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19:10 13.07.2017(updated 19:20 13.07.2017) Get short URL

BEIJING (Sputnik) Beijing-based SinoGene biotechnology company said that it had successfully created a cloned beagle puppy named Long Long. The puppy is not only the first clone tobe made froma genetically modified dog, butalso the first cloned canine.

Sputnik correspondents visited the company's laboratory inorder tofind outwhy scientists chose a dog forcloning and spoke withSinoGene Director General Mi Tzidun and his deputy Zhao Jianping.

Super Dog?

The cloning process ofa genetically engineered dog takes anywhere fromtwo toseveral months. According toMi, withinone experiment, scientist try toclone 10 dogs, butmodification inthe genome can occur only intwo individuals. At the same time, he stressed that it is not possible topredict the success rate, sincethere is always a factor ofuncertainty. In some cases, the experiment may be completely unsuccessful.

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

Cloned dogs

According toZhao, gene modified dogs retain their reproductive capacity and are able toreproduce fromthe age of10 months. Gene modifications are transmitted tonext generations.

The life expectancy ofsuch dogs does not differ fromthose ofordinary ones, Mi added.

"An animal withthe quite well-developed motor and olfactory functions, performing special work, can be called a super dog. A guide dog, forexample, or hunting dog or a dog performing search and rescue work. But we create dogs using a method ofgenetic editing, which causes disease. In simple terms, infuture the dog acquires the ability tosuffer fromhuman diseases, so it can not be called a 'super dog,'" a SinoGene researcher said.

The Goal Justifies the Means

Genetic engineering technologies have significant importance forthe development ofmedicine, asthey help totreat tumors and genetic disease, the SinoGene researcher added.

"It is possible totest the drugs safety and check their effectiveness using cloned dogs. Previously, dogs were used relatively rarely insuch experiments, because the process ofediting a dog's genes is rather complicated. We conduct these studies, because the course ofthe disease indogs and humans is relatively the same. Dogs and humans also have a high degree ofgenetic similarity," the researcher added.

In particular, SinoGene scientists have already studied such diseases asatherosclerosis, autism, muscular dystrophy and diabetes mellitus, using genetically engineered dogs.

General Director of Sinogene Mi Jidong

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

Cloned dogs

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

Zhao Jianping

Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

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Sputnik/ Irina Gavrikova

General Director of Sinogene Mi Jidong

Speaking aboutthe morality ofthis practice, Chinese scientists say that unfortunately the development ofscience and medicine requires such victims.

Future Plans

SinoGene experts said that the next step intheir research could be the cloning ofa genetically modified cat.

"However, atthe moment we do not yet have the necessary technologies, we need toaccumulate experience and knowledge, then we can make further plans. Using this knowledge, it will be possible toconduct appropriate studies ofthe entire feline family, especially withregard toendangered animal species, forexample, the Amur tiger and some species ofleopard," Mi said.

The director general added that the company maintains transparency inits research and is ready toshare its discoveries withthe world community forthe development ofscience.

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Genetically - Sputnik International

Katie Price has laid into her former best friend Jane Poutney for "cloning into" her.

The Loose Women panelist's husband Kieran Hayler famously had a seven-moth affair with Jane only five months after they got married in January 2013.

And Katie has now insisted she knew Jane "wanted her life" but no one would believe her.

Speaking on Loose Women, she said: "I'm usually good at seeing through people.

"I could tell my friend Jane was cloning into me, but everyone thought it was hormones, because I was pregnant."

Janet Street Porter then asked what she meant by "cloning", and Katie explained: "She was trying to look like me, be like me, and then she did, she even got my man in the end.

"I like helping my friends and trying to make them look better, but Jane did it different.

"She had the same nails as me, same hair, same clothes.

"I told other people, but never said it to her, and I was right.

"She wanted me, wanted my life, and my man."

Kieran admitted 25 trysts with Jane, and previously told how he met her for sex in a pub car park and Katies stables. He also admitted to a fling with another friend of his wife, Chrissy Thomas, 41.

But Katie stood by her man as he underwent therapy for sex addiction.

*Loose Women continues on ITV1 weekdays at 12.30pm

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Katie Price KNEW Jane Poutney was 'cloning into her' before she had affair with Kieran Hayler - Mirror.co.uk

A lawyer from Lokhandwala in Mumbai lost Rs62,000 to debit card fraud, as her money was withdrawn in the United States last month. The woman approached her bank asking for a refund, after which she was asked to approach her local police station to file a FIR against the unidentified cyber criminal.

According to her complaint, she was at home when she received a message on her mobile phone around 1am on June 1. The message was sent from her Indian state-owned bank, alerting her about the money transaction made from her account.

The woman couldnt do anything at night, and approached the bank the next morning where she was informed that the money was withdrawn from her account using her debit card. The bank also informed that the money was withdrawn in the USA.

The woman registered an FIR with the local police this week. A police official requesting anonymity said, We do not know how the cyber fraudster managed to withdraw the amount. We are taking help from cyber police to investigate the case.

The case assumes significance as recently, the Mumbai Crime Branchs Cyber police had busted a card racket where a Bulgarian national was caught withdrawing money of Chinese nationals in India. The stolen data of credit/debit cards belonging to Chinese nationals was used to make cloned cards, and their money was withdrawn from an International bank in Mumbai.

Advocate Vicky Shah, a cyber-expert said, The card can only be used internationally once it is international debit enabled. Perpahs the victims card was internationally enabled prior to being cloned. It needs to be found out if its a magnetic strip card or an EMV chip card. If its an EMV chip card it is very difficult to be cloned, and then its a unique case. As a preventive measure, customers should replace their existing cards with EMV chip cards.

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Mumbai lawyer loses 62000 to card cloning, criminal withdraws money in the United States - Hindustan Times

There are very few feelings worse than suddenly realising someone has access to your precious monies.

Through a combination of a small card scanning device added to the card-slot on the ATM, which sends the information wirelessly to a nearby receiver, coupled with a small camera that is placed to see you enter your PIN, or sometimes a fake keypad placed over the real one, the scammers get all the info they need to get access to your account.

Reddit-er Bendeton took to the internet to let folks know of a scanning device he discovered while using an ATM.

I can honestly thank Reddit for this...

Bendeton went on to say that he shook the device, found it to be loose, and proceeded to pull the entire thing off the ATM.

However, another person weighed in on the Reddit thread, claiming to be an ATM repair person, and proceeded to give their tips on what to do if you think the ATM might be dodge city:

"ATM Repair guy here. I'm not usually one to hijack a comment, but here are some tips. As stated in other comments, check to see if the card reader seems janky. If it's loose, if it looks like anyone has tampered with it or it is damaged or something about it just looks off, don't use it.

On a Diebold ATM, all of the previous still stands but you should also look for green flashing LEDs on the insert for the card reader. If they are red or nonvisible, do not use the ATM. Tell the bank that they have an issue and either they will check it or a guy like me will show up to check it out.

If you believe you have found a skimmer and you are not at a bank branch or they are closed,LEAVE THE PREMISE, CALL THE COPS AND DO NOT REMOVE IT LIKE OP [Original poster] DID. Your finger prints will be on it which will make it more difficult for the police to recover bad guy prints. Good job. But beyond that, the way these things work is that there is a person nearby watching a bluetooth connection on a laptop. They probably see you. This is a quick way to get mugged.

Good luck and stay safe, folks."

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This is how to spot a card-cloning device at your ATM - JOE

A beagle puppy recently born in a Chinese laboratory is the first dog in the world to have been successfully cloned from a gene-edited parent, state-owned newspaper Science and Technology Daily reported Thursday.

Longlong was born on May 28 from a surrogate mother, but a test proved on Wednesday that he is genetically identical to another dog, 2-year-old Apple.

The dogs birth marks a breakthrough in cloning research that will potentially allow for cheaper medical research, but it also raises ethical issues. When Apple was an embryo, his genes were modified so he would develop atherosclerosis, a disease that causes blood clots. Genetically identical Longlong will, too.

The cloned puppy was born at Sinogene, a biotech company in Beijing. Lai Liangxue, the companys head scientist, told Sixth Tone that Longlongs birth means China will now be able to rely on its own clones for biomedical research to test disease treatments, for example. Moreover, cloning the animals will be more cost-effective than editing their genes, the company said.

In 2005, the worlds first cloned dog, an Afghan hound called Snuppy, was born in South Korea, and named Invention of the Year by Time magazine. Since then, the country has been the world leader in the science of cloning dogs, which are especially difficult to clone compared with other mammals. Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was born in 1996.

I believe that we have achieved a cloning success rate close to that of the South Korean teams, Lai said. Half of the surrogate dogs were successfully impregnated during their experiment, and of these, two have given birth to a total of three puppies, with Longlong being the very first. Sinogene invested 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) into the project, the companys deputy general manager, Zhao Jianping, told Sixth Tone.

Sinogene plans to apply the technology to medical research, as well as to the cloning of police dogs and pets. Zhao said some dog owners have already reached out to his team, asking for their deceased or sick dogs to be cloned. In South Korea, cloning a pet dog currently costs around $100,000. Our price will be half of that, he said. We hope to popularize [such cloning] for the public.

Zhou Yujuan, a professor at Hebei University who has been experimenting on a cure for atherosclerosis using mice, told Sixth Tone that she would prefer dogs as research subjects because they are more genetically similar to humans. But, she added, this would require more funding. Usually, we use rats or mice because they are cheaper, she said. A gene-edited mouse with atherosclerosis costs 250 to 450 yuan, while a dog with similar symptoms does not yet have a price tag.

Environmental activists have not responded to the genetic breakthrough with likeminded enthusiasm. Cloning is unethical, said Guo Longpeng, the China press officer for the Asia division of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the worlds largest animal welfare organization. Like any other laboratory animal, these animals are caged and manipulated in order to provide a lucrative bottom line.

Guo said protection for animals is lacking under Chinese law, and, as a result, horrible treatments are possible in those laboratories. A regulation on lab animals published in 1988 and modified in 2011 regulates the feeding and accommodation standards for the animals but does not set guidelines for experiments.

Lai said he believes animal cloning is ethically permissible, though human cloning is not.

Currently, there are only a few companies providing cloning services in China. Boyalife Group, a company that aims to become the biggest cloning factory in the world, performs dog cloning in cooperation with the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, a South Korean company led by the scientist who cloned Snuppy. And Beijing Genomics Institute, a biotech company headquartered in Shenzhen, proposed to sell genetically modified mini pigs as pets beginning in 2015, but shelved the plan for unknown reasons.

Editor: Kevin Schoenmakers.

(Header image: The cloned puppy Longlong sleeps on a blanket in Beijing, May 2017. Courtesy of Sinogene)

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First Gene-Edited Dog Cloned in China Raises Ethical Concerns - Sixth Tone

Cybersecurity experts have praised a firm for its quick response when its website was partly cloned by hackers apparently based in Russia.

East of England firm Ashtons Legal posted its own scam warning after elements of its website were copied and amalgamated into another website with a similar domain name for a firm referred to as Ashton Partners LLP. No such firm exists.

The cloned website lists the names of five of the real Ashtons Legal fee earners and one support staff member. It gives contact details for an address in Leeds which is the base of another firm, Ashton Solicitors. Attempts have been made to send correspondence from someone purporting to be one of the named fee earners.

Ashtons Legal said the domain name for Ashton Partners LLP appeared to have been registered in Russia two days before it came to the firms attention through one its fee earners. Efforts are being made to have it taken down, including instructing Russian lawyers.

Meanwhile, Ashtons Legal has notified the Solicitors Regulation Authority and placed announcements on its social media pages to inform clients and other firms, as well as highlighting the matter in Google searches.

Law firms are facing increasing threats from online scams and attempted frauds. The SRA issued 25 scam alerts in June alone, mostly involving scammers sending emails impersonating solicitors and their firms.

Phil Edwards, managing director of legal indemnity insurance broker QPI Legal, who advises firms on how to protect themselves from cyber-attacks, said Ashtons Legal had responded well to the attempted cloning.

'Firms are vulnerable when it comes to this type of cyber-attack and the reality is there is not a great deal they can do to protect themselves from it happening, however, what is crucial is that they act accordingly, responding rapidly and appropriately, he said.

Edwards said this type of attack was not the most common cybersecurity breach; in his experience it has cropped up just once in the past five years.

He said cyber-attacks are on the rise within the legal profession and firms need to remain vigilant, although he sounded a downbeat note about the chances of stopping incidents.

'The biggest problem with these types of security breaches is that because its not a direct attack on the firm it could be some time before the firm finds out that it has actually happened, he added.

'Very often the cloned site is domained outside of the UK. It can prove very difficult therefore for the the firm affected to get the site taken down, as has happened as well in this case.

Read more from the original source:

Firm acts against cloning attack from Russian hackers - Law Gazette

Presently, the process of DNA sequencing to discover a genes function is a bit time-consuming because it has to be done one gene at a time. But with the invention of a team of researchers from Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Medical School, that process can now be considerably shortened as they have found a way to simultaneously clone thousands of genes.

The new technique is called LASSO cloning LASSO is an acronym for long-adapter single-strand oligonucleotide and through it, isolating thousands of DNA sequences can now be done at the same time. As a result, the new technology can supposedly expedite the creation of proteins the end product of genes which can in turn lead to faster discovery of new medicines and biomarkers for scores of diseases.

The technique is considered as quite an improvement over an existing method known as molecular inversion probes (MIPs), which can only capture about 200 bases of DNA. Raising this number to a thousand is especially significant because the typical size of a genes protein-coding sequence can reach up to thousands of DNA base pairs.

The technology works through a tool the team refers to as a LASSO probe. Using a number of these probes enables grabbing of target DNA sequences, similar with how a lasso (a rope) is used to round up cattle. What makes this special is the fact that with a single effort, the technique can grab thousands of DNA sequences at the same time.

In their proof-of-concept study, the team used their LASSO probes to simultaneously capture over 3,000 E. coli bacteria DNA fragments. They were successful in capturing around 95% of their gene targets. More importantly, the sequences were captured in such a way that allowed the researchers to observe and evaluate what the expressed proteins do.

As an added bonus, the team also helped solved a perennial problem in the genome sequencing field. As it is, genetic sequencing currently involves sequencing small fragments of DNA one at a time, then overlaying them in order to map out the entire genome. This doesnt just take time; its also harder to interpret and kind of prone to errors. With the LASSO probes, sequencing long fragments has now been made possible, which also translates to a faster and more accurate gene sequencing process.

As one of the researchers, Biju Parekkadan of the Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said: We think that the rapid, affordable, and high-throughput cloning of proteins and other genetic elements will greatly accelerate biological research to discover functions of molecules encoded by genomes and match the pace at which new genome sequencing data is coming out.

Going forward, the team is now working on improving the cloning process, building libraries and discovering the therapeutic proteins found in our genes.

The research was recently published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

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Gene Cloning Just Became A Thousand Times Easier - Wall Street Pit

An ex-employee of a CP cafe was recently booked for allegedly cloning credit and debit cards of customers and using them for transactions worth over Rs6lakh. After this incident, we found out it wasn't a rare case and card cloning has become a major headache for the Delhi Police.

The police tells us that they receive around 15 cases of card cloning every month on an average. Earlier this year, similar cases of card skimming were reported in restaurants in Mumbai. The chances of card cloning is higher in fancy restaurants and malls since people don't pay attention to who they are handing the card to, the police says.

15 cases of card cloning every month in Delhi Bhishm Singh, DCP, Cyber Crime, says, "The Cyber Crime Branch of Delhi Police receives at least 15 card cloning cases every month. Your card can be cloned only when you hand it to someone. People tend to give their cards to the waiters or attendants for payment in restaurants. Ab woh aapke card ke saath kya karta hai, aapko kya pata. And there are more chances of these things at high-end places because people trust these venues."

In case of card frauds, immediate police report crucial Madhur Verma, DCP, Crime, says, "Besides card skimming, people also get duped when shopping online or sharing their bank details with someone." With an increase in cases of cyber crime, police stations are also learning to deal it. Verma adds, "Now, most police stations have a cyber cell. People need to be alert, especially if their card is being swiped twice or thrice while making payment. Any discrepancy should be immediately reported."

Hotels, restaurants and malls easy target: Shop owners Most shop owners in the city have the option of card payments, but say that they have to keep a check on who is sitting at the payment counter. "At our shops, we do not take the risk of making the staff sit at the payment counter. The card reader is a small machine, which is easily available in the market. Anyone with little technical knowledge can learn to create a copy of cards. There are high chances of such cases at hotels, restaurants or petrol pumps, where many people walk in and hand over their cards to the staff. In shops, we can monitor every transaction closely," says Sanjeev Mehra, who has a shop in Khan Market. But Sanjay Chawla, who is handling operations at a mall in Janakpuri, says otherwise. He says, "The accountability for a transaction at a store in any mall lies on the store manager. In malls, there have been lesser cases of card cloning as there are CCTV cameras."

A shop owner in Bengali Market adds, "We have staff working with us for years, but no one is authorised to accept cards from customers and make transactions. In case the customer offers to pay by card, they direct him to the counter where only the owners sit."

Rise in card cloning after demonetisation: Lawyers Lawyers who have dealt with cases related to card cloning say that there has been a significant rise in the numbers of cases after demonetisation. Sandeep Kapur, a lawyer, explains, "As the government moves towards a cashless economy, the importance of credit and debit cards is increasing. Card cloning involves illegally transferring details from an original to a duplicate or a cloned card, resulting in misappropriation of funds. Although the government claimed that cases of card and net banking fraud were reduced by 6% in 2016, technological developments and lack of awareness among cardholders has led to an increase in such scams in the recent months." Kapur adds, "Victims can get FIRs registered with the local police under the IPC and IT Act, thereby initiating criminal proceedings to apprehend, recover money and punish the culprits. While cyber laws are exhaustive and the police's cyber cells are well-equipped to follow white money trail, greater cooperation by banks and sensitization of this topic among cardholders is needed."

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Delhi gets 15 card cloning cases each month - Times of India

After CRISPR, theres a new genetic technique with a tongue-in-cheek name in town: LASSO cloning.

Researchersfrom four institutions, including the US-based John Hopkins, Rutgers and Harvard, and the University of Trento in Italy, have developed a new technology tostudy large chunks of DNA and their function. The work behind it was recently published inNature Biomedical Engineering,and a patent was filed earlier this month.

This molecular tool is called long adapter single-stranded oligonucleotide, or LASSO for short. The lasso rope metaphor applies to the tools mechanism, which can capture and clone long sequences of DNA fragments. Fragment length had so far been the main challenge for cloning probes and the genome sequencing field at large. Next generation sequencing (NGS), which has gained a lot of attention in medical research, relies on sequencing short fragments that are then put together, like a puzzle, by bioinformatics tools. However, this method falls short for certain types of samples. Short reads capture only about 100 basepairs, or DNA letters, at a time, while LASSO can read more than1000 base pairs.

As a proof of concept, the researchers set out to test LASSO probes in biotechs favorite microorganism,E. coli. The tool managed to simultaneously clone over 3000 DNA fragments of the genome ofE. coli, capturing around 75% of the targets and leaving almost all of the non-targeted DNA alone, and the studys authors say theres still certainly room for improvement.

LASSO cloning should enable the scientific community to build libraries of a given organisms protein in a much faster and cheaper way, democratizing research that was so far only within the reach of big research consortia. The usefulness of such studies ranges from a better understanding of organisms to the ability to screen large libraries of natural enzymes and compounds that could be valuable leads in drug discovery,as it has been done before for some species likePenicilliumfungistrains, for example.

One of the organisms to be better studied is, of course, human beings. Researchers already tested LASSO cloning with human DNA, something has the potential to yield new biomarkers for a range of diseases. Another focus of interest is the human microbiome. As described in the same paper, LASSO was used to build the first protein library of the microbiome, and the research team hopes that it can improve precision medicine strategies that takeinto account the microbes living within us.

Images by DWilliam/Pixabay and Jennifer E. Fairman/John Hopkins University

Originally posted here:

Better than CRISPR? LASSO Cloning ropes in Long-Read DNA - Labiotech.eu (blog)

Daily News & Analysis

Delhi Farzi Caf employee siphons Rs 6 lakh via card skimming Times Now An employee of a high-end restaurant and pub 'Farzi Caf' in Connaught Place in Delhi has been booked for allegedly cloning debit and credit cards of almost 13 customers and siphoning off Rs 6,03,500, reports Hindustan Times. A widely emerging form of ... Farzi Cafe staff held for cloning cards, siphoning off Rs 6 LakhDaily News & Analysis Farzi Cafe Employee Clones Customers' Cards, Steals Over Rs 6 LakhThe Quint Farzi Cafe Staff Clones Debit & Credit Cards in Delhi, Booked for Duping Rs 6 Lakh From Customers!India.com The Tribune -The Indian Express -T2 Online all 10 news articles »

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Delhi Farzi Caf employee siphons Rs 6 lakh via card skimming - Times Now

In Brief Researchers have developed a new gene cloning technique that works on thousands of genes at once: the LASSO probe. The tool will enable far more rapid discovery of biomarkers for numerous diseases and new treatments for them.

Scientists from Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins, Rutgers, and the University of Trento in Italy have developed LASSO cloning, a new molecular technique. LASSO cloning can be used to simultaneously isolate long DNA sequences faster than was previously possible. This new technique speeds up protein creation, which means that genes (the final product of the process) are arrived at more quickly. This, in turn, can enable far more rapid discovery of biomarkers for numerous diseases and their treatments.

In the past, researchers have sussed out what a gene does by cloning its DNA and then expressing the protein it codes for single gene by single gene. With this novel molecular approach, a single reaction can clone and express thousands of DNA sequences at once. The technique involves the use of a novel captured DNA strand, the LASSO probe (Long Adapter Single-Stranded Oligonucleotide). Researchers can use collections of these tools to grab DNA sequences theyre after. Unlike a cowboy roping cattle, however, scientists using the LASSO probe can capture thousands of sequences in a single try.

The LASSO technique improves on molecular inversion probes (MIPs), an older method which is limited to capturing only about 200 DNA bases at once. This is minuscule compared to each LASSO target gene sequence which can be as much as a few thousand DNA base pairs longaround the length of a typical genes protein-coding sequence.

The team used LASSO probes to simultaneously capture more than 3,000 DNA fragments from the E. coli genome as part of a proof-of-concept study. They captured at least 75 percent of their gene targets successfully. More importantly, however, the tool allows researchers to capture sequences in a way that allows them to analyze what the corresponding proteins do.

Were very excited about all the potential applications for LASSO cloning, Larman said in the release. Our hope is that by greatly expanding the number of proteins that can be expressed and screened in parallel, the road to interesting biology and new therapeutic biomolecules will be dramatically shortened for many researchers.

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Powerful New Cloning Technique Can Clone Thousands of Genes at Once - Futurism

Dolly the cloned sheep was born more than two decades ago on July 5. As the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, she remains one of the most famous cloned creatures today.

Since then, cloning has progressed greatly, but the process occupies anethical gray area. Animal cloning may have the potential tobring back extinct species, but according to a Gallup poll conducted earlier this year, most Americans do not morally support cloning. When considering the future of cloning, here are some animal rights concerns to keep in mind.

Cloned animals often live shorter and sicklierlives than their naturally produced counterparts. For instance, the New Zealand-based AgResearch shut its doors in 2011 because too many animals died in its studies.Only 10 percent of the cloned animals even survived research trials, according to the company. The National Human Genome Research Instituteadds that cloned sheep can bebigger at birth and have defective livers, brains and hearts. They also tend to die younger.

In 2013, UK pet owners got the opportunity to clone beloved dogs after they died. However, the process set some people up for disappointment when their new pet isntthe same as itsgenetic counterpart. Care2s Steve Williams explainsthat these expectations could lead owners to get rid of their dogs, whether byreturning them, taking them to an animal shelter or opting for euthanasia.

As the Humane Society of the United States notes, pet cloning doesnt get the same federal scrutiny that animal testing facilities do in the United States. The Department of Agriculture doesnt even require those cloning cats and dogs to follow the bare-bones rules of the Animal Welfare Act.

Animals involved in cloning are often exposed to painful and invasive research practices and kept in sterile, uncomfortable conditions. As the Humane Society says, The egg donors and/or surrogate mothers are subjected to painful hormone treatments to manipulate their reproductive cycles. These animals are also subjected to invasive surgery to harvest eggs or implant embryos, and the surrogate mothers endure an additional surgery to deliver the baby.

From a more abstract line of thought, some argue cloning devalues animals because it treats them as commodities. A paper from the University of Pennsylvanias Center for Bioethicsstates:

While cloning opponents admit that animals are already considered property and products, they argue that cloning takes this objectification to new levels. Life for animals in agriculture, research, and the pharmaceutical industry is already bad enough, its argued; cloning will desensitize us further from the suffering of these entities, placing them even more firmly in the thing category.

While cloning has its place, these ethical problems must be addressed.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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5 Reasons to Think Twice About Animal Cloning - Care2.com

DC Health Link is fulfilling the promise of open-source tech.

Mila KofmanDarrow Montgomery

Nine months before the countrys Obamacare insurance marketplaces were due to debut online, the agency responsible for building the Districts version made its first hire. No state began work on its marketplace later than the District.

So that was the worst year ever, says Mila Kofman, the D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authoritys executive director and first staffer, as she thinks back to 2013. I call it a high-risk pregnancy. Seriously, every day was quite challenging.

When the nationwide due date arrived in October 2013, the federal governments marketplace, HealthCare.gov, face-planted. The websites persistent outages and malfunctioning software were an embarrassment.

Just a few state marketplacesthe District is treated like a state for the purposes of the insurance exchangesuccessfully opened on time, and one of them was the Districts miracle baby, DC Health Link. Today the site functions so well that Massachusetts is copying its code.

But at first, DC Health Link couldnt do much more than crawl. Kofman says, We had no bells and whistles at all, just a basic system whose core functions worked. Part of my job was essentially to say no to everyonemy board members, to staff, to other agencies.

The software, from commercial vendors, was clunky. Even fixing a typo on the website required the agency to run a bunch of tests, bring the whole system offline, and then deploy it anew, as if from scratch.

One of its glitches caused the system to characterize every customer as a smoker, which non-smokers could see but do nothing about. This ultimately didnt matter to the District, as it had opted not to surcharge health insurance for smokers. But the arduous update process meant the glitch took time to quash, and a lot of irritated non-smokers fumed, including Kofman.

I was highly offended when I saw that they built that. And you cant just change it like that, she says.

The agency and its new contractor set about redoing the DC Health Link software in 2015, applying tools that are standard in Silicon ValleyRuby on Rails, MongoDB, Amazon Web Services cloud serversbut still relatively exotic in government.

The revamped software is also open-source. Anyone with an Internet connection can view the code and suggest edits. Its publicly visible on the agencys account on GitHub, a service for developing and sharing software, chronicling code changes large and small pushed out multiple times each day. Its a long way from the days of waiting to delete an errant comma from the website. The agency also no longer has to pay recurring licensing fees for proprietary software.

The grander promise of open-source software is that anyone can copy it, free of charge.

For DC Health Link, this isnt theoretical: Massachusetts is cloning the Districts code. The ancestral home of Obamacare, a state whose healthcare overhaul preceded the landmark federal reform, is now adopting D.C.s software for the part of its marketplace that handles insurance for small businesses.

D.C. was able to offer: Take our platform, create an instance of it for you guys, and then customize it a little bit, says Jason Hetherington, chief information officer of Massachusetts Health Connector.

Massachusetts is paying the DC Health Link software team to implement and maintain it. The D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authority also earns a 6 percent administrative fee.

Massachusetts didnt go looking to hire a government rather than a business, nor was it targeting open-source software. No one ever gets fired for choosing IBM, says Hetherington, citing an old business-world saying. If you need a database and you propose Oracle, everybody thinks its a really good idea, he says.

Massachusetts embarked on a routine procurement in 2014, going in search of a contractor to redo its small-business marketplace. None of the commercial proposals were fully adequate. Massachusetts tried another round a year later, unsuccessful once again. Then in 2016 it reached out to states whose marketplaces had strong reputations, looking for a partnership.

D.C. edged out Rhode Island as the winner.

They were just the most modern, the most well-developed, the most resilient technology platform that we had seen in either of the prior commercial responses or in comparison to the other states we looked at, Hetherington says.

He echoes Kofmans emphasis on cost savings, noting they dont have to pay software licensing fees or make a capital investment in servers to host the platform, instead renting only as much cloud computing power as they use.

Though a repeal of Obamacare could be devastating for people who receive subsidies to buy insurance, it would not necessarily doom state marketplaces. DC Health Link is funded by a 1 percent tax on the insurance companies doing business in D.C.

Once the August launch in Massachusetts is finished, sharing software will mean that D.C. and Massachusetts can split the cost of any new features they both want to see built.

Kofman has reached out to Minnesota about the possibility of adopting D.C.s open-source software there.

I would love to partner with other states as well, because it will make it less expensive for us and Massachusetts, she says.

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Obamacare May Be Near Its Demise, But DC's Successful Software Is Headed up North - Washington City Paper

The new technology speeds up the creation of proteins, the final products of genes, and is likely to lead to far more rapid discovery of new medicines and biomarkers for scores of diseases.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins, Rutgers, the University of Trento in Italy, and Harvard Medical School report they have developed a new molecular technique called LASSO cloning, which can be used to isolate thousands of long DNA sequences at the same time, more than ever before possible.

The new technology speeds up the creation of proteins, the final products of genes, and is likely to lead to far more rapid discovery of new medicines and biomarkers for scores of diseases.

The study describes a new type of captured DNA strand, a tool the authors refer to as a LASSO probe, for long adapter single-stranded oligonucleotide. Collections of these LASSO probes can be used to grab desired DNA sequences, thousands at a time in a single effort.

In a proof-of-concept study, LASSO probes were used to simultaneously capture more than 3,000 DNA fragments from the E. coli bacterial genome. The team successfully captured at least 75 percent of the gene targets. Importantly, these sequences are captured in a way that permits scientists to analyze what the genes' proteins do, as demonstrated by conferring antibiotic resistance to an otherwise susceptible cell.

The hope is that by greatly expanding the number of proteins that can be expressed and screened in parallel, the road to interesting biology and new therapeutic biomolecules will be dramatically shortened for many researchers.

Excerpt from:

Researchers develop powerful cloning technique - BSI bureau (press release)

TA cloning is a subcloning technique that avoids the use of restriction enzymes[1] and is easier and quicker than traditional subcloning. The technique relies on the ability of adenine (A) and thymine (T) (complementary basepairs) on different DNA fragments to hybridize and, in the presence of ligase, become ligated together. PCR products are usually amplified using Taq DNA polymerase which preferentially adds an adenine to the 3' end of the product. Such PCR amplified inserts are cloned into linearized vectors that have complementary 3' thymine overhangs.[2]

The insert is created by PCR using Taq DNA polymerase. This polymerase lacks 3' to 5' proofreading activity and, with a high probability, adds a single, 3'-adenine overhang to each end of the PCR product. It is best if the PCR primers have guanines at the 5' end as this maximizes probability of Taq DNA polymerase adding the terminal adenosine overhang.[3] Thermostable polymerases containing extensive 3 to 5 exonuclease activity should not be used as they do not leave the 3 adenine-overhangs.[4]

The target vector is linearized and cut with a blunt-end restriction enzyme. This vector is then tailed with dideoxythymidine triphosphate (ddTTP) using terminal transferase. It is important to use ddTTP to ensure the addition of only one T residue. This tailing leaves the vector with a single 3'-overhanging thymine residue on each blunt end.[5] Manufacturers commonly sell TA Cloning "kits" with a wide range of prepared vectors that have already been linearized and tagged with an overhanging thymine .

Given that there is no need for restriction enzymes other than for generating the linearized vector, the procedure is much simpler and faster than traditional subcloning. There is also no need to add restriction sites when designing primers and thus shorter primers can be used saving time and money. In addition, in instances where there are no viable restriction sites that can be used for traditional cloning, TA cloning is often used as an alternative. The major downside of TA cloning is that directional cloning is not possible, so the gene has a 50% chance of getting cloned in the reverse direction.[1]

TOPO cloning

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TA cloning - Wikipedia

Scientists at Johns Hopkins, Rutgers and Harvard universities, as well as the University of Trento in Italy, have created a new technique that allows thousands of genes in a DNA sequence to be cloned at once.

Researchers hope the advance in gene cloning will allow them to more quickly identify markers for diseases and discover new medicines.

Until now genes had to be cloned individually in a time-consuming process. The new molecular method allows thousands of the long DNA strands that make up genes to be isolated and cloned at the same time.

The discovery was published June 26 in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

"Our goal is to make it cheap and easy for any researcher in any field to clone and express the entire set of proteins from any organism," said Ben Larman, an assistant professor of pathology in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the study's co-senior author, in a statement. "Until now, such a prospect was only realistic for high-powered research consortia studying model organisms like fruit flies or mice."

The scientists call their technique for capturing DNA strands that make up genes the LASSO method, for long adapter single-stranded oligonucleotid. They also liken it to capturing cattle with a rope.

The new process speeds up the genes' creation of proteins, which manage cell activity, compared to the old process of cloning individual genes.

To test the method, the scientists sought to capture more than 3,000 DNA strands from the E. coli bacterial genome, commonly used as a model organism, and were successful with most of the targets. They also were able to use the strands to analyze what the gene's proteins do.

"We're very excited about all the potential applications for LASSO cloning," Larman said. "Our hope is that by greatly expanding the number of proteins that can be expressed and screened in parallel, the road to interesting biology and new therapeutic biomolecules will be dramatically shortened for many researchers."

The next step, already underway, is improving the cloning process and building libraries of proteins from DNA samples for use in research, said Biju Parekkadan, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

Funding for the research came from the Shriners Hospitals for Children, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Larman, Parekkadan and a Harvard scientist on the project have sought a patent for the method, which is pending.

meredith.cohn@baltsun.com

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Johns Hopkins joins gene cloning project to advance medicine development - Baltimore Sun

By Chanapa Tantibanchachai

Scientists at Johns Hopkins, Rutgers, the University of Trento in Italy, and Harvard Medical School report they have developed a new molecular technique that can be used to isolate thousands of long DNA sequences at the same time, more than ever before possible.

According to the researchers, the new technologyknown as LASSO cloningspeeds up the creation of proteins, the final products of genes, and is likely to lead to far more rapid discovery of new medicines and biomarkers for scores of diseases.

Historically, figuring out what a gene does by cloning its DNA and expressing its protein was done one gene at a time. The new technology simultaneously clones and expresses thousands of protein-coding DNA sequences in a single reaction.

In a report on the technique's development, published online June 26 in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the researchers describe their novel molecular approach to simultaneously clone and express thousands of protein-coding DNA sequences in a single reaction. Historically, figuring out what a gene does by cloning its DNA and expressing its protein was done one gene at a time.

"Our goal is to make it cheap and easy for any researcher in any field to clone and express the entire set of proteins from any organism," says Ben Larman, an assistant professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the study's co-senior author. "Until now, such a prospect was only realistic for high-powered research consortia studying model organisms like fruit flies or mice."

The new paper describes a new type of captured DNA strand, a tool the authors refer to as a LASSO probe; LASSO stands for long adapter single-stranded oligonucleotide. Collections of these LASSO probes can be used to grab desired DNA sequencesmuch like a rope lasso is used to capture cattlebut in this case thousands at a time in a single effort.

Each target gene sequence can be up to a few thousand DNA base pairs long, which is the typical size of a gene's protein-coding sequence. The new technique is an improvement on an older method called molecular inversion probes, which is able to capture only about 200 bases of DNA, Larman says.

In a proof-of-concept study, LASSO probes were used to simultaneously capture more than 3,000 DNA fragments from the E. coli bacterial genome. The team successfully captured at least 75 percent of the gene targets. Importantly, the researchers say, these sequences are captured in a way that permits scientists to analyze what the genes' proteins do, as demonstrated by conferring antibiotic resistance to an otherwise susceptible cell.

"We're very excited about all the potential applications for LASSO cloning," Larman says. "Our hope is that by greatly expanding the number of proteins that can be expressed and screened in parallel, the road to interesting biology and new therapeutic biomolecules will be dramatically shortened for many researchers."

Originally posted here:

With powerful new technique, scientists can clone thousands of genes at once - The Hub at Johns Hopkins

The Hindu

Caf staff booked for cloning cards The Hindu An employee of Farzi Caf in Connaught Place (CP) has been booked for allegedly cloning credit and debit cards of customers, and misusing them to the tune of 6,03,500. The accused is absconding. An FIR against the employee was registered at CP ... and more »

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Caf staff booked for cloning cards - The Hindu

China Christian Daily

Robotic Pig Cloning in China Considered Successful China Christian Daily When you think robotic cloning is only realistic on movies, think again because a report claimed that a robotic pig cloning in China appeared to be successful during an attempt by a university in Tianjin, China. A report by China News stated that 13 ... World's First Pigs Cloned by Robotic Instrument Born in TianjinThePigSite.com Chinese scientists first to successfully use robots to clone pigsecns all 3 news articles »

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Robotic Pig Cloning in China Considered Successful - China Christian Daily

We wont pretend to know the complicatedscientific processes that go intocreatinga genetic clone of someone, this isnta science journal after all. However, it doesnt take a scientist torecognize when cloning has gone horribly wrong. Clones both good and bad are a staple of both pulp fiction and comicbooks. Clones and evil twins alike haveappeared in every major superhero book on the shelves for decades. Its a concept that makes sense, to clone a powerful hero or villainso you canhave a superhuman under your control or toreplace a lost one.

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However, sometimes it doesnt work out the way you planned. Sometimes the clone is evil, or maybe you wanted them to be evil but they turned out good. Heck, maybe theirvery presence in comics is enough to make them horrible duplicates, muddling up narratives and story arcs. Its a good thing that cloning isnt a readily available technology in comics, or else thered be a bunch of unnecessary duplicates running around. Of the few clones that have gotten loose (or still are), there are definitely some dysfunctional duplicates, which is why CBR decided to countdown the 15 worst clones in comics.

Though his name is arguably a lot cooler than the original, this Bart Allen/Impulse clone is kind of the worst. An evil duplicate, Inertia was named Thaddeus Thawne II by his creator President Thaddeus Thawne. President Thawne created Thaddeus II after failing to recruit Bart Allen (part Thawne himself) into the long-standing war between the Thawne and Allen Families. After this failure, he cloned Bart and created Inertia to replace Bart in the past.

The opposite of Bart Allen in many ways, Thaddeus is not only, as Wally West put it, an irredeemable sociopath with Barts face, he also ages slower. While Impulse aged up to 15 in only 2 years, Thaddeus grew up slower and learned to be more calculating and methodical, not impulsive. After his first attack on Max Mercury (Impulses mentor) Inertia would go on to have a long rivalry with Impulse.

Created from the cells of Emma Frost, the Stepford Cuckoos were grown for the purpose of being able to kill every mutant on Earth. The Cuckoos are powerful telepaths that become more powerful by combining their powers into one hive mind. Fitting since they all look, dress and act alike.

The sisters Celeste, Esme, Irma, Phoebe and Sophie definitely live up the name Stepford. For those of you who dont know, this is in reference to The Stepford Wives, a book about an idyllic neighborhood full of submissive housewives that seem to act like perfect robots (because, SPOILER, they are). While the Cuckoos are far from submissive, they definitely keep a prim and proper appearance and demeanor about them, to the extent of being rather stuck up and snobby. But well forgive them since they have been a powerful asset to the X-Men for quite some time now.

Guy Gardner is already kind of a jerk. Hes loud, he brash and hes not all that keen on authority. So what would an evil clone of him be like? Enter Joe Gardner, a clone of Guy created by the Draal. The Draalarean alien race bent on controlling the Green Lantern Corpsthrough clones of the guardians. They attempted to do just that with Joe Gardner, but it didnt work out quite like they planned.

During the cloning, Guy tampered with the process, causing mental problems with the duplicate including loss of memories and psychopathic tendencies. Afterfailing to destroy and replace Guy, Joe wasnt heard from for a while. He returned laters as the Enforcer, capturing Green Lanterns and selling them as slaves. Without Guys morality, Joe is justa psychopath with a power ring. Not a good combination.

ARussian mutant and graduate of the Weapon Xprogram, Arkady Rossovich was once a serial killer with life-draining powers. He was equipped with retractable carbonadiumtentacles in each hand by Weapon X to increase his literal and figurative reach, becoming a powerful mercenary for various evil organizations until his death by Wolverine.

This wasnt the last of Omega Red, however, as an organization known as The White Sky was commissioned to create clones of the villain. These three were Omega Black, a female clone with carbonadium tentacles in her chest; Omega White, a clone with the power to create energy constructs; and Omega Red, a clone that was almost exactly the same as the original. Dubbed The Omega Clan the clones were created for the purpose of hunting and killing mutants.

Despite being raised to be an assassin to kill his father, Damian Wayneeventually grewinto his own as both a sidekick to Batman, and as his own person. Talia Al Ghul did not wish for any of this, she wanted Damian to help her enact her plan to have a perfect family with Batman, a family that could rule the world together. After Damian sided with Batman, she decided to take more drastic measures.

Enter Heretic, a clone of Damian created to be the perfect child, one who could help Tahlia enact her plans. The clone was trained much like Damian, but was genetically modified, surgically enhanced and gestated in a whales body to have peak human strength. If thats not weird enough, his rapid aging and growth gave Heretic the body of a muscular adult with the head of a child. Creepy.

Originally known as Nathanial Essex, Mr. Sinister was once a brilliant biologist in 19th Century England. Essex was shunned by his peers both for his immoral methods of human experimentation and his theories on a great mutation that existed in humanity. Eventually, Essex would fall into the hands of this great mutation when Apocalypse himself awoke and granted Essex great power and immortality. Essex renamed himself Mr. Sinister, becoming the villain we all know and love.

As a biologist and villain, it makes sense that Mr. Sinister is a fan of cloning. Sinister has cloned both himself and others countless times. He oft uses clones of himself to stand in during attempts on his life or to merelystroke his own ego. Sinister has also created various clones of other mutants include Jean Grey and Hank McCoy, each being used in some crazy and convoluted plot against the X-Men.

Speaking of Mr. Sinister Clones, Madelyne Pryor is the worst of them all. Cloned from Jean Grey, Sinister created her with the purpose of being a stand-in for the original. This is where things get creepy, as Sinister believed that anoffspring between Jean Grey and Cyclops would create a powerful mutant, one strong enough to defeat apocalypse. However, Jean grey was known to be a bit reckless, so Sinister created the clone to replace her and create his desired mutant offspring. Gross.

If that wasnt bad enough, Madelyne and Scott actually would have a child who would eventuallybecomeCable. Itwas also Madelyne herself who infected the infant Nathan Summers with his techno organic virus. She did so as the Goblin Queen, a persona she chose after turning on Scott Summers and the X-Men, brandishing powerful telekinesis, telepathy and a wide variety of magical, reality-warping spells.

From the pages of Robert KirkmansInvincible, The Mauler Twins are simultaneously some of Invincibles best and worst enemies. Massive, strong, durable and brilliant, The Twins are actually clones. Or rather, one clone and the original, though they might both be clones man this is confusing. Whichever combination it is, the original Mauler mastered cloning technology and used it to create a clone to do his bidding.

His plan didnt work out too well, however, since his clone gained all of his memories and thoughts, believing himself to be the original. While they are evil geniuses, the Maulers plans are often halted due in part to their own bickering over who is the original and who his the clone. Further, what makes these two blues the worst is that they are in part responsible for creating one of Invincibles deadliest and most ruthless villains, Angstrom Levy.

Some people might be confused with this entry. We know that the original Charles Xavier as he appeared for most of his X-Men comics career was in fact the original Charles Xavier.However, after having his body implanted with a Brood egg, Charles was under the control of the hive mind aliens. He even created the New Mutants under Brood control as a means of creating more hosts for reproduction of the aliens. The creature inside Charles would eventually destroy his body, but leave his soul intact.

After defeating the creature that burst forth from the professor, the X-Men were able to recover Charles soul from the monster, but it was without a body. However, thanks to the Starjammers, the X-Men were able to clone Charles a new body, one that was a bit younger and had functioning legs. Aint that convenient?

In a somewhat controversial story arc, Dr. Otto Octavius, A.K.A. Dr. Octopus, cheated death by switching bodies with Peter Parker, or so we thought. At the end ofSuperior Spider-Man, Peters consciousness has reclaimed his body and Otto Octavius is out of the picture. Fortunately for Ock though, he put in safety protocols so that his consciousness would survive and, after a long, arduous process of finding his original body, he was able to clone himself a young, superior body tooccupy.

With hisnew young body and his tentacles back in his hands, Doctor Octopus was back. Hisbody also had a bit of Peters DNA since, after his time in Spider-Mans body, Otto became obsessed with it (that sounds creepy) and determined it to be absolutely perfect (even creepier), thus he wanted some of his genetic material for himself (were sorry).

*Warning: The following contains spoilers forInvincible*

Also from the pages ofInvincible, Robot is a rather interesting character. Originally thought to just be a sentient robot of sorts, fans of the Image series would later learn that the character had a lot more going for him. Born a disabled and deformed human, Rudy used his vast intelligence to build a robot drone to control and live through. But living life as a robot was not enough for him.

This is where things get kind of creepy. After noticing a fellow superhero and love interest Monster Girl was attracted to Guardians of the Globe teammate Rex Splode, Robot used Rexs DNA to clone himself a new body. The new body, made to be the same age as Monster Girl, served as a host for his memories and thoughts and he would kill his original deformed self. It gets worse too, since Robot would eventually seek world domination.

Theres quite a few clone stories in Spider-Man comics, each more confusing than the last. Perhaps the most well-known, and most controversial, is the Ben Reilly clone saga. Back in the 70s, Spider-Man villain and serial cloner Jackal created a duplicate of Spider-Man, pittingthe two Spider-Men against each other, each believing themselves to be true Peter Parker. After the battle, Peter thought the clone had died and dumped his body.

However, the clone survived and started a new life for himself as Ben Reilly. The most controversial part of Bens clone saga was whenBen was revealed to be the original, and Peter the clone. Fans were shocked by this revealand the following stories in which Ben Reilly took over as Spider-Man. Eventually though, readers were relieved to find out the tests results were switched by a manipulative Norman Osborne.

After the death of Superman Project Cadmus decided to clone him and create their own man of steel, one that would follow theirorders. However, cloning Kryptonians isnt as easy at it seems. Instead of a Superman clone, Cadmus genetically engineered a human to look exactly like Superman and decided to replicate Kryptonian powers by other means. This came in the form of a telekinetic aura surrounding their clone, one that would give him flight, strength, invulnerability and limited super speed. There was, however, another problem with their clone.

Despite being designed to replace Superman, the clone was released too early, having only aged to a teenager. Nicknamed Superboy, and eventually dubbed Conner Kent/Kon-El, this Superman Clone had quite the career with the Teen Titans, rocking a spiffy, but kind of dorky costume before going casual withhis signature shirt and pants look.

Created by The Agenda, this clone has, well,an agenda. Match was created to be Superboys match (man these people are literal), cloned from his DNA and given his memories. Meant to destroy Superboy and further The Agendas agenda, Match had much more control over his superpowers, due in part to the data downloaded into his brain, an advantage he had over his originator. However, as strong as this clone was, he was eventually defeated by Superboy, and thats not Matchs only imperfection.

Matchs genetic coding was susceptible to deterioration; as a result, his body eventually started to rot away. This gave Match an appearance and demeanor similar to Bizarro. With a calcified face, rotting body and slurred, opposite-oriented speech, Match had essentially become Bizarro Superboy. In this state, he was much more forceful and violent, forcing his feelings upon Wonder Girl and attacking the Titans without mercy.

Alright, before we get angry comments on here, were not saying X-23 is THE WORST. We love her, shes badass and awesome, its just the circumstances surrounding her creation are pretty terrible. Originally appearing inX-Men Evolution, Laura Kinney was created to be the cloned daughterof Wolverine.

Laura was part of a Weapon X revival meant to create another soldier with adamantium-bonded bones. In an attempt to clone Wolverine as a subject for the process, they found their DNA samples were lacking a Y chromosome, so a female clone was proposed. A female embryo was grown inside the head scientist on the project, Dr. Sarah Kinney. Laura was born and subjected to horrible radiation poisoning to activate her mutant gene before having her claws ripped out and coated with adamantium. Jeeze, no wonder shes so grumpy, though that might be Logans genes at work.

Which clone do you think got the crappiest treatment? Let us know in the comments!

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Copy-Craps: The 15 Worst Comic Book Clones - CBR (blog)