Introducing synthetic features to living organisms without genetic modification

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Jun 16, 2014 by Lisa Zyga (a) In the absence of artificial cells (circles), E. coli (oblong) cannot sense theophylline. (b) Artificial cells can be engineered to detect theophylline and in response release IPTG, a chemical signal that induces a response in E. coli. Credit: (c) 2014 Nature

(Phys.org) Genetic engineering is one of the great achievements of modern science, allowing for the insertion or deletion of genes in order to control an organism's characteristics and behaviors. However, genetic engineering has its drawbacks, including the difficulties involved in engineering living systems and the potential long-term consequences of altering ecosystems with engineered organisms.

But a new study has shown that controlling organisms on the cellular level does not necessarily require genetic modification. Writing in Nature Communications, Roberta Lentini, et al., have demonstrated that Escherichia coli (E. coli) behavior can be controlled by constructing artificial cells that first sense molecules that E. coli alone cannot sense, and then release different molecules that E. coli can sense. In a way, the artificial cells act as translators by converting unrecognized signals into a chemical language that organisms can understand. The translated signal can then potentially trigger a controllable response in the organism.

"In my opinion, the greatest significance of our work is that it shows that there's more than one way to do synthetic biology," coauthor Sheref Mansy, an assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Trento in Italy, told Phys.org. "Too often everyone gets excited about one technology or one approach, which sometimes means that solutions to problems get missed because these potential solutions don't depend on prevalent methods. What we've shown is that artificial cells could be used to get around a few of the aspects of living technologies that make people uncomfortable."

In their experiments, the researchers constructed artificial cells that contain a special vesicle which in turn contains several biological components, including a chemical that E. coli can sense (isopropyl b-D-1 thiogalactopyranoside, or IPTG) and DNA that encodes for a riboswitch that responds to an external stimulus. In this case, the external stimulus is the molecule theophylline, commonly found in cocoa beans.

When the artificial cell's riboswitch detects the presence of theophylline, it activates the translation process: a small pore opens in the cell, resulting in the release of IPTG. The E. coli responds to IPTG by exhibiting a green fluorescence, enabling the researchers to easily observe that the new strategy works successfully.

Although E. coli does not respond to theophylline on its own, the artificial cells effectively "expand the senses" of the bacteria by allowing it to indirectly respond to theophylline by translating the chemical message. In this way, E. coli's cellular behavior can be controlled without the need for genetic engineering. The new strategy can potentially overcome the disadvantages of genetic engineering, including the technical difficulties and unintended side effects.

The researchers highlight several examples of how artificial cells may play a role in controlling cellular behavior. One application is using bacteria to search for and clean up environmental contaminants. Instead of genetically engineering bacteria to do this, artificial cells could be constructed to sense the contaminant molecules and release chemoattractants that lure natural bacteria capable of feeding on the contaminants to the site.

Artificial cells could also be used for medical applications, such as to destroy tumors and bacterial infections. For example, rather than spraying engineered bacteria into the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients, artificial cells could be built to detect the presence of specific biofilms, and then release small molecules to disperse the biofilms and thus clear the infection. Similar strategies could also be used to replace engineered probiotics in food and supplements with artificial cells that communicate with gut microbiota to prevent disease.

Before these applications can be realized, however, artificial cells will need several improvements. One of the most important limitations is the batch-to-batch variability of the artificial cells, which results in varying degrees of activity. More work also needs to be done to protect against degradation of the artificial cells' membranes, which would result in the release of the encapsulated molecules even in the absence of the environmental molecules. Future work may also include merging non-genetically modified and genetically modified components to tailor specific cellular features.

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CCISD students place at International Science Fair

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The worlds largest high school science research competition, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), a program of Society for Science & the Public, announced its top winners in Los Angeles last month and the names of six high school students in Clear Creek ISD were called.

The world needs more scientists, makers and entrepreneurs to create jobs, drive economic growth and solve pressing global challenges, said Wendy Hawkins, executive director of the Intel Foundation. Intel believes that young people are the key to innovation, and we hope that these winners inspire more students to get involved in science, technology, engineering and math, the foundation for creativity.

This years Intel International Science and Engineering Fair featured more than 1,700 young scientists selected from 435 affiliate fairs in more than 70 countries, regions and territories. In addition to the top winners, more than 500 finalists received awards and prizes for their innovative research, including 17 "Best of Category" winners, who each received a US$5,000 prize. The Intel Foundation also awarded a US$1,000 grant to each winners school and to the affiliated fair they represent.

The CCISD students who received awards are listed below:

Sarah Hancock & Kate Rutherford

Clear Horizons Early College High School

Special Awards: Alcoa Foundation, The Future of Transportation (Third Place)

Special Awards :American Association of Physics Teachers (Third Place)

Perry Alagappan

Clear Lake High School

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CCISD students place at International Science Fair

Pocket Change by Dr. Heidi Beckman Named as 2014 Adult Book of the Year, Winner of an Excellence in Financial Literacy …

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Madison, Wisconsin (PRWEB) June 13, 2014

Pocket Change: Using the Science of Personal Change to Improve Financial Habits (Effertrux Publishing) was named winner of the 2014 Excellence in Financial Literacy Education (EIFLE) Adult Book of the Year award from the Institute for Financial Literacy. The author, Dr. Heidi Beckman, teaches readers how to use well-tested techniques from the field of behavioral science to build and sustain positive money habits.

The basic ingredients of healthy financial behavior include motivation, persistence, and impulse control as well as a basic knowledge of personal finance. While there is an abundance of books on the market that teach readers the fundamentals of personal finance, there are very few books that help readers strengthen their self-discipline, focus, and motivation. In a society where impulse control problems are becoming more and more common, Dr. Beckman felt that this was an important book to write.

As a clinical psychologist and Certified Educator in Personal Finance, Dr. Beckman is well-versed in topics that range from goal-setting and self-monitoring to personal efficacy and self-discipline. She offers a self-help guide filled with tools to tackle the motivational challenges that many Americans face when it comes to personal finance. She also suggests how to design the social, emotional, and environmental context in which good money habits will thrive.

Getting better with money and achieving your financial goals do not happen through passive waiting, wishing for life to be different, or gimmicky quick-fixes that promise instant wealth. Living a healthy financial life requires real personal change (or a pocket change, you might say!) Thankfully, behavioral scientists have uncovered the secrets of habit modification which have the power to convert good intentions into real action. These secrets are covered in detail in this book.

Through practical lessons, relevant examples, reflection questions, and homework tasks, Dr. Beckman encourages readers to:

-Understand their stage of readiness for change, and choose the most powerful strategies

-Set up their environment to make the right behaviors easier and the wrong behaviors harder

-Manage obstacles that arise, such as excuses, distressing thoughts, and difficult emotions

-Maintain enthusiasm by practicing one small change at a time

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Pocket Change by Dr. Heidi Beckman Named as 2014 Adult Book of the Year, Winner of an Excellence in Financial Literacy ...

Quantel to Color Finish 4K 60p FIFA World Cup

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/ 06.06.2014 02:55PM

Quantel to Color Finish 4K 60p FIFA World Cup

Pablo Rio and Genetic Engineering 2 tapped

The Quantel GE2 system, which includes two Pablo Rio 4KO color correction and finishing systems sharing storage and workflow via a GenePool, will be used for the production of fast-turnaround 4K highlights packages. These will be distributed to broadcasters and Sony Stores worldwide as well as being displayed on 4K super-screens in fan parks around Brazil. The Quantel system will also be used for the post production of the Official FIFA World Cup film in 4K Ultra HD.

Pablo Rio runs on high-performance PC hardware and exploits Nvidia Maximus multi-GPU technology to deliver interactivity and productivity. Pablo Rio is available as software-only and as a range of Quantel-backed turnkey systems. Genetic Engineering 2 provides shared storage and workflow for up to four Pablo Rio systems.

The Quantel system will work with 4K 60p XAVC media recorded on either the Sony PMW-F55 cameras being used by FIFA Film crews throughout the competition or the Sony Servers used for the 4K live production of three matches played at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro (one in the round of 16, one quarter final and the final itself). All XAVC media will be instantly available for viewing and editing on the Pablo Rio color and finishing systems thanks to their ability to begin work immediately with soft-mounted media without transcoding or importing. The Quantel system will also record live 4K 60p via Quad 3G SDI, which can be edited while recording. The Pablo Rios will be equipped with Fraunhofer IISs integrated easyDCP toolset for production of cinema deliverables.

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Quantel to Color Finish 4K 60p FIFA World Cup

A Vaccine for Heart Disease Could Mean No Pills, Lettuce or a Gym

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TIME Health Heart Disease

Doctors, and especially doctors who do research, dont like to use the words cure or eradicate. They know how dangerous that can be, since the human body is so unpredictable. But Dr. Kiran Musunuru is showing some uncharacteristic swagger about his latest success in lowering heart attack risk among some lucky mice.

Taking advantage of advances in genetic engineering, a team lead by Musunuru, who holds positions at Harvard Universitys Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology and Brigham and Womens Hospital, have edited the genomes of mice and successfully protected them from heart disease. The results, published in the journal Circulation Research, hint at an entirely new way of avoiding the leading killer of Americans by possibly cutting heart attack risk by up to 90%. What has me excited as a cardiologist is that my goal is eradicating disease, says Musunuru. There is no bolder way I can put it. I want to eradicate the disease and this offers one potential way to do it.

MORE: Experimental Cholesterol-Lowering Drug Shows Promise

He admits that it may be 10 years or more before the technique is ready for testing in people, but these first results are enough to justify the research that could make that happen. This approach in general will be a game changer, says Dr. Deepak Srivastava, director of cardiovascular disease and stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the Gladstone Institutes, who was not affiliated with the study.

Heres how they did it. In 2003, genetic information was gleaned from a French family that carried a genetic mutation giving them low LDL cholesterol, the kind that, when its high, can lead to heart disease. Using a new genetic engineering technique that allows scientists to splice more efficiently into specific locations on a genome, Musunuru was able to essentially bestow the genetic advantage from the French family onto his mice, slowing down production of a protein that normally keeps LDL circulating in the blood. With less of the protein around, less LDL remains in the blood; those with the PCSK9 mutation showed as much as an 88% lower risk of heart disease compared to people without the genetic change.

The genetic monkeying was accomplished with the help of a virus, which has a remarkable ability to get into cells. The virus was injected, along with the DNA-disrupting machinery, into the liver of the mice. Within days, more than half of the liver cells had been genetically edited and the mice showed 35% to 40% less cholesterol in the blood.

So far, says Musunuru, there have been no negative effects of the genetic disruption. But he says more research needs to be done to make sure that introducing the changes wont come with unforeseen consequences. When we go in there we want to make sure we are not introducing new spelling errors in the genome, says Srivastava, who is also using the technique for stem-cell based therapies to treat heart disease. Says Musunuru, I think I can confidently say that with this tool, this technology will work on live, breathing human beings, but we need to figure out the safety; thats the barrier to overcome before we can test these therapies.

MORE: Who Really Needs To Take a Statin?

Drug companies are also working on drug-based ways to interfere with PCSK9, and lower LDL levels, but those therapies are antibodies that bind to the protein that the gene makes and need to be injected, at a doctors office, regularly. The genome editing strategy would be a one-stop therapy that could permanently protect against excessively high cholesterol levels.

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A Vaccine for Heart Disease Could Mean No Pills, Lettuce or a Gym

No More Eye Drops for Glaucoma

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Scientists from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the Singapore Eye Research Institute have jointly developed a new nanomedicine, liposomal latanoprost, that will allow glaucoma patients to do away with daily eye drops. The nanomedicine is delivered to the front of the eye via a painless injection and will stay and release the anti-glaucoma drugs slowly over the next six months.

Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness, especially for the elderly. The condition is caused by high intra-ocular pressure in the eye, which then leads to damage to the optic nerve. Conventionally the first line of treatment for glaucoma patients is the daily application of eye drops that can lower the high pressure in their eyes. This treatment is usually required for the rest of the patients' lives because glaucoma is a chronic disease. The sustained-release drug therapy can provide months of control for glaucoma patients with a single application, compared to just hours with eye drops.

The new therapy has successfully gone through a pilot study with six patients conducted at the Singapore National Eye Centre. The treatment was shown to be both safe and effective.

Co-lead scientist Associate Professor Tina Wong, who is the head of the Ocular Therapeutics and Drug Delivery Research Group at the Singapore Eye Research Institute, said the new nanomedicine will benefit the elderly who often forget to use the daily eye drops, a lapse that leads to the worsening of their condition.

A release from the university quotes Dr. Wongs as saying, "It is estimated that at least ten per cent of blindness from glaucoma is directly caused by poor patient adherence to their prescribed medications. Many patients find it difficult to adhere to their doctor's prescribed regime for many reasons, such as forgetfulness, finding it too troublesome, or they lack understanding of the disease. The results in this clinical study will open up a new treatment modality for glaucoma other than taking daily eye drops, and will greatly enhance patient compliance and improve treatment outcomes."

Professor Subbu Venkatraman, Prof Wong's research partner, notes that the successful study of liposomal latanoprost can be hailed one of Singapore's early successes in the emerging area of nano medicine.

" This is the first nanocarrier-drug combination that shows therapeutic effects for three to four months with a single dose. The tough challenges we faced were to make this nanocapsule stable and biocompatible, while at the same time controlling the release of the drug at the desired rate over months," added Prof Venkatraman, the founding director of the NTU-Northwestern Institute for Nanomedicine, she said,

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No More Eye Drops for Glaucoma

Robert Winston: my research could open door to ‘risky’ eugenics

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Speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival, Lord Winston warned that the procedure opens the door to eugenics, particularly in countries like North Korea.

You could easily see how this kind of thing could be used in North Korea for example.

I dont think its very likely it will be used in the UK in a mischievous way but Ive no doubt that given the burgeoning market, given the desperation of people who want to enhance their children in all sorts of ways, humans might be tempted to use this and that therefore it does become a form of eugenics.

Every piece of science has an upside and a downside. There comes a point where you have to publish what youve been doing.

Im not trying to make an exaggerated claim for what we have done at all but I think the reproductive technologies are being misused in my view.

This is far more likely to be a serious threat than cloning. Cloning seems a useless technology. You can choose the attributes you might want to try and produce. If you can make a mouse run faster, which we can, if you can make a mouse bigger, which we can then maybe people might want to try the same thing in humans.

Neither Carole nor I when we started this experiment were particularly thinking about the misuse of the work. We knew if you could improve somebodys genetics somebody might try and do it. I just think that this just brings it a bit closer, in quite a substantial way really.

Meddling with nature is in this context risky.

However most fertility experts think it is unlikely the technology will ever be so advanced that humans could create designer babies.

Previously Dr Allan Pacey, chairman for the British Fertility Society has said he doubts that we will ever have the skill to alter complex traits such as intelligence, beauty of musical ability.

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SevenPoint2 Alkaline Diet Expert to Speak at Alpine Clinic

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(PRWEB) June 07, 2014

Nationally recognized nutritionist and health industry insider Bill Sickert will be speaking at the Alpine Clinic in Lehi UTAH June 12th at 7PM http://www.alpineclinic.net.

Bill will be discussing the recent ACSM World Congress, legitimate concepts for Anti-aging with Molecular Hydrogen and featured commentary on the alkaline diet movement, weight loss development and the market position of alkaline diet phenomenon SevenPoint2.

LOCATION: Alpine Clinic Lehi UTAH Centers for Advanced Medicine 3300 Running Creek Way, Lehi, UT 84043 (801) 407-3000 Date and Time: Thursday June 12th 2014 7:00 pm Seating Begins at 6:40

FEATURED SPEAKER Bill Sickert BSc. JD, CNC

TOPICS: Molecular Hydrogen and Anti-Aging American College of Sports Medicine Update The Alkaline Diet Justified in Health and Weight Loss

Clinical Staff Hosts : Dianne Farley- Jones M.D. Steven L. Jones N.P.-C Diane E. Allred MSN, FNP-C Terah Jones MSN, FNP

About SevenPoint2

SevenPoint2 introduces, educates, and shares knowledge and products about our most precious resource, health. With "Health Made Simple" we actively educate people on the value of a Alkaline Diet. SevenPoint2 leads the Alkaline Movement with the safest, most satisfying Alkaline Lifestyle products available to the public today.

Contact: Jason Boreyko CEO & Co-Founder SevenPoint2, LLC 17 Corporate Plaza Dr, #232 Newport Beach, CA 92660 Phone: 855-553-5085 Office Hours: 8:30-5:00 PST http://www.sevenpoint2.com

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SevenPoint2 Alkaline Diet Expert to Speak at Alpine Clinic

Omnichannel Totally Rules at Nickelodeon

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June 05, 2014

Nickelodeon is all about fun contentbut when it comes to understanding its audience, there's nothing the TV network takes more seriously.

Nickelodeon goes where its audience tells it to go. That may sound like a recipe for chaos, but what is actually does is allow Nick to market from a position of powerbecause consumer insight is the foundation of solid marketing strategy.

If you don't know who your target audience is and where they play, the quality of your content is akin to the proverbial tree falling in the woodsit doesn't matter because no one is consuming it.

Considering the growing platform agnosticism of consumers in generaland of Nickelodeon's core target of 6- to 11-year-olds in particularthat might seem like a tall order, but Nick's CMO Pam Kaufman has these words for marketers who might fear the plunge: It's not complicated. Start with great content, know where the consumer is, and create activations across platforms.

Omnichannel marketing might feel complex because of the continually evolving tech landscape, but it's really just a matter of being smart and picking your battles.

Be on the platforms that make sense as they become available; if consumers are there, we've got to be there, says Kaufman, who took a few moments to chat with Direct Marketing News before her keynote presentation at the Brand Activation Association's Marketing to the Omnichannel Shopper conference in NYC.

To be a meaningful brand today you need to have a mobile strategy and a social strategy, which also has to connect to your overall digital strategy, Kaufman says. But we can't be everywhere all the time, so it's about listening for the drum beats and seeing if they're worthy of making some noise around.

The fluidity of Nick's content is no accident. There is no expression of Nickelodeon's TV presence that doesn't make its way, in some form, to other platforms, particularly digital, social, and mobile channels. And throughout it all, Nick tracks consumer behavior on an ongoing basis.

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Omnichannel Totally Rules at Nickelodeon