Monthly Archives: August 2017

The Impossible Burger wouldn’t be possible without genetic engineering – Grist

Posted: August 11, 2017 at 5:49 pm

The Impossible Burger has had a charmed honeymoon period. Crowds of foodies surged into fancy eateries to try it. Environmentalists and animal rights activists swooned. So did investors: Impossible Foods brought in $75 million during its latest investment round.

Now the backlash is here. The activist organizations Friends of the Earth and the ETC Group dug up documents which they claim show that Impossible Foods ignored FDA warnings about safety and they handed them over to the New York Times.

The ensuing story depicted Impossible Foods as a culinary version of Uber disrupting so rapidly that its running headlong into government regulators. In reality, Impossible Foods has behaved like a pedestrian food company, working hand in hand with the FDA and following a well-worn path to comply with an arcane set of rules.

So why isnt this story a nothingburger?

In a word: GMOs. You see, soy leghemoglobin, or SLH, the key ingredient that makes the Impossible Burger uniquely meaty, is churned out by genetically modified yeast. This is a protein produced with genetic engineering; its a new food ingredient, Dana Perls, senior food and technology campaigner at Friends of the Earth, told me when I asked why theyd singled out Impossible Foods.

The company has never exactly hidden the fact that they used genetic engineering, but they havent put it front and center either. You have to dig into their frequently asked questions to catch that detail and thats a recent edit, according to Perls. When I first looked at the Impossible Foods website, maybe back in March, there was no mention of genetic engineering, she said.(An Impossible Foods spokesperson disputed Perlss claim, saying the FAQ has included references to genetic engineering for at least a year, since before the burgers launch in restaurants. But areview of cached webpages suggests the references were added in June.*)

By tiptoeing around this issue, Impossible Foods set themselves up for a takedown by anti-GMO campaigners. These groups monitor new applications of genetic engineering, watch for potentially incriminating evidence, then work with journalists to publicize it. In 2014, Ecover, a green cleaning company, announced it was using oils made by algae as part of its pledge to remove palm oil a major driver of deforestation from its products. When Friends of the Earth and the ETC Group figured out the algae was genetically engineered, they pinged the same Times writer. Ecover quickly went back to palm oil.

When I asked Impossible Foods founder Pat Brown about the GMO question, he said he didnt think that battle was theirs to fight. After all, the SLH may be produced by transgenic yeast, but it isnt a GMO itself. He also pointed out that this isnt unusual: nearly all cheese contains a GMO-produced enzyme.

But now, Friends of the Earth and the ETC Group have brought their battle to Impossible Foods doorstep. (In a blistering series of responses to the New York Times article, the company charged it was chock full of factual errors and misrepresentations and was instigated by an extremist anti-science group.) The FDA documents handed over to the Times include worrying sentences like this one: FDA stated that the current arguments at hand, individually and collectively, were not enough to establish the safety of SLH for consumption.

If FDA officials say your company hasnt done enough to convince them that a new ingredient is safe, arent you supposed to stop selling it?

Not according to a risk expert at Arizona State University who reviewed the documents released by activists. There are no indications that they should have pulled this off the market, Andrew Maynard told me.

Thats just not how the food safety review process works, said Gary Yingling, a former FDA official now helping Impossible Foods navigate the bureaucracy. In the United States, its up to the companies themselves to determine if an ingredient is safe. (Not everyone likes that system or thinks the FDA is doing enough to protect public safety, but it is the law.)

Impossible worked with a group of experts at universities who decided in 2014 that their burger was safe. SLH, it turns out, grows naturally in the roots of soy plants, and the proteins in the burger look a lot like animal proteins a good indicator of safety.

Impossible could have stopped there: Companies, however, can ask the government to weigh in on their research. Sometimes, the FDA asks for more information, which is what happened with Impossible Foods. Its not unusual for the FDA to determine it cant establish the safety of a new ingredient its happened more than 100 times, with substances like Ginkgo biloba, gum arabic, and Spirulina. The FDA has called for more information in about one in every seven of the ingredients companies have asked it to review.

In the case of SLH, the FDA suggested more tests, including rat-feeding trials. Impossible Foods has finished these tests, and academics who have studied the new data confirmed that its generally recognized as safe. Next, Impossible Foods will bring the new evidence back to the FDA, Yingling said.

The criticism raised in this case is really criticism of a system that allows companies to decide for themselves if a new ingredient is OK to add to our food.

If a company decides something is safe, they can go ahead and do it, said Maynard, the risk expert. So thats a weakness in the system. On the other hand, you can argue that once you start this process with the FDA, they have smart scientists who ask tough questions. You can see in those documents that the level of due diligence that a company has to go through is really pretty deep. You really want to make sure that you have a system that doesnt inhibit innovation, but captures as much potentially harmful things as possible.

Each new innovation creates the potential for new hazards. We can block some of those hazards by taking precautions. But how high should we put the precautionary bar?

Impossible Burger could indeed pose some unknown hazard. We just have to weigh that against the known hazards of the present foodborne diseases in meat, greenhouse gases from animal production, the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria in farms, and animal suffering. These are problems which Impossible Foods is trying to solve.

There are other companies trying to solve these problems. (Friends of the Earth notes that the success of non-animal burgers, like the non-GMO Beyond Burger, demonstrates that plant-based animal substitutes can succeed without resorting to genetic engineering.) But its not yet clear that any of these companies including Impossible Foods will be successful in just generating a profit, let alone in replacing the global meat industry. No one knows which startups will pan out. And well probably need to try and discard lots of new things as we shift to a sustainable path.

Trying new things can be risky. Not trying new things and staying on our current trajectory is even more risky.

*This story has been updated to include a response from Impossible Foods about when references to genetic engineering first appeared in its FAQ, and to add information about the FDAs food safety review process.

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Genetically Engineering Pigs to Grow Organs for People – The Atlantic

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The idea of transplanting organs from pigs into humans has been around for a long time. And for a long time, xenotransplantsor putting organs from one species into anotherhas come up against two seemingly insurmountable problems.

The first problem is fairly intuitive: Pig organs provoke a massive and destructive immune response in humansfar more so than an organ from another person. The second problem is less obvious: Pig genomes are rife with DNA sequences of viruses that can infect human cells. In the 1990s, the pharmaceutical giant Novartis planned to throw as much $1 billion at animal-to-human transplant research, only to shutter its research unit after several years of failed experiments.

Quite suddenly, however, solving these two problems has become much easier and much faster thanks to the gene-editing technology CRISPR. With CRISPR, scientists can knock out the pig genes that trigger the human immune response. And they can inactivate the virusescalled porcine endogenous retroviruses, or PERVsthat lurk in the pig genome.

On Thursday, scientists working for a startup called eGenesis reported the birth of 37 PERV-free baby pigs in China, 15 of them still surviving. The black-and-white piglets are now several months old, and they belong to a breed of miniature pigs that will grow no bigger than 150 poundswith organs just the right size for transplant into adult humans.

eGenesis spun out of the lab of the Harvard geneticist George Church, who previously reported inactivating 62 copies of PERV from pig cells in 2015. But the jump from specialized pig cells that grow well in labs to living PERV-free piglets wasnt easy.

We didnt even know we could have viable pigs, says Luhan Yang, a former graduate student in Churchs lab and co-founder of eGenesis. When her team first tried to edit all 62 copies in pig cells that they wanted to turn into embryos, the cells died. They were more sensitive than the specialized cell lines. Eventually Yang and her team figured out a chemical cocktail that could keep these cells alive through the gene-editing process. This technique could be useful in large-scale gene-editing projects unrelated to xenotransplants, too.

When Yang and her team first inactivated PERV from cells in a lab, my colleague Ed Yong suggested that the work was an example of CRISPRs power rather than a huge breakthrough in pig-to-human transplants, given the challenges of immune compatibility. And true, Yang and Church come at this research as CRISPR pioneers, but not experts in transplantation. At a gathering of organ-transplantation researchers last Friday, Church said that his team had identified about 45 genes to make pig organs more compatible with humans, though he was open to more suggestions. I would bet we are not as sophisticated as we should be because weve only been recently invited [to meetings like this], he said. Its an active area of research for eGenesis, though Yang declined to disclose what the company has accomplished so far.

Its great genetic-engineering work. Its an accomplishment to inactivate that many genes, says Joseph Tector, a xenotransplant researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Researchers like Tector, who is also a transplant surgeon, have been chipping away at the problem of immune incompatibility for years, though. CRISPR has sped up that research, too. The first pig gene implicated in the human immune response as one involved in making a molecule called alpha-gal. Making a pig that lacked alpha-gal via older genetic-engineering methods took three years. Now from concept to pig on the ground, its probably six months, says Tector.

Using CRISPR, his team has created a triple-knockout pig that lacks alpha-gal as well as two other genes involved in molecules that that provoke the human immune systems immediate hyperacute rejection of pig organs. For about 30 percent of people, the organs from these triple-knockout pigs should not cause hyperacute rejection. Tector thinks the patients who receive these pig organs could then be treated with the same immunosuppressant drugs that recipients take after an ordinary human-to-human transplant.

Tector and David Cooper, another transplant pioneer, were both recently recruited to the University of Alabama at Birmingham for a xenotransplant program funded by United Therapeutics, a Maryland biotech company that wants to manufacture transplantable organs.

Cooper has transplanted kidneys from pigs engineered by United Therapeutics to have six mutations, which lasted over 200 days in baboons. The result is promising enough that he says human trials could begin soon. These pigs were not created using CRISPR and they are not PERV-free, though recent research has suggested that PERV may not be that harmful to humans. It will be up to the FDA to decide whether pig organs with PERV are safe enough to transplant into people.

If it happens, routine pig-to-human transplants could truly transform healthcare beyond simply increasing the supply. Organs would go from a product of chancesomeone young and healthy dying, unexpectedlyto the product of a standardized manufacturing process. Its going to make such a huge difference that I dont think its possible to conceive of it, says Cooper. Organ transplants would no longer have to be emergency surgeries, requiring planes to deliver organs and surgical teams to scramble at any hour. Organs from pigs can be harvested on a schedule, and surgeries planned for exact times during the day. A patient that comes in with kidney failure could get a kidney the next dayeliminating the need for large dialysis centers. Hospital ICU beds will no longer be taken up by patients waiting for a heart transplant.

With the ability to engineer a donor pig, pig organs can go beyond simply matching a human organ. For example, Cooper says, you could engineer organs to protect themselves from the immune system in the long term, perhaps by making their own localized dose of immunosuppressant drugs.

'Big Pork' Wants to Get In on Organ Transplants

At last Fridays summit, Church speculated about making organs resistant to tumors or viruses. When an audience member asked about the possibility of genetically enhancing pig organs to work as well as Michael Phelpss lungs or Usain Bolts heart, he responded, We not only can but should enhance pig organs, even if were opposed to enhancing human beings ... They will go through safety and efficacy testing, but part of efficacy is making sure theyre robust and maybe they have to be as robust as Michael Phelps in order to do the job.

Xenotransplantation will raise ethical questions, of course, and genetically enhancing pigs might come uncomfortably close to the plot of Okja. These enhancements are hard to fathom for now because scientist dont yet know what genes to alter if they wanted to make, for example, super lungs. Its taken decades of research to pinpoint the handful of genes that could make pig organs simply compatible with humans. But the technical ability to make any editsor even dozens of edits at oncewith CRISPR is already here.

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Scientists successfully infiltrate computer using malware coded into DNA – The Verge

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In what reads like science fiction becoming reality, researchers at the University of Washington have been able to successfully infect a computer with malware coded into a strand of DNA. In order to see if a computer could be compromised in that way, the team included a known security vulnerability in a DNA-processing program before creating a synthetic DNA strand with the malicious code embedded. A computer then analyzed the infected strand, and as a result of the malware in the DNA, the researchers were able to remotely exploit the computer. The results were published in a recent paper.

We wanted to understand what new computer security risks are possible in the interaction between biomolecular information and the computer systems that analyze it, the researchers wrote, led by Tadayoshi Kohno, a professor of computer science at the University of Washington.

The basic structural units of DNA are called nucleotides, and theyre stored as letters A, C, G, and T. Sequencing allows scientists to determine the order of the nucleotides, which in turn means scientists are able analyze the genetic information carried in the strands. The cost of sequencing has sharply fallen by over 100,000 times in the last 10 years.

After sequencing, this DNA data is processed and analyzed using many computer programs. Modern technology means hundreds of millions of DNA strands can be processed at the same time. Though taking over computers using DNA seems like something out of the movies, creepily played out in real life, the researchers say theres no reason for concern. We have no evidence to believe that the security of DNA sequencing or DNA data in general is currently under attack. Instead, we view these results as a first step toward thinking about computer security in the DNA sequencing ecosystem, the scientists said.

A primary goal of this study was to better understand the feasibility of DNA-based code injection attacks. We also know of no efforts by adversaries to compromise computational biology programs, they explain.

Just last month, scientists revealed they were able to insert a GIF of a horse into the DNA of living bacteria.

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Scientists successfully infiltrate computer using malware coded into DNA - The Verge

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Technobabble: Dancing hot dog is AR’s first king and yes, DNA is hackable – CIO Dive

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Technobabble is our look at the more colorful aspects of technology and the tech industry.Be sure to check out our most recent edition, which has microchips on the brain.

In the last few weeks humans became a part of the technological infrastructure with employee microchipping. Potential privacy concerns aside,employees of Three Square Market volunteered for the seemingly sci-fi microchipping.

While many of us would prefer to keep technical hardware outside our immediate biology, two DNA researchers decided to reverse that idea. In fact, they used DNA to infiltrate technology and their experiment proved successful.

This week, researchers from the University of Washington tested a self-inflicted malware attack within their DNA research lab, according to Wired. The team introduced malicious code into a sample of DNA that when tested by a gene sequencer, the resulting data became malware on the computer that received it.

In conducting their experiment, the researchers intentionally created a high-risk environment, susceptible to a "bioterrorist" attack. This included muting security programs and creating vulnerabilities in their software.

The attack is supposedly the first "DNA-based exploit of a computer system," according to MIT Technology Review.

While genetic specialists have shrugged off the effort, claiming the attack was destined to succeed because of the controlled environment, it is now evident that such an attack is possible. Hackers could become biohackers or something even more sinister.

Vulnerabilities in security and software systems are common on the cybersecurity landscape. In fact, most cyberattacks depend on them, as was the case with May's WannaCry attack. The only difference between the deliverance of a traditional cyberattack and a DNA attack,is their point of entry.

The University of Washington researchers are now arguing that biohackers could send faulty, manipulated or simply fake DNA samples with malicious encryptions to industries that study and store such data. These include college campuses, police forensics and genetic processing labs. The idea is that hackers, motivated by the plethora of personal data stored in these industries, could send maliciously coded DNA to be tested and thus infect computers and networks.

Previously, DNA scientists only had to worry about genetic miscalculations or those that could harm the human biology, not the safety of their computer software.

Traditional cyberattacks are estimated to cost the U.S. $121 billion per year. Companies are highly scrutinized and legally penalized when personal information is either leaked or exposed to malicious actors. Now that DNA could become the next phishing scam, it seems like threats within cybersecurity have expanded once again. When hacking evolves, so must cybersecurity.

Since a corrupt sample of saliva could potentially be the next ransomware or wiper, what developments will take place to test a genetic sampling before they reach a networked gene sequencer?

For the first time since its inception 16 years ago, an American has won Certiport's annual Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship in the Excel division, according to an announcement. John Dumoulin, a 17-year-old from Virginia, took home a $7,000 cash prize and serious bragging rights for his college applications.

Most of the other 560,000 worldwide student entries and 157 finalists ranging from ages 13 to 22 were not so fortunate in their efforts to prove their mastery of Microsofts Excel, Word and PowerPoint products.

Students were required to take a Microsoft Office Specialist certification exam, and finalists were selected at regional competitions. The project-based tests not only highlight the technical skills of youth worldwide, but also engage students with computer-based technology and develop competitive skills tailored to real-world applications.

With past and present victors hailing from every continent except Antarctica, the championship offers a small glimpse into the global presence of and dependence upon office technology.

It stands among the ranks of other prestigious international technology competitions such as the IEEE Student Branch Website Contest, the ACMInternational Collegiate Programming Contest and Microsoft's Imagine Cup.

Augmented and virtual reality is taking off, with leading companies investing heavily in enterprise and consumer technology. Now, AR is even finding a home in earnings calls.

That's right, Evan Spiegal, CEO of Snap Inc., declared SnapChat's dancing hot dog the "worlds first augmented reality superstar," BuzzFeed reports.

The hot dog was a hit, viewed 1.5 billion times on SnapChat since its debut. Snap's earnings, however, were not quite so hot. In its latest earnings report, Snap Inc. missed analysts' earnings expectations and its stock is down 16%.

The internet caught fire earlier this week when it was revealed the creator of current password policies has regrets. In 2003, Bill Burr wrote an 8-page document on password policies for the National Institute of Standards and Technology advising users to change passwords regularly, employing a mix of characters, numbers and capital letters, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Those password policies became law, triggering hair-pulling and vehement exclamations every 90 days when programs insisted users change passwords.

But Burr, now retired, said those 2003 policies don't actually stop hackers. After all, is there really much difference between PaSsWord1! and PaSsWord!1? Changes are too subtle, making passwords easy to guess. And, it just causes problems for users too.

This year, NIST has revamped its password policies and done away with some of the long-standing best practices for passwords. The new framework gets rid of arbitrary characters and frequent password resets, instead favoring long password phrases and password resets only if there is evidence of a compromised password.

Soon the most-common passwords could change from "123456" to "thequickbrownfoxjumpsoverthelazydog."

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Cotswolds village residents shocked after DNA tests show they are less than 50% British – The Independent

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Hot air balloons in the air after taking off in a mass ascent at the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta.

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The scene in Rosslyn Avenue, Sunderland, after an explosion at a house.

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Police on Goose Lane bridge which goes over the M11 motorway near Birchanger which is closed after a van driver was killed in a motorway crash after what "appears to be a lump of concrete" struck his windscreen and his vehicle hit a tree.

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Emergency services at the scene in Lavender Hill, southwest London, after a bus left the road and hit a shop.

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Guards march up to Windsor Castle in the rain as a yellow weather warning for rain has been issued for parts of the UK. Heavy rain has brought flooding to the north-east of England

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A car on fire in the North Queen Street area of Belfast, close to the site of a contentious bonfire. The car was torched shortly after 10pm on Monday night

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A post-Brexit trade deal with the US could see a massive increase in the amount of cancer-causing toxins in British milk and baby food

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Acts gather amongst the crowds at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

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New world 100m champion Justin Gatlin pays respect to Usain Bolt after the Jamaicans last solo race

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Katarina Johnson-Thompson of Great Britain (Lane 6) and Carolin Schafer of Germany (Lane 7) and their opponants compete in the Women's Heptathlon 100 metres hurdles during day two of the 16th IAAF World Athletics Championships London 2017 at The London Stadium.

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Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is greeted by PSNI and Garda police officers representative of the gay community as he attends a Belfast Gay Pride breakfast meeting in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Irish Prime Minister is on a two day visit to the province having already met with DUP leader Arlene Foster yesterday. The DUP, Northern Ireland's largest political party have so far blocked attempts to legalise gay marriage.

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Members of Unite employed by Serco at Barts Health NHS Trust, on strike over pay, protest outside Serco's presentation of financial results at JP Morgan, in London.

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Athletics - IAAF World Athletics Championships Preview - London, Britain - August 3, 2017 Great Britain's Mo Farah takes a photo in the stadium

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Britain's Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney, addresses journalists during a press conference to deliver the quarterly inflation report in London, August 3, 2017. REUTERS

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Bank of England and British Airways workers stage a protest outside the Bank of England in the City of London.

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Britain's Prince Philip, in his role as Captain General, Royal Marines, attends a Parade to mark the finale of the 1664 Global Challenge, on the Buckingham Palace Forecourt, in central London, Britain.The 96-year-old husband of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, made his final solo appearance at the official engagement on Wednesday, before retiring from active public life.

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Jamaica's Usain Bolt gestures during a press conference prior to Bolt's last World Championship, in east London

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Riders wait at the start on Horse Guards Parade in central London ahead of the "Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic 2017", UCI World Tour cycle race in London.

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Horse and riders take part in the Riding of the Marches ford on the River Esk, alongside the Roman Bridge in Musselburgh, East Lothian, during the annual Musselburgh Festival organised by the Honest Toun's Association.

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A wide view of play during day two of the 3rd Investec Test match between England and South Africa at The Kia Oval

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A nurse shows a message on his phone to colleagues as they take part in a protest near Downing Street in London. The Royal College of Nursing have launched a series of demonstrations, as part of their 'Summer of Protest' campaign against the 1 percent cap on annual pay rises for most NHS staff

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Two men look through binoculars at US Navy Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush anchored off the coast on in Portsmouth, England. The 100,000 ton ship dropped anchor in the Solent this morning ahead of Exercise Saxon Warrior 2017, a training exercise between the UK and USA

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Connie Yates, mother of terminally-ill 11-month-old Charlie Gard, arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on where a High Court judge is set to decide where baby Charlie Gard will end his life

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UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson gestures while posing for a photograph at the Sydney Opera House, in Sydney. Johnson is there to attend AUKMIN, the annual meeting of UK and Australian Foreign and Defence Ministers.

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Britain Prime Minister Theresa May walks with her husband Philip in Desenzano del Garda, by the Garda lake, as they holiday in northern Italy

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England team players pose after winning the ICC Women's World Cup cricket final between England and India at Lord's cricket ground in London

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Rajeshwari Gayakwad of India attempts to run out Jenny Gunn of England during the ICC Women's World Cup 2017 Final between England and India at Lord's Cricket Ground in London

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Chris Froome, wearing the overall leader's yellow jersey, celebrates on the podium after the twentieth stage of the Tour de France cycling race, an individual time trial over 22.5 kilometers (14 miles) with start and finish in Marseille, France.

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Competitors take part in the swim stage during the AJ Bell London Triathlon 2017 at Royal Victoria Docks in London, England. The 21st annual AJ Bell Triathlon sees 13000 competitors take part in the world's largest triathlon.

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Environment Secretary Michael Gove looks at screens in the information pod in the forest zone at the WWF Living Planet Centre in Woking, after he told an audience of environmental and countryside organisations that Brexit gives scope for Britain to be a global leader in green policy

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Screen grabbed image taken from video issued by NATS showing air traffic over the UK yesterday at 12:15pm, with red representing departures, yellow arrivals, purple domestic and blue overflights. Air traffic controllers are dealing with the busiest day in the UK's aviation history. A total of 8,800 planes are to be handled by controllers across the country over 24 hours, at the start of a summer season which is due to see a record 770,000 flights in UK airspace - 40,000 more than last year

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Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon shows off his cufflinks after cutting steel on the first Type 26 frigate at BAE System's Govan Shipyard near Glasgow.

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Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson looks at a bipedal humanoid robot Wabian2 at Research Institute for Science and Engineering at Waseda University's Kikuicho Campus in Tokyo

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A damaged road in Coverack, Cornwall, after intense rain caused flash flooding in the coastal village.

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Prince George holds hands with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge as they leave Warsaw

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Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during her visit to the site of Aberdeen Harbour's expansion into Nigg Bay

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Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson arrives at Downing Street for the weekly cabinet meeting

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Daniel Goodfellow and Tom Daley of Great Britain compete during the Men's Diving 10M Synchro Platform, preliminary round on day four of the Budapest 2017 FINA World Championships on July 17, 2017 in Budapest, Hungary

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Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson speaks to the press upon his arrival at the European Council for the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels

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Switzerland's Roger Federer holds aloft the winner's trophy after beating Croatia's Marin Cilic in their men's singles final match, during the presentation on the last day of the 2017 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, southwest London. Roger Federer won 6-3, 6-1, 6-4.

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Garbine Muguruza of Spain celebrates victory with the trophy after the Ladies Singles final against Venus Williams of The United States on day twelve of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club at Wimbledon.

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The hearse departs St Joseph's Church after the funeral service for six year old Sunderland FC fan, Bradley Lowery on in Hartlepool, England. Bradley was diagnosed with neuroblastoma aged only 18 months. Hundreds of people lined the streets to pay their respects to the Sunderland football supporter who lost his battle with cancer last Friday.

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The EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, right, receives an Arsenal football top from Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn prior to a meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels

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Cotswolds village residents shocked after DNA tests show they are less than 50% British - The Independent

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CU Boulder researcher uses turkey DNA to shed light on ancestral Pueblo people – Boulder Daily Camera

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DNA extracted from turkey bones buried in the Mesa Verde region before migration from that area and DNA collected from the northern Rio Grande region before and after Mesa Verde was abandoned is cited in a new study which suggests a strong connection between contemporary Tewa Pueblo people in New Mexico and the Pueblo people who lived in Mesa Verde before its collapse. (Camera file photo )

DNA from domesticated turkeys has been used to track the mass exodus of ancestral Pueblo people from Mesa Verde in the late 13th century to the northern Rio Grande north of Santa Fe, N.M., according to a University of Colorado news release.

CU assistant professor Scott Ortman, one of four lead authors on a study documenting the research in a recent issue of the science journal PLOS ONE, said good evidence has been found supporting a substantial influx of turkeys into the northern Rio Grande region that had the same genetic composition as turkeys from the Mesa Verde region.

"This is a new line of evidence suggesting a strong connection between contemporary Tewa Pueblo people in New Mexico and the Pueblo people who lived in Mesa Verde country before its collapse," Ortman said.

The study included co-authors from Washington State University, the University of California, Davis and the University of Oklahoma.

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DNA Editing Technique Corrects Defects in RNA-Associated Diseases – R & D Magazine

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An updated version of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique has set its sights on RNA-associated diseases.

Researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have developed a new technique known as RNA-targeting Cas9 (RCas9) to correct molecular mistakes that can lead to microsatellite repeat expansion diseases including myotonic dystrophy types 1 and 2the most common form of hereditary ALS and Huntingtons disease.

This is exciting because we're not only targeting the root cause of diseases for which there are no current therapies to delay progression but we've re-engineered the CRISPR-Cas9 system in a way that's feasible to deliver it to specific tissues via a viral vector, senior author Gene Yeo, Ph.D., professor of cellular and molecular medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine, said in a statement.

Microsatellite repeat expansion diseases are causes by errant repeats in RNA sequences that are toxic to the cell because they prevent production of crucial proteins.

Repetitive RNAs will accumulate in the nucleus or cytoplasm of cells to form dense knots called foci.

During the study, the researchers used the new technique to eliminate problem-causing RNAs associated with microsatellite repeat expansion diseases in patient-derived cells and cellular models of the diseases.

Under normal circumstances researchers will design a guide RNA to match the sequence of a specific target gene. The RNA will direct the Cas9 enzyme to the desired spot in the genome to cut the DNA.

The cell repairs the DNA break imprecisely, inactivating the gene. The researchers also can replace the section adjacent to the cut with a corrected version of the gene. RCas9 will work similarly, but the guide RNA directs Cas9 to an RNA molecule instead of DNA.

In the laboratory, the researchers tested the new technique on microsatellite repeat expansion disease RNAs and found that 95 percent or more of the RNA foci linked to myotonic dystrophy type 1 and type 2 one type of ALS and Huntingtons disease were eliminated.

RCas9 also reversed 93 percent of MBNL1a protein that normally binds RNA but is sequestered away from hundreds of its natural RNA targets by the RNA foci in myotonic dystrophy type 1in patient muscles cells and the cells ultimately resembled healthy control cells.

However, challenges must be overcome before RCas9 could be used on patients, as efficient delivery of RCas9 to patient cells is not yet perfected. Non-infectious adeno-associated viruses are commonly used in gene therapy but are too small to hold Cas9 to target DNA.

The researchers developed a smaller version of Cas9 by deleting regions of the protein that were necessary for DNA cleavage but dispensable for binding RNA.

The main thing we don't know yet is whether or not the viral vectors that deliver RCas9 to cells would elicit an immune response, Yeo said. Before this could be tested in humans, we would need to test it in animal models, determine potential toxicities and evaluate long-term exposure.

The study was published in Cell.

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DNA Editing Technique Corrects Defects in RNA-Associated Diseases - R & D Magazine

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Americans want a say in human genome editing, survey shows – Los Angeles Times

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When it comes to CRISPR, our society has some important decisions to make.

Just last week, scientists reported a new first in the journal Nature: They edited heritable cells in human embryos to treat an inherited form of heart disease. The day after the research was published, a group of genetics experts published a statement calling for further debate before applications of the technology are taken any further in humans.

According to a new survey of 1,600 adults published in the journal Science today, much of the American public shares this desire for engagement in decision-making. Led by Dietram Scheufele, a professor of science communication at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, the study found that while support for gene editing applications varies, a majority of respondents think the public should be consulted before genome editing is used in humans.

Gene editing presents the potential for remarkable benefits.

The potential to cure genetic disease and to ensure the safety of the world's food supply in the face of climate change are perhaps the most exciting opportunities, said Jennifer Doudna, a chemist at UC Berkeley who was an early pioneer of the powerful gene-editing technique CRISPR-Cas9 and was not involved in the new study.

But it also raises some serious ethical questions, especially when we turn our attention to tweaking the human genome, Scheufele said. Many people find some applications like disease treatment valuable, and others like making your children more intelligent morally shaky.

For example, scientists may eventually develop a cure for what some people dont consider an illness like a disability, Scheufele said. Would those who chose not to undergo genetic therapy or who couldnt afford it then be discriminated against even more as a result?

These and other ethical concerns go beyond the bounds of science, Scheufele says, and his poll results show that the public wants to be involved in the debate.

Oregon Health & Science University

Embryos develop into blastocysts after co-injection, which could someday be used in fertility clinics to help people trying to have children free of genetic disease.

Embryos develop into blastocysts after co-injection, which could someday be used in fertility clinics to help people trying to have children free of genetic disease. (Oregon Health & Science University)

Because of the fast-moving progress of gene editing research and the vast potential for both beneficial applications and negative consequences, many experts have called for public engagement on the issue including in a consensus report released this year by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).

The new study strove to answer some questions emerging from the National Academies report. First, how do people feel about different applications of gene editing? And secondly, do Americans agree that the public should be consulted on gene editing applications? Similar questions had been asked in previous polls, but the authors wanted to get some more specific data.

Human genome editing can be used for two broad purposes: therapy or enhancement. Therapeutic applications include the treatment of genetic disorders like muscular dystrophy or sickle cell disease, while enhancement might be used to change your daughters eye color or make her grow taller.

Each of these changes can be heritable or not, depending on which type of cell is tweaked. Somatic cells are nonreproductive, so any changes to these cells will not be passed on to future generations. Germline cells, on the other hand, are heritable therefore, any modifications will be inherited by the treated persons children and grandchildren.

Reprinted with permission from D.A. Scheufele et al., Science 357:6351 2017

A graphic from the paper showing the acceptance of gene editing by application.

A graphic from the paper showing the acceptance of gene editing by application. (Reprinted with permission from D.A. Scheufele et al., Science 357:6351 2017)

The new poll shows that two-thirds of Americans support therapeutic applications, whether to somatic (64% support) or germline (65% support) cells. When it comes to enhancement, however, there is much less approval. Only 39% of respondents find somatic enhancement acceptable, with 35% saying it is unacceptable. Levels of support dropped even lower for heritable germline enhancement, to 26% in acceptance and 51% in opposition.

When these results were broken down by how religious respondents were, some variation emerged. Religious people are less supportive of genome editing overall. Only half of them expressed some support of treatment applications, compared with 75% of nonreligious respondents. When it comes to enhancement, 28% of religious respondents and 45% of nonreligious people reported some level of support.

The authors also ranked respondents in terms of low, medium and high knowledge by their score on a nine-question factual quiz. Those in the high-knowledge category were far more supportive of treatment applications, with 76% in support compared with only 32% of low-knowledge respondents.

When asked about enhancement applications, the high-knowledge group was very polarized, with 41% in support and a nearly equal amount in opposition. In contrast, half of low-knowledge people reported that they neither support nor oppose gene editing.

Robert Blendon, who studies health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, said that the polarization could be there for a reason. Those who know more about the technology have probably learned about it because they have a vested interest maybe a genetic disease runs in their family or they are concerned with ethical consequences.

Reprinted with permission from D.A. Scheufele et al., Science 357:6351 2017

A graphic from the paper showing the opinions of respondents based on religiosity and knowledge.

A graphic from the paper showing the opinions of respondents based on religiosity and knowledge. (Reprinted with permission from D.A. Scheufele et al., Science 357:6351 2017)

The more religious people were, the less likely they were to trust the scientific community to responsibly develop new technologies. This trend was opposite when it came to knowledge: The more knowledgeable people were about the technology, the more likely they were to trust the scientists.

While the two groups may have very different reasons, both highly religious and highly knowledgeable people agreed that the public should be involved in decision-making before gene editing is used in humans.

Blendon said that while its clear the public wants a say in how gene editing is used, its unclear exactly what public engagement looks like. The first way most people might think of being consulted is through their elected officials, but other surveys suggest that the public actually doesnt think the government should be making decisions about genome technology.

Scheufele said that there is currently no infrastructure in place for crucial two-way communication between scientists and the public on the genome editing issue but its important to develop it.

Diverse groups and perspectives have an important role to play in shaping the early stages of human genome editing research, Scheufele said. Scientists may not think to investigate all the questions that the public may deem vital.

If we ask the wrong questions, he said, then we may have perfect technical answers to all the wrong questions.

mira.abed@latimes.com

@mirakatherine

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Americans want a say in human genome editing, survey shows - Los Angeles Times

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Scientists de-bug pig genome in preparation for farming organ donors – Ars Technica

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After a thorough antivirus scan, de-bugged pigs are a step closer to growing organs for us.

Researchers used the latest gene editing technology to deactivate 25 remnants of ancient viruses, called porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs), that had embedded in the DNA of a pig cell line. Pig genomes are rife with lurking PERVs, which threaten to emerge and infect humans. But with a genome wiped of active viruses, the researchers produced 37 piglets that are PERV-free. Thecreation of those clean little porkers, reported Thursday in Science, is progress toward using pigs as human organ donors, the researchers say.

Our study highlighted the value of PERV inactivation to prevent cross-species viral transmission and demonstrated the successful production of PERV-inactivated animals to address the safety concern in clinical xenotransplantation, the authors concluded.

Researchers have always worried about PERVs in pig-to-human transfers. The retroviruses, which are passed on through hog generations, have never proven to transmit to humansno human PERV disease cases have ever been reported, even in patients who have received pig tissue transplants. Still, the concern lingers. And in labs, PERVs can jump from pig cells to human cells.

Researchers saw this first hand in the new study, led by Harvard geneticist George Church and Luhan Yang, a bioengineer and president of eGenesis, a biotech start-up she and Church co-founded. Before sweeping away PERVs from a pig cell line, they showed that PERVs from a line of pig cells infected a line of human cells when researchers grew them together. And that infected line of human cells infected another line of human cells when researchers grew them together.

Theres still a lot of work ahead to turn the swine into human organ factories. And its unclear if researchers will end up needing PERV-free piglets for the feat. But for now, Church, Yang, and their team think their new pigs may serve as a foundation pig strain, which can be further engineered to provide safe and effective organ and tissue resources for xenotransplantation.

Science, 2017. DOI: 10.1126/science.aan4187 (About DOIs).

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Americans are becoming more open to human genome editing … – Science Magazine

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Americans have conflicting views on how technologies that allow human genome editing, such as one that uses the Cas9 enzyme to snip DNA, should be employed.

Meletios/shutterstock

By Jon CohenAug. 10, 2017 , 2:40 PM

CRISPR, the powerful genome-editing tool, does a molecular tango to cut and modify DNA that is highly nuanced. The same subtlety applies to the publics views on how best to use genome editing in humans, a new survey of adults in the United States shows.

Earlier surveys of Americans (here and here) have found a reluctance to support human genome editing, with many respondents expressing ethical and other concerns about such intentional tinkering. But the new survey, conducted by social scientists from the University of Wisconsin (UW) in Madisonand Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, found that two-thirds of the 1600 respondents thought genome editing was generally acceptable. This held true whether the genome modification was in germline cells, which can be passed on to offspring, or in somatic cells that cannot. But that acceptance was qualified, and colored by religious beliefs and scientific knowledge. There was one thing that almost everyone agreed on, however: They want to be part of the policy discussion about what should and should not be allowed.

The survey, described today in a Policy Forum published by Science, randomly presented people with different vignettes that described genome editing being used in germline or somatic cells to either treat disease or enhance a human with, say, a gene linked to higher IQ or eye color. Although respondents were generally open to the use of editing technologies, acceptance depended strongly on the specific purpose and its impact on future generations. For instance, there was scant support for using genome editing to enhance a germline; just 26% of people found that acceptable and 51% said it was unacceptable. But acceptance jumped to 39% if the enhancement was in somatic cells, and only 35% objected.

Such results suggest that theres not a general, broad opposition to this technology, says co-author Dietram Scheufele, who specializes in science communication at UW Madison. But the survey does show very clearly that, if you look at germline enhancement in particular, thats where you see the majority of the of public expressing concern.

Such concerns are in line with previous surveys that have shown people dont like the idea of creating designer babies or populations of superhumans who pass down advantages to their offspring. But respondents to this survey were more tolerant of individuals using gene editing to improve their own bodies. For example, 59% supported using genome editing to treat a medical condition or enhance health.

But a persons religious beliefs affected their views. In people who reported low religious guidance, support for using genome editing to enhance health jumped to 79%; in the religious, it dropped to 50%.

The researchers also asked nine factual questions about genome editing and found sharp differences in support for both treatment and enhancement based on knowledge. In respondents who could not answer any of the nine questions correctly, support for treatment fell to 32% and enhancement to only 19%. Among those who answered at least six questions correctly, support for treatment rose to 76%, and for enhancement to 41%.

The Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., conducted one of the earlier surveys that revealed hesitancy, finding that 68% of the respondents were very or somewhat worried about gene editing. But Cary Funk, a social psychologist at Pew who helped lead that 2016 survey, says those findings are broadly in keeping with the new survey, again underscoring the nuances. As Funk notes, both surveys show that public views about gene editing vary depending on whether the techniques would involve germline editing or testing on human embryos and that there are wide differences based on religious beliefs.

Scheufele says one of the surveys most important findings is that everyone wanted what he and his colleagues refer to as engagement in discussions about genome-editing regulation and policy. He says some of his colleagues have dismissed the need for such engagement because they contend its still too hypothetical: Scientists and clinicians cant yet safely and efficiently do the types of genome editing that are being envisioned. That argument is faulty, Scheufele says. We need to have the discussion exactly because the science isnt there yet. Once we can do it, the question becomes should we? and that should be answered long before we get there.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine in February published an influential report, Human Genome Editing: Science, Ethics, and Governance, that has an entire chapter on public engagement. The natural question that follows [the new survey] is what kind of public engagement? says UW Madisons Alta Charo, a bioethicst and lawyer who co-chaired the academies committee that wrote the report. (Scheufele was also on the committee.) Charo, who was not involved in the new survey, notes that engagement can mean everything from teaching classes to holding meetings that join scientists with religious leaders, or give the public a forum to express views and concerns to policymakers.

Scheufele acknowledges that public engagement remains a fuzzy concept. He notes that the Royal Society in London has held meetings aimed at improving engagement, but U.S. groups dont really have the infrastructure in place. We need a much bigger structure for public engagement or otherwise it becomes handwaving.

He and his team now are planning to conduct a survey about what kinds of engagement mechanisms could help avoid the sort of polarization seen in policy debates over genetically modified crops or climate change. How can we have those broader discussions without falling into the trap of our values dividing us more and more, he says, and instead have a productive discussion that allows us to move forward?

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