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Category: genetics – Page 536

New Organisms Have Been Formed Using the First Ever 6-Letter Genetic Code

Scientists have engineered the first ever ‘semi-synthetic’ organisms, by breeding E. coli bacteria with an expanded, six-letter genetic code.

While every living thing on Earth is formed according to a DNA code made up of four bases (represented by the letters G, T, C and A), these modified E. coli carry an entirely new type of DNA, with two additional DNA bases, X and Y, nestled in their genetic code.

The team, led by Floyd Romesberg from the Scripps Research Institute in California, engineered synthetic nucleotides — molecules that serve as the building blocks of DNA and RNA — to create an additional base pair, and they’ve successfully inserted this into the E. coli’s genetic code.

The UN Okays Synthetic Biology

That’s a relief.

Of all the potentially apocalyptic technologies scientists have come up with in recent years, the gene drive is easily one of the most terrifying. A gene drive is a tool that allows scientists to use genetic engineering to override natural selection during reproduction. In theory, scientists could use it to alter the genetic makeup of an entire species—or even wipe that species out. It’s not hard to imagine how a slip-up in the lab could lead to things going very, very wrong.

But like most great risks, the gene drive also offers incredible reward. Scientists are, for example, exploring how gene drive might be used to wipe out malaria and kill off Hawaii’s invasive species to save endangered native birds. Its perils may be horrifying, but its promise is limitless. And environmental groups have been campaigning hard to prevent that promise from ever being realized.

This week at the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity in Mexico, world governments rejected calls for a global moratorium on gene drives. Groups such Friends of the Earth and the Council for Responsible Genetics have called gene drive “gene extinction technology,” arguing that scientists “propose to use extinction as a deliberate tool, in direct contradiction to the moral purpose of conservation organizations, which is to protect life on earth.”

By 2030, Hospitals May Be a Thing of the Past

In Brief:

  • Predictions from the co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Future Council, Melanie Walker, say we’ll soon enter a post-hospital world due to advances in personalized medicine, health monitoring, and nanotechnology.
  • New and evolving technologies in medical science convince Walker we’ll live in a society not dependent on hospitals by 2030.

As the world of medicine is increasingly changed by biology, technology, communications, genetics, and robotics, predicting the outlook of the next few decades of medicine becomes harder. But that is exactly what Melanie Walker of the World Economic Forum does, and she predicts a bright new future for healthcare.

Scientists Have a Plan to Bring Back the Caspian Tiger, Which Has Been Extinct for 50 Years

Caspian tigers were some of the largest cats ever to roam the Earth, but they went extinct in the 1960s. Now, some scientists want to bring them back.

A new study, published in the journal Biological Conservation, lays out the plan to reintroduce the tigers using a subspecies, the Siberian tiger, which is genetically similar to the Caspian tiger.

The authors write in their paper that the Siberians tiger’s “phenotype proves adaptable to the arid conditions of the introduction site”.

Will synthetic biology help us to eliminate age-related diseases?

A quick look at synthetic biology and its potential for health and treating age-related diseases.

All living organisms contain an instruction set that determines what they look like and what they do. These instructions are encoded in the organism’s DNA within every cell, this is an organism’s genetic code (or “genome”).

Mankind has been altering the genetic code of plants and animals for thousands of years, by selectively breeding individuals with desired features. Over time we have become experts at viewing and manipulating this code, and we can now take genetic information associated with the desired features from one organism, and add it into another one. This is the basis of genetic engineering, which has allowed us to speed up the process of developing new breeds of plants and animals.

More recent advances however have enabled scientists to create new sequences of DNA from scratch. By combining these advances in biology with modern engineering, chemistry and computer science, researchers can now design and construct new organisms with cells that perform new useful functions. This “customised” cell biology is the essence of synthetic biology.

ExxonMobil extends algae biofuels research using synthetic biology technologies

After making significant progress in understanding algae genetics, growth characteristics and increasing oil production, Synthetic Genomics, Inc. and ExxonMobil said they would extended their joint research agreement into advanced algae biofuels.

The two companies have been researching and developing oil from algae for use as a renewable, lower-emission alternative to traditional transportation fuels since 2009. They are seeking to develop strains of algae that demonstrate significantly improved photosynthetic efficiency and oil production through selection and genetic engineering of higher-performance algae strains.

Inactive B2M genes can condition response of lung cancer patients to immunotherapy, study shows

Nice.

Researchers from the Genes and Cancer research group at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) have identified inactivating mutations in a number of genes that code for HLA-I histocompatibility complex proteins, which are involved in the immune response and can condition the response of lung cancer patients to immunotherapy. The study is a result of the collaboration between several national and international research centers, and has been published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

“Initially, we performed a genetic screening of lung cancer tumors using xenograft models, that is, human tumors that grow in mice, to obtain tumors with a low load of normal human cells,” explains Dr. Montse Sanchez-Cespedes, the last author of the paper. Sequencing of the tumors made it possible to identify several mutated genes, including some oncogenes and known tumor suppressor genes, and others that not previously described. “Among the latter, we were particularly interested in the B2M gene for its involvement in the functioning of the immune system, a target of new therapies developed for this type of cancer.”

The new immunotherapy treatments aim to block the activity of certain proteins that inhibit the immune system. In lung cancer, this therapeutic option has yielded hopeful results in about twenty percent of patients. However, the treatment can only be effective if the tumor cell has a functional HLA-I complex.

Inactive B2M gene is recurrent in lung cancer and may condition response to immunotherapy

Big deal.

Researchers from the Genes and Cancer research group at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) have identified inactivating mutations in a number of genes that code for HLA-I histocompatibility complex proteins, which are involved in the immune response and can condition the tesponse of lung cancer patients to immunotherapy. The study is a result of the collaboration between several national and international research centers, and has been published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

“Initially, we performed a genetic screening of lung cancer tumors using xenograft models, that is, human tumors that grow in mice, to obtain tumors with a low load of normal human cells,” explains Dr. Montse Sanchez-Cespedes, the last author of the paper. Sequencing of the tumors made it possible to identify several mutated genes, including some oncogenes and known tumor suppressor genes, and others that not previously described. “Among the latter, we were particularly interested in the B2M gene for its involvement in the functioning of the immune system, a target of new therapies developed for this type of cancer.”

This observation was validated at a later stage using a large panel of lung tumors, determining that the frequency of B2M mutations in lung cancer is 6–8%. At the same time, the researchers demonstrated that de novo reintroduction of this gene into cell lines that were deficient in B2M restored the functioning of the HLA-I complex.

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