Illuminati Science EXPOSED Genetic Engineering, Cloning, DNA Manipulation, Transhumanism 1080p – Video


Illuminati Science EXPOSED Genetic Engineering, Cloning, DNA Manipulation, Transhumanism 1080p
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Illuminati Science EXPOSED Genetic Engineering, Cloning, DNA Manipulation, Transhumanism 1080p - Video

Cancer-fighting pink pineapples? Genetic engineering looms

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Cancer-fighting pink pineapples, heart-healthy purple tomatoes and less fatty vegetable oils may someday be on grocery shelves alongside more traditional products.

These genetically engineered foods could receive government approval in the coming years, following the OK given recently in the US to apples that don't brown and potatoes that don't bruise.

The companies and scientists that have created these foods are hoping that customers will be attracted to the health benefits and convenience and overlook any concerns about genetic engineering.

"I think once people see more of the benefits they will become more accepting of the technology," says Michael Firko, who oversees the US Agriculture Department's regulation of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Critics aren't so sure. They say there should be more thorough regulation of modified foods, which are grown from seeds engineered in labs, and have called for mandatory labeling of those foods. The Agriculture Department only has the authority to oversee plant health of GMOs, and seeking Food and Drug Administration's safety approval is generally voluntary.

"Many of these things can be done through traditional breeding," says Doug Gurian-Sherman of the advocacy group Center for Food Safety. "There needs to be skepticism."

What could be coming next? Del Monte has engineered a pink pineapple that includes lycopene, an antioxidant compound that gives tomatoes their red color and may have a role in preventing cancer. USDA has approved importation of the pineapple, which would be grown only outside of the United States; it is pending FDA approval.

A small British company is planning to apply for US permission to produce and sell purple tomatoes that have high levels of anthocyanins, compounds found in blueberries that some studies show lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. FDA would have to approve any health claims used to sell the products.

Seed giants Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences are separately developing modified soybean, canola and sunflower oils with fewer saturated fats and more Omega-3 fatty acids. The Florida citrus company Southern Gardens is using a spinach gene to develop genetically engineered orange trees that could potentially resist citrus greening disease, which is devastating the Florida orange crop. Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc., the company that created the non-browning apples, is also looking at genetically engineering peaches, cherries and apples to resist disease and improve quality.

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Cancer-fighting pink pineapples? Genetic engineering looms

Can caffeine be used to treat or prevent Alzheimer's disease?

IMAGE:Journal of Caffeine Research covers the effects of caffeine on a wide range of diseases and conditions, including mood disorders, neurological disorders, cognitive performance, cardiovascular disease, and sports performance.... view more

Credit: (c) 2015 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

New Rochelle, NY, March 31, 2015-The proposed link between caffeine and reductions in the beta amyloid plaque accumulation characteristic of Alzheimer's disease (AD) suggest a possible role for caffeine in AD treatment. The latest evidence linking beta amyloid protein to Alzheimer's disease and exploring the relationship between caffeine and beta amyloid are featured in a review article in Journal of Caffeine Research: The International Multidisciplinary Journal of Caffeine Science, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Caffeine Research website at http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/jcr.2014.0027 until May 1, 2015.

In the article "Caffeine as Treatment for Alzheimer's: A Review", Abhishek Mohan, BS, Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA), and coauthors identify the potential opportunities for using caffeine to reduce beta amyloid levels as a means of preventing, treating, and slowing the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

"To say that strategizing medicines to treat Alzheimer's disorders is important is an understatement," says Patricia A. Broderick, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Caffeine Research, Medical Professor in Physiology, Pharmacology & Neuroscience, The Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, The City College of New York, The City University of New York, and Adjunct Professor in Neurology, New York University Langone Medical Center and Comprehensive Epilepsy Center. "Moreover, to say that caffeine is just an ordinary staple in our lives, whether caffeine is part of coffee or a chocolate bar, is also an understatement. Thus, what Dr. Mohan has published herein is elegant in its simplicity; his work is critically on target."

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About the Journal

Journal of Caffeine Research: The International Multidisciplinary Journal of Caffeine Science is a quarterly journal published online with Open Access options and in print. The Journal covers the effects of caffeine on a wide range of diseases and conditions, including mood disorders, neurological disorders, cognitive performance, cardiovascular disease, and sports performance. Journal of Caffeine Research explores all aspects of caffeine science including the biochemistry of caffeine; its actions on the human body; benefits, dangers, and contraindications; and caffeine addiction and withdrawal, across all stages of the human life span from prenatal exposure to end-of-life. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Journal of Caffeine Research website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jcr.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Breastfeeding Medicine, Journal of Medicinal Food, and Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website at http://www.liebertpub.com.

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Can caffeine be used to treat or prevent Alzheimer's disease?

What is the best measure of depression severity in adolescents?

IMAGE:Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology (JCAP), celebrating 25 years in 2015, is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published 10 times a year in print and online. The Journal... view more

Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

New Rochelle, NY, March 30, 2015--At present the key symptom for diagnosing major depressive disorder (MDD) in adolescents is irritability. However a new study has found that the severity of anhedonia (the inability to gain pleasure from experiences that usually are enjoyable) rather than of irritability is associated with more severe MDD and worse clinical outcomes and suicide scores. Results of the study are published in Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology (JCAP), a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers, and is available free on the JCAP website until April 30, 2015.

Vilma Gabbay, MD, and coauthors at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and New York University Langone Medical Center (New York, NY), and Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research (Orangeburg, NY), used a quantitative approach to focus on symptoms of irritability and anhedonia simultaneously in 90 adolescents with MDD. Only anhedonia severity showed a significant correlation with the severity of overall outcomes, including illness severity, episode duration, and number of MDD episodes. In the article "Anhedonia, but not Irritability Is Associated with Illness Severity Outcomes in Adolescent Major Depression," the authors emphasize the importance of closely monitoring highly anhedonic depressed adolescents.

"This is a pivotal study of the critical aspects of adolescent depression," says Harold S. Koplewicz, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology and President of the Child Mind Institute in New York. "The authors provide us with an insight that has significant implications for early intervention and effective treatment. Their work also reinforces the need for targeted studies of this disease in the adolescent population if we want to understand it and mitigate its harmful effects on youth."

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About the Journal

Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology (JCAP), celebrating 25 years in 2015, is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published 10 times a year in print and online. The Journal is dedicated to child and adolescent psychiatry and behavioral pediatrics, covering clinical and biological aspects of child and adolescent psychopharmacology and developmental neurobiology. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the JCAP website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, Games for Health Journal, and Violence and Gender. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

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What is the best measure of depression severity in adolescents?

Human embryo modifications must be halted, scientists urge – Video


Human embryo modifications must be halted, scientists urge
New warnings about genetic engineering are now coming from the very people trying to advance the field. Click here for the full story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/human-embryo-modifications-must...

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Human embryo modifications must be halted, scientists urge - Video

Photosynthesis hack is needed to feed the world by 2050

Using high-performance computing and genetic engineering to boost the photosynthetic efficiency of plants offers the best hope of increasing crop yields enough to feed a planet expected to have 9.5 billion people on it by 2050, researchers report in the journal Cell.

There has never been a better time to try this, said University of Illinois plant biology professor Stephen P. Long, who wrote the report with colleagues from Illinois and the CAS-MPG Partner Institute of Computational Biology in Shanghai.

"We now know every step in the processes that drive photosynthesis in C3 crop plants such as soybeans and C4 plants such as maize," Long said. "We have unprecedented computational resources that allow us to model every stage of photosynthesis and determine where the bottlenecks are, and advances in genetic engineering will help us augment or circumvent those steps that impede efficiency."

Substantial progress has already been made in the lab and in computer models of photosynthesis, Long said.

"Our lab and others have put a gene from cyanobacteria into crop plants and found that it boosts the photosynthetic rate by 30 percent," he said.

Photosynthetic microbes offer other clues to improving photosynthesis in plants, the researchers report. For example, some bacteria and algae contain pigments that utilize more of the solar spectrum than plant pigments do. If added to plants, those pigments could bolster the plants' access to solar energy.

Some scientists are trying to engineer C4 photosynthesis in C3 plants, but this means altering plant anatomy, changing the expression of many genes and inserting new genes from C4 plants, Long said.

"Another, possibly simpler approach is to add to the C3 chloroplast the system used by blue-green algae," he said. This would increase the activity of Rubisco, an enzyme that catalyzes a vital step of the conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide into plant biomass. Computer models suggest adding this system would increase photosynthesis as much as 60 percent, Long said.

Computer analyses of the way plant leaves intercept sunlight have revealed other ways to improve photosynthesis. Many plants intercept too much light in their topmost leaves and too little in lower leaves; this probably allows them to outcompete their neighbors, but in a farmer's field such competition is counterproductive, Long said.

Studies headed by U. of I. plant biology professor Donald Ort aim to make plants' upper leaves lighter, allowing more sunlight to penetrate to the light-starved lower leaves. Computer modeling of photosynthesis also shows researchers where the traffic jams occur -- the steps that slow the process down and reduce efficiency.

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Photosynthesis hack is needed to feed the world by 2050

Report: Photosynthesis hack needed to feed the world by 2050

IMAGE:This photo shows University of Illinois field trials of various photosynthesis hacks. view more

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Using high-performance computing and genetic engineering to boost the photosynthetic efficiency of plants offers the best hope of increasing crop yields enough to feed a planet expected to have 9.5 billion people on it by 2050, researchers report in the journal Cell.

There has never been a better time to try this, said University of Illinois plant biology professor Stephen P. Long, who wrote the report with colleagues from Illinois and the CAS-MPG Partner Institute of Computational Biology in Shanghai.

"We now know every step in the processes that drive photosynthesis in C3 crop plants such as soybeans and C4 plants such as maize," Long said. "We have unprecedented computational resources that allow us to model every stage of photosynthesis and determine where the bottlenecks are, and advances in genetic engineering will help us augment or circumvent those steps that impede efficiency."

Substantial progress has already been made in the lab and in computer models of photosynthesis, Long said.

"Our lab and others have put a gene from cyanobacteria into crop plants and found that it boosts the photosynthetic rate by 30 percent," he said.

Photosynthetic microbes offer other clues to improving photosynthesis in plants, the researchers report. For example, some bacteria and algae contain pigments that utilize more of the solar spectrum than plant pigments do. If added to plants, those pigments could bolster the plants' access to solar energy.

Some scientists are trying to engineer C4 photosynthesis in C3 plants, but this means altering plant anatomy, changing the expression of many genes and inserting new genes from C4 plants, Long said.

"Another, possibly simpler approach is to add to the C3 chloroplast the system used by blue-green algae," he said. This would increase the activity of Rubisco, an enzyme that catalyzes a vital step of the conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide into plant biomass. Computer models suggest adding this system would increase photosynthesis as much as 60 percent, Long said.

Computer analyses of the way plant leaves intercept sunlight have revealed other ways to improve photosynthesis. Many plants intercept too much light in their topmost leaves and too little in lower leaves; this probably allows them to outcompete their neighbors, but in a farmer's field such competition is counterproductive, Long said.

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Report: Photosynthesis hack needed to feed the world by 2050

Researchers discover genetic origins of myelodysplastic syndrome using stem cells

(New York - March 25, 2015) Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) -- adult cells reprogrammed back to an embryonic stem cell-like state--may better model the genetic contributions to each patient's particular disease. In a process called cellular reprogramming, researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have taken mature blood cells from patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and reprogrammed them back into iPSCs to study the genetic origins of this rare blood cancer. The results appear in an upcoming issue of Nature Biotechnology.

In MDS, genetic mutations in the bone marrow stem cell cause the number and quality of blood-forming cells to decline irreversibly, further impairing blood production. Patients with MDS can develop severe anemia and in some cases leukemia also known as AML. But which genetic mutations are the critical ones causing this disease?

In this study, researchers took cells from patients with blood cancer MDS and turned them into stem cells to study the deletions of human chromosome 7 often associated with this disease.

"With this approach, we were able to pinpoint a region on chromosome 7 that is critical and were able to identify candidate genes residing there that may cause this disease," said lead researcher Eirini Papapetrou, MD, PhD, Department of Oncological Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Chromosomal deletions are difficult to study with existing tools because they contain a large number of genes, making it hard to pinpoint the critical ones causing cancer. Chromosome 7 deletion is a characteristic cellular abnormality in MDS and is well-recognized for decades as a marker of unfavorable prognosis. However, the role of this deletion in the development of the disease remained unclear going into this study.

Understanding the role of specific chromosomal deletions in cancers requires determining if a deletion has observable consequences as well as identifying which specific genetic elements are critically lost. Researchers used cellular reprogramming and genome engineering to dissect the loss of chromosome 7. The methods used in this study for engineering deletions can enable studies of the consequences of alterations in genes in human cells.

"Genetic engineering of human stem cells has not been used for disease-associated genomic deletions," said Dr. Papapetrou. "This work sheds new light on how blood cancer develops and also provides a new approach that can be used to study chromosomal deletions associated with a variety of human cancers, neurological and developmental diseases."

Reprogramming MDS cells could provide a powerful tool to dissect the architecture and evolution of this disease and to link the genetic make-up of MDS cells to characteristics and traits of these cells. Further dissecting the MDS stem cells at the molecular level could provide insights into the origins and development of MDS and other blood cancers. Moreover, this work could provide a platform to test and discover new treatments for these diseases.

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This study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the American Society of Hematology, the Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research, the Aplastic Anemia & MDS International Foundation, the Ellison Medical Foundation, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the University of Washington Royalty Research Fund, and a John H. Tietze Stem Cell Scientist Award.

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Researchers discover genetic origins of myelodysplastic syndrome using stem cells

Mount Sinai Researchers Discover Genetic Origins of Myelodysplastic Syndrome Using Stem Cells

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Newswise (New York March 25, 2015) Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)adult cells reprogrammed back to an embryonic stem cell-like statemay better model the genetic contributions to each patient's particular disease. In a process called cellular reprogramming, researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have taken mature blood cells from patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and reprogrammed them back into iPSCs to study the genetic origins of this rare blood cancer. The results appear in an upcoming issue of Nature Biotechnology.

In MDS, genetic mutations in the bone marrow stem cell cause the number and quality of blood-forming cells to decline irreversibly, further impairing blood production. Patients with MDS can develop severe anemia and in some cases leukemia also known as AML. But which genetic mutations are the critical ones causing this disease?

In this study, researchers took cells from patients with blood cancer MDS and turned them into stem cells to study the deletions of human chromosome 7 often associated with this disease.

With this approach, we were able to pinpoint a region on chromosome 7 that is critical and were able to identify candidate genes residing there that may cause this disease, said lead researcher Eirini Papapetrou, MD, PhD, Department of Oncological Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Chromosomal deletions are difficult to study with existing tools because they contain a large number of genes, making it hard to pinpoint the critical ones causing cancer. Chromosome 7 deletion is a characteristic cellular abnormality in MDS and is well-recognized for decades as a marker of unfavorable prognosis. However, the role of this deletion in the development of the disease remained unclear going into this study.

Understanding the role of specific chromosomal deletions in cancers requires determining if a deletion has observable consequences as well as identifying which specific genetic elements are critically lost. Researchers used cellular reprogramming and genome engineering to dissect the loss of chromosome 7. The methods used in this study for engineering deletions can enable studies of the consequences of alterations in genes in human cells.

Genetic engineering of human stem cells has not been used for disease-associated genomic deletions, said Dr. Papapetrou. This work sheds new light on how blood cancer develops and also provides a new approach that can be used to study chromosomal deletions associated with a variety of human cancers, neurological and developmental diseases.

Reprogramming MDS cells could provide a powerful tool to dissect the architecture and evolution of this disease and to link the genetic make-up of MDS cells to characteristics and traits of these cells. Further dissecting the MDS stem cells at the molecular level could provide insights into the origins and development of MDS and other blood cancers. Moreover, this work could provide a platform to test and discover new treatments for these diseases.

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Mount Sinai Researchers Discover Genetic Origins of Myelodysplastic Syndrome Using Stem Cells

Snapchat or Facebook — which one is more likely to elicit romantic jealousy?

IMAGE:Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly online with Open Access options and in print that explores the psychological and social issues surrounding... view more

Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

New Rochelle, NY, March 25, 2015--The photo-sharing app Snapchat is not yet as popular as Facebook for social networking, but the greater privacy Snapchat may offer could motivate users to share more intimate types of content for different purposes. A new study comparing Snapchat and Facebook use and their effect on romantic relationships is published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website until April 25, 2015.

The article "Snapchat Elicits More Jealousy Than Facebook: A Comparison of Snapchat and Facebook Use" describes a study comparing how individuals use the two social networking apps, and whether Snapchat, with which messages disappear after only a few seconds and are typically sent to a smaller number of people, affords more private communication and intimate, personal content that could evoke greater jealousy. Authors Sonja Utz and Nicole Muscanell, Knowledge Media Research Center (Tbingen, Germany), and Cameran Khalid (Glasgow University, Scotland), found that behaviors of romantic partners on Snapchat evoked higher levels of jealousy than did the same behaviors on Facebook.

"Although a small preliminary study, this is an important foray into a new communication platform," says Editor-in-Chief Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, BCB, BCN, Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, California and Virtual Reality Medical Institute, Brussels, Belgium. "And with the January 2015 Snapchat update, which made Best Friends Lists private, one wonders if we will now see the fire of jealousy further inflamed."

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About the Journal

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly online with Open Access options and in print that explores the psychological and social issues surrounding the Internet and interactive technologies, plus cybertherapy and rehabilitation. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Games for Health Journal, Telemedicine and e-Health, and Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

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Snapchat or Facebook -- which one is more likely to elicit romantic jealousy?

Drugs companies unite to mine genetic data

Nonetheless, he said, drug companies would only be allowed access to the data in a tightly controlled way, describing the project as "more like a reading library than a lending library".

Martin Mackay, head of research and development at Alexion, a US biotech company taking part in the consortium, said the scheme had the potential to "accelerate the understanding of the genetic basis of rare diseases and ultimately lead to improved diagnostics and treatments".

The other members of the alliance called the Gene Consortium are UCB of Belgium, Takeda of Japan, and Dimension Therapeutics and Helomics of the US.

Genomics England will also announce partnerships with scientists and academic institutions in another move to make its database available to researchers.

The 100,000 Genomes Project is part of efforts by the government to use the NHS and its wealth of medical data to attract international medical research and life sciences investment.

Sir John is a veteran of the software and engineering industries who oversaw the privatisation of Qinetiq, the government's defence technology service business.

"I spent a large amount of my working life in the microelectronic revolution which [changed] the 20th century," he told the Financial Times. "Genetics [is] going to change the world in the 21st century."

Genomics England could play an important role, he added, in the shift towards more personalised medicines to tackle the genetic defects of individual patients.

"We will look back on how we used to pour pills down our necks as being not much different to how we look back on bleeding someone who has a fever."

Another large genomic database has been built by 23andMe, a Google-backed Californian company that sells $99 DNA testing kits.

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Drugs companies unite to mine genetic data

'Ban DNA Editing Of Sperm And Eggs'

Designer babies are on their way, said experts in genetic engineering as they called for a global ban on the practice.

It is thought that studies involving the use of genome-editing tools to modify the DNA of human embryos will be published shortly, said the authors of a paper in Nature.

The articles lead author, Professor Jennifer Doudna of the University of California at Berkeley, led the team that developed the gene-editing technique that she now wants restricted.

She and her colleagues have now warned of the ethical and safety implications of research that could lead to the birth of what laymen might term super humans.

In our view, genome editing in human embryos using current technologies could have unpredictable effects on future generations, they said. This makes it dangerous and ethically unacceptable. Such research could be exploited for non-therapeutic modifications.

DNA can be edited far more precisely than ever before using Crispr-Cas9 (Credit: Mehmet Pinarci/Sendercorp)

It is possible, for example, for the technology to make unintended changes to DNA, The New York Times reported.

But they are also worried that a public backlash could halt work on disease fighting techniques in somatic (non-reproductive) cells.

Genome-editing technologies may offer a powerful approach to treat many human diseases, including HIV/Aids, haemophilia, sickle-cell anaemia and several forms of cancer, they said.

Scientists at the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands reported in Cell Stem Cell two years ago that the technique could repair the cystic fibrosis mutation.

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'Ban DNA Editing Of Sperm And Eggs'

Scientists call for caution in using DNA-editing technology

14 hours ago by Robert Sanders The bacterial enzyme Cas9 is the engine of RNA-programmed genome engineering in human cells. Credit: Jennifer Doudna/UC Berkeley

A group of 18 scientists and ethicists today warned that a revolutionary new tool to cut and splice DNA should be used cautiously when attempting to fix human genetic disease, and strongly discouraged any attempts at making changes to the human genome that could be passed on to offspring.

Among the authors of this warning is Jennifer Doudna, the co-inventor of the technology, called CRISPR-Cas9, which is driving a new interest in gene therapy, or "genome engineering." She and colleagues co-authored a perspective piece that appears in the March 20 issue of Science, based on discussions at a meeting that took place in Napa on Jan. 24. The same issue of Science features a collection of recent research papers, commentary and news articles on CRISPR and its implications.

"Given the speed with which the genome engineering field is evolving, our group concluded that there is an urgent need for open discussion of the merits and risks of human genome modification by a broad cohort of scientists, clinicians, social scientists, the general public and relevant public entities and interest groups," the authors wrote.

Doudna, director of UC Berkeley's Innovative Genomics Initiative, was joined by five current and two former UC Berkeley scientists, plus David Baltimore, a Nobel laureate and president emeritus of the California Institute of Technology, Stanford Nobelist Paul Berg and eminent scientists from UC San Francisco, Stanford, Harvard and the universities of Wisconsin and Utah. Several of these scientists are currently involved in gene therapy to cure inherited diseases.

Latest of many warnings

Such warnings have been issued numerous times since the dawn of genetic engineering in 1975, but until now the technology to actually fix genetic defects was hard to use.

"However, this limitation has been upended recently by the rapid development and widespread adoption of a simple, inexpensive and remarkably effective genome engineering method known as CRISPR-Cas9," the scientists wrote. "The simplicity of the CRISPR-Cas9 system enables any researcher with knowledge of molecular biology to modify genomes, making feasible many experiments that were previously difficult or impossible to conduct."

Correcting genetic defects

Scientists today are changing DNA sequences to correct genetic defects in animals as well as cultured tissues generated from stem cells, strategies that could eventually be used to treat human disease. The technology can also be used to engineer animals with genetic diseases mimicking human disease, which could lead to new insights into previously enigmatic disorders.

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Scientists call for caution in using DNA-editing technology