1. Genetic Engineering

Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

Decoy protein stops all tested HIV strains

Posted on by

How HIV infects a CD4+ T-helper cell. (1) The gp120 viral protein attaches to CD4. (2) The gp120 variable loop attaches to a coreceptor, either CCR5 or CXCR4. (3) HIV enters the cell.

In a new approach to stopping HIV, a Scripps Research-led team has created a genetically engineered protein that inactivates virtually all strains of the virus. While it will take years before this approach can be tested in humans, the concept provides a fresh insight on how to protect people against infection from the AIDS-causing virus.

The protein mimics two receptors on the surface of the immune cells that HIV infects. When the virus encounters the protein, it springs into action as if infecting a cell. The changes the virus undergoes render it incapable of future attempts at infection, said Michael Farzan, a Scripps Research scientist who led the study.

The protein neutralized 100 percent of neutralization-resistant strains of HIV-1, HIV-2 and SHIV-AD8, an artificially made cross between HIV and simian immunodeficiency virus, an HIV relative found in monkeys. The protein was tested in cell cultures, mice with humanized immune systems and macaque monkeys given SHIV. This degree of protection far exceeds that of the strongest anti-HIV antibodies in the body's immune system.

For people, the protein could one day offer lasting protection against HIV infection by means of gene therapy, Farzan said. A designated gene would be carried into muscle cells by an innocuous virus. Then the gene, called eCD4-Ig, would be deposited into the muscle cells, where it would churn out the artificial protein into the bloodstream. If the protein encounters any HIV, it would bind to it, rendering the virus harmless.

In essence, the new study's authors said the approach acts as a vaccine against HIV.

Michael Farzan is a professor at the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute. / The Scripps Research Institute

The study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Farzan, in Scripps' campus in Jupiter, Florida, was the senior author. Matthew R. Gardner, also of Scripps Florida, was co-first author along with Lisa M. Kattenhorn of Harvard Medical School's New England Primate Research Center in Southborough, Mass. From Scripps' La Jolla headquarters, Dennis R. Burton, a noted expert on broadly neutralizing antibodies, also participated. More than 30 scientists in all took part in the study.

The study takes a novel approach to hitting HIV's weak spots; the receptors it must attach to infect the cells. These are called CD4 and CCR5, (along with CXCR4, a receptor close to CCR5 that can serve in its place). HIV must attach to both locations to enter into the cell, Farzan said. Once it attaches, the virus changes shape to drive itself into the cell.

Shane Crotty, a vaccine researcher at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, praised the study as creative and exciting science. However, Crotty said the study is preliminary and the concept needs to be more rigorously tested. Just four macaque monkeys were tested, and while the results were impressive, more monkeys need to be tested.

Read more:

Decoy protein stops all tested HIV strains

Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi on Issue of Cloning Genetic Engineering Getting in the Way of God’s Work – Video

Posted on by


Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi on Issue of Cloning Genetic Engineering Getting in the Way of God #39;s Work
Rabbi Mizrachi Website: http://www.divineinformation.com ----- Rabbi Mizrachi YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY_RXl0nXVp4w3VpEwsNhUg.

By: ShadeManVendetta

Follow this link:

Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi on Issue of Cloning Genetic Engineering Getting in the Way of God's Work - Video

A Third Act For Biofuels

Posted on by

Editors note:Ryan Clarke is a biochemistry PhD candidate with an interest in genetic engineering. He is a published scientist with a background in synthetic biology and social analytics.James Hyun is aPhD student in the life sciences with a background in molecular biology. He haspublished numerous scientific paperswheregenetically engineered microorganisms were used to produce high value therapeutic proteins.

In the midst of the lowest oil prices our nation has seen in six years, its easy to forget that the primary energy source in the world is in finite supply. Fracking and extraction from shale have enhanced the potential amount of obtainable oil (and Americas total reserves have the potential to be the highest in the world), but these means are still limited by the Earths reserves.

In fact, British Petroleum projects that we will deplete the Earths oil reservoirs in roughly 50 years. With this sobering reality looming over our heads, we can look to recent advances in the biotechnology of biofuel production as a potential solution. Moving beyond bioethanol, the unsuspecting platform of algae may be the most promising.

Our vision for a carbon neutral world is one in which the ultimate goal is replacing petroleum-based energy consumption systems with clean energy production/consumption. However, replacing fossil fuel-derived energy with renewable sources such as wind, solar or hydro is a daunting task. These electricity-producing energy sources have a lower energy density, which is measured in joules per liter or kilogram, or BTUs (British Thermal Unit):

Furthermore, solar, wind and hydro cannot be controlled with an on and off switch. Rather, the electricity generated must be used immediately or stored in batteries and is considerably more expensive than fossil fuels. On a large scale, a coal mine or oil field, for instance, yields five to 50 times more power per square meter than a solar facility, 10 to 100 times more than a wind farm, and 100 to 1,000 times more than a biomass plant like corn.

If we want to avoid hitting the brick wall of a global energy drought when we tap our final oil reserves, we must do what humans do best: solve the problems we have created ourselves. Big oil and other major players in the market are highly cognizant that current petroleum supplies are finite, so they have been heavily investing (i.e. BP has invested $4 billion since 2005) in alternative energy sources to alleviate our dependency on classic fossil fuels. A significant portion of this funding is focused on biofuels, which might be the most realistic answer to the fossil fuel issue.

Biomasses to Bioethanol.The conversion of cellulose (a prolific sugar produced in plants), such as corns and sugar cane, to ethanol through chemically catalytic procedures has been a major prospect for ridding petroleum dependency for 20 years in the U.S.

Unfortunately, it turns out our existing combustion engines can only handle 10 percent ethanol mixtures with our gasoline (denoted as E10 fuels) on average, unless the engine has been modified or produced (flex-fuel engines) to handle 85 percent ethanol (E85 fuels), which is much less common. In America, there are roughly 10 million flex-fuel vehicles out of the total 250 million, so an infrastructure turnover is required for ethanol to be a plausible alternative.

The utmost defeating point for the ethanol argument is that oil yields 50 times more energy than ethanol from corn and 10 times more than ethanol from sugar cane, according to ecological economist Cutler Cleveland.

If we were to commit to ethanol as a petroleum replacement and ethanol werethe sole source used to achieve the 2020 federal mandates for renewable fuel, then 100 percent of the corn currently available in the U.S. would be required. To meet these mandates and maintain todays 30 percent corn crop utilization would require an increase in corn harvest by 423 percent.

Read this article:

A Third Act For Biofuels

Lighting Up the Duke 'D' With Genes

Posted on by

Light-activated genes might be precisely controlled and targeted

By Ken Kingery

Duke University researchers have devised a method to activate genes in any specific location or pattern in a lab dish with the flip of a light switch by crossing a bacteriums viral defense system with a flowers response to sunlight.

With the ability to use light to activate genes in specific locations, researchers can better study genes functions, create complex systems for growing tissue, and perhaps eventually realize science-fiction-like healing technologies.

The study was led by Charles Gersbach, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University, and published on February 9 in Nature Chemical Biology.

Researchers demonstrate their new technique to control genes by shining light through a Duke D stencil to turn on fluorescent genes in cells.

The new technique targets specific genes using an emerging genetic engineering system called CRISPR/Cas9. Discovered as the system bacteria use to identify viral invaders and slice up their DNA, the system was co-opted by researchers to precisely target specific genetic sequences.

The Duke scientists then turned to another branch of the evolutionary tree to make the system light-activated.

In many plants, two proteins lock together in the presence of light, allowing plants to sense the length of day which determines biological functions like flowering. By attaching the CRISPR/Cas9 system to one of these proteins and gene-activating proteins to the other, the team was able to turn several different genes on or off just by shining blue light on the cells.

Charles Gersbach

Visit link:

Lighting Up the Duke 'D' With Genes

Evolution, the Creation Theory or Genetic Engineering …

Posted on by

I would like to start this Topic with a discussion on the contents of the ancient Sumerian Tablets where genetic engineering experiments were done:

1. to create humans or human-like species (Neanderthals) through mixing human gene with the apeman's gene, and

2. to alter the features of humans.

Through this discussion, we can evaluate the possibilities of whether ancient genetic engineering experiments may have been responsible for some of the weird looking bones, which had been found and which are being considered as evidences of evolution.

But before I start a discussion on the contents of the Sumerian Tablets, I am going to explain a little about the contents of the ancient Sumerian Tablets here, so that the reader will understand why I am using the Sumerian Tablets in my discussion here. Then, I will connect the genetic engineering experiments, and other contents in the Sumerian Tablets, to the Neanderthals and Cro Magnons. Then, I will be discussing the following:

1. the possibilities of evolution of the apeman to the present day man

2. how the Replitians had paved the way for ET and evolution believers (just as they had paved the way for Buddha, Abraham, Christ, and Mohammad).

3. the possibilities of ancient genetic engineering experiments that may have created and / or aggravated the Rh negative blood situation (I will be connecting the Cro Magnons to this discussion relating to the Rh negative blood; and I will also be discussing the elongated skulls, giants etc).

I will be discussing the Sumerian Tablets later, in another Topic, so as to give explanations on the story in the Sumerian Tablet. So I am not going to explain, the contents of the Sumerian Tablets, to a great extent here.

You will be able to read the translations of the contents of the Sumerian Tablets (in videos), through the link:

View post:

Evolution, the Creation Theory or Genetic Engineering ...

What do you think?

Posted on by

David Cameron was among MPs who took the historic step today of approving what critics have called "three parent babies" in order to prevent devastating inherited diseases.

The MPs voted for a change in the law that means Britain is set to be the first country in the world to permit mitochondrial donation, which involves conceiving IVF babies with DNA from three different people.

But, speaking shortly before the vote, the Prime Minister insisted there was no question of "playing God".

The move to amend the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which forbids IVF treatments that affect inherited "germline" DNA in eggs and sperm, was carried by 382 votes to 128.

Labour leader Ed Miliband and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg also exercised their free vote to support the decision.

If the House of Lords ratifies the change - which seems likely - the first baby conceived with the procedure could be born by the end of next year.

The child would have "nuclear" DNA determining individual traits such as facial features and personality from its two parents, plus a tiny amount of mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) from an anonymous woman donor.

Research has shown that mitochondrial donation could potentially help almost 2,500 women of reproductive age in the UK.

All are at risk of transmitting harmful DNA mutations in the mitochondria, tiny rod-like power plants in cells, onto their children and future generations.

Mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) is only involved in metabolism and makes up just 0.1% of a person's genetic code.

Read more from the original source:

What do you think?

Three-Parent IVF Deserves a Chance in the U.S.

Posted on by

TIME Ideas health Three-Parent IVF Deserves a Chance in the U.S. All new fertility methods sound crazy at first

In a historic vote that rocked the world of fertility medicine Tuesday, British lawmakers approved the use of a controversial IVF practice that would take genetic material from three people to create a single embryo.

The promising technique, which involves replacing the defective cellular material of a womans eggs with that from a healthy donor, aims to prevent patients from passing down crippling genetic diseases to their offspring. It also might hold the key to other groundbreaking applications, such as extending womens fertility by rehabilitating old eggs.

The decision is inspiring because members of Parliament chose science over a firestorm of often ill-informed debate questioning whether weve gone too far in experimenting with genetic engineering. Hopefully, they will motivate the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which held public hearings on the topic last year but declined to move forward with human trials citing lack of safety data, to follow suit. New research published in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that more than 12,000 women in the U. S. of childbearing age risk passing down such mitochondrial diseases, which have been linked to everything from poor growth, blindness, neurological problems and heart and kidney problems.

The world is right to be cautious about this latest mind-boggling advance in reproductive medicine. It does sound like science fiction: If youre a woman who suffers from a mutation in her mitochondrial DNAthe part of our cells that generate energyscientists can take your egg, extract the nucleusthe part containing your most important genetic instructions, such as hair and eye colorand insert it into a new egg that has been provided by another woman. (The nucleus would have already been removed from the donor egg.) This newly renovated egg is then fertilized by your partners sperm and implanted into your uterus. You carry on with your pregnancy, just like billions of women before you. (Another version of the technique switches out the nucleus of a newly fertilized egg.)

Have we pushed the boundaries too far in innovative baby-making? Think back to when critics charged that the inventors of in-vitro fertilization recklessly played God by daring to combine a sperm and an egg in a lab to create Louise Brown in 1978. Now some 5 million of the worlds babies have been conceived via IVF. But its one thing to get used to combining reproductive parts in a lab; its a lot less comfortable to imagine tinkering with those parts beforehand. In an open letter to the U.K. Parliament, Paul Knoepfler, stem cell and developmental biology researcher at the University of California Davis School of Medicine, warned that supporters could well find themselves on the wrong side of history with horrible consequences.

Yet its important to understand that mitochondrial replacement isnt genetic engineering run amok, cautions Debra Mathews of the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University. The mitochondrial energy-making material of an egg accounts for a mere 37 genes, compared to the nucleus, which contains about 23,000 genes. No one is messing directly with genes, she says. Scientists are replacing damaged mitochondria with healthy mitochondria. Its a specific technology for a specific application. Were modifying eggs to avoid serious diseases. So far, researchers havent attempted a pregnancy using the technique, but a study published in 2012 in Nature found that resulting embryos appeared to develop normally with the nucleus intact and did not contain any of the mutated mitochondria from patients previous eggs. And scientists at Oregon Health and Science University transferred the mitochondria between rhesus-monkey eggs and created four healthy monkey babies.

Yet determining when a technology is safe is especially challenging in fertility medicine because the only way to find out is to create another human. The FDAs prudence is a welcome change from the early wild west days of reproductive medicine when many scientists implanted and prayed that their experiments wouldnt lead to the horrible consequences Knoepfler is warning against. So far, weve been incredibly lucky.

We dont want to risk holding up progress by being too cautious, especially when some 1,000 to 4,000 babies are estimated to be born every year with mitochondrial disease, according to the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation.

Yet what should the threshold be? The FDA shut down other such research being done more than a decade ago. Scientists at several fertility clinics were responsible for 30 pregnancies from eggs that had been injected with donor cytoplasm that contained mitochondria. The kids havent been tracked over the long term, and its unknown whether the procedure contributed to two cases of chromosomal abnormalities that resulted in one miscarriage and one abortion. And researchers at New York Universitys Langone Medical Center tried a similar mitochondrial transfer technique using younger eggs for three women in their 40s suffering from age-related infertility. Although the embryos developed naturally, none got pregnant. A Chinese team later used the NYU method to achieve a triplet pregnancy, but the patient lost the entire pregnancy after she tried to abort one fetus to give the other two a better chance of survival.

View original post here:

Three-Parent IVF Deserves a Chance in the U.S.

Is It Ethical to Create Babies From Three DNA Sources? Absolutely

Posted on by

The House of Commons in the U.K. has now voted to permit mitochondrial DNA replacement, which enables babies to be born who have DNA from three people.

Mitochondria are the batteries of our cells that provide energy for cell division and growth. We get ours from our mothers genes. If there is a defect in a mothers mitochondria, it can have devastating consequences for her children, resulting in almost certain death. But, by extracting a mitochondrion from a healthy donor egg, scientists are now able to conduct a miniature organ transplant on the cellular level to create a healthy baby through in vitro fertilization. Such a baby has its parents genes, except for one small but crucial portion obtained from a donor.

The need for the procedure is real. Somewhere around 4,000 children per year in the United States are born with a type of mitochondrial disease. Many do not survive more than a few months. Mitochondrial transplants would help prevent these diseases. So why not use them?

Critics give three main reasons; safety; creating babies with three parents; and the danger of opening the door to more genetic engineering. None of these objections provides a convincing reason against trying to treat what are often lethal diseases.

Is the procedure safe? When it was first tried by my NYULMC colleague, Jamie Grifo, at NYULMC in 2003 he was widely denounced as doing something unsafe with an embryo. The FDA brought his work to a halt. Grifo said he had plenty of data in rodents to show the technique was safe but decided not to push against the FDAs opposition. So what is different now that makes safety less of an issue?

Now we have data from monkeys. Convincing data. The creation of healthy primates was shown in 2009. And we have data from the creation of human embryos. A team of scientists at the Oregon National Primate Research Center and the Oregon Health & Science University proved in 2012 that the transplanted mitochondria made viable embryos. Safety is always an issue but the case for moving forward in the UK and the USA is strong.

Some say three parent babies are weird. It is true that a mitochondrion is taken from a donor but why this makes the donor in any way a parent is beyond me. If I give the battery from my car to a friend whose battery has died does that make me an owner of her car? And even if logic were stretched to say yes, it is not as if this is the first time we have seen babies with three parents. Sperm, egg, and embryo donation and surrogacynot to mention adoptionhave been around a long time without fracturing the nature of the family. This objection gets no traction.

Lastly some say mitochondrial transplants cross a bright ethical line. Changing genes in the lungs of people with immune disease or in the eyes of people with macular degeneration may fix the broken body part but, critics point out, the change is not passed on to future generations. When you change the mitochondria in an egg with a transplant, you make a change that is inherited by every single offspring of any child created from that egg. That is called germline engineering. Germline engineering of mitochondria moves beyond using genetic engineering to fix our body parts into directly engineering the traits of our children. It is a road that could lead, the critics warn, to eugenics.

Well, thats where they are wrong. Transplanting mitochondria is not going to be the method used to create enhanced babies. Traits like height, intelligence, strength, balance, and vision dont reside in the battery part of our cells.

We may well want to draw the line at genetic engineering aimed at making superbabies but all that is involved with mitochondria transplants is trying to prevent dead or very disabled ones. The latter goal is noble, laudable and ought to be praised not condemned.

Continue reading here:

Is It Ethical to Create Babies From Three DNA Sources? Absolutely


  1. Genetic Engineering