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(Photo credit: AP Photo/Jack Plunkett, File)

Astro Teller is tired of the paranoia surrounding artificial intelligence and robotics. The famous computer scientist’s sensitivity around the topic may be understandable considering he bears the brunt of some of that skepticism as the head of X, the Alphabet (and formerly Google) moonshot factory working on many of the company’s futuristic AI and robotics projects.

This past weekend, Teller, whose official title is “captain of moonshots,” took to the stage at the inaugural Silicon Valley Comic Con hoping to dispel some of these misconceptions around AI. His physician wife, Danielle Teller, presented alongside him on some of the fear mongering associated with genetic engineering in humans. After their presentation, the Tellers sat down with FORBES to go deeper on the issue to explain what they hoped to accomplish with their talk.

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WIKIMEDIA, ROBINSON RCRISPR-a bacterial immune response best known for its genome-editing applications in the lab-has yet again been adapted for scientific purposes, this time to track RNA within cells. Considering the case of synapses — the proteins required for these neural connections are produced from RNAs located at these contacts.

“Just as CRISPR-Cas9 is making genetic engineering accessible to any scientist with access to basic equipment, RNA-targeted Cas9 may support countless other efforts for studying the role of RNA processing in disease or for identifying drugs that reverse defects in RNA processing”, study coauthor David Nelles of the University of California, San Diego, said in a press release. Defective RNA transport is linked to a host of conditions ranging from autism to cancer and researchers need ways to measure RNA movement in order to develop treatments for these conditions. “Our current work focuses on tracking the movement of RNA inside the cell, but future developments could enable researchers to measure other RNA features or advance therapeutic approaches to correct disease-causing RNA behaviors”. But, Gene Yeo, Associate Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at UC San Diego, and his team have applied the technique as a flexible means to targeting RNA in live cells.

Jennifer Doudna, the creator of the CRISPR-Cas9 system for DNA editing, also works out of the University of California research system, and is listed as a co-author for this study. A guide RNA, along with the addition of an oligonucleotide sequence, sent the Cas9 RNA-ward.

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Scientists announced Thursday that they have built a single-celled organism that has just 473 genes — likely close to the minimum number of genes necessary to sustain its life. The development, they say, could eventually lead to new manufacturing methods.

Around 1995, a few top geneticists set out on a quest: to make an organism that had only the genes that were absolutely essential for its survival. A zero-frills life.

It was a heady time.

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This could have some truly profound implications for the treatment of all viruses, including HIV!

Researchers from Temple University have used the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tool to clear out the entire HIV-1 genome from a patient’s infected immune cells. It’s a remarkable achievement that could have profound implications for the treatment of AIDS and other retroviruses.

When we think about CRISPR/Cas9 we tend to think of it as a tool to eliminate heritable genetic diseases, or as a way to introduce new genes altogether. But as this new research shows, it also holds great promise as a means to eliminate viruses that have planted their nefarious genetic codes within host cells. This latest achievement now appears in Nature Scientific Reports.

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Whether people with rare genetic mutations that result in important medical discoveries should be compensated is a topic of intense debate.

Genetic mutations from extinct human relatives called the Denisovans might have influenced modern human immune systems, as well as fat and blood sugar levels, researchers say.

Very little is known about the Denisovans. The first evidence of them was discovered in Denisova Cave in Siberia in 2008, and DNA from their fossils suggests they shared an origin with Neanderthals but were nearly as genetically distinct from Neanderthals as Neanderthals were from modern humans.

Previous work found that any modern humans with ancestry outside of Africa inherited about 1.5 to 2.1 percent of their DNA from Neanderthals. In contrast, prior research suggested that substantial levels of Denisovan ancestry are found only in the Pacific islands of Melanesia. Scientists are increasingly uncovering the effects of Neanderthal ancestry on modern humans, from potential immune boosts to increased risks for depression, obesity, heart attacks, nicotine addiction. However, relatively little was known about the effects of Denisovan ancestry.

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On track to resolving defective RNA through CRISPR-Cas9.

According to a study published in journal Cell on March 17, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, have found a way to track RNA in living cells. CRISPR-Cas9, a DNA-editing technique will be applied to target RNA in order to find cure for presently untreatable diseases such as cancer and autism.

There are many diseases that are associated with RNA behavior, which carries the genetic code from the cell’s nucleus. There was no technique found until now that could track RNA in living cells efficiently. However now, CRISPR-Cas9, which so far was only able to manipulate DNA, would now target RNA, which is also called RNA-targeted Cas9.

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March 16th, 2016 Editors Nanomedicine

Biologically powered robots may one day be used to perform surgical procedures, deliver drugs, and maybe to even make humanoid overlords for us mortals. A big step toward that was taken by researchers at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who used light-activated muscle cells as the power source to make tiny bio-bots.

The optogenetic technique published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences relies on genetically engineered mouse muscle cells that were made to contract in response to blue light. Rings of these cells were placed around a 3D printed flexible rods of different lengths between two and seven millimeters. When light was illuminated over the mechanism, the biobots contracted and walked in a certain direction. Various lengths and configurations were tried to achieve the best walking results. Moreover, the researchers were able to change the direction of the walking bio-bot.

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ARPA-E creating sustainable energy crops for the production of renewable transportation fuels from biomass.

In Washington, the DOE’s ARPA-E TERRA projects seek to accelerate the development of sustainable energy crops for the production of renewable transportation fuels from biomass. To accomplish this, the projects uniquely integrate agriculture, information technology, and engineering communities to design and apply new tools for the development of improved varieties of energy sorghum. The TERRA project teams will create novel platforms to enhance methods for crop phenotyping (identifying and measuring the physical characteristics of plants) which are currently time-intensive and imprecise.

The new approaches will include automated methods for observing and recording characteristics of plants and advanced algorithms for analyzing data and predicting plant growth potential. The projects will also produce a large public database of sorghum genotypes, enabling the greater community of plant physiologists,

Bioinformaticians and geneticists to generate breakthroughs beyond TERRA. These innovations will accelerate the annual yield gains of traditional plant breeding and support the discovery of new crop traits that improve water productivity and nutrient use efficiency needed to improve the sustainability of bioenergy crops.

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