Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

6-Nov-2014

Contact: Kathryn Ryan kryan@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News @LiebertOnline

New Rochelle, NY, November 6, 2014--Lower-cost 3D printers for the consumer market offer only a limited selection of plastic materials, while industrial additive manufacturing (AM) machines can print parts made of high-performance metals. The application of a novel process called Selective Inhibition Sintering (SIS) in a consumer-priced metal AM machine is described in an article in 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing website until December 6, 2014.

Payman Torabi, Matthew Petros, and Behrokh Khoshnevis, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, explain this innovative process, present sample parts printed using the technology, and discuss the next steps in research and development in the article "SIS -- The Process for Consumer Metal Additive Manufacturing" The SIS process differs from traditional research in powder sintering, which focuses on enhancing sintering (a process of fusing materials using heat and pressure); instead, SIS prevents sintering in selected regions of each powder layer.

"This technology uses a fundamentally new approach to 3D printing, one that could expand the reach of metal printing," says Editor-in-Chief Hod Lipson, PhD, Professor at Cornell University's Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Ithaca, NY.

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About the Journal

3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing is a peer-reviewed journal published quarterly online with Open Access options and in print. Spearheaded by Hod Lipson, PhD, Director of Cornell University's Creative Machines Lab at the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, the Journal explores emerging challenges and opportunities ranging from new developments of processes and materials, to new simulation and design tools, and informative applications and case studies. Spanning a broad array of disciplines focusing on novel 3D printing and rapid prototyping technologies, policies, and innovations, the Journal brings together the community to address the challenges and discover new breakthroughs and trends living within this groundbreaking technology. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing (http://www.liebertpub.com/3dp) website.

About the Publisher

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Novel 3D printing process enables metal additive manufacturing for consumer market

A 9,300-year-old frozen bison mummy has been found in Eastern Siberia, according to a presentation this week at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontologys Annual Meeting in Berlin.

The still-furry beast is one of the most complete frozen mummies ever found. It literally freezes in time the appearance and anatomy of a steppe bison (Bison priscus), whose species went extinct shortly after the end of the Ice Age.

Mummies Faces,Hair-dos, Revealed in 3D: Photos

Its been named the Yukagir bison mummy, after the region where it was found.

The exceptionally good preservation of the Yukagir bison mummy allows direct anatomical comparisons with modern species of bison and cattle, as well as with extinct species of bison that were gone at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, co-author Evgeny Maschenko from the Paleontological Institute in Moscow was quoted as saying in a press release.

The remarkable specimen still has its complete brain, heart, blood vessels and digestive system. Some of its organs have significantly shrunk over time, but thats to be expected given its advanced age.

Video: Three Extinct Animals Making a Comeback

The researchers, led by Natalia Serduk of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, conducted a necropsy on the remains. The investigation determined that the bison showed a relatively normal anatomy. A clue to its demise, however, is a lack of fat around its abdomen. This suggests that the bison died from starvation, but the scientists arent sure of that yet.

Compared to todays bison in America, the Ice Age bison sported much larger horns and a second back hump. Steppe bison like this now-frozen one were commonly featured in Stone Age cave art, often shown being hunted by humans.

Remains for a woolly rhino, a 35,00039,000-year-old horse, and a mammoth were also recently found near the Siberian site where the bison mummy was discovered.

See the article here:
9,300-Year-Old Bison Mummy Found in Siberia

There is a need for political support across the spectrum for promoting safe and responsible genetic engineering research, said M. S. Swaminathan, chairman, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation.

He was addressing students at the 35 annual convocation of Anna University in the city on Wednesday.

Over one lakh students received their degrees in various specialities..

Mr. Swaminathan said that the present moratorium on field trials with recombinant DNA material was a serious handicap.

Agriculture is a State subject and it is very important that agricultural universities and State departments of agriculture are involved in the design and implementation of field trials. It takes nearly 10 years for a new variety to be ready for recommendation to farmers; therefore, speed is of the essence in organising field trials and gathering reliable data on risks and benefits, he said.

He added that public sector research and development institutions should give high priority to the breeding of varieties which can help farmers minimise climate and market risks.

M. Rajaram, vice-chancellor of Anna University, said in addition to imparting education, the university is sensitive to the welfare of society.

The unmanned aerial vehicle, dhaksha, designed and developed by the university, joined the rescue team at Moulivakkam, he said.

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Promote responsible genetic engg. research

No one has used genetic engineering to do something beneficial for the environment.

Syracuse, N.Y. -- In the first use of genetic engineering to save a species in the wild, SUNY researchers say they have created a new strain of blight-resistant American chestnut that could restore the majestic tree to the American landscape.

After 25 years of research, a pair of professors at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry say they have used a gene from wheat to create an American chestnut that could withstand the blight that wiped out up to 5 billion of the trees in the United States.

"It is tremendously satisfying to reach this level of success," said ESF professor Chuck Maynard, who worked with fellow professor William Powell to build the blight-resistant tree.

Before the blight nearly wiped out the trees by the 1950s, chestnuts ranged from Florida to Maine and comprised up to 25 percent of Eastern forests. Its rot-resistant wood was an important source of lumber for log cabins and railroad ties for an emerging nation. The nutrient-rich nuts provided food for wildlife and humans; the roasted nuts were so delicious they even inspired a Christmas song.

"The team has accomplished a major goal, the generation of a blight-resistant American chestnut tree," said Dr. Timothy Tschaplinski, a scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in a statement released by ESF. "The sum total of these efforts is a major step forward for the goal of restoration of American chestnut to the North American landscape."

Genetic engineering has been used to increase production of crops, particularly corn and soybean, and to make medicines such as insulin.

"No one has used genetic engineering to do something beneficial for the environment," Powell said. "This technique can be used for many species of trees that are threatened by disease. It goes beyond the American chestnut."

ESF's American Chestnut Research and Restoration Project has long been one of the leaders in the movement to restore the tree to the landscape.

Developing a blight-resistant chestnut was a long and tedious process. Through trial-and-error, Powell and Maynard tried 30 genes, extracting them and then using bacteria to deliver the genes to individual chestnut cells. Each of those cells had to grow into trees large enough to test for blight resistance. The first attempt took 2.5 years, Powell said.

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Breakthrough at SUNY-ESF: Genetic engineering may save the nearly extinct American chestnut

food cryogenic freezing genetic engineering 1
9 Hikers Killed by Aliens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FvUlpuaPxk.

By: Full Picture

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food cryogenic freezing genetic engineering 1 - Video

BI280 Chapter 10 Genetic Engineering - Part 2 of 2

By: Heidi Bulfer

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BI280 Chapter 10 Genetic Engineering - Part 2 of 2 - Video

BI280 Chapter 10 Genetic Engineering - Part 1 of 1

By: Heidi Bulfer

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BI280 Chapter 10 Genetic Engineering - Part 1 of 1 - Video

Microfluidics Enables Practical Applications of Genetic Engineering:Synthetic Biology Advances

By: MIT Industrial Liaison Program (ILP)

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Microfluidics Enables Practical Applications of Genetic Engineering:Synthetic Biology Advances - Video

The big agribusiness companies have achieved regulatory capture of government agenciesbut not in the way that many people think. At the urging of industry, since the 1980s federal agencies have over-regulated genetically engineered plants, animals and microorganismsat great cost to U.S.-based R&D and, ultimately, to consumers.

Its no secret that although the Internet has vastly enriched our lives in many respects, it has downsidesless interpersonal interaction, more anonymous snarkiness, online harassment and even cyber-stalking.

The net has also made it difficult to stop or correct the promulgation of misinformation, as I have learned to my dismay: A valid observation I made to a New York Times reporter for a 2001 article on the regulation of genetic engineering has been repeatedly taken out of context and misrepresented by activists. It continues to appear anewstill out of context and misconstrued13 years later.

Here is the portion of the original article that is often quoted on anti-genetic engineering websites (such as here and here):

Even longtime Washington hands said that the control this nascent [agbiotech] industry exerted over its own regulatory destinythrough the Environmental Protection Agency, the Agriculture Department and ultimately the Food and Drug Administrationwas astonishing. In this area, the U.S. government agencies have done exactly what big agribusiness has asked them to do and told them to do, said Dr. Henry Miller, a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, who was responsible for biotechnology issues at the Food and Drug Administration from 1979 to 1994.

Sounds like a Eureka! moment, right? A former senior regulatorrevealing an egregious example of what economists call regulatory captureagencies that were created to act in the public interest instead advancing the interests of the industry or sector they oversee by implementing too-lenient regulation. (Economics Nobel Laureate George Stigler developed this concept.) Thats what activistsand even somejournalists who failed to do their homeworkwould have you believe.

That excerpt has been misrepresented to imply that companies applying the molecular techniques of genetic engineering to agriculture (the exemplar of which was, and is, Monsanto) wanted, and got, less regulatory scrutiny than was warranted, possibly putting consumers and the environment at risk.

Actually, my statement was intended to convey exactly the opposite, as was clear from verbiage in the article that preceded the passage quoted above:

Although the Reagan administration had been championing deregulation across multiple industries, Monsanto had a different idea: the company wanted its new technology, genetically modified food, to be governed by rules issued in Washingtonand wanted the White House to champion the idea. There were no products at the time, Leonard Guarraia, a former Monsanto executive who attended the [Vice President George H.W.] Bush meeting, recalled in a recent interview. But we bugged him for regulation. We told him that we have to be regulated.

The genetically improved varieties that had been crafted for centuries with older, less precise, less predictable techniques of genetic modification neither needed nor received any government review or imprimatur for field trials or commercialization. Butfor its new varieties crafted with state-of-the art molecular techniques, the big agribusiness companies wanted sui generis regulatory requirements that would be far in excess of what scientific considerations and the principles of sound regulation dictated. And as the Times article related, [T]he White House complied, working behind the scenes to help Monsantolong a political power with deep connections in Washingtonget the regulations that it wanted.

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Lies, Damn Lies And Genetic Engineering

Supporters of efforts to label GMOs in foods turn out at a rally in Denverin 2013. A ballot measure that would such labels failed to pass by a wide margin Tuesday. Luke Runyon/KUNC/Harvest Public Media hide caption

Supporters of efforts to label GMOs in foods turn out at a rally in Denverin 2013. A ballot measure that would such labels failed to pass by a wide margin Tuesday.

An effort to label genetically modified foods in Colorado failed to garner enough support Tuesday. It's the latest of several state-based GMO labeling ballot measures to fail. UPDATE: A similar measure in Oregon was also defeated by a narrow margin.

Voters in Colorado resoundingly rejected the labeling of foods that contain the derivatives of genetically modified - or GMO crops, with 66 percent voting against, versus 34 percent in favor.

In Oregon the outcome was closer, with fewer than 51 percent voting against the measure. Political ad spending in Oregon was more competitive than in Colorado, where labeling opponents outspent proponents by millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, a proposal in Maui County, Hawaii, skipped the labeling debate altogether. Voters there narrowly approved a moratorium on GMO crop cultivation. The state has been a battleground between biotech firms and food activists. Some Hawaiian farmers grow a variety of papaya genetically engineered to resist a plant virus.

Polling prior to the GMO labeling vote in Colorado was scarce. Polls found Colorado's measure faced an uphill battle in the final weeks before the election. A Suffolk University poll found only 29 percent of registered voters favored the measure, while 49 percent were likely to vote against it. A Denver Post poll was even more damning. According to that poll, 59 percent were opposed to GMO labeling in Colorado, 34 percent in favor.

Colorado's Proposition 105 would've required food companies to label packaged foods with the text "produced with genetic engineering." Oregon's Measure 92 says food labels would need to include the words "genetically engineered." Many processed foods contain soybean oil, corn syrup, refined sugar and cottonseed oil. Those oils and syrups are often derived from GMO crops that farmers have adopted over the last 18 years. Few whole foods, like the ones you see in the produce aisle, are genetically engineered, though some GE varieties of sweet corn, squash and papaya are approved for sale in the U.S.

The failed measures in Colorado and Oregon follow a nationwide trend. Similar ballot questions in California and Washington state were rejected in 2012 and 2013, respectively. This summer, Vermont's governor signed the nation's first GMO labeling requirement into law. It's supposed to take effect in 2016, but a coalition of biotech firms and farmer groups have filed suit to prevent that from happening.

Groups opposed to GMO labeling poured big money into efforts to quash the ballot measures, spending more than $15 million in Colorado alone. In Oregon, opponents of labeling raised more than $18 million, making the ballot measure the most expensive issue campaign in the state's history. Most of that money came from large seed corporations like Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer, and from processed food companies like Pepsi, Land O' Lakes and Smucker's. All of that outside money opened labeling opponents up to criticism of being tied to corporate interests.

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Colorado, Oregon Reject GMO Labeling