In focal brain diseases, a patient’s neural network loses key connections, preventing the brain from functioning as it miraculously should. But what if there was a way to restore those connections? An EU funded study is seeking to do just that by getting real biological neurons to synaptically communicate with artificial ones.
Though still in the early stages of study, SYNCH, a team of scientists from the U.K., Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, have created what they describe as a “synaptically connected brain-silicon Neural Closed-loop Hybrid system.” Basically, they’ve taken actual brain cells and artificial brain cells, and got them talking back and forth over the internet.
Fears take hold that a global pandemic is inevitable.
From eastern Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and Africa, a steady stream of new cases on Friday fueled the sense that the new coronavirus epidemic may be turning into a global pandemic, with some health officials saying it may be inevitable.
There are decisions being made right now that could have an effect on global populations for generations to come. As part of this project, we commissioned an artist to investigate some of the themes raised in the podcasts. This work of fiction imagines a future where gene editing has become mainstream and discusses the moral, ethical and political divides that this might create.
Nearly every day, new discoveries are pushing the genetics revolution ever-forward. It’s hard to imagine it’s been only a century and a half since Gregor Mendl experimented with his peas, six decades since Watson and Crick identified the double helix, fourteen years since the completion of the human genome project, and five years since scientists began using CRISPR-cas9 for precision gene editing. Today, these tools are being used in ways that will transform agriculture, animal breeding, healthcare, and ultimately human evolution.
Common practices like in vitro fertilization (IVF) and preimplantation embryo selection make human genetic enhancement possible today. But as we learn more and more about what the genome does, we will be able to make increasingly more informed decisions about which embryos to implant in IVF in the near term and how to manipulate pre-implanted embryos in the longer-term. In our world of exponential scientific advancement, the genetic future will arrive far faster than most people currently understand or are prepared for.
Human genetic science is one of the most important and potentially beneficial advancements of our time, but the monumental health and well-being benefits of these technologies could be overwhelmed by fear, hysteria, and international conflict if a foundation for informed and inclusive public and governmental dialogue is not laid as soon as possible.
Over the past few years biologists have developed several lines of evidence showing that one particular protein molecule inside cells plays an extraordinary variety of life-protecting roles, so much so that the molecule has been dubbed a “guardian angel.” The findings are leading to greater knowledge of how life works and to a deeper understanding of the root causes of cancer.
So pervasive is the molecule’s role that scientists in four areas of biology were on the trail of it, each field unaware, until recently, of the protein’s importance in the others.
Molecular biologists, for example, were trying to learn more about how cells repair the genetic damage that is routinely inflicted by radiation, chemicals and even body heat. In another area of research, cell biologists were trying to understand how cells govern the timing of when they divide. Other cell biologists wanted to know how cells carry out a natural process called “programmed cell death,” or apoptosis, in which a cell literally commits suicide. And, finally, cancer researchers were puzzled by the fact that at least half of all victims had tumors with mutations in one particular gene — so many that they called the gene a “tumor suppressor” on the grounds that when it was knocked out, a cell was predisposed to become cancerous. A Four-Team Effort.
NORTH Korea has brutally executed a coronavirus patient for going out in public, reports claim.
Kim Jong-un’s dictatorship is dealing with the virus with an iron fist after the man was put to his death for dodging quarantine to go to a public bath.
The patient was arrested by officers and immediately shot as the country takes sickening measures to avoid the killer outbreak spreading.
When you see an unconscious patient in a movie, you sometimes see their thoughts onscreen (like in The 9th Life of Louis Drax, above) or at least hear a voiceover.
That may not entirely stay in science fiction. Adrian Owen, neuroscientist and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and his research team are using brain-computer interfaces with advanced technology to get answers directly from people who can’t answer for themselves any other way. Any critical decisions for patients unable to communicate are usually made for them.
The successful delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 modified immune cells to cancer patients represents the first U.S. clinical trial to test the gene editing approach in humans.
Researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania have published data suggesting that immune cells modified using the gene editing tool CRISPR/Cas9 are able to survive and function for months following delivery to cancer patients [1].
The research team demonstrated that T cells taken from patients and modified ex vivo (outside the body) can be safely returned to the patient and continue to survive and fight cancer. The cells were successfully edited in three ways: by deleting the TRAC, TRBC, and PDCD1 genes. In addition to these edits, a cancer-specific T cell receptor was inserted to target the NY-ESO-1 antigen to help improve the T cells’ ability to detect tumors.
