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Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 2675

Mar 4, 2016

Researcher develops technique for enhancing gene therapy

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

Using his knowledge of how genes are organized and repaired in human cells, Dr. Graham Dellaire, Dalhousie Medical School’s Cameron Research Scientist in Cancer Biology, has developed a technique that could make gene therapy more effective and safer to use. His work was recently published in Nucleic Acids Research and Nature.

CRISPR, named 2015’s breakthrough discovery of the year, stands for “Clustered Regularly-Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.” It can accurately target and edit DNA, offering the potential to cure genetic diseases and find new treatments for cancer.

To apply CRISPR in non-dividing cells—such as those in muscle and brain tissue—researchers must first make them behave like cells that divide. They do this by turning on a cellular process called homologous recombination, which protects DNA; the recombination allows a cell’s genes to be manipulated and rearranged without the possibility of causing more harm than good.

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Mar 3, 2016

This genetics company claims it just achieved a major milestone in biology — and it could transform personalized medicine

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Veritas Genetics, a Boston-based biotech company co-founded by Harvard geneticist George Church, is claiming it can now sequence your entire genome — the genetic blueprint inside all your cells that makes you who and what you are — for less than $1,000. That price tag includes an interpretation of the results and genetic counseling.

If the claim is true, it would shatter a long-held barrier in genetic medicine.

Reaching the $1,000 genome

Continue reading “This genetics company claims it just achieved a major milestone in biology — and it could transform personalized medicine” »

Mar 3, 2016

3D-Printed Brain Tissue a Success

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySPvBbfY2Fc

A 3D-printed layered structure that incorporates neural cells to mimic the structure of brain tissue has been created by researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) in Australia, and it could have major consequences in studying and treating conditions such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s. The three-dimensional structure will allow scientists to better understand the complex nature of the brain and its 86 billion nerve cells. We look at the benefits and risks of this scientific breakthrough on the Lip News with Jose Marcelino Ortiz and Jo Ankier.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/researchers-are-getting-clo…ing-brains

Continue reading “3D-Printed Brain Tissue a Success” »

Mar 2, 2016

The nanolight revolution is coming

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, particle physics

P-Dots v. Q-Dots;


Virus-sized particles that fluoresce in every colour could revolutionize applications from television displays to cancer treatment.

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Mar 2, 2016

Artificial Intelligence Risk — 12 Researchers Weigh in on the Danger’s of Smarter Machines

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, economics, mobile phones, robotics/AI, security

A realistic article on AI — especially around AI being manipulated by others for their own gain which I have also identified as the real risks with AI.


Artificial intelligence (AI), once the seeming red-headed stepchild of the scientific community, has come a long way in the past two decades. Most of us have reconciled with the fact that we can’t live without our smartphones and Siri, and AI’s seemingly omnipotent nature has infiltrated the nearest and farthest corners of our lives, from robo-advisors on Wall Street and crime-spotting security cameras, to big data analysis by Google’s BigQuery and Watson’s entry into diagnostics in the medical field.

In many unforeseen ways, AI is helping to improve and make our lives more efficient, though the reverse degeneration of human economic and cultural structures is also a potential reality. The Future of Life Institute’s tagline sums it up in succinct fashion: “Technology is giving life the potential to flourish like never before…or to self-destruct.” Humans are the creators, but will we always have control of our revolutionary inventions?

To much of the general public, AI is AI is AI, but this is only part truth. Today, there are two primary strands of AI development — ANI (Artificial Narrow Intelligence) and AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). ANI is often termed “weak AI” and is “the expert” of the pair, using its intelligence to perform specific functions. Most of the technology with which we surround ourselves (including Siri) falls into the ANI bucket. AGI is the next generation of ANI, and it’s the type of AI behind dreams of building a machine that achieves human levels of consciousness.

Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence Risk — 12 Researchers Weigh in on the Danger’s of Smarter Machines” »

Mar 2, 2016

Never Say Die – SELF/LESS from Science-Fiction to –Fact

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, ethics, health, life extension, neuroscience, robotics/AI, transhumanism

In SELF/LESS, a dying old man (Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley) transfers his consciousness to the body of a healthy young man (Ryan Reynolds). If you’re into immortality, that’s pretty good product packaging, no?

But this thought-provoking psychological thriller also raises fundamental and felicitous ethical questions about extending life beyond its natural boundaries. Postulating the moral and ethical issues that surround mortality have long been defining characteristics of many notable stories within the sci-fi genre. In fact, the Mary Shelley’s age-old novel, Frankenstein, while having little to no direct plot overlaps [with SELF/LESS], it is considered by many to be among the first examples of the science fiction genre.

Continue reading “Never Say Die – SELF/LESS from Science-Fiction to -Fact” »

Mar 1, 2016

Scientists aim to harness power of body’s electrical impulses to treat patients

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry

I am so glad to see this finally. Researchers aim to turn our electrical impulses into a mainstay of medical treatment through bioelectronics, or electroceuticals. I have study the neurological sensory patterns for over a decade as side research to help myself understand sensory patterns of the brain as well as how the brain repairs cells, injuries, and other conditions as well as it’s involvement with cancer, etc. I do love this.

We finally may see a day when chemical/ artificial meds are no longer needed to treat many conditions.


Until now the pharmaceutical industry has been based on chemistry and biology. Patients are treated with drugs that work through biochemical interactions with the body’s molecular pathways. Now GlaxoSmithKline, the UK pharmaceutical company, is.

Continue reading “Scientists aim to harness power of body’s electrical impulses to treat patients” »

Mar 1, 2016

Keeping Tabs on Polyhistidine Tags

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Sounds like new options to be considered around Polyhistidine Tagging.


Among bioprocessors, attitudes toward affinity purification range from a desire to move beyond old specificity/yield trade-offs to a willingness to explore new polyhistidine technology spin-offs, including systems for real-time detection.

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Mar 1, 2016

Round Up linked to cancer

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, health, sustainability

Bad news if you use RoundUp.


Local councils across Australia that use the weed killer glyphosate on nature-strips and playgrounds are being warned that the chemical probably causes cancer.

An updated World Health Organisation (WHO) warning for the herbicide, often trade marked as Roundup, is also routinely used in household gardens and farms.

Continue reading “Round Up linked to cancer” »

Mar 1, 2016

Voice biometrics to be commonplace in customer service: Nuance

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, privacy

This could be very very tricky for a number of reasons: 1) how will this work with people who develop laryngitis or some other illness disrupting their speech? 2) what happens if a person uses a recorded voice or voice changer? 3) what happens when a person’s voice does change as they get older or have a medical procedure done that permanently alters the voice? I could list more; however, I believe that researcher will realize that there will be a need for two forms of biometrics when it comes to the voice.


Software firm Nuance believes that in the near future, there will be an expectation from customers to interact with technology in a more human-like manner.

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