Lifeboat Foundation

MaxCyte, Inc., a leading, cell-engineering focused company providing enabling platform technologies to advance the discovery, development and commercialization of next-generation cell-based therapeutics and to support innovative, cell-based research, today announced the signing of a strategic partnership with Prime Medicine, Inc., a biotechnology company committed to delivering a new class of differentiated one-time curative genetic therapies.

A change in just one letter in the code that makes up a cancer-causing gene can significantly affect how aggressive a tumor is or how well a patient with cancer responds to a particular therapy. A new, very precise gene-editing tool created by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators will enable scientists to study the impact of these specific genetic changes in preclinical models rather than being limited to more broadly targeted tactics, such as deleting the entire gene.

The tool was described in a study published Aug. 10 in Nature Biotechnology. Dr. Lukas Dow, an associate professor of biochemistry in medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, and his colleagues genetically engineered mice to carry an enzyme that allows the scientists to change a single base or “letter” in the mouse’s genetic code. The enzyme can be turned on or off by feeding the mice an antibiotic called doxycycline, reducing the prospect of unintended genetic changes occurring over time. The tool can also grow miniature versions of intestine, lung, and pancreas tissue called organoids from the mice, enabling even more molecular and biochemical studies of the impact of these precise genetic changes.

“We are excited about using this technology to try and understand the genetic changes that influence a patient’s response to cancer therapies,” said Dr. Dow, who is also a member of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine.

The seemingly basic question of “which genes are important for the heart?” spurred Ramialison and her team to pursue a fuller picture.

A novel atlas reveals region-specific links between structural, mechanical, and genetic properties within the heart.

Specifically, the researchers examined how THC administered through edibles, a common consumption method, influenced epigenetic changes in crucial areas for fetal development, including the placenta, fetal lung, brain, and heart.

In recent years, the popularity and availability of cannabis has grown significantly, with various consumption methods like edibles gaining traction. However, alongside this trend, there has been a worrisome increase in cannabis use among pregnant women. Unfortunately, our understanding of the detailed effects of using cannabis during pregnancy on the developing child remains limited. Because normal fetal development relies on the crucial process of epigenetic regulation and gene expression modification, it has been suggested that studying the molecular changes linked to cannabis exposure during pregnancy could provide important insights.

To gain a better understanding of the effects of cannabis use during pregnancy, researchers from the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) conducted a unique preclinical study that focused on investigating the epigenetic impact of THC, the main active component in cannabis, on fetal development and future health outcomes. The study’s findings were published in the journal Clinical Epigenetics.

Continue reading “The Epigenetic Impact of Cannabis Use During Pregnancy on Child’s Health” »

An interdisciplinary team of mathematicians, engineers, physicists, and medical scientists have uncovered an unexpected link between pure mathematics and genetics, that reveals key insights into the structure of neutral mutations and the evolution of organisms.

Number theory, the study of the properties of positive integers, is perhaps the purest form of mathematics. At first sight, it may seem far too abstract to apply to the natural world. In fact, the influential American number theorist Leonard Dickson wrote ‘Thank God that number theory is unsullied by any application.’

And yet, again and again, number theory finds unexpected applications in science and engineering, from leaf angles that (almost) universally follow the Fibonacci sequence, to modern encryption techniques based on factoring prime numbers. Now, researchers have demonstrated an unexpected link between number theory and evolutionary genetics.

Genome editing is a powerful breeding technique that introduces mutations into specific gene sequences in genomes. For genome editing in higher plants, nucleotides for artificial nuclease (e.g. TALEN or CRISPR-Cas9) are transiently or stably introduced into the plant cells. After the introduction of mutations by artificial nucleases, it is necessary to select lines that do not contain the foreign nucleotides to overcome GMO regulation; however, there is still no widely legally authorized and approved method for detecting foreign genes in genome-edited crops. Recently, k-mer analysis based on next-generation sequencing (NGS) was proposed as a new method for detecting foreign DNA in genome-edited agricultural products. Compared to conventional methods, such as PCR and Southern hybridization, in principle, this method can detect short DNA fragments with high accuracy.

The discipline of systems chemistry deals with the analysis and synthesis of various autocatalytic systems and is therefore closely related to the study of the origin of life, since it investigates systems that can be considered as a transition between chemical and biological evolution: more complex than simple molecules, but simpler than living cells.

Tibor Gánti described the theory of self-replicating microspheres as early as 1978. These still lacked genetic material, but concealed within their membranes an autocatalytic metabolic network of small molecules, isolated (compartmentalized) within their membranes.

As the autocatalytic process takes place, the membrane-building material is also produced, leading to the division of the sphere. This system may appear to be a living cell, and although it lacks genetic material, this can only be verified experimentally. These microspheres can be considered as “infrabiological” chemical systems, since they do not reach the level of biological organization, but they exceed the complexity of normal chemical reactions.

A protein famed among scientists and clinicians for its ability to suppress the development of many types of tumors may just be moonlighting as a cancer fighter, a recent study by researchers at Stanford Medicine found. The study, conducted in laboratory mice, suggests that the protein, p53, instead evolved to promote the repair of tissues and cells after injury.

The surprising finding is like learning that your favorite bit actor is actually an Oscar-winning director who dabbles in performance on the weekends.

“This turns what we thought we knew about p53 on its head,” said Laura Attardi, Ph.D., professor of radiation oncology and of genetics. “We need to consider that p53’s role as a tumor suppressor may be secondary to a more basic role in repairing damage to tissues.”

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