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Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 1203

Apr 30, 2021

Oncogene Linked to Worsening of Blood Vessel Malformations in Brain

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, neuroscience

An acquired mutation in the cancer-causing gene PIK3CA can make blood vessel malformations in the brain worse, possibly explaining why these abnormal clusters sometimes rapidly increase in size and cause stroke or seizures, shows new research.


Research from the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University shows an acquired mutation in the cancer-causing gene PIK3CA can trigger uncontrolled growth in cerebral cavernous malformations often leading to strokes or seizures in those affected.

Apr 30, 2021

A Man Whose Penis Fell Off Is Growing a New One on His Arm

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

After a mechanic from the United Kingdom lost his penis, medical innovators fashioned him a replacement out of his existing tissue — and it now rests on his left forearm.

45-year-old Malcolm MacDonald suffered from a perineum infection which led to a severe case of sepsis in 2014, which spread to his extremities, turning his fingers and toes black. Then it began to also affect his genitalia. “When I saw my penis go black I was beside myself,” MacDonald told The Sun. “It was like a horror film…I knew deep down it was gone and I was going to lose it. Then one day it just dropped off on to the floor.”

For two years afterwards, MacDonald says his life “fell apart”, until he was referred to Professor David Ralph, a urologist at University College London Hospital who specializes in penile reconstruction surgery.

Apr 30, 2021

Move over CRISPR, the retrons are coming

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

While the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system has become the poster child for innovation in synthetic biology, it has some major limitations. CRISPR-Cas9 can be programmed to find and cut specific pieces of DNA, but editing the DNA to create desired mutations requires tricking the cell into using a new piece of DNA to repair the break. This bait-and-switch can be complicated to orchestrate, and can even be toxic to cells because Cas9 often cuts unintended, off-target sites as well.

Alternative gene editing techniques called recombineering instead perform this bait-and-switch by introducing an alternate piece of DNA while a cell is replicating its genome, efficiently creating without breaking DNA. These methods are simple enough that they can be used in many cells at once to create complex pools of mutations for researchers to study. Figuring out what the effects of those mutations are, however, requires that each mutant be isolated, sequenced, and characterized: a time-consuming and impractical task.

Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School (HMS) have created a new gene editing tool called Retron Library Recombineering (RLR) that makes this task easier. RLR generates up to millions of mutations simultaneously, and “barcodes” mutant cells so that the entire pool can be screened at once, enabling massive amounts of data to be easily generated and analyzed. The achievement, which has been accomplished in , is described in a recent paper in PNAS.

Apr 30, 2021

Jasmijn Kok — Juno Perinatal Healthcare — Artificial Womb Technology For Extremely Preterm Infants

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, mathematics

Artificial womb technology for extremely preterm infants — jasmijn kok, juno perinatal healthcare.


Every year, 800000 babies are born extremely preterm (defined as less than 28 weeks of age) worldwide. These infants are usually transferred to an air-based neonatal intensive care unit to support their heart and lung development. Exposure to air, however, leads to many complications, because the lungs are not fully developed yet.

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Apr 30, 2021

DNA building blocks regulate inflammation

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

Mitochondria are the energy suppliers of our body cells. These tiny cell components have their own genetic material, which triggers an inflammatory response when released into the interior of the cell. The reasons for the release are not yet known, but some cardiac and neurodegenerative diseases as well as the aging process are linked to the mitochondrial genome. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging and the CECAD Cluster of Excellence in Aging research have investigated the reasons for the release of mitochondrial genetic material and found a direct link to cellular metabolism: when the cell’s DNA building blocks are in short supply, mitochondria release their genetic material and trigger inflammation. The researchers hope to find new therapeutic approaches by influencing this metabolic pathway.

Our body needs energy—for every metabolic process, every movement and for breathing. This energy is produced in tiny components of our body , the so-called mitochondria. Unlike other cell components, mitochondria have their own genetic material, mitochondrial DNA. However, in certain situations, mitochondria release their DNA into the interior of the cell, causing a reaction from the cell’s own immune system and being associated with various diseases as well as the aging process. The reasons for the release of mitochondrial DNA are not yet known.

Apr 30, 2021

EU calls for rethink of GMO rules for gene-edited crops

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, genetics

But the biotech industry has argued that much of gene-editing simply accelerates processes that occur naturally, and that GMO-style regulation would shackle efforts to develop sustainable crops or advance research into human disease.


The European Commission launched a review of EU rules on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on Thursday, opening the door to a possible loosening of restrictions for plants resulting from gene-editing technology.

Prompted by a 2018 ruling from the European Union’s top court that techniques to alter the genome of an organism should be governed by existing EU rules on GMOs, the Commission concluded that its 2001 legislation was “not fit for purpose”.

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Apr 30, 2021

Katherine Sizov — Strella Biotech — Bio-Sensing To Reduce Food Waste And Optimize Supply Chains

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, engineering, food

Novel bio-sensing technologies to reduce food waste and optimize supply chains — a US$1 trillion need — katherine sizov — founder, strella biotechnology.


An estimated 40% of all global produce is wasted due to spoilage that occurs before it ever reaches consumers’ grocery bags. And this loss, not only represents loss due to quality or ripeness standards that consumers desire, but also a significant impact on global emissions and fresh water supplies that it took to produce and transport that produce, representing a combined figure of US$1 Trillion annually.

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Apr 30, 2021

GFS 2020 — Aubrey de Grey — Rejuvenation Biotechnology: why age may soon cease to mean aging

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

Between 19:39 and 24 minutes we have Aubrey giving a list of companies and stating that investing is now taking off. Project 21 seems to be on track to start next year, and therapies available in 10–15 years will add 30 years to life and really be indefinite beyond that.


Rejuvenation Biotechnology: why age may soon cease to mean aging.
People are living longer — no longer because of reduced child mortality, but because we are postponing the ill-health of old age. But we’ve seen nothing yet: regenerative medicine and other new medicines will eventually be so comprehensive that people will stay truly youthful however long they live, which means they may mostly live very long indeed.

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Apr 29, 2021

Radical new gene therapy restores sight to patients with rare eye condition — BBC News

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Scientists have been using a new form of gene therapy to treat a rare inherited eye condition which eventually causes severe tunnel vision.

Scientists have been using the new treatment on patients to try to halt further loss of sight. And they’ve been astonished to find that it has actually improved their vision.

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Apr 29, 2021

A modular building platform for the most ingenious of robots

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) have developed a system with which they can fabricate miniature robots building block by building block, which function exactly as required.

As one would do with a Lego system, the scientists can randomly combine individual components. The blocks or voxels—which could be described as 3D pixels—are made of different materials: from basic matrix materials that hold up the construction to magnetic components enabling the control of the soft machine. “You can put the individual soft parts together in any way you wish, with no limitations on what you can achieve. In this way, each has an individual magnetisation profile,” says Jiachen Zhang. Together with Ziyu Ren and Wenqi Hu he is first author of the paper entitled “Voxelated three-dimensional miniature magnetic soft machines via multimaterial heterogeneous assembly.” The paper was published in Science Robotics on April 28, 2021.

The project is the result of many previous projects conducted in the Physical Intelligence Department at MPI-IS. For many years, scientists there have been working on magnetically controlled robots for wireless medical device applications at the small scale, from millimeters down to micrometers size. While the state-of-the-art designs they have developed to date have attracted attention around the world, they were limited by the single material with which they were made, which constrained their functionality.