Researchers Develop Bacterial FM Radio

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April 10, 2014

Image Caption: Independent genetic circuits are linked within single cells, illustrated under the magnifying glass, then coupled via quorum sensing at the colony level. Credit: Arthur Prindle, UC San Diego

By Kim McDonald, UC San Diego

Programming living cells offers the prospect of harnessing sophisticated biological machinery for transformative applications in energy, agriculture, water remediation and medicine. Inspired by engineering, researchers in the emerging field of synthetic biology have designed a tool box of small genetic components that act as intracellular switches, logic gates, counters and oscillators.

But scientists have found it difficult to wire the components together to form larger circuits that can function as genetic programs. One of the biggest obstacles? Dealing with a small number of available wires.

A team of biologists and engineers at UC San Diego has taken a large step toward overcoming this obstacle. Their advance, detailed in a paper which appears in this weeks advance online publication of the journal Nature, describes their development of a rapid and tunable post-translational coupling for genetic circuits. This advance builds on their development of biopixel sensor arrays reported in Nature by the same group of scientists two years ago.

The problem the researchers solved arises from the noisy cellular environment that tends to lead to highly variable circuit performance. The components of a cell are intermixed, crowded and constantly bumping into each other. This makes it difficult to reuse parts in different parts of a program, limiting the total number of available parts and wires. These difficulties hindered the creation of genetic programs that can read the cellular environment and react with the execution of a sequence of instructions.

The teams breakthrough involves a form of frequency multiplexing inspired by FM radio.

This circuit lets us encode multiple independent environmental inputs into a single time series, said Arthur Prindle, a bioengineering graduate student at UC San Diego and the first author of the study. Multiple pieces of information are transferred using the same part. It works by using distinct frequencies to transmit different signals on a common channel.

The key that enabled this breakthrough is the use of frequency, rather than amplitude, to convey information. Combining two biological signals using amplitude is difficult because measurements of amplitude involve fluorescence and are usually relative. Its not easy to separate out the contribution of each signal, said Prindle. When we use frequency, these relative measurements are made with respect to time, and can be readily extracted by measuring the time between peaks using any one of several analytical methods.

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Researchers Develop Bacterial FM Radio

Scientist for gene therapy regulation

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While highlighting the need to define ethical principles to guide research studies with human subjects, K. Kasturirangan, member (science), Planning Commission, Government of India, sounded a word of caution on gene therapy, and called for regulation and legislation to prevent misuse.

Over the years, we are witnessing that the trend of medical science is to shift away from treating the evident symptoms or organ failures in diagnosis and treatment at the molecular level. This revolution, this ability to intervene at the genetic level, has the potential to permanently change the human gene pool, and has also triggered moral debates, he said, delivering the address at the 19 convocation of Sri Ramachandra University on Thursday.

He called for careful regulation, legislation and social consensus to guide actions against any misuse of this capability.

With Indias plans for manned space missions, he said, a new dimension needed to be created with respect to medical education to understand the physiological and psychological effects on humans in space environment, and to adopt necessary counter measures.

Mr. Kasturirangan distributed gold medals to meritorious students. MBBS graduate D. Rajmadhangi bagged four gold medals.

Chancellor of the university V.R. Venkataachalam and vice-chancellor J.S.N. Murthy were present.

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Scientist for gene therapy regulation

20 Years After Genocide, Rwanda Prospers but Political Freedom Remains Elusive – Video

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20 Years After Genocide, Rwanda Prospers but Political Freedom Remains Elusive
Rwanda is a country on the move, having rebuilt from the 1994 genocide that divided the nation and left an estimated 800000 people dead. But as VOA #39;s Gabe J...

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20 Years After Genocide, Rwanda Prospers but Political Freedom Remains Elusive - Video

End of ICANN contract puts Internet freedom at risk, critics say

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The freedom and openness of the Internet are at stake after the U.S. government announced plans to end its contractual oversight of ICANN, some critics said Thursday.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administrations announcement last month that it will end its contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to operate key domain-name functions could embolden other nations to attempt to seize control, some Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee said.

All hyperbole aside, this hearing is about nothing less than the future of the Internet and, significantly, who has the right, the ability and the authority to determine it, said Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican. Should it be decided by a few people in Washington, Beijing, Moscow, Sao Paolo or even Silicon Valley or should it be determined by those who use and stand to benefit from it?

Goodlatte suggested that other countries would try to control ICANN after the U.S. ends its contract. The U.S. can rightly take credit for the freedom that exists the Internet today, he said during a hearing. When we let go of that final link, will that institution be safer from those efforts to regulate the Internet, or will it be more exposed because it no longer has the protection of the United States?

The Internet engineers, companies and civil society groups involved in ICANN wouldnt allow a government takeover of the organization, supporters of the NTIAs plan said. I cannot imagine the Internet engineers that I know agreeing to do any of the parade of horribles that people are concerned about, said Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat.

Separately, the technology subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted Thursday to approve the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act, which would require a U.S. Government Accountability Office study about the effects of the transition before it happens. Members of that committee raised similar concerns in a hearing last week.

President Barack Obamas administration opposes the bill because it raises questions about the U.S. governments long-term support of a multistakeholder governance model at ICANN, said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling.

Strickling assured Judiciary Committee members that the agency would not give up oversight of ICANN unless it is satisfied that the organization has a transition plan in place that prohibits a government takeover.

Several Republicans committee members questioned NTIAs move to end its contractual relationship with ICANN as soon as late 2015, but Strickling defended the plan, saying one of the main reasons for the change is to remove the perception in some countries that the U.S. has too much control.

While the NTIAs contract for ICANN to operate the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions is largely symbolic, the move would show the world that the U.S. supports a multistakeholder governance model at ICANN that it has advocated since 1998, Strickling said.

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End of ICANN contract puts Internet freedom at risk, critics say