Lifeboat Foundation

“Furthermore, the chromatophore project marks a shift in computational biophysics from analyzing the individual cell parts (e.g., a single protein) to analyzing the specialized systems of the cell (e.g., hundreds of proteins working together to carry out an autonomous function). This is a significant step toward the long-term goal of simulating an entire living organism.”

Nearly all life on Earth depends on photosynthesis, the conversion of light energy into chemical energy. Oxygen-producing plants and cyanobacteria perfected this process 2.7 billion years ago. But the first photosynthetic organisms were likely single-celled purple bacteria that began absorbing near-infrared light and converting it to sulfur or sulfates about 3.4 billion years ago.

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Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University have engineered a tethered ribosome that works nearly as well as the authentic cellular component, or organelle, that produces all the proteins and enzymes within the cell. The engineered ribosome may enable the production of new drugs and next-generation biomaterials and lead to a better understanding of how ribosomes function.

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Learn about the advancements of a robot that will save lives. The plan? It’s going to produce 3D printed organs and even a fully functional human heart.

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Imagine being able to snap a mechanical digger or a Star Wars spaceship onto the end of your arm. With the next level of prosthetic designs from Lego, this could soon be a playtime reality for kids with prosthetic limbs.

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Researchers in the US have been testing a new type of antidepressant medication on rats, and say it’s able to treat the symptoms of depression in less than a day, compared to the three to eight weeks it takes current drugs to work. If the results can be replicated in humans, the drug could offer a much more effective option than treatments such as Prozac and Lexapro, which are only effective in only a third of patients who have been diagnosed with depression.

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More interesting developments on the regenerative medicine front this time from UCSF and Villeda. B2M is a downstream consequence of too much TGF-b1 as demonstrated in the recent Conboy regeneration test. This is more validation that cell and tissue regeneration is very near future and should translate to humans.

At UC San Francisco, we are driven by the idea that when the best research, the best teaching and the best patient care converge, we can deliver breakthroughs that help heal the world.

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Genome editing by engineered Cas9 systems (credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers) CRISPR/Cas systems for genome editing have revolutionized biological research over the past three years, and their ability to make targeted changes in DNA sequences in living cells with relative ease and affordability is now being applied to clinical medicine and will have a significant impact on advances in drug and other therapies, agriculture, and food products.

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A good summary of the crisis in research and the broken paradigm the medical world is currently stuck in from Josh Mitteldorf’s excellent blog.

Capital shuns risk. — The essence of science is exploration of the unknown. Science and Capitalism is not exactly a match made in heaven. Government and foundation funding has always been behind the curve of innovation, but the recent contraction in US science funding has engendered an unprecedented intensity of competition. This has translated into a disastrous attitude of risk aversion. A “hard-headed” business model prevails at the funding agencies, and they are now funding only those projects that they deem “most likely to succeed.”

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This is the story of the most important biological discovery of the last 10 years. Will it be used for good, or evil, or everything in between?

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