Lifeboat Foundation

In a bold first-of-its-kind experiment, scientists have edited a person’s genes directly inside living tissue in an ambitious bid to cure a man of a rare, crippling genetic disorder.

While CRISPR has broken ground in things like editing human embryos and injecting patients with genetically edited cells, this alternative technique pioneers a new real-time approach to infusing a person’s blood with a gene-editing virus.

Continue reading “Scientists Have Tried First-Ever Gene Editing Directly Inside a Patient’s Body” »

It worked. Working with mice, they were able to reverse the disease symptoms of kidney disease, type 1 diabetes, and a form of muscular dystrophy. In the mouse with kidney disease, for example, they turned on two genes associated with kidney function and saw the kidney function improved.

The unassumingly named CRISPR/Cas9 is a technology that stands to remake the world as we know it. By allowing scientists to more easily than ever cut and paste all those As, Cs, Ts, and Gs that encode all the world’s living things, for one thing, it could one day cure many devastating diseases.

All that power, though, comes with one pretty sizable caveat: Sometimes CRISPR doesn’t work quite like we expect it to. While the scientific establishment is still embroiled in a debate over just how serious the problem is, CRISPR sometimes causes off-target effects. And for scientists doing gene editing on human patients, those mutations could wind up inadvertently causing problems like tumors or genetic disease. Yikes.

Continue reading “A Modified CRISPR Could Treat Common Diseases Without Editing DNA” »

Mukherjee is now 47 and lives in New York; Marsh, 67, lives in Oxford. To different extents both of these doctors still practise in their respective fields – Mukherjee at Columbia University’s cancer centre, Marsh as a visiting doctor at various hospitals around the world, including in Kathmandu in Nepal. Both men have continued to write: Marsh a second volume of autobiography, called Admissions, published this year, and Mukherjee a study of genetics called The Gene: An Intimate History, published last year. When they sat down to talk to each other over Skype one Saturday afternoon in November, they began with a subject on which their two lifelong disciplines overlap: the treatment of brain cancer.

The cancer specialist and the neurosurgeon talk about treating cancer, writing and facing death in their own families by Tom Lamont.

A team at MIT has genetically modified bacteria cells and developed a new 3D printing technique to create a “living tattoo” that can respond to a variety of stimuli.

Electronic tattoos and smart ink technologies are showing exciting potential for reframing how we think of wearable sensor devices. While many engineers are experimenting with a variety of responsive materials the MIT team wondered if live cells could be co-opted into a functional use.

Continue reading “3D-printed live bacteria creates world’s first ‘living tattoo’” »

‘UN diplomats confirmed that the new email release would worsen the “bad name” of gene drives in some circles. “Many countries [will] have concerns when this technology comes from DARPA, a US military science agency,” one said.‘.

Cutting-edge gene editing tools such as Crispr-Cas9 work by using a synthetic ribonucleic acid (RNA) to cut into DNA strands and then insert, alter or remove targeted traits. These might, for example, distort the sex-ratio of mosquitoes to effectively wipe out malarial populations.

Some UN experts, though, worry about unintended consequences. One told the Guardian: “You may be able to remove viruses or the entire mosquito population, but that may also have downstream ecological effects on species that depend on them.”

Continue reading “US military agency invests $100m in genetic extinction technologies” »

Summary: (Video) A short animation from the journal Nature demonstrates revolutionary new additions to the CRISPR toolbox some call CRISPR 2.0. Scroll down for video. [This article first appeared on LongevityFacts. Follow us on Reddit | Google+ | Facebook. Author: Brady Hartman.]

Techniques to modify DNA in the genome have existed for several decades, and the original CRISPR-Cas9, called CRISPR 1.0, brought an era of faster, cheaper, and more efficient gene editing tools. A short video from the journal Nature shows you how scientists have revolutionized the original CRISPR-Cas9 system, significantly expanded its toolbox, creating a more powerful set of tools some call CRISPR 2.0. Genetic engineers have discovered how to make CRISPR perform new tricks such as improved gene editing, turning genes on and off, and making genes glow for research.

What are gene editing and crispr-cas9?

Continue reading “CRISPR 2.0: New Ways to Edit Genes in Our Body (video)” »

Summary: Will gene drive wipe out malaria-causing mosquitoes, or will the genetic technology that ‘spreads like wildfire’ cause a catastrophe? Gene drive raises hopes and fears as a team of scientists funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are using it to wipe out the mosquitoes that carry malaria, to eradicate the disease. [This article first appeared on LongevityFacts. Follow us on Reddit | Google+ | Facebook. Author: Brady Hartman.]

In a basement lab at the Imperial College London (ICL), a group of researchers led by Andrew Hammond are on a mission to wipe out malaria. The scientists are funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and are using a technology called gene drive – a souped-up form of genetic engineering designed to wipe out the mosquitoes that carry the disease.

The lab contains cages of mosquitoes modified with the gene drive, along with an additional gene that makes their eyes and other body parts glow red under laser light.

Continue reading “Microsoft’s Gates to Genetically Engineer Laser Lit Mosquitoes Using Gene Drive” »

Summary: Can a gene fuel obesity? Variants of a gene called ‘ankyrin-B’ – a gene carried by millions of Americans – could cause individuals to put on pounds through no fault of their own. [This article first appeared on LongevityFacts. Follow us on Reddit | Google+ | Facebook. Author: Brady Hartman]

We often attribute obesity to eating too much and exercising too little. However, the evidence is growing that at least some of our weight gain is predetermined by our genes. And if a simple genetic variant causes weight gain, then it’s a prime target for gene editing.

New research from the University of North Carolina suggests that variants in a gene called ankyrin-B, a gene carried by millions of Americans, could cause individuals to gain weight through no fault of their own.

Mutations in a gene linked to autism in people causes neurons to form too many connections in rodents, according to a new study. The findings suggest that malfunctions in communication between brain cells could be at the root of autism.