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With the advancements in the field of genetic engineering, science in the future may give us the power to genetically modify and create near perfect life. Read this write-up to know more about genetic engineering in humans.

The term genetic engineering was first used in Dragons Island, a science fiction novel by Jack Williamson in 1951. With the discovery of deoxyribonucleic acid or mitochondrial DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick, this fictional plot started to turn into a reality. Watson and Crick, with their experiments, could prove that DNA was the genetic material that was transferred generation to generation, with genetic information. This genetic information determined all the characteristics of a living being.

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The tiny, microscopic DNA contained all the genetic information related to the person, like color of the eyes, hair, skin tone, height, weight, IQ, EQ, diseases, disorders, etc., and was even able to determine a smile or the shape of ones nose. This blueprint of life is the most important ingredient of genetic engineering.

This biotechnology was first applied to produce synthetic human insulin. This technology was gradually used to apply to a number of vaccines and drugs that would prove to be beneficial to the human race. It was applied to plants in order to produce genetically modified foods, with higher resistance to infections and high nutritional values.

With the advancement in technologies and major breakthroughs in genetic engineering, more and more scientists are experimenting with human genes. The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2006 has given a major opening to medical companies, to carry out experiments and tests using genetic engineering.

There are many possible benefits of genetic engineering in humans, like end of hunger, cure for all ailments, long life, ageless beauty, super intelligent humans, etc. But one should always give a thought to all the disadvantages listed. It is often said that man should not attempt to play God. Thats correct. But if God has bestowed us the power to make some beneficial changes to his creations, then we should surely do so wisely.

Genetic engineers have turned into modern-day alchemists, who are searching for the ultimate elixir of life, to produce the genetically modified, perfect human. This precious knowledge is being exploited by greedy men, who are using it just to earn more money. Nothing is bad if exploited within limits. When we harness our present, we should keep in mind all the possible effects it will have on our future. We may not be alive to view the beauty and the ugliness of the future, but our beloved children may have to face the consequences.

Learn some genetic engineering ethics when it comes to practices like cloning, that are in the eyes of many, immoral and a perverse attack on creation.

Genetic engineering process manipulates the DNA sequence to create a new one. The write-up focuses on the various benefits of genetic engineering.

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The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Genetic Engineering in ...

Such is the extent of our dominion on Earth, that the answer to questions around whether we are still part of nature, and whether we even need some of it, rely on an understanding of what we want as Homo sapiens. And to know what we want, we need to grasp what we are.

It is a huge question, but they are the best. And as a biologist, here is my humble suggestion to address it, and a personal conclusion. You may have a different one, but what matters is that we reflect on it.

Perhaps the best place to start is to consider what makes us human in the first place, which is not as obvious as it may seem.

Many years ago, a novel written by Vercors called Les Animaux Dnaturs (Denatured Animals) told the story of a group of primitive hominids, the Tropis, found in an unexplored jungle in New Guinea, who seem to constitute a missing link.

However, the prospect that this fictional group may be used as slave labor by an entrepreneurial businessman named Vancruysen forces society to decide whether the Tropis are simply sophisticated animals or whether they should be given human rights. And herein lies the difficulty.

Human status had hitherto seemed so obvious that the book describes how it is soon discovered that there is no definition of what a human actually is. Certainly, the string of experts consultedanthropologists, primatologists, psychologists, lawyers and clergymencould not agree. Perhaps prophetically, it is a layperson who suggested a possible way forward.

She asked whether some of the hominids habits could be described as the early signs of a spiritual or religious mind. In short, were there signs that, like us, the Tropis were no longer at one with nature, but had separated from it, and were now looking at it from the outsidewith some fear.

It is a telling perspective. Our status as altered or denatured animalscreatures who have arguably separated from the natural worldis perhaps both the source of our humanity and the cause of many of our troubles. In the words of the books author: All mans troubles arise from the fact that we do not know what we are and do not agree on what we want to be.

We will probably never know the timing of our gradual separation from naturealthough cave paintings perhaps contain some clues. But a key recent event in our relationship with the world around us is as well documented as it was abrupt. It happened on a sunny Monday morning, at 8:15am precisely.

The atomic bomb that rocked Hiroshima on August 6 1945, was a wake-up call so loud that it still resonates in our consciousness many decades later.

The day the sun rose twice was not only a forceful demonstration of the new era that we had entered, it was a reminder of how paradoxically primitive we remained: differential calculus, advanced electronics, and almost godlike insights into the laws of the universe helped build, well a very big stick. Modern Homo sapiens seemingly had developed the powers of gods, while keeping the psyche of a stereotypical Stone Age killer.

We were no longer fearful of nature, but of what we would do to it, and ourselves. In short, we still did not know where we came from, but began panicking about where we were going.

We now know a lot more about our origins but we remain unsure about what we want to be in the futureor, increasingly, as the climate crisis accelerates, whether we even have one.

Arguably, the greater choices granted by our technological advances make it even more difficult to decide which of the many paths to take. This is the cost of freedom.

I am not arguing against our dominion over nature nor, even as a biologist, do I feel a need to preserve the status quo. Big changes are part of our evolution. After all, oxygen was first a poison which threatened the very existence of early life, yet it is now the fuel vital to our existence.

Similarly, we may have to accept that what we do, even our unprecedented dominion, is a natural consequence of what we have evolved into, and by a process nothing less natural than natural selection itself. If artificial birth control is unnatural, so is reduced infant mortality.

I am also not convinced by the argument against genetic engineering on the basis that it is unnatural. By artificially selecting specific strains of wheat or dogs, we had been tinkering more or less blindly with genomes for centuries before the genetic revolution. Even our choice of romantic partner is a form of genetic engineering. Sex is natures way of producing new genetic combinations quickly.

Even nature, it seems, can be impatient with itself.

Advances in genomics, however, have opened the door to another key turning point. Perhaps we can avoid blowing up the world, and instead change itand ourselvesslowly, perhaps beyond recognition.

The development of genetically modified crops in the 1980s quickly moved from early aspirations to improve the taste of food to a more efficient way of destroying undesirable weeds or pests.

In what some saw as the genetic equivalent of the atomic bomb, our early forays into a new technology became once again largely about killing, coupled with worries about contamination. Not that everything was rosy before that. Artificial selection, intensive farming, and our exploding population growth were long destroying species quicker than we could record them.

The increasing silent springs of the 1950s and 60s caused by the destruction of farmland birdsand, consequently, their songwas only the tip of a deeper and more sinister iceberg. There is, in principle, nothing unnatural about extinction, which has been a recurring pattern (of sometimes massive proportions) in the evolution of our planet long before we came on the scene. But is it really what we want?

The arguments for maintaining biodiversity are usually based on survival, economics, or ethics. In addition to preserving obvious key environments essential to our ecosystem and global survival, the economic argument highlights the possibility that a hitherto insignificant lichen, bacteria, or reptile might hold the key to the cure of a future disease. We simply cannot afford to destroy what we do not know.

But attaching an economic value to life makes it subject to the fluctuation of markets. It is reasonable to expect that, in time, most biological solutions will be able to be synthesized, and as the market worth of many lifeforms falls, we need to scrutinize the significance of the ethical argument. Do we need nature because of its inherent value?

Perhaps the answer may come from peering over the horizon. It is somewhat of an irony that as the third millennium coincided with decrypting the human genome, perhaps the start of the fourth may be about whether it has become redundant.

Just as genetic modification may one day lead to the end of Homo sapiens naturalis (that is, humans untouched by genetic engineering), we may one day wave goodbye to the last specimen of Homo sapiens genetica. That is the last fully genetically based human living in a world increasingly less burdened by our biological formminds in a machine.

If the essence of a human, including our memories, desires, and values, is somehow reflected in the pattern of the delicate neuronal connections of our brain (and why should it not?) our minds may also one day be changeable like never before.

And this brings us to the essential question that surely we must ask ourselves now: if, or rather when, we have the power to change anything, what would we not change?

After all, we may be able to transform ourselves into more rational, more efficient, and stronger individuals. We may venture out further, have greater dominion over greater areas of space, and inject enough insight to bridge the gap between the issues brought about by our cultural evolution and the abilities of a brain evolved to deal with much simpler problems. We might even decide to move into a bodiless intelligence: in the end, even the pleasures of the body are located in the brain.

And then what?
When the secrets of the universe are no longer hidden, what makes it worth being part of it? Where is the fun?

Gossip and sex, of course! some might say. And in effect, I would agree (although I might put it differently), as it conveys to me the fundamental need that we have to reach out and connect with others. I believe that the attributes that define our worth in this vast and changing universe are simple: empathy and love. Not power or technology, which occupy so many of our thoughts but which are merely (almost boringly) related to the age of a civilization.

Like many a traveller, Homo sapiens may need a goal. But from the strengths that come with attaining it, one realizes that ones worth (whether as an individual or a species) ultimately lies elsewhere. So I believe that the extent of our ability for empathy and love will be the yardstick by which our civilization is judged. It may well be an important benchmark by which we will judge other civilizations that we may encounter, or indeed be judged by them.

There is something of true wonder at the basis of it all. The fact that chemicals can arise from the austere confines of an ancient molecular soup, and through the cold laws of evolution, combine into organisms that care for other lifeforms (that is, other bags of chemicals) is the true miracle.

Some ancients believed that God made us in his image. Perhaps they were right in a sense, as empathy and love are truly godlike features, at least among the benevolent gods.

Cherish those traits and use them now, as they hold the solution to our ethical dilemma. It is those very attributes that should compel us to improve the well-being of our fellow humans without lowering the condition of what surrounds us.

Anything less will pervert (our) nature.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image Credit: David Mark from Pixabay

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Have Humans Evolved Beyond Natureand Do We Even Need It? - Singularity Hub

Bioengineering Professor Victor Muoz has answered a long-standing genetic mystery, and his research suggests that someday, bioengineers could devise ways to control gene activity manually switching off the genes that contribute to cancer, for instance.

If this mechanism turns out to be as powerful as we anticipate, engineering it will be relatively straightforward, Muoz said. Controlling the output of genes could be done in a targeted way by new genome editing technologies such as CRISPR.

In a new paper published in Nature Communications, Muoz and some of his colleagues detail how certain proteins use a smart trick to find the specific genes they need to control out of the genomic soup comprising tens of thousands of genes inside each cell of even the most complex organisms.

Turns out, they use tiny DNA antennas to track the genes.

Every process in every living system from a simple bacterium to a complex human is based on turning specific genes on or off at just the right time, in the right place and at just the right levels.

That process is called transcription, and the proteins that complete that process are called transcription factors (TF). The TF must recognize and bind themselves to specific, tiny, six-letter sequences in DNA next to their target genes. To do that, the TF must sort through the DNA sequence of the entire organism's genome thats 2.5 trillion letters in humans and find their targets quickly enough to allow cells to grow, respond to stimuli, move and multiply in real time, Muoz explained.

But how do TF track their target genes within the ocean of genomic DNA in any organism? Muoz and his lab found the answer is a surprisingly simple mechanism that acts as an antenna.

The mechanism allows the TF to recognize partial sequences of the six-letter words they need to find and to detect where in the genome those partial sequences have accumulated in numbers large enough to signify that they are near the target gene.

The accumulations themselves act as beacons for the TF.

Rather than moving around the whole cell nucleus randomly reading the genome sequence, the TF hovers around the target gene so it can quickly find it and turn it on or off on demand, Muoz said. This mechanism offers a straightforward strategy for reengineering.

Muoz, chair of the Bioengineering graduate group, director of the NSF-CREST Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines, an affiliate of the Health Sciences Research Institute and a faculty member in the School of Engineering, collaborated on this work with postdoctoral researcher Milagros Castellanos from his previous lab in Spainand UC Merced graduate student Nivin Mothi, both of whom are listed as authors on the paper.

We are still in the stages of understanding the mechanism as well as possible and exploring how we can change it to induce changes in phenotypes, Muoz explained. Phenotypes are the biological effects of gene change. For instance, one gene change alters the color of a pea from green to yellow that difference in color is the phenotype.

The researchers had originally thought the mechanism might be based on a structural change in the TF, but it turned out to be a combination of specific sequence patterns built into the DNA and the TFs ability to bind to the partial sequences known as binding promiscuity.

In proteins, promiscuity is typically associated with poorly evolved or primitive proteins or functions, yet here we find a perfect counterexample in which the most complex organisms exploit it to solve a problem associated with their increasing genomic size and complexity, Muoz said.

Muoz and his lab are working to get a grant to conduct the next stage of research.

We are interested in further characterizing how this mechanism works at the molecular level, and also its implications for the operation of real, living systems, he said.

He and his lab are forming a collaboration with Professor Aaron Herndays group, which looks at yeast cells, one of the worlds simplest eukaryotic organisms. The researchers are interested in manipulating the antenna mechanism in the yeast cells using genome-editing techniques. Theyll make the antennas weaker or stronger, eliminate them or add them to areas where they arent usually found, and see how the yeasts react.

Original post:
Researchers Discover Mechanism Proteins Use To Find And Control Genes | Newsroom - UC Merced University News

European Pharmaceutical Review explores how plants can be used for large-scale, glycosylated protein bioproduction for the pharma industry.

Plants can be used to produce large quantities of complex proteins, particularly glycosylated proteins, which are becoming more widely used in a range of therapies. Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are among the types of glycosylated proteins that plants can produce, but while there are multiple benefits to their use as bioreactors, there are also some key considerations.

This article explores why and how plants can be used to produce proteins for use in therapies, but also the factors that show this method may not be applicable to all protein products.

For plants to produce synthetic proteins, they must first be expressed somewhere within their genome. This requires some form of recombinant protein expression or genetic engineering, and to achieve optimum yield just implanting the gene is insufficient. To achieve a high level of transcription, which allows for downstream translation and protein modification for stability, the regulatory gene elements including the promoter and polyadenylation site must also be expressed.1

Techniques for gene expression:

There are three commonly used types of expression mechanisms for plant bioproduction: nuclear, chloroplast and transient expression.

Nuclear expression involves genetically modifying the genome in the nuclei of plants cells to express a protein. This is the simplest and most widely used approach in the pharmaceutical industry, as it can be achieved with viral vectors, but a more modern technique is CRISPR-Cas9 technologies.1 A 2018 study showed that in cotton, CRISPR showed no offtarget editing and an editing efficiency of 66.7 to 100 percent at each of multiple sites.2 The nuclear expression techniques, although reliable, are becoming less popular as they typically require more time to develop.

The second method involves expression of a recombinant protein in the chloroplasts requires a particle gun to insert the transgene. There are several benefits to this technique, including the ease of manipulating the chloroplast genome compared with the nucleus and the number of chloroplasts per cell, which increases yield. Using a transgene cassette to precisely target and insert the foreign gene avoids placing it into a poorly transcribed part of the genome, ensuring a high level of expression and little chance of silencing. Transgenes are commonly integrated between the trnltrnA genes in the rrn operon, as this is a transcriptionally active region offering high levels of gene expression.1

The third mechanism, transient expression, is becoming more common as it allows the rapid insertion of proteins, with little time required for the production, modification and optimisation of the expression system. Some companies have begun marketing this kind of expression for the rapid, large-scale production of proteins for therapeutics. The Agrobacteriummediated transient expression technique is purported to have better efficiency than the integrated gene systems and the ability to reach a high percentage of cells in a treated tissue, resulting in higher yields.1

In prokaryotic cells, like Escherichia coli (E. coli), protein size is limited to less than 30 kilodaltons, mainly due to reliability of production and yield. However, in eukaryotic cells, eg, Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) andplant cells, it is easier to produce larger proteins with high yields.1

According to experts, when using cell line or bacterial production methods such as CHO cells and E. coli to produce proteins, once the initial cell line is created it is often difficult to scale up, as glycosylation profiles become variable.3 The inconsistencies in protein product both cost money and result in waste.

On the other hand, dependent on expression mechanisms, plants can reliably maintain the glycosylation profile required even as bioreactor volume increases.

As a result of consistent production capabilities, plants do not require scale-up protocols. This saves both time and money when setting up a bioreactor.

A further advantage is that, if the plant is made to generate the protein through a transient expression system, there is very little time required to set up a production system. One company claims their tobacco plant-based system can be tailored for large-scale fabrication of a protein product in under 12 months, compared to 20-22 months with CHO or E. coli, 3 and one study suggests this could be done in a matter of weeks.1

There are multiple options for plant expression systems, particularly with regards to species, and each is best suited to produce different proteins. Genetic engineering can also be employed to allow customised N-glycosylation to generate different target products.

The plant industry is well established, with conditions for growth often being less complex than that of cell lines or bacteria and, dependent on choice of plant species, cultivation costs can be further reduced.

A techno-economic analysis of the theoretical set-up of a new large-scale biomanufacturing facility, producing mAbs using tobacco plants, found that compared to CHO production platforms, the plant system resulted in significantly reduced capital investment. Moreover, the model calculated that there would be more than a 50 percent reduction in the cost of goods, compared with published values for similar products at this production scale.4

One company has paved the way for the creation of biobetters, using their FastGlycaneering Development Service. iBio has shown that certain methods of plant bioproduction can improve the potency and homogeneity of biological medicines and ensure fully humanised glycosylation patterns.

iBio have also stated that their system, due to its consistencies in upstream processing, is compatible with artificial intelligence (AI). The company aim to implement a new end-to-end manufacturing process using AI and blockchain to reduce costs through optimising both the process and workflows.3

Some of the major challenges include regulatory approval, environmental contamination, protein stability and the immunogenicity of non-human post-translational modifications.1

Environmental concerns are predominantly from the possibility of spreading genetic modifications to food crops through pollination. This is more of a concern with the nuclear expression systems than transient or chloroplast expression. However, this can be overcome with geographical or physical containment, using a less transferable genetic modification method or through using a self-pollenating species.1

A review suggested that companies are unlikely to go through the cost of a shift from an already approved production system to seek regulatory approval for a new one.1 While altering an approved process is often unfeasible, setting up systems for the production of new products in the pipeline could prove to be more cost effective in the long run. Another consideration is the rising need for quick, large-scale vaccine production in response to pandemics and epidemics such as the Covid-19 coronavirus and Ebola which, due to the speed at which a transient expression production system can be constructed, could encourage companies to branch into this type of production.

Protein stability is a concern, as plants have endogenous enzymes that can break down the protein products. Some methods to overcome this include changing plant species and co-expressing peptides to fuse and stabilise the produced proteins together.

Post-translational modifications such as Asparagine-linked glycosylation (N-glycosylation) are one of the key worries, as they can be immunogenic. Particularly likely to cause unfavourable side effects are N-glycan modifications, because they differ in plants and humans.

N-glycosylation is a post-translational modification conducted on many secreted or membrane proteins in plants and mammals. Endogenously, it enables protein folding, stabilisatio
n and protein-protein interactions. It is similarly used in pharmaceutical bioproduction to stabilise products and provide antibodies and other proteins the correct pharmacokinetic properties and immunogenicity.5,6

The plant industry is well established, with conditions for growth often being less complex than that of cell lines or bacteria

While early N-glycosylation and N-glycan modifications are highly conserved between yeast, mammals and plants, later N-glycan modifications differ; they are more simplified in plants than mammals.5,6 So, to use plants as producers of fully humanised proteins, the plant glycosylation machinery is often removed and replaced with human machinery when the plant is modified to express the protein. Of note, chloroplasts have no glycosylation machinery, so cannot perform these modifications without the insertion of foreign DNA; although this can reduce immunogenicity of the products, it can limit which proteins can be produced by chloroplast expression.

Tobacco is the most widely used plant for production of recombinant proteins in the lab. High yield and rapid scale-up, due to large numbers of seeds produced, are the primary benefits. However, proteins stored in the leaves are vulnerable to degradation and must be stored or extracted appropriately, in a timely manner. Tobacco tissues can also contain phenols and toxic alkaloids that must be removed in downstream processing to make products safe.1

Cereals are primarily used due to their seed protein storage capabilities; cereal seeds have protein storage vesicles and a dry intracellular environment. Once dried, the seeds can be stored at room temperature with limited degradation to protein products or loss of activity. Use of food crops is particularly attractive as they offer the opportunity to administer oral vaccines produced in the crop by feeding them to patients with minimal processing. Some edible vaccines have reached Phase I trials.1

Peas are a particularly attractive option, as they have high protein content in their seeds similar to cereals and have lower nitrogen requirements, reducing cultivation costs. However, legumes usually have less leaf biomass than tobacco, meaning they require a larger area to produce the same quantity.1

Plants can be modified through several methods to express proteins and the requisite promoters and transcription controllers, for the production of therapeutic proteins. There are several important considerations, including protein expression methods and plant species; however, the many benefits, including reduced costs, adaptability and speed associated with plant bioproduction systems make them an attractive option.

A particular driver of this bioproduction process is the possibility of using transient expression to produce vast quantities of highly potent, fully humanised vaccines in response to pandemics and epidemics.

iBio

Continue reading here:
Using plants as bioreactors to produce proteins for therapeutics - European Pharmaceutical Review

A U.N. report released in May 2019 by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warned that, as Common Dreams reported at the time, "human exploitation of the natural world has pushed a million plant and animal species to the brink of extinctionwith potentially devastating implications for the future of civilization."

That report and a growing body of scientific research on rapidly declining biodiversity has led scientists and policymakers alike to raise the alarm about the consequences of not acting ambitiously enough to address what experts have called the "sixth mass extinction." U.N. biodiversity chief Elizabeth Maruma Mrema told the Guardian last month that humanity risks being left to contend with an "empty world."

The new statement from diplomats came before the Feb. 2429 meeting of the Working Group on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, which was recently moved from Kunming, China to Rome, Italy due to the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. The event will build on an August 2019 meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. A third meeting in Cali, Colombia is planned for July.

Those three events will culminate in the adoption of a "Paris-style U.N. agreement" to protect nature at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which is still set to be held in Kunming in October. A 20-point draft plan to stop and reverse biodiversity loss worldwide, which will be a focus of the Rome talks, was unveiled last month.

The foreign ministers' statement specifically expresses support for "setting a global target of strongly protecting at least 30 percent of the land and 30 percent of the ocean by 2030." The 30 percent conservation target, as the statement notes, is backed by "a broad coalitionincluding youth, the business community, and representatives from the developing world."

"We also support the finalization of a new international legally binding treaty in 2020 for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in the high seas currently being negotiated under the U.N . Convention on Law of the Sea," the statement says, noting that nearly two-thirds of the ocean is beyond the legal jurisdiction of any one nation.

The statement was released through the international nonprofit think tank the Aspen Institute by members of the Aspen Ministers Forum, which was founded in 2003 by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Along with Albright, the statement was signed by Lloyd Axworthy (Canada), Mohamed Benaissa (Morocco), Maria Eugenia Brizuela de Avila (El Salvador), Erik Derycke (Belgium), Lamberto Dini (Italy), Alexander Downer (Australia), Jan Eliasson (Sweden), Joschka Fischer (Germany), Jaime Gama (Portugal), Ibrahim Gambari (Nigeria), Marina Kaljurand (Estonia), Tzipi Livni (Israel), Susana Malcorra (Argentina), Donald McKinnon (New Zealand), Daniel Mitov (Bulgaria), Amre Moussa (Egypt), Marwan Muasher (Jordan), George Papandreou (Greece), Malcolm Rifkind (United Kingdom), Claudia Ruiz Massieu (Mexico), Javier Solana (Spain), and Knut Vollebk (Norway).

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SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Aridis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARDS), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of novel anti-infective therapies to treat life-threatening bacterial infections, announced today that it will host an Investor Day on Thursday, March 12th, 2020 in New York City from 12:00PM-2:00PM EST.

The event will provide development updates on the Company's key clinical programs and feature key opinion leader (KOL) panels moderated by leading healthcare analysts, Louise Chen of Cantor Fitzgerald and Jason McCarthy from Maxim Group. Participating experts include Dr. Steven Opal of Brown University and Dr. Lisa Saiman of Columbia University who will provide insights on the acute pneumonia and cystic fibrosis indications and the current therapeutic landscape. Medical reimbursement will also be discussed.

In addition to the KOL panel discussion, the forum is intended to provide investors and analysts with a comprehensive profile of APEX, the Company's cutting-edge antibody discovery and production platform along with an update on lead programs AR-301 for the treatment of ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) and AR-501, an inhalable therapy for chronic lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients. Aridis is advancing AR-301 in a global clinical trial which remains on track to report top line data in 1H 2021, and enrolling AR-501's Phase 1/2a clinical trial with top-line data expected in 1H 2020 (healthy subjects), and in 2H 2021 (cystic fibrosis subjects).

To learn more about the event or to register for attendance, please email RSVP@aridispharma.com.

About Aridis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.Aridis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. discovers and develops anti-infectives to be used as add-on treatments to standard-of-care antibiotics. The Company is utilizing its proprietary APEX and MabIgX technology platforms to rapidly identify rare, potent antibody-producing B-cells from patients who have successfully overcome an infection, and to manufacture mAbs for therapeutic treatment of critical infections. These mAbs are already of human origin and functionally optimized for high potency by the donor's immune system; hence, they do not require genetic engineering or further optimization to achieve full functionality.

The Company has generated multiple clinical stage mAbs targeting bacteria that cause life-threatening infections such as VAPand HAP. The use of mAbs as anti-infective treatments represents an innovative therapeutic approach that harnesses the human immune system to fight infections and is designed to overcome the deficiencies associated with the current standard of care which is broad spectrum antibiotics. Such deficiencies include, but are not limited to, increasing drug resistance, short duration of efficacy, disruption of the normal flora of the human microbiome and lack of differentiation among current treatments. The mAb portfolio is complemented by a non-antibiotic novel mechanism small molecule anti-infective candidate being developed to treat lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients. The company's pipeline is highlighted below:

Aridis'Pipeline

AR-301(VAP).AR-301 is a fully human immunoglobulin 1, or IgG1, mAb currently in Phase 3 clinical development targeting gram-positiveS. aureusalpha-toxin in VAPpatients.

AR-101(HAP).AR-101 is a fully human immunoglobulin M, or IgM, mAb targetingP. aeruginosaliposaccharides serotype O11, which accounts for approximately 22% of allP. aeruginosahospital acquired pneumonia cases worldwide.

AR-501(cystic fibrosis).AR-501 is an inhaled formulation of gallium citrate with broad-spectrum anti-infective activity being developed to treat chronic lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients. This program is currently in a Phase 1/2a clinical study in healthy volunteers and CF patients.

AR-401(blood stream infections).AR-401 is a fully human mAb preclinical program aimed at treating infections caused by gram-negativeAcinetobacter baumannii.

AR-201(RSV infection). AR-201 is a fully human IgG1 mAb preclinical program aimed at neutralizing diverse clinical isolates of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Story continues

For additional information on Aridis Pharmaceuticals, please visithttps://aridispharma.com/.

Forward-Looking StatementsCertain statements in this press release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. These statements may be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "believe," "forecast," "estimated" and "intend" or other similar terms or expressions that concern Aridis' expectations, strategy, plans or intentions. These forward-looking statements are based on Aridis' current expectations and actual results could differ materially. There are a number of factors that could cause actual events to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, the timing of regulatory submissions, Aridis' ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval of its existing product candidates and any other product candidates it may develop, approvals for clinical trials may be delayed or withheld by regulatory agencies, risks relating to the timing and costs of clinical trials, risks associated with obtaining funding from third parties, management and employee operations and execution risks, loss of key personnel, competition, risks related to market acceptance of products, intellectual property risks, risks associated with the uncertainty of future financial results, Aridis' ability to attract collaborators and partners and risks associated with Aridis' reliance on third party organizations. While the list of factors presented here is considered representative, no such list should be considered to be a complete statement of all potential risks and uncertainties. Unlisted factors may present significant additional obstacles to the realization of forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those described or implied by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including, without limitation, market conditions and the factors described under the caption "Risk Factors" in Aridis' 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018and Aridis' other filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Forward-looking statements included herein are made as of the date hereof, and Aridis does not undertake any obligation to update publicly such statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

Contact:

Investor RelationsJason WongBlueprint Life Science Groupjwong@bplifescience.com(415) 375-3340 Ext. 4

Aridis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Logo (PRNewsfoto/Aridis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.)

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In both pre-Christianity Rome and China, the countryside was a place of retreat where those seeking respite from the bustle and grime of the city would go for rest, relaxation, and creative inspiration. The Chinese founders of Taoism called this freedom and wondering Xiaoyao, while Roman philosophers referred to time away as Otium: and idealized existencesfrom off-the-grid hippy utopias to the peaceful bliss of Arcadiahave continued to crystallize in the natural landscapes of the rural. Contemporary ideas around wellness, mindfulness, ayahuasca startup retreats, and glamping at Burning Man fill the same role in our society as a full-circle return to pre-industrial, pre-capitalist, nature-centric lifestyles that are paradoxically a product of our neoliberal consumerist culture and sold as an antidote to it.

This lineage, from the beginning of western civilization and ancient eastern philosophy to 21st-century marketing culture, is just part of Rem Koolhaass ten-year transcultural, transhistorical research and analysis of non-urban territories, or what he calls the ignored realm. On view at New Yorks Guggenheim Museum through August 14, Countryside: The Future is a project of Koolhaas, AMO director Samir Bantal, and Troy Conrad Therrien of the Guggenheim. The show fills the museums entire main rotunda. It is meant to upend traditional notions of the countryside by investigating the places where the influence, as well as the oddities, normally associated with the urban can be found outside the city. If, at one time in the not-so-distant past, the countryside was an idyllic place where each human had a role, Koolhaas posits that the romantic landscape of creek beds, hillsides, and family farms is now unrecognizable as a stable, human-centered place, but rather a hyper-efficient, inorganic, non-place where Cartesian technological systems define life.

The show reverses course on much of what we have come to accept as the baseline for thinking about development. Take that famous statistic: by 2050, 70- to-80 percent of humanity would live in cities. Are we really heading for this absurd outcome, where the vast majority of humanity lives on only 2% of the earths surface, and the remaining 98%, inhabited by only one-fifth of humanity, exists to serve cities? Of course, Rem is not the first person to do research on the rural. But he has the resources (5 partner schools and AMO), the storytelling ability, and the platform (an entire museum in NYC) to reorient the conversation, as he has on other topics such as cities, Dubai, and toilets.

New nature; Highly artificial and sterile environments are employed to create the ideal organic specimen. Todays glass houses can contain all the essential ingredients of life but none of the redundancies: sun, soil, and water are emulated, optimized, and finally, automated. (Pieternel van Velden)

The exhibition starts outside the museum, with a tractor next to a small, high-tech indoor tomato farm under pink lights that illuminate passing pedestrians. In the lobby, a requisite hanging sculpture in the rotunda is made from a bale of hay, an imaging satellite akin those used by Google Maps, and an underwater robot that kills fish threatening coral reefs. Land, sea, and even space are all implicated in this broad survey of the rural, as this sculpture sets the tone for the rest of the show, which launches into an outpouring of information. It is reminiscent of OMA/AMO publications Content, Volume, or the Elements exhibition and books, as visitors are greeted by a wall text of 1,000 questions posed by Koolhaas. Nearby is a table showcasing publications that provided context: The Red Book and the Great Wall, The Future of the Great Plains, Golf Courses of the World, and a German publication about Muammar al-Gaddafi.

At the core of the show, the Guggenheims iconic ramp houses a set of themed vignettes. Political Redesign is a catalog of heroic 20th-century geopolitical operations, ranging from the founding of several United States federal agencies during the Dust Bowl, to German Architect Herman Srgels plan to unite Europe and Africa by lowering the level of the Mediterranean Sea and building a bridge over the resulting span. Stalins Plan for the Transformation of Nature and the evolution of the Jeffersonian grid from squares to circles are also highlights.

Countryside then moves away from these governmental models into more polyvalent experiments with nature, technology, politics, planning, and preservation. Many of these we might normally associate with the urban, such as the anarchist community in Tarnac, France that was raided by police in 2008 but is now home to an informal university hidden in the forest. There are also glimpses of rural China, most beautifully Taobao Live, Alibabas live streaming channel that allows sellers in the countryside to broadcast their produce and foodstuffs to audiences in the cities. Arcosanti, afro-futurism, and Chinas Belt and Road Initiative are among the other kaleidoscopic ways that the narrative extends beyond industrial farming into a host of other social and political spheres.

Working through contemporary preservation methods, proposals, and scenarios, including a curious example from Siberia where valuable mammoth tusks are becoming exposed in the ground by climate change and creating new economies for local, amateur archaeologists, the exhibitions closes on cartesian euphoria, a kind of paranoiac-critical reading of the technologies and systems that are rearranging nature and politics in the countryside, complete with a full-scale installation of a PhenoMate, a cutting-edge farming tool that uses machine learning to identify which plants in a nursery bed photosynthesizing the most, and selectively breeds stronger strains without genetic modification.

The show operates politically in a context where the countryside, and those who live in it are a marginalized group, at least culturally. Urban elites deride rural areas as many things, most out-of-touchedly as fly-over states. After a decade or more or the architectural world focusing on cities and urban areas as the main spaces of inquiry, Rems turn to the countryside most likely born from a desire to look where most others are not and his ability to show the public that the so-called hinterlands are a place where not only are some of the most important agricultural, industrial, and social mechanisms of society operating, but it is also where many of the interesting intersections of experimental politics, economics, engineering, and social relationships are taking place.

To ignore the rural because we dont agree with the politics of those who live there, or think that their culture is not sophisticated is not only missing out on experiencing a countryside beyond a luxury faux-rustic retreat, but it is also disregarding the fact that the countryside and the city are and always will be inextricably linked, as elucidated by a brilliant provocation that cities have become stuck in frivolity, while supported by complex, managed landscapes in the countryside. For example, urbanites underneath Londons ArcelorMittal Orbit leisurely eat ice cream brought in from factory farms in the outskirts.

The frivolity of urban life has necessitated the organization, abstraction, and automation of the countryside at a vast and unprecedented scale. Left: Mishka Henner, Feedlots, 2013. Right: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, 2018. (Luca Locatelli)

It is also a show with a decidedly top-down lens on the countryside. Some will not like the relative lack of representation of small-scale communities in the show, but the acknowledgment of systems and technology is an important way of seeing these territories. Had the curators included more grassroots narratives, it likely would have watered down the larger, geopolitical stories being told, and the show is better off for staying focused on larger-scale issues rather than getting into the folk aspects of the countryside, which would be more predictable and less compelling.

Countryside is definite
ly a magazine- or book-on-the-wall type of exhibition, but not in a bad way. The texts are snappily written in typical Koolhaasian style, and there are not too many complex maps or charts, making the exhibition feel more like a journalistic analysis of what is interesting about the countryside, not necessarily a theoretical treatise or prescriptive path forward. It could be read as a transformation of the museum into a publication, a curatorial strategy that upturns not only our ideas about the Guggenheim but about how to leverage a hyper-didactic exhibition into an aesthetic experience. The show is literally distorted by the Guggenheims double-curved surfaces, spiraling ramp, and constantly shifting vantage points, with a string of text spiraling around the underside of the ramps like a dizzying thesis statement, always to be revisited.

If there is a sticking point, it is that the aesthetic of the exhibition will be familiar to many, as it harkens back to previous OMA/AMO publications. Koolhaas has long collaborated with Dutch graphic designer Irma Boom, who created a custom Countryside typeface for the show, which resembles both handwriting and her Neutral typeface used throughout. In an exhibition that is really a publication, typefaces matter, and the familiar layouts and fonts make the exhibition seem more like the work of a signature architect or firm, not a global coalition. No, but seriously, folks, go see the show!

Taschen has published an accompanying publication, available for 24.95 online or at the gift shop.

More here:
Rem Koolhaas sets a global non-urban agenda with Countryside at the Guggenheim - The Architect's Newspaper

SEATTLE Tracing the family tree of COVID-19 through its evolving DNA sequence makes it possible to disprove many false claims circulating on social media about the novel coronavirus, and, in particular, that it was generated in a covert biological weapons program.

From everything Ive looked at, there is zero evidence for genetic engineering; it looks like normal evolution, said Trevor Bedford, a computational biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, who has been using genomes sequences taken from patient samples to track the spread of the virus since Jan. 11.

Thousands of mutations are distributed across the genome. If youre engineering something, you wouldnt do that. There are no signals for biological engineering. It looks like natural evolution, Bedford told attendees of the AAAS meeting on Feb. 14.

Bedford also decried a paper published on the Biorxiv preprint server by scientists at the Indian Institutes of Technology, pointing to an uncanny similarity between COVID-19 and HIV. They claimed to have identified four insertions in the spike glycoprotein of COVID-19, through which the virus binds to the host cell, that are not present in other coronaviruses, but which looked the same as key structural proteins of HIV-1, a finding that they said is unlikely to be fortuitous in nature.

The research was very shoddily done, Bedford said. The sequence differences are not unique to COVID-19. Closely related [bat] coronaviruses have these chunks as well. They are small motifs used by nature over and over again.

The paper was swiftly withdrawn from Biorxiv, but the allegations continue to have a life of their own on social media, with stories headlined Scientists confirm COVID-19 is man-made.

Biorxiv has proved an important conduit for rapid publication of legitimate research about the virus, but the controversy around the Indian paper led the website to add a yellow band across all its postings about COVID-19 to stress that these are preliminary reports that have not been peer-reviewed and should not be reported in news media as established information.

The volume of misinformation about COVID-19 led World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to label it an infodemic. WHO has set up a team to monitor and respond to myths and rumors around the clock.

Along with debunking bioweapon conspiracy theories, the genomes of 100 samples of COVID-19 taken from patients that have been sequenced to date also are providing insights into the epidemiology of the virus. In combination with live case records and mathematical modeling, that gives lie to claims there has been a cover-up, and that far more people have contracted the virus than officially reported.

Comparing virus from different patients and knowing how fast it mutates, makes it possible to say how many cases have occurred. We get upwards of 200,000 total infections, Bedford said. That fits with estimates based on mathematical models published by researchers at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, Imperial College London, he noted.

The family history exposed by the genome sequences debunks another rumor, that COVID-19 crossed to humans from snakes or fish. Based on the genetic analysis, the likelihood is that the virus was transmitted by a bat to another mammal between 20 and 70 years ago. That as-yet-unidentified intermediary passed the virus on to its first human host in the city of Wuhan in late November or early December 2019.

Global cooperation

Virus genomes are being released three to six days after sample collection and shared around the world via GISAID (global initiative on sharing all influenza data). The number of genome sequences and the speed with which they have been published underlines the unprecedented level of global cooperation in tackling the epidemic, Bedford said. In the 2013 2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, it was a year before the first sequence was available; in the case of Zika virus, it took several months. Even with seasonal flu and all the resources thrown at that, updates are monthly, albeit the norm is to sequence and publish multiple genomes at once.

Each of the different COVID-19 sequences varies by a handful of single amino acid point mutations. That forms the basis of the family tree showing how virus samples collected at different times and in different locations, are related.

The technique was used in the West Africa Ebola epidemic, and in tracking the geographical spread of the Zika virus. It is a super-useful tool, Bedford said.

The first five sequences of COVID-19 that were made available on Jan. 11 had little genetic variety, with three being identical and two having slight differences between them.

We know that these sort of coronaviruses mutate at about one mutation per genome, per month. And so just seeing this, we know that all of the five viruses shared a very recent origin, Bedford said.

That was consistent with the supposition that the original source was repeated animal-to-human transmission at the seafood market in Wuhan, where live animals were on sale.

However, by Jan. 19, COVID-19 genomes from Wuhan and Thailand indicated there was human-to-human spread. The genome sequences actually provided an early view of this, before other data streams. I think that was hugely valuable, said Bedford.

Bedfords real-time tracking of the evolution of COVID-19 is posted on the open source website Nextstrain.org. All the genomes analyzed to date are highly related, with at most seven mutations relative to the common ancestor. There is no sign of the virus becoming more virulent or infectious.

As of Feb. 14, there was a total of 47,505 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in China, and 16,427 cases that have been clinically confirmed in Hubei province. There have been 1,381 deaths in China, including 121 reported on Friday, while outside China there have been 505 cases in 24 countries, and two deaths.

Originally posted here:
Researchers trace COVID-19's family tree to battle outbreak and 'infodemic' - BioWorld Online

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CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Expected to Witness a Sustainable Growth by 2026 - New Day Live