »

Jan 22, 2019

The Top Biotech and Medicine Advances to Expect in 2019

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

2019 will likely see gene drives used in the wild, a universal flu vaccine, further advance of brain-machine interfaces, and more.

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Jan 22, 2019

Scientists demonstrate effective strategies for safeguarding CRISPR gene-drive experiments

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Researchers have demonstrated for the first time how two molecular strategies can safeguard CRISPR gene-drive experiments in the lab, according to a study published today in eLife.

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Jan 19, 2019

New technologies enable better-than-ever details on genetically modified plants

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Salk researchers have mapped the genomes and epigenomes of genetically modified plant lines with the highest resolution ever to reveal exactly what happens at a molecular level when a piece of foreign DNA is inserted. Their findings, published in the journal PLOS Genetics on January 15, 2019, elucidate the routine methods used to modify plants, and offer new ways to more effectively minimize potential off-target effects.

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Jan 18, 2019

4 Gene-Editing Technologies That Could Replace CRISPR

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

The future of medicine involves the precise engineering of human cells. Turns out, that future may not include that promising CRISPR technique.

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Jan 17, 2019

Hitting the Reset Button on Aging Cells

Posted by in categories: genetics, life extension

Today, we chronicle the progress of OSKM and discuss how this powerful treatment may be able to reprogram cells back into a youthful state, at least partially reversing the hallmark of epigenetic alterations and other hallmarks as well.

The birth of cellular reprogramming

Continue reading “Hitting the Reset Button on Aging Cells” »

Jan 16, 2019

Scientists grow perfect human blood vessels in a petri dish

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

The breakthrough engineering technology, outlined in a new study published today in Nature, dramatically advances research of vascular diseases like diabetes, identifying a key pathway to potentially prevent changes to blood vessels — a major cause of death and morbidity among those with diabetes.

An organoid is a three-dimensional structure grown from stem cells that mimics an organ and can be used to study aspects of that organ in a petri dish.

“Being able to build human blood vessels as organoids from stem cells is a game changer,” said the study’s senior author Josef Penninger, the Canada 150 Research Chair in Functional Genetics, director of the Life Sciences Institute at UBC and founding director of the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA).

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