Wageningen is one of a clutch of research institutions globally that hold patents on CRISPR, a technique that enables precise changes to be made to genomes, at specific locations. Other institutions — including the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the University of California, Berkeley, which have some of the largest portfolios of patents on the subject — also provide CRISPR tools and some intellectual property (IP) for free for non-profit use. But universities could do better to facilitate access to CRISPR technologies for research.
Universities hold the majority of CRISPR patents. They are in a strong position to ensure that the technology is widely shared for education and research.
An NYU-based research team created microscopic cells out of a polymer that can do active transport, a process all living cells do that is difficult to replicate.
Researchers have developed artificial cell-like structures using inorganic matter that autonomously ingest, process, and push out material—recreating an essential function of living cells.
Their article, published in Nature, provides a blueprint for creating “cell mimics,” with potential applications ranging from drug delivery to environmental science.
A fundamental function of living cells is their ability to harvest energy from the environment to pump molecules in and out of their systems. When energy is used to move these molecules from areas of lower concentration to areas of higher concentration, the process is called active transport. Active transport allows cells to take in necessary molecules like glucose or amino acids, store energy, and extract waste.
In fact, these antibodies could even fight off a virus engineered, on purpose, to be highly resistant to neutralization. This virus contained 20 mutations that are known to prevent SARS-CoV-2 antibodies from binding to it. Antibodies from people who were only vaccinated or only had prior COVID infections were essentially useless against this mutant virus. But antibodies in people with the “hybrid immunity” could neutralize it.
That’s how one scientist describes the findings of a series of studies looking at the antibodies created by individuals who were infected by the virus and then had an mRNA vaccine.
Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed COVID-19 vaccine candidates that can take the heat. Their key ingredients? Viruses from plants or bacteria.
The new fridge-free COVID-19 vaccines are still in the early stage of development. In mice, the vaccine candidates triggered high production of neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. If they prove to be safe and effective in people, the vaccines could be a big game changer for global distribution efforts, including those in rural areas or resource-poor communities.
“What’s exciting about our vaccine technology is that is thermally stable, so it could easily reach places where setting up ultra-low temperature freezers, or having trucks drive around with these freezers, is not going to be possible,” said Nicole Steinmetz, a professor of nanoengineering and the director of the Center for Nano-ImmunoEngineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
If you could cure genetic diseases by editing DNA sequences, would you?
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Berkeley scientist Jennifer Doudna won the 2020 Nobel Prize for her work on the revolutionary gene-editing technology known as CRISPR. It has the potential to cure genetic diseases like sickle cell anemia and hereditary blindness and may even be used to treat cancer and HIV. But when it comes to editing humanity, where do we draw the line?
Bioengineers have repurposed a “non-working” CRISPR system to make a smaller version of the genome engineering tool. Its diminutive size should make it easier to deliver into human cells, tissues and the body for gene therapy.
Researchers at Lund University have designed a new bioink which allows small human-sized airways to be 3D-bioprinted with the help of patient cells for the first time. The 3D-printed constructs are biocompatible and support new blood vessel growth into the transplanted material. This is an important first step towards 3D-printing organs.
Therefore, researchers are looking at ways to increase the amount of lungs available for transplantation. One approach is fabricating lungs in the lab by combining cells with a bioengineered scaffold.
Life is an integrated flow of quantum computational processes giving rise to our conscious experience. Based on the ontological model, the Cybernetic Theory of Mind by evolutionary cyberneticist Alex Vikoulov that he expands on in his magnum opus The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution, comes a new documentary ― Consciousness: Evolution of the Mind.
This film, hosted by the author of the book from which the narrative is derived, is now available for viewing on demand on Vimeo, Plex, Tubi, Social Club TV and other global networks with its worldwide premiere aired on June 8 2021. This is a futurist’s take on the nature of consciousness and reverse engineering of our thinking in order to implement it in cybernetics and AI systems.
Many definitions have been given to consciousness but we still don’t seem to have a widely accepted, uniform one. Part I, What is Consciousness? gives us the most comprehensive definition of consciousness, makes a clear distinction between ‘Mind’ and ‘Consciousness’, and sheds light on the fundamental physics of consciousness. Qualia, cognition and development of the human mind are addressed in this opening part of the documentary.
The late 21st century belongs to Superhumans. Technological progress in the field of medicine through gene editing tools like CRISPR is going to revolutionize what it means to be human. The age of Superhumans is portrayed in many science fiction movies, but for the first time in our species history, radically altering our genome is going to be possible through the methods and tools of science.
The gene-editing tool CRISPR, short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, could help us to reprogram life. It gives scientists more power and precision than they have ever had to alter human DNA.
Genetic engineering holds great promise for the future of humanity. A growing number of scientists including David Sinclair believe that we will soon be able to engineer and change our genes in a way that will help us live longer and healthier lives.
But how much should we really tinker with our own nature? What is the moral responsibility of scientists and humans towards future generations?
With technological advances in molecular biology like CRISPR that allow for specific gene editing approaches, many scientists argue that there are strong potential benefits as well as risks to human genetic engineering. David Sinclair is a geneticist at Harvard Medical School. He believes it’s possible to unlock the fountain of youth.
The potential uses of such gene editing techniques could range from the treatment of disease to the enhancement of beauty and intelligence.
