Lesley Chow, an assistant professor at Lehigh, felt inspired to develop a novel method to fabricate scaffolds that resemble native biological tissues. To do so, her research takes place in The Chow Lab.

Chow, who completed her Ph.D at Northwestern as a polymer chemist, and her lab work primarily with polymer modification. She works in the bioengineering and materials science department, said her lab takes the polymers and modifies them with peptides, which are thought of as the building block to make different types of molecules to form cells with respective specialties.

We started adding peptides onto the polymers because that allowed us to create something which we call bioactive, Chow said. Its almost like giving a signal to the cell to check out a molecule on the surface, and then bossing them around and trying to tell them all the different things they need to do.

Intrigued and aware of the intricately-organized structure of tissues, Chow said the lab then tries to use 3D printing to control where each of the molecules go to replicate the organization of different tissues.

Diana Hammerstone, 20, a materials science and engineering student, said the labs overarching project is to try to regenerate the osteochondral tissues, the cartilage in the knee that does not regenerate on its own.

We use solvent-cast 3D printing to fabricate scaffolds made of biodegradable polymers, Hammerstone said. We can independently change the physical and biochemical cues the scaffolds give cells using this technique.

In one specific project, Chow said they found that cells responded differently in their material that has organized signals, rather than just being mixed together, which illustrates how intelligent cells are.

Chow said one of the biggest things the lab is doing is taking some of its technologies in vivo, or with the living, to implant them into animals and see how the existing cells in the animal would respond.

We want to try and demonstrate the ability for our materials to be useful and hopefully one day make materials that can be implanted in the clinic, Chow said. What would be really cool, is if our small, little material helps regenerate that tissue. For instance, say you have an injury, you could just get this material implanted in your body, and then itll heal itself better.

The research team collaborates as a whole to achieve its overarching research goal.

As a new member of the team, Yaa Donkor, 23, chemical and biological engineering student, said a lot of her collaboration is asking and clarifying questions to her lab members.

When my team and I need to figure something out, each of us shares our ideas and talks through the problems together to achieve the goal of our project, Doker said.

Chow said the team has a broad, big picture goal of being able to make materials that guide the organization of tissues, and each student in the lab has a specific job that fits within that larger goal.

Chow said the dynamic of the lab is like a dream situation for her, and she said she values the way the group interacts with each other.

Matthew Fainor, 20, said every undergraduate in the lab is paired with a graduate student to collaborate on larger projects.

I work with my graduate student, and then the graduate students work together to piece together the bigger picture of the research, and we all work with Dr. Chow to communicate that research and make sure everything is coming together cohesively, Fainor said.

Hammerstone said the biomaterials lab allows her to apply her material science and engineering background in a bioengineering setting. She said her research experience will be helpful as she transitions to a graduate researcher.

Hammerstone said the most rewarding part of her research is getting to work with experienced and bright engineers to make a difference in peoples lives, as osteoarthritis affects millions of people worldwide, according to the Mayo Clinic.

As someone who will be leaving the lab in a few months, Fainor said he hopes that the projects he is working on can be handed off successfully to someone and made easy for them to understand.

I really believe in the goal our lab has and looking forward to seeing how Dr. Chow, and the graduate students that will continue to be there, continue to move toward our goal, Fainor said.

In the future, Donker said she hopes that The Chow Lab will continue to be the heartwarming place that contributes to life-improving medical knowledge.

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'The Chow Lab' researches to fabricate scaffolds - The Brown and White

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. With a new CRISPR gene-editing methodology, scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign inactivated one of the genes responsible for an inherited form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis a debilitating and fatal neurological disease for which there is no cure. The novel treatment slowed disease progression, improved muscle function and extended lifespan in mice with an aggressive form of ALS.

ALS unfortunately has few treatment options. This is an important first step in showing that this new form of gene editing could be used to potentially treat the disease, said bioengineering professor Thomas Gaj, who co-led the study with bioengineering professor Pablo Perez-Pinera.

The method relied on an emerging gene-editing technology known as CRISPR base editors.

Traditional CRISPR gene-editing technologies cut both strands of a DNA molecule, which can introduce a variety of errors in the DNA sequence, limiting its efficiency and potentially leading to a number of unintended mutations in the genome. The Illinois group instead used base editing to change one letter of the DNA sequence to another without cutting through both DNA strands, Perez-Pinera said.

Base editors are too large to be delivered into cells with one of the most promising and successful gene therapy vectors, known as adeno-associated virus, Gaj said. However, in 2019, Perez-Pineras group developed a method of splitting the base editor proteins into halves that can be delivered by two separate AAV particles. Once inside the cell, the halves reassemble into the full-length base editor protein.

By combining the power of AAV gene delivery and split-base editors, Gaj and Perez-Pinera targeted and permanently disabled a mutant SOD1 gene, which is responsible for roughly 20% of inherited forms of ALS. They published their results in the journal Molecular Therapy.

Many ALS studies are focused on preventing or delaying the onset of the disease. However, in the real world, most patients are not diagnosed until symptoms are advanced, said graduate student Colin Lim. Slowing progression, rather than preventing it, may have a greater impact on patients. Lim is the co-first author of the study along with graduate students Michael Gapinske and Alexandra Brooks.

CRISPR base editing decreased the amount of a mutant protein (blue) that contributes to ALS in the spinal cord. Left, a spinal cord section from an untreated mouse. Right, a spinal cord section from an animal treated by base editing.

Image courtesy of Thomas Gaj

Edit embedded media in the Files Tab and re-insert as needed.

The researchers first tested the SOD1 base editor in human cells to verify reassembly of the split CRISPR base editor and inactivation of the SOD1 gene. Then they injected AAV particles encoding the base editors into the spinal columns of mice carrying a mutant SOD1 gene that causes a particularly severe form of ALS that paralyzes the mice within a few months after birth.

The disease progressed more slowly in treated mice, which had improved motor function, greater muscle strength and less weight loss. The researchers observed an 85% increase in time between the onset of the late stage of the disease and the end stage, as well as increased overall survival.

We were excited to find that many of the improvements happened well after the onset of the disease. This told us that we were slowing the progression of the disorder, Gapinske said.

The base editor introduces a stop signal near the start of the SOD1 gene, so it has the advantage of stopping the cell from making the malfunctioning protein no matter which genetic mutation a patient has. However, it potentially disrupts the healthy version of the gene, so the researchers are exploring ways to target the genes mutant copy.

Moving forward, we are thinking about how we can bring this and other gene-editing technologies to the clinic so that we can someday treat ALS in patients, Gaj said. For that, we have to develop new strategies capable of targeting all of the cells involved in the disease. We also have to further evaluate the efficiency and safety of this approach in other clinically relevant models.

The split base editor approach has potential for treating other diseases with a genetic basis as well, Perez-Pinera said. Though ALS was the first demonstration of the tool, his group has studies underway applying it to Duchenne muscular dystrophy and spinal muscular atrophy.

The Muscular Dystrophy Association, the Judith and Jean Pape Adams Foundation, the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health supported this work. Gaj and Perez-Pinera are affiliated with the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at Illinois. Perez-Pinera also is affiliated with the Carle Illinois College of Medicine and the Cancer Center at Illinois.

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New CRISPR base-editing technology slows ALS progression in mice - University of Illinois News

The Chinese communist government increasingly poses an existential threat not just to its own 1.4 billion citizens but to the world at large.

China is currently in adangerously chaotic state.And why not, when a premodern authoritarian society leaps wildly into the brave new world ofhigh-tech sciencein a single generation?

The Chinese technological revolution is overseen by an Orwellian dictatorship. Predictably, the Chinese Communist Party has not developed the social, political, or cultural infrastructure to ensure that its sophisticated industrial and biological research does not go rogue andbecome destructive to itselfand to the billions of people who are on the importing end of Chinese products and protocols.

Central party officials run the government, military, media, and universities collectively in a manner reminiscent of the science-fiction Borg organism of Star Trek, which was a horde of robot-like entitiesall under the controlof a central mind.

Thirty years ago, American pundits began gushing over Chinas sudden leap from horse-drawn power to solar, wind, and nuclear energy. The Chinese communist government wowed Westerners. It created from nothing high-speed rail, solar farms, shiny new airports, and gleaming new high-density apartment buildings.

Western-trained Chinese scientists soon were conducting sophisticated medical and scientific research. And they often did so rapidly, without the prying regulators, nosy elected officials, and bothersome citizen lawsuits that often burden American and European scientists.

To make China instantly rich and modern, the communist hierarchythe same government that once caused the deaths of some 60 million innocents under Mao Zedongignored property rights.It crushed individual freedom.It embraced secrecy and bulldozed over any who stood in its way.

In much the same manner that silly American pundits once praised Benito Mussolinis fascist efforts to modernize Depression-era Italy, many naifs in the West praised China only because they wished that their own countries could recalibrate so quickly and efficientlyespecially in service to green agendas.

But the world is learning that China does not just move mountains for new dams or bulldoze ancient neighborhoods that stand in the path of high-speed rail. It also hid the outbreak and the mysterious origins of the deadly coronavirus from its own people and the rest of the planet as wella more dangerous replay of its earlier effort to mask the spread of the SARS virus.

The result was that thousands of unknowing carriers spread the viral plague while the government covered up its epidemic proportions.

China, of course, does not wish to have either its products or citizens quarantined from other countries. But the Chinese government will not allow foreign scientists to enter its country to collaborate on containing the coronavirus and developing a vaccine.

No wonder internet conspiracies speculate that the virus was either a rogue product of the Chinese militarys bioengineering weapons lab or originated from bats, snakes, or pangolins and the open-air markets where they are sold as food.

It is hard to believe that in 2020, the worlds largest and second-wealthiest county, which boasts of high-tech consumer products and gleaming cities, has imprisoned in re-education camps more than 1 million Uighur Muslims in the manner that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao once relocated undesirable populations.

China seems confident that it will soon rule the world, given its huge population, massive trade surpluses, vast cash reserves, and industries that produce so many of the worlds electronic devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer goods.

For a year, the Chinese government has battled massive street demonstrations for democracy in Hong Kong. Beijing cynically assumes that Western nations dont care. They are expected to drop their characteristic human rights advocacy because of how profitable their investments inside China have proven.

Beijing was right. Few Western companies complain that Chinese society is surveilled, regulated, and controlled in a nightmarish fashion that George Orwell once predicted in his dystopian novel 1984.

All of these recent scandals should remind the world that China got rich by warping trade and stealing technology in much the same way that it deals with epidemics and dissidents. That is, by simply ignoring legitimate criticism and crushing anyone in its way.

If the Chinese communist Borg is willing to put millions of its own citizens at risk of infection and death, why would it care about foreigners complaints that China is getting rich and powerful by breaking international trade rules?

The truth about President Donald Trumps decision to call China to account over its systematic abuse of international trade norms is not that Trumps policy is reckless or ill-considered. Its that at this late date, the reckoning might prove too little, too late.

Link:
Here Comes 1984: China's Regime Is An Existential Threat to the World - The National Interest Online

By Luciana Perez-Uribe and Eric Neugeboren

Staff writers

When Deesha Ajmera moved into the University of Marylands Hagerstown Hall last fall, she wasnt expecting its bathrooms to offer free pads and tampons.

Then, in December, the dorms resident assistants dipped into their event funding to stock every bathroom with free sanitary products. Now, Ajmera wants such a program to become commonplace across the universitys dorms.

I personally wouldnt have thought of it, which is sad, the freshman bioengineering major said. Its a necessity, and its something that we cant live without.

Ajmera is far from alone in her support for the program in two weeks, over 450 people have signed a petition calling for all dorms on campus to offer free period products.

Doing so would be an opportunity to meet the needs of the universitys diverse student body, said Hagerstown resident assistant Liam McCammon, who started the petition.

We have a lot of different types of students. People come from a lot of different backgrounds and have a lot of different needs, including financial needs, said McCammon, a sophomore economics major.

Kush Kharod, another Hagerstown resident assistant, first thought up the Period Poverty Program. Kharod collaborated with other resident assistants, residents and the Department of Resident Life to get it started.

These efforts build upon a previous push by students to make sanitary products more accessible on the campus. Currently, free pads and tampons are offered in select locations on campus, including the University Health Center and Stamp Student Union.

Last fall, five students requested $18,000 from the Student Facilities Fund to stock 15 of the universitys most highly-trafficked bathrooms with period products for a year. While their request was approved by the committee in charge of the fund last semester, it is still waiting on a greenlight from the Facilities Council.

[Read more:Few UMD bathrooms offer free tampons and pads. These students want to change that.]

And in the last 10 days of the fall semester when Hagerstowns bathrooms started offering free period products a total of 20 pads were used, Kharod wrote in a message. Tampons were added to the bathrooms earlier this month, and in the first two weeks, 80 have been used.

Next, McCammon said the halls staff is aiming to expand the program to the two other dorms in the Ellicott Community. They eventually hope the program will be expanded to every dorm on campus.

Ajmera hopes free pads and tampons are one day offered in every building on campus.

If you just randomly get your period, youre kind of screwed, she said. Its really helpful, knowing that its there if you need it.

Maura Johnston, a freshman psychology major who lives in Hagerstown Hall, joined Ajmera in signing the petition. While she has enough money to buy her own period products, thats a privilege she recognizes that others may not have.

[Read more:After years of lobbying from residents, Calvert Hills will soon have a new drainage system]

I know that there are many girls that get their period that it is a huge finance for them and theyre unable to have their own supply, she said.

Nistha Mitra, another Hagerstown resident assistant and an international student representative for the Student Government Association, said she aims to introduce a bill to the body in the upcoming weeks, supporting the dorms Period Poverty program.

Mitra said she hopes the bill will help students become more aware of the initiative, eventually helping it to fexpand to more campus dorms. She stressed she was speaking in her role as a resident assistant, and not as an SGA representative.

Its a very natural thing and [sanitary products] should be very easily available to everyone, irrespective of their socioeconomic status, Mitra said.

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Hagerstown Hall has free pads and tampons. Students want other UMD dorms to follow suit. - The Diamondback

Technology/23 February 2020, 3:48pm/Louis Fourie

CAPE TOWN One of the areas of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) that has seen phenomenal growth over the past few years is that of bioscience and bioengineering. But when bioscience is combined with computer science, it seems that we may one day have biological computing devices that could partly replace the current hard drives, silicon microprocessors and microchips.

At least this is what some scientists firmly belief is possible.

Through the study of genetics we know that all living organisms consists of genes and deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. These strings of DNA contains huge amounts of data that can last thousands of years as is evident from the 45 000 year old human femur bone from Siberia that was DNA-sequenced or decoded a few years ago.

It is exactly this remarkable data density and longevity of DNA that got scientists interested. Scientists have therefore been researching a synthetic form of DNA sequencing to store large quantities of data for an indefinite period of time. Recently scientists from Microsoft and the University of Washington announced that they were making very good progress. Already in 2018 they were already able to store 200 MB of data in DNA format and were able to retrieve it with zero errors.

Since 2018 much progress has been made and it seems very likely that DNA storage could complement current data storage methods or even replace some of them in the future. Perhaps Microsoft Researchs target of a DNA storage system functioning within a data centre by the turn of the decade is not so far-fetched.

Due to advances in nano- and biotechnology scientists at the Queen Mary University in London are taking research further and are using microbes to network and communicate at nanoscale, which is of particular interest to the Internet of Things (IoT).

In a 2019 paper by Raphael Kim and Stefan Poslad titled The thing with E.coli: Highlighting Opportunities and Challenges of Integrating Bacteria in IoT and HCI the researchers explain that it is not only the minute size, but also the autonomous nature of bacteria that caught their attention and presents interesting possibilities. Bacteria have an embedded, natural propeller motor or whip-like structure, called flagella, that propels them forward.

The research is still at an early stage but the exploitation of similarities between bacteria and computing devices is of great interest to the future of computing. The microbes share interesting similarities with some components of typical IoT devices, which indicate that bacteria could be used as a living form of an IoT device.

A good example would be the field of environmental IoT where bacteria could be programmed and deployed in the sea or in smart cities to detect toxins or pollutants, gather data, and even undertake the biomediation processes.

Likewise, in healthcare and medicine, bacteria could be programmed and deployed to treat specific diseases. The bacteria could swim to a pre-determined destination in the human body, then produce and release encoded hormones when triggered by the microbes internal sensor.

Microbes have exceptional chemical sensing, as well as actuating, communication and processing capabilities typical of a computerised IoT and could even outperform the best electronic devices. Bacteria cannot only detect chemicals, but also electromagnetic fields, light, mechanical stress, and temperature, as is normally done by traditional electronic sensors. The bacteria can also respond to these stimuli through movement using their flagella, or through the production of coloured proteins.

In fact bacteria are better than electronic chip-based sensors, since they are much more sensitive, stable and responsive than their digital counterparts. This superior qualities makes bacteria especially useful as a living form of IoT device and also valuable in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI).

Just like a digital control unit, memory and processor, the programmed DNA controls the bacteria and functions as a control unit with regard to the collection (sensing), processing and storing of data. Genomic DNA contains the instructions for the functioning of the bacteria, while the smaller circular plasmids (a form of DNA used to introduce genes into organisms) determine the process functions through gene addition and subtraction, as well as the storage of new data.

According to the team from the Queen Mary University the cellular membrane functions as the transceiver and allows for both the transmission and reception of communication. This molecular communication or the DNA exchange between cells forms the basis of a bacterial nanonetwork or signalling pathway.

This possibility of bacterial networks as an example of molecular communication such as the widely known E.coli bacterium that could act as an information carrier has in particular excited the IoT community.

The research with digital-to-DNA data and back again from DNA-to-digital data is showing great promise for the future. The idea of the researchers is to use the bacteria to create a potential substrate for the Internet of Bio-Nano Things (IoBNT), which entails the networking and communication through nanoscale and biological entities. Some of the often-despised bacteria may indeed change our connected world of sensors and IoT devices in the future.

Interesting is that the researchers from the Queen Mary University, London closes their research paper with a passionate plea for experimentation with do-it-yourself technology by enthusiasts to promote the IoBNT. They refer to the easily obtainable and affordable educational products like the Amino Labs Kit that are widely available to the public and allow, for example, many bioengineering experiments such as the generation of specific colours from bacteria through the programming of K12 E.coli DNA. Tools, data, and materials of biotechnology that enable the broader public to run small-scale experiments with microorganisms are currently easily accessible and affordable.

The Amino Labs Kit, for instance, caters for people who are interesting in manipulating and genetically engineering E.coli bacteria. The kit enables the user to create customised living colours and smells through the building of genetic circuits that can be triggered through a variety of pre-determined environmental stimuli.

This call by the researchers is not so unusual since technology hobbyists that experimented with very affordable Arduino microcontrollers and Rasberry Pi mini-computers were the very people that significantly advanced the traditional IoT. The mini-computers and the building of sensors and IoT controller devices were the learning space of many very successful technologists and scientists.

Due to the hard work of bioscientists around the world, programming of DNA is improving our quality of life in many instances and is keeping diseases at bay. It is therefore logical that the number of genetically engineered products will continue to rise in the future since it is one of of the 4IR.

Biotechnology en bioengineering will play an increasingly important role as major building blocks of the 4IR. Do-it-yourself and educational bio-kits can therefore teach potential future scientists how to effectively program bacteria. And perhaps some of the young bioengineers, learning the skills and concepts of the future, may one day become the scientists that solve the challenges of cancer, hunger, waste and climate change.

Todays adventures in science create tomorrows innovators. And it all starts with a string of DNA and an unpretentious bacterium.

Professor Louis C H Fourie is a futurist and technology strategist.[emailprotected]

BUSINESS REPORT

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E.coli bacteria running the Internet of Things - IOL

Penicillin, one of the greatest discoveries in the history of medicine, was a product of chance.

After returning from summer vacation in September 1928, bacteriologist Alexander Fleming found a colony of bacteria hed left in his London lab had sprouted a fungus. Curiously, wherever the bacteria contacted the fungus, their cell walls broke down and they died. Fleming guessed the fungus was secreting something lethal to the bacteriaand the rest is history.

Flemings discovery of penicillin and its later isolation, synthesis, and scaling in the 1940s released a flood of antibiotic discoveries in the next few decades. Bacteria and fungi had been waging an ancient war against each other, and the weapons theyd evolved over eons turned out to be humanitys best defense against bacterial infection and disease.

In recent decades, however, the flood of new antibiotics has slowed to a trickle.

Their development is uneconomical for drug companies, and the low-hanging fruit has long been picked. Were now facing the emergence of strains of super bacteria resistant to one or more antibiotics and an aging arsenal to fight them with. Gone unchallenged, an estimated 700,000 deaths worldwide due to drug resistance could rise to as many as 10 million in 2050.

Increasingly, scientists warn the tide is turning, and we need a new strategy to keep pace with the remarkably quick and boundlessly creative tactics of bacterial evolution.

But where the golden age of antibiotics was sparked by serendipity, human intelligence, and natural molecular weapons, its sequel may lean on the uncanny eye of artificial intelligence to screen millions of compoundsand even design new onesin search of the next penicillin.

In a paper published this week in the journal, Cell, MIT researchers took a step in this direction. The team says their machine learning algorithm discovered a powerful new antibiotic.

Named for the AI in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the antibiotic, halicin, successfully wiped out dozens of bacterial strains, including some of the most dangerous drug-resistant bacteria on the World Health Organizations most wanted list. The bacteria also failed to develop resistance to E. coli during a month of observation, in stark contrast to existing antibiotic ciprofloxacin.

In terms of antibiotic discovery, this is absolutely a first, Regina Barzilay, a senior author on the study and computer science professor at MIT, told The Guardian.

The algorithm that discovered halicin was trained on the molecular features of 2,500 compounds. Nearly half were FDA-approved drugs, and another 800 naturally occurring. The researchers specifically tuned the algorithm to look for molecules with antibiotic properties but whose structures would differ from existing antibiotics (as halicins does). Using another machine learning program, they screened the results for those likely to be safe for humans.

Early study suggests halicin attacks the bacterias cell membranes, disrupting their ability to produce energy. Protecting the cell membrane from halicin might take more than one or two genetic mutations, which could account for its impressive ability to prevent resistance.

I think this is one of the more powerful antibiotics that has been discovered to date, James Collins, an MIT professor of bioengineering and senior author told The Guardian. It has remarkable activity against a broad range of antibiotic-resistant pathogens.

Beyond tests in petri-dish bacterial colonies, the team also tested halicin in mice. The antibiotic cleared up infections of a strain of bacteria resistant to all known antibiotics in a day. The team plans further study in partnership with a pharmaceutical company or nonprofit, and they hope to eventually prove it safe and effective for use in humans.

This last bit remains the trickiest step, given the cost of getting a new drug approved. But Collins hopes algorithms like theirs will help. We could dramatically reduce the cost required to get through clinical trials, he told the Financial Times.

The bigger story may be what happens next.

How many novel antibiotics await discovery, and how far can AI screening take us? The initial 6,000 compounds scanned by Barzilay and Collinss team is a drop in the bucket.

Theyve already begun digging deeper by setting the algorithm loose on 100 million molecules from an online library of 1.5 billion compounds called the ZINC15 database. This first search took three days and turned up 23 more candidates that, like halicin, differ structurally from existing antibiotics and may be safe for humans. Two of thesewhich the team will study furtherappear to be especially powerful.

Even more ambitiously, Barzilay hopes the approach can find or even design novel antibiotics that kill bad bacteria with alacrity while sparing the good guys. In this way, a round of antibiotics would cure whatever ails you without taking out your whole gut microbiome in the process.

All this is part of a larger movement to use machine learning algorithms in the long, expensive process of drug discovery. Other players in the area are also training AI on the vast possibility space of drug-like compounds. Last fall, one of the leaders in the area, Insilico, was challenged by a partner to see just how fast their method could do the job. The company turned out a new a proof-of-concept drug candidate in only 46 days.

The field is still developing, however, and it has yet to be seen exactly how valuable these approaches will be in practice. Barzilay is optimistic though.

There is still a question of whether machine-learning tools are really doing something intelligent in healthcare, and how we can develop them to be workhorses in the pharmaceuticals industry, she said. This shows how far you can adapt this tool.

Image Credit: Halicin (top row) prevented the development of antibiotic resistance in E. coli, while ciprofloxacin (bottom row) did not. Collins Lab at MIT

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AI Just Discovered a New Antibiotic to Kill the World's Nastiest Bacteria - Singularity Hub

Because animal breeding is centuries old, it makes sense to say that we have designed animals to meet our needs for a very long time. Animal husbandry has been responsible for producing animals that provide meat, eggs, fur, milk and other useful products. It is distasteful, perhaps, to use this language, but humans have for millennia been manipulating living organisms to make them useful for our purposes.

As I have written before, bioengineering is the next frontier in manufacturing.Advances in engineering have often been driven by new materials. Concrete and plastic were two wonder materials that helped define the twentieth century.Over the next decade, we are likely to see advances in the use of biologically-based materials. When we refer to material science in the future, we will very likely be including living tissue as one such engineered material. Organic material is emerging as the new plastic.

So when news emerged about the invention of xenobots, I wasnt surprised These are very small robotsless than a millimetercreated from heart cells and skin cells taken from frog embryos. They are capable of moving themselves in a vat of liquid via two small limbs. Because they are constructed from heart cellswhich automatically expand and contractthe robots are capable of independent movement. The skin cells provide the robots with a ridged enough structure to carry out tasks such as herding bits of material in this confined space. One could argue that the programming and engineering of xenobots is nothing more than an advanced stage of animal husbandry.

Xenobots might be used to target drug delivery, or be used in swarms to clean up environmental waste. Unlike traditional nanobots, which are inorganic machines, the xenobots would be made from organic material, and thus would be bio-degradable after use.

A simple definition of life might be the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.Although they are indeed capable of functional activity, we should not see xenobots as alive. Indeed, because these early xenobots are designed and manufactured without a way to gain sustenance or without a reproductive capacity, we should not worry about them growing or mutating, because they are not actually alive.That soothes one ethical concern we might harbor: that we are creating a new life form. But in so designing xenobots from living material without the capacity to grow and reproduce, they would be animate and yet unalive, dead and yet undead. They are almost like zombies. Indeed, lets call them nano-zombies: organic, inert yet animated.

Or perhaps xenobots are more akin to a virus.Scientists puzzle over whether or not viruses are living.While viruses contain RNA and DNA, They are not cells, they have no metabolism, and they are inert as long as they do not encounter a cell, so many people (including many scientists) conclude that viruses are not living.

Im not suggesting that xenobots are actual virusesfor if that were the case it would open up whole new vistas of worry. That is, might they have damaging effects should they encounter another living organisms? Instead, they might be only analogous to viruses in that their status as living organisms (as opposed to merely animate chemistry) is murky. Xenobots are organic, contain DNA, are capable of functional activity, but unable to reproduce or change.

Xenobots are, for the moment, quite small.Will it be possible to design and manufacture xenobots to be to be much larger?Can we imagine a day when, as part of our daily routines, we might encounter a xenobot the size of a small dog or a cat engaged in some function or task?The company Piaggio Fast Forward has just released Gita, a small, personalized robot that follows its owner around not unlike BB-8 followed Rey around in Star Wars. Can we imagine a day when something like our Gita is built from organic material, and follows us around like a devoted dog?

Xenobots have been developed with a goal of being functional in some way, that they can perform some sort of task.Engineers and technologists are not the only ones who work with new or interesting materials. Inasmuch as artists also work with materials, I can also imagine a day when they will look to such organic materials to create zombie works of art. Artists would create an animated assembly of cells intended for aesthetic effect rather than for functional use. There is already a thriving subgenre called bioart; bioartists create art with living tissue, bacteria, worms and other living organisms.It is possible that in the near future you will see an animated blob walking down the street, whose only purpose would be for aesthetic pleasure or social commentary.

In any event, we should be readying ourselves for co-existing with not-alive living forms.

David Staley is Director of the Humanities Institute and a professor at The Ohio State University. He is host of the Voices of Excellence podcast and host ofCreativeMornings Columbus.

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NEXT: Xenobots and Nano-zombies - columbusunderground

For Toby Ord, humanity is still in its adolescence and a crucial research goal must be to ensure it reaches maturity and realises its full potential.

Now senior research fellow at the University of Oxfords Future of Humanity Institute,Dr Ord studied both philosophy and computer science at the University of Melbourne before moving to Oxford to focus on philosophy. In 2009, while working on global health and poverty, he set up the societyGiving What We Can.This, he toldTimes Higher Education,enables members to pledge to give at least a 10th of their income to where they think it can do the most good. To date, just over 4,500 people have donated almost 100 million. His own contribution has gone to people in the poorest countries suffering from easily preventable diseases. He has also been consulted on such issues by the World Health Organisation, theUKs Department for International Development and No 10.

Yet, although he continues to work in this area, Dr Ord has now turned most of his attention to the even larger topic explored in his forthcoming book,The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity.

We can trace its origins back to his PhD. His supervisor and mentor, the philosopher Derek Parfit, ended his celebrated 1984 bookReasons and Personsby reflecting on a devastating nuclear war. If it killed 99 per cent of the human race, this would obviously be an unimaginable tragedy, yet we might eventually be able to rebuild some sort of civilisation. But if it destroyed all humanity, it would have an utterly different significance.

With that last 1 per cent, Dr Ord explained, we would lose not only [many millions of] people but the entire future of humanity and all the trillions who could come to existHumanity has survived for 2,000 centuries so far. Theres nothing stopping us, other than [a number of existential risks], surviving for thousands moreWe need to be proactive about [that] and avoid developing the kind of things which take us close to the brink.

That is the precipice we have to get past, and Dr Ords book assesses the level of existential threat posed by everything from asteroids to unaligned artificial intelligence. Yet he felt the topic had been largely neglected by researchers.

When it comes to something like climate change, he explained, a huge amount of work is being done, but only a fraction of it looks at the worst outcomes. How bad could they be? Could they realistically pose a threat to the collapse of civilisation or even human extinction? Is there any realistic chance that the warming will be a very extreme 10 degrees?...For each particular risk, people dont pay special attention to [the small chance of something occurring] that could destroy not only all the lives of the people today but all the people to come and the entire future of humanity.

Our lack of forward planning is vividly illustrated inThe Precipice.On the significant risk of engineered pandemics, it points out, the international body responsible for the continued prohibition of bioweapons (the Biological Weapons Convention) has an annual budget of just $1.4 million [1.1 million] less than the average McDonalds restaurant. Furthermore, we can state with confidence that humanity spends more on ice cream every year than on ensuring that the technologies we develop do not destroy us.

In the case of his own fellowship, Dr Ord writes, money from the European Research Council and a philanthropist has allowed [him] years of uninterrupted work on a topic I consider so important.

This had provided him with a safety net, he admitted, to work on topics which are less academically fashionable and might be seen as too big for the profession. It is hard to place journal articles about them, compared to something thousands of people have already written about where there are clear technical questions.

There were also issues around the culture of science. Although Dr Ord said that he understood the case for openness and transparency, we also had to take greater account of information hazards.

In nuclear physics, he went on, there is an awareness that we have to be careful about publishing ideas which could cause nuclear proliferation. With the increasing power of bioengineering, it could be that subfield needs [similar safeguards]. We should be open to different ways of doing things. Its not just an inherent right of academic freedom that we can publish whatever we want.

matthew.reisz@timeshighereducation.com

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Focus on existential threats, philosopher tells researchers - Times Higher Education (THE)