Menu

Blog

Archive for the ‘bioengineering’ category: Page 149

Oct 4, 2018

Artificial enzymes convert solar energy into hydrogen gas

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biological, chemistry, genetics, solar power, sustainability

In a new scientific article, researchers at Uppsala University describe how, using a completely new method, they have synthesised an artificial enzyme that functions in the metabolism of living cells. These enzymes can utilize the cell’s own energy, and thereby enable hydrogen gas to be produced from solar energy.

Hydrogen gas has long been noted as a promising carrier, but its production is still dependent on fossil raw materials. Renewable gas can be extracted from water, but as yet the systems for doing so have limitations.

In the new article, published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, an interdisciplinary European research group led by Uppsala University scientists describe how convert into hydrogen gas. This entirely new method has been developed at the University in the past few years. The technique is based on photosynthetic microorganisms with genetically inserted enzymes that are combined with synthetic compounds produced in the laboratory. Synthetic biology has been combined with synthetic chemistry to design and create custom artificial enzymes inside living organisms.

Continue reading “Artificial enzymes convert solar energy into hydrogen gas” »

Oct 4, 2018

Bioquark Inc. — Younger Every Day Podcast — Ira Pastor

Posted by in categories: aging, bioengineering, biotech/medical, cryonics, futurism, genetics, health, life extension, neuroscience, transhumanism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX1PiRyIOis

Oct 2, 2018

Movement for Indefinite Life Extension 2018 Drive to Stay Alive Message

Posted by in categories: aging, bioengineering, ethics, existential risks, futurism, life extension, philosophy, transhumanism

The universe is filled with uncountable amounts of mystery, discovery, opportunity, experiences, marvels and more. So, let’s not die if we don’t have to.

It’s much harder to make the case that radical longevity cannot be engineered into our biology than that it can. Humanity engineers cells in countless ways all the time now, and our knowledge, capability and tools keep growing exponentially.

Now, a mainstream amount of demand to create a bustling global industry of life extension R&D is the only thing standing between you and the ability to live indefinitely.” — Eric Schulke

Fifteen thousand years worth of Netflix are watched every day. Fifteen billion dollars are spent on the Super Bowl and fifteen billion dollars are spent on Valentine’s day. Those aren’t bad things but we need some perspective. Survival is humanity’s main and oldest occupation. We have what it takes to survive if we pay attention and get with the program.

Continue reading “Movement for Indefinite Life Extension 2018 Drive to Stay Alive Message” »

Oct 1, 2018

Genetically engineered viruses discern, destroy E. coli in drinking water

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

To rapidly detect the presence of E. coli in drinking water, Cornell University food scientists now can employ a bacteriophage — a genetically engineered virus — in a test used in hard-to-reach areas around the world.

Read more

Sep 27, 2018

Switching Off ALPL Gene Contributes to Bone Aging

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

A recent open-access mouse study published by Xi’an Institute of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine scientists in the journal Bone Research describes how the ALPL gene affects bone aging and suggests that metformin might constitute a viable therapeutic option to prevent it [1].

Study abstract

Mutations in the liver/bone/kidney alkaline phosphatase (Alpl) gene cause hypophosphatasia (HPP) and early-onset bone dysplasia, suggesting that this gene is a key factor in human bone development. However, how and where Alpl acts in bone ageing is largely unknown. Here, we determined that ablation of Alpl induces prototypical premature bone ageing characteristics, including bone mass loss and marrow fat gain coupled with elevated expression of p16INK4A (p16) and p53 due to senescence and impaired differentiation in mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Mechanistically, Alpl deficiency in MSCs enhances ATP release and reduces ATP hydrolysis. Then, the excessive extracellular ATP is, in turn, internalized by MSCs and causes an elevation in the intracellular ATP level, which consequently inactivates the AMPKα pathway and contributes to the cell fate switch of MSCs.

Continue reading “Switching Off ALPL Gene Contributes to Bone Aging” »

Sep 26, 2018

The dangers of biohacking ‘experiments’– and how it could harm your health

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

Biohacking for cures: what you need to know.

Read more

Sep 25, 2018

3D bioPen: A hydrogel injection to regenerate cartilage

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, bioengineering, biotech/medical, neuroscience

Highly specialized cartilage is characteristically avascular and non-neural in composition with low cell numbers in an aliphatic environment. Despite its apparent simplicity, bioengineering regenerative hyaline cartilage in a form effective for implantation remains challenging in musculoskeletal tissue engineering. Existing surgical techniques including autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) and matrix-induced autologous chondrocyte implantation (MACI) are considered superior to self-repair induction techniques. However, both MACI and ACI are complex, multistage procedures that require a double operation; first for surgical excision of native cartilage, followed by expansion of adult chondrocytes in vitro prior to implantation by a second operation.

Regenerating robust articular hyaline-like cartilage is a key priority in musculoskeletal tissue engineering to prevent cost-intensive degenerative osteoarthritis that limits the quality of life in global healthcare. Integrating mesenchymal stem cells and 3D printing technologies has shown significant promise in bone tissue engineering– although the key challenge remains in transferring the bench-based technology to the operating room for real-time applications. To tackle this, a team of Australian orthopedic surgeons and bioengineers collaboratively proposed an in situ additive manufacturing technique for effective cartilage regeneration. The handheld engineered extrusion device known as the BioPen offers an advanced, co-axial extrusion strategy to deposit cells embedded in a hydrogel material within a surgical setting.

Continue reading “3D bioPen: A hydrogel injection to regenerate cartilage” »

Sep 25, 2018

Bioquark Inc. — Reader’s Digest (15 Cool Future Jobs) — Ira Pastor

Posted by in categories: aging, bioengineering, biotech/medical, DNA, futurism, genetics, health, life extension, posthumanism, science

Sep 24, 2018

Gene editing wipes out mosquitoes in lab

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

Researchers have used gene editing to completely eliminate populations of mosquitoes in the lab.

The team tested their technique on the mosquito Anopheles gambiae, which transmits malaria.

They altered part of a gene called doublesex, which determines whether an individual mosquito develops as a male or as a female.

Read more

Sep 22, 2018

If We Made Life in a Lab, Would We Understand It Differently?

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, evolution, nanotechnology

Only time will tell what new forms life will take.


Joyce seeks to understand life by trying to generate simple living systems in the lab. In doing so, he and other synthetic biologists bring new kinds of life into being. Every attempt to synthesize novel life forms points to the fact that there are still more, perhaps infinite, possibilities for how life could be. Synthetic biologists could change the way life evolves, or its capacity to evolve at all. Their work raises new questions about a definition of life based on evolution. How to categorize life that is redesigned, the product of a break in the chain of evolutionary descent?

An origin story for synthetic biology goes like this: in 1997, Drew Endy, one of the founders of synthetic biology and now a professor of bioengineering at Stanford University in California, was trying to create a computational model of the simplest life form he could find: the bacteriophage T7, a virus that infects E coli bacteria. A crystalline head atop spindly legs, it looks like a landing capsule touching down on the Moon as it grabs onto its bacterial host. The bacteriophage is so simple that by some definitions it is not even alive. (Like all viruses, it depends on the molecular machinery of its host cell to replicate.) Bacteriophage T7 has only 56 genes, and Endy thought it might be possible to create a model that accounted for every part of the phage and how those parts worked together: a perfect representation that would predict how the phage would change if any one of its genes were moved or deleted.

Continue reading “If We Made Life in a Lab, Would We Understand It Differently?” »