Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued an urgent call to accelerate access to genomics, especially in resource-poor countries, in a report that examines technology gaps and opportunities.

Genomics is the branch of science that uses methods from biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biology to understand and use biological information in DNA andRNAto benefit medicine and public health but the technology can also be used in agricultural research.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, genomics has been essential to detecting the virus initially and new variants subsequently and also integral to the development of tests, treatments and vaccines, said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a virtual press conference from Geneva on Tuesday (12 July).

Further, genomics has massive potential beyond pathogen surveillance for human health. It is timely for countries to invest in infrastructure and human resources in this area.

While genomics technology is driving some of the most ground-breaking research in medical science, including COVID-19 vaccine research and development, its full potential is yet to be realised globally, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), according to the WHO Science Councilsinaugural report.

Its not justifiable ethically or scientifically for less-resourced countries to gain access to such technologies long after rich countries do, the authors argue.

American scientist Harold Varmus, chair of the council and a Nobel Laureate, said: Were encouraged by evidence we gathered that genomics has been adopted in many relatively poor countries, and that costs are going down.

There are also incentives to encourage commercial providers of the essential ingredients such as machines, reagents and software to use a variety of economic incentives to further the expansion of the use of genomics.

We are, however, concerned that the already widespread use of genomics in advanced countries should not leave LMICs behind, as has occurred in many other contexts.

A raft of measures has been put in motion aimed at making the technology more accessible in LMICs, including modified pricing models, sharing of intellectual property rights for low-cost versions and cross-subsidisation where profits in one area are used to fund another.

But challenges remain in addressing shortfalls in financing, laboratory infrastructure, materials and highly trained personnel, according to the analysis.

The authors highlight four thematic areas to promote the adoption and expanded use of genomics: advocacy, implementation, collaboration and tackling legal and ethical concerns.

For this to happen, they say governments, academic institutions and businesses have to be convinced of the medical, scientific and commercial benefits of genomics.

The Science Council puts forward a number of recommendations to address ethical, legal and social issues associated with genomics and urges the WHO to become the authoritative source for mediation and guidance on these.

The council was formed following calls from the science world for amoratorium on human genome editing, after biophysicist He Jiankui announced in 2018 that he had used the CRISPR genome-editing technique to alter embryos that resulted in two births.

The Council was established in April 2021 to provide guidance on the science and research strategy of the organisation. It is currently made up of nine members who serve in a personal capacity, rather than as representatives of institutions or countries.

Were optimistic about the future applications of genomics, said Varmus. We believe that adoption of widespread use is feasible and with the help of the WHO and its leaders it can be achieved.

Alessandro Marcello, head of the molecular virology laboratory at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Italy, says the use of genomics in surveillance of viruses received a major boost during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new standard for molecular epidemiology is whole genome sequencing. WHO is right in highlighting disparity in different countries, not only in Africa, he said, and added: There are several efforts to fill this gap that need coordination and we are moving in the direction of enabling community labs to be able to sequence locally circulating viruses.

As well as sharing of data, simple and affordable workflows for sequencing are needed, he said, not expensive, centralised facilities.

Dann Okoth

This article is republished fromSciDev.Net under a Creative Commons license.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Global desk.

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'Time to invest in genomics' in poorer countries WHO - Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

IT TURNS OUT that the Garden of Eden might have been missing a few things. Today, the fruit aisle is stocked with all kinds of new temptations, and they seem to be getting sweeter. Lets start with the grapes, namely Cotton Candy grapes (green), Gum Drop grapes (purple) and Gummyberries (red). Imagine my disappointment when, in June, I tried some grape jam-flavored Jellyberries from the company Divine Flavor and found they tasted like regular old grapes sweet, but not Smuckers sweet.

These candylike fruits are the product of plant breeding, a practice thats over 200 years old. In 1766, the strawberry-obsessed French botanist Antoine Nicolas Duchesne published a book about the berrys different varieties and their potential for crossbreeding. By the 19th century, farmers were crossbreeding plants constantly, whether in search of better flavor, higher yield and hardiness, bigger berries, more sweetness or resistance to disease. And in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the American botanist Luther Burbank developed over 800 improved and hybrid plants. Plumcot, anyone?

But it was the Cotton Candy grape that, in 2013, arguably kicked off the specialty fruit boom as we know it. The trademarked and licensed varietal was developed by the company International Fruit Genetics and is sold exclusively in the United States by the grape grower Grapery. The fruit breeder Dr. David Cain got the idea for the grape after tasting a new breed of Concord grape that was reminiscent of cotton candy but too mushy to be sold. That breed needed to be crossed with other breeds in order to create a cotton candy-flavored grape that would be seedless and juicy, with snappy skin. (Its also crucial that Cotton Candy grapes be picked at the height of ripeness and refrigerated within six hours for the best texture and flavor.) Since then, the Grapery has grown the Cotton Candy grape crop eightfold, despite it taking two to three years alone for a grapevine to bear fruit, and grape lovers are keeping pace. According to the market research firm 210 Analytics, from May 2021 to May 2022, Cotton Candy grapes sold over $129 million in the States, up from $102 million during the same period the previous year. Additionally, Jim Beagle, Graperys C.E.O., says customers are willing to pay twice as much for Cotton Candy grapes than they are for other ones.

Strawberries, one of the highest-selling fruits in the United States, have also gotten an update. Sunset Grown offers three varieties, including the Wow Berries lolliberry, which has the mouthwatering sweetness of a pink Starburst. Oishiis perfectly ripe Omakase strawberries are fragrant, flavorful and so soft they need to be cradled in foam packaging to survive grocery store shelves from which, at the Whole Foods in Manhattans Chelsea neighborhood, they regularly disappear before noon. (After Oishii acquired over 100 times more growing space in May, it was able to decrease the price of a tray from a whopping $50 to $20.) Driscolls sells a trio of designer strawberries: Ros Berries; pale Tropical Bliss, with notes of pineapple and passion fruit; and my favorite, Sweetest Batch, which the brand describes as tasting like fruit punch. Then theres the new Honeyglow pineapple from Del Monte, which is picked at peak ripeness for a pronounced, rounder flavor than those plucked beforehand and left to ripen in the store or on a kitchen counter. The brand also offers Pinkglow pineapples, which are the color of deli ham and sold in pink boxes for about $15 a pop. I snagged one over Fourth of July weekend and it was juicy and gently sweet, completely devoid of the fruits usual tongue-itching acidity.

Often, in addition to being gustatory, the changes are notably aesthetic. Last summer, the wholesaler Baldor Specialty Foods began selling Picasso melons, an especially sweet honeydew with snow leopard spots on the rind and a beautiful green flesh, says the companys director of merchandising and category development, Matt Rendine, as well as Sunshine Watermelons, which have a golden yellow rind and magenta flesh. Also see the Hidden Rose Apple, the flesh of which is splotched with pink and tastes like strawberry lemonade.

ARE THESE FRUITS, intended above all to be more ideal versions of themselves, actually sweeter? And should we, as poor Eve was made to, feel guilty for eating them? Almost every producer I spoke to mentioned how much sweeter their new fruits were; at Driscolls, they know the Tropical Bliss strawberries are 10 percent sweeter than the traditional red variety. Oishii measures the Brix (sugar) level of every berry before its packaged to keep the quality consistent. And when Ive brought a bag of chilled Cotton Candy grapes to the beach, (probably Keto) friends of mine have scoffed at how they must be packed with sugar, before pouring a glass of ros that probably had even more. Because while natural sugar is still sugar, the amount in these fruits has nothing on actual candy. And hey, theyre still packed with health-affirming antioxidants, vitamin C and fiber, too.

What about the rather common fear of food grown in a less than rustic setting might there be something sinister lurking in these specialty fruits? Early crossbreeding was done by hand, and still is at Driscolls though the brand has a lab where breeders might test 60 different strawberries before lunch. Driscolls global director of strawberry breeding, Phil Stewart, oversees a team that grows over 100,000 varieties a year, and that is always combining traits of one berry with those of another. Its members pick an elite parent plant (one thats supersweet, say) to cross-pollinate with another (one thats got firm flesh), and then examine the hundreds of offspring until theyve created their dream berry. Theyve even experimented with a breed that had notes of Gorgonzola that was really kind of horrifying, says Stewart. For the most part, though, the fruits in this story are less newfangled than they might sound. The Tropical Bliss berry, for instance, is the descendant of one of the oldest varieties of strawberries and was over 25 years in the making.

Genetic engineering usually takes place when a trait of a plant cant be created by crossbreeding. (Though half of the public believes G.M.O.s are harmful to ones health, theres a lack of scientific evidence to back that up.) Of the fruits mentioned here, however, only the Del Monte Pinkglow pineapple was made with genetic modification a gene was toned down to produce less of an enzyme that turns the pineapple from pink to yellow while the marketing teams of the rest go out of their way to remind us that they were created via old-fashioned methods.

At the same time, these fruits might also help expand the future of indoor farming. Its more expensive to grow indoors, but it makes year-round produce possible and creates local food systems, uses less water, avoids the pitfalls of climate change and extreme weather and makes pesticide-free farming the norm. Vertical farms also tend to have better working conditions (horizontal farms require repetitive bending, and then theres the sweltering sun), though they require less labor overall because so much is automated. Oishii, which has received over $50 million in funding and has aims to become the largest strawberry producer on the planet, even has proprietary technology that allows bees to thrive indoors. They live in harmony with our farmers and our A.I.-powered robots, said Oishiis C.E.O., Hiroki Koga.

Most consumers, though, have to be buying and eating these fruits primarily because they like them. Fran Dillard, Driscolls vice president of brand and product marketing, who wore a necklace with a strawberry charm on our video call, thinks their success is reflective of post-peak-Covid optimism. At the start of the pandemic, grocery stores, with their empty flour shelves and obvious dependence on underpaid essential workers, became microcosms of our entire society. Now, at least in some places, theyre overstocked paradises of new treats almost cartoonish and surreal. For a trippy fruit salad, pair pink pineapple with yellow strawberries and be on the lookout for Sunset Growns Moon berries, extra-long blackberries with less of that woody inner stem that are expected later this year. Indeed, maybe, at a time when so much seems out of our control and in need of improvement, knowing that we can at least have a perfect strawberry is a small source of comfort, and maybe that knowledge makes it taste sweeter still. Its very gratifying as a plant breeder to produce something that people like that much, says Stewart, The world needs alfalfa, but nobodys excited when you show up at a party with a box of alfalfa, you know?

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On Gum Drop Grapes and Other Fruits Designed to Taste Like Candy - The New York Times

A drought-resistant rice variety developed through application of genome-edited technology for the first time in the country, is expected to be available for field evaluation by kharif 2024and for commercial cultivation by farmers by 2026, agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar has said.

The environment ministry and Department of Biotechnology (DBT) have given the sanctions for the field evaluation of genome-edited rice variety during the kharif 2024 season to Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Delhi, Tomar stated in a written reply to Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

The research work is carried out with the approval of institutional biosafety committee constituted by DBT under Environment Protection Act, 1986.

New variety of rice is expected to improve water use efficiency in paddy cultivation and help farmers in taking up the crops despite rainfall deficiency, KC Bansal, secretary, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told FE.

This is expected to be the first variety of agricultural crop developed using genome-edited technology to go for commercial release in the next four years in the country.

The government in March had exempted certain types of genome-edited crops from the stringent bio-safety regulations applicable to genetically-modified (GM) crops to ensure wider use of this technology and accelerate genetic improvement of crops in the country.

There are several crops being developed through using genome-edited technology that are in the pipeline for field trial.

The environment ministry, in a notification had exempted site directed nuclease (SDN) 1 and 2 genomes from Rules 7-11 of the Environment Protection Act, thus allowing it to avoid a long process for approval of GM crops through the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC).

Scientists associated with the Indian Council for Agricultural Research said the technology has great promise and emphasis is needed on improving oilseed and pulse crop varieties resistant to diseases, insects or pests, and tolerant to drought, salinity and heat stresses

Scientists say that genome-edited plants are different from genetically-modified organisms (GMO) technology. Genome editing is a group of technologies that gives scientists the ability to change an organisms DNA.

The US and China are leaders in usage of this technology for developing crop varieties like rice, maize, soyabean, canola and tomato which withstand biotic and abiotic stresses arising out of climate change.

Last year, a group of eminent agriculture scientists wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking for ease of release of genome-editing technology for the sector.

In the case of GM technology, applicants have to apply to the GEAC, which follows time-consuming testing methods along with states. Till now, cotton is the only GM crop that has been approved for commercial cultivation in the country.

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Drought-resistant & genome edited rice variety likely to be released to farmers by 2026: Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar - The Financial...

Westford, USA, July 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In the age where information is just on the point of being impossible to control and organize for individuals, we are dictating more and more about companies and sectors taking names of new fields all the time. "Synthetic biology" is one such example - a field so far from its origins in bioengineering that it has recently seen intense end-user investing through start-ups like Evoce and CRISPR Therapeutics.

This is closely related to new advancements in synthetic biology, which have sparked a great interest among both investors and leading tech companies thanks to their potential for creating a life-like ecosystem in an ever-expanding era of resource scarcity.

SkyQuest Technology has published a report on Synthetic Biology Market that covers all the possible aspect of the market and provide deep understanding about investment and business ecosystem. But this press release would shade light on some of the key question we often come across

Get sample copy of this report:

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Potential of Synthetic Biology is still Unwinding

Synthetic Biology, when done right, can be an incredible tool for solving some of the world's most challenging problems. With the potential to create completely novel types of products and services, it's no wonder that many are bullish on the potential of this nascent field.

While there is still much opportunities left untapped in terms of the full potential of synthetic biology, its potential is still unwinding. With continued innovation and improvement in both academia and industry, it's clear that synthetic biology has a lot to offer the future. The potential of synthetic biology is still unwinding, and it's not just because the field is young. The technology has been around for only a few decades and it still has a lot of potential to improve human life and enable innovation.

We have covered several prominent application areas and its impact on the start-up ecosystem funding and future of Synthetic Biology market:

The pharmaceutical industry is worth an estimated $2 trillion dollars and is expected to grow at 5% a year through 2025. However, the development of drugs takes decades, which is too long for most biotech startups looking for fast-track drug development programs. If we can use methods like synthetic biology to speed up drug development times, then we could revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry and provide much needed affordable healthcare to millions of people around the globe. These factors can significantly contribute to growth of synthetic biology market in the years to come.

In recent years, 3M's MIBK has come in to play as an inexpensive prototypal compound for plastics. However, we are at risk of running out of this important precursor at the rate we are using it. Supplied from palm oil plantations which have pushed deforestation beyond the limits of these immense swaths of nothing but rainforest; there's a serious risk that our plants will no longer be able to get raw material for plastics. If synthetic biology can speed up the production and synthesis of MIBK, then we could mitigate soil depletion and stop the use of fossil fuels in plastics altogether! All in all, synthetic biology is far too promising to ignore.

Synthetic Biology Market is Flooded with Funding and it is not Going to witness Drought Anytime Soon

Synthetic biology is a hot investment sector for the next couple of years. With huge potential for disruption, venture capitalists are pouring money into the field at an extraordinary rate. So far, 2021 has been a banner year for venture capital financing in synthetic biology with $7.4 billion invested in projects and technologies. This works out to an average of over $140 million per week! The global synthetic biology market witnessed a strong inflow coming from healthcare, food, agriculture sectors, which contributed around, $667 million, 1.1 billion, and 997 million in 2021. However, the healthcare has remained the major contributor to the funding from the very beginning.

This recent momentum is not going to stop any time soon. A lot of big names are getting involved in the space, and they are all looking for their next big investment angle. Private equity firms and venture capitalists see tremendous potential in synthetic biology, and they are not going to sit on their hands until they see real results.

Currently, the top three focus areas for investments in synthetic biology are

Each one of these sectors has unique potential for disruption by using synthetic biology technology. The opportunities are there for all types of startups, from early-stage companies just beginning to test and develop their products to established bio-tech giants that may want to expand their product lines into new areas using synthetic biology.

Top Investments in Synthetic Biology Market in 2021

For better understanding of how the venture capitalists are investing in the synthetic biology market and to gain deep understanding about analysis of funding in each sector,

Browse summary of the report and Complete Table of Contents (ToC):

https://skyquestt.com/report/synthetic-biology-market

Here are Some of the Recent Advancements Covered in Global Synthetic Biology Market Report

There is no doubt that synthetic biology market holds great potential for both society and industry. As such, it is important for businesses and individuals to stay up-to-date on these latest developments in order to ensure that they are true leaders in their respective fields.

Glimpse of What Pharmaceutical Companies Doing to Take Advantage of Synthetic Biology Market

The pharmaceutical industry is huge and it is constantly looking for new ways to stay ahead of the curve. So, when it comes to synthetic biology, the pharmaceutical industry isnt waiting around its jumping on board. Recently, we saw a number of major drug companies invest in and launch synthetic biology projects. For example, Autolus and Cambrian Biopharma in therapeutics with $250 million and $100 million respectively in 2021.

These investments in the global synthetic biology market are just the tip of the iceberg. Many other pharmaceutical companies are likely investing in synthetic biology projects without publicly announcing it. This is because synthetic biology is still in its early stages and there are many unknowns. Its important for pharma companies to gain an edge over their competitors by exploring all possible opportunities.

As pharmaceutical companies begin to take notice of the potential opportunities that synthetic biology offers, they are not leaving any stone unturned in their pursuit of this lucrative synthetic biology market. Recently, two prominent pharmaceutical companies- Merck and Amgen- both announced plans to invest in synthetic biology. This news comes on the heels of a string of other large biotech companies, such as Roche and Abbott, entering the synthetic biology field. The key to these companies' successes lies in their ability to see beyond traditional boundaries and develop new ways of treating diseases.

These latest announcements suggest that pharmaceutical companies are committed to synthetic biology as an avenue for growth and innovation. In addition, these companies are betting on synthetic biology's potential to revolutionize the way we treat disease. The success of this fledgling field will depend largely on whether or not these pharmaceuticals can strike it rich with new cures for common diseases.

The synthetic biology market report would be a great help for businesses or investors looking for the next big investment focus. This report would include information on the actual technology and the ways in which it can be applied to various industries. Additionally, the report would include statistics on the current investments in this field and how they are progressing. Overall, this report would be a valuable resource for anyone looking to make a major investment in this growing field.

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Bioeconomy is Budding and Synthetic Biology is Watering it Growth

Bioeconomy is a buzzword in the biotech and biotech investment industries, with many investors looking to find investments in synthetic biology market to reap the potential rewards. The bioeconomy refers to the broad range of activities that can be engaged in to create value from nature's bio-resources, including agriculture, environmental cleanup, textiles and furniture production, medical diagnostics and therapeutics, and more.

The bioeconomy is an exciting and rapidly growing field that has the potential to improve the quality of life for everyone on Earth. Biofuels are a key part of the bioeconomy, as they provide an environmentally friendly way to use renewable resources. Another important part of the synthetic biology market in bioeconomy is biomanufacturing, which helps us create products with improved quality and safety. And last but not least, genome editing is key to creating new strains of engineered organisms that can do better work in specific fields or solve specific problems.

Synthetic biology market is a rapidly growing with potential for many applications, including food security, renewable energy and clean manufacturing. Today, synthetic biologists are working to develop new methods for engineering living systems, and this research is shedding light on the enormous potential of the bioeconomy. Here are four ways in which synthetic biologists are helping to shape the future of the bioeconomy:

Synthetic Biology is Expanding its Roots to Strengthen Environment Sustainability

Synthetic biology is one of the newer and rapidly-growing scientific fields, with potential to improve environmental sustainability. SkyQuest Technology projects that within the next decade synthetic biology market could play a key role in repairing and restoring ecosystems, averting climate change, and boosting crop production.

Nonetheless, there are some challenges to overcome before synthetic biology can completely fill this role. For one, there is still much to learn about how cells work together to create biological circuits a foundational concept in synthetic biology. Additionally, scientists need to develop better analytical tools that can efficiently identify and track engineered organisms in real time. However, as the synthetic biology market expands, these challenges are likely to be solved. In the meantime, here are four ways in which synthetic biology could impact environmental sustainability in the coming years:

Synthetic biology market is a relatively new field that uses biotechnology to create artificial life. The ability to modify and control the genes of living organisms has the potential to improve environmental sustainability. By creating new methods for recycling and using materials more efficiently, synthetic biologists can help create cleaner environments.

Key players in Synthetic biology market are:

Related Reports in SkyQuests Library:

Global Infant Formula Market

Global Genomics Market

Global Exosomes Market

Global Biosimilars Market

Global Recombinant Protein Market

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Synthetic Biology Market a Ray of Hope for Pharma and Food Companies to Revolutionize their Way of Looking at Growth Opportunities - GlobeNewswire

In September 2021, as Maxine Hft was nearing the end of the fourth year of her PhD, the unthinkable happened. Her dad her hero, number one supporter and best friend passed away. As she battled to come to terms with his death, three months later, she lost her grandmother, and her world as she knew it came tumbling down.

I went through the toughest time of my life. My world fell to pieces so quickly and so unexpectedly. I had to go back home to the Eastern Cape and pack up my dads house the home I grew up in. I had to face life without my dad and my gran, and my reality that I had a PhD looming, one that I was so close to finishing, Maxine said.

Broken and useless

For four months, Maxine was broken and useless. In January this year, she almost gave up. She felt she needed more time to grieve, and she came close to extending her degree by another year. But her supervisor, Associate Professor Claire Hoving, encouraged her to keep going. Associate Professor Hoving provided the reassurance Maxine so desperately needed. Hoving committed to supporting her completely even if it meant reviewing her thesis chapters at short notice and with quick turnaround times.

With a heavy heart, and many late nights with tears streaming down her face, Maxine put pen to paper. Thankfully, she managed to complete and submit her thesis at the end of February. In June she got word that she had made the cut, and come 22July, she will graduate with her PhD in clinical science and immunology from the University of Cape Town (UCT).

All my efforts and everything I achieved as a result, I dedicate to my dad, Elwyn Walter Hft, and my gran, Rosemary Ann Raath.

All my efforts and everything I achieved as a result, I dedicate to my dad, Elwyn Walter Hft, and my gran, Rosemary Ann Raath, Maxine said. My dad has been jokingly calling me Dr Hft since my honours year. I never imagined that he wouldnt be standing cheering me on with tears in his eyes on my PhD graduation day. But I know that he will have his hand on my shoulder always and I will hear him cheer during all my victories for the rest of my life.

A scientist by nature

Since a young age, Maxine was fascinated by science. She adored time in nature, and biology and science were her favourite subjects at school. It came as no surprise to her parents when she opted to enrol for a Bachelor of Science at Rhodes University when she matriculated. During her undergraduate degree she developed a strong interest and passion for microbiology and molecular cell biology and the medical aspect associated with these areas of study. Therefore, her honours in microbiology and masters in biochemistry involved cancer research. Both degrees followed in quick succession.

Maxine completed her masters at the end of 2016. With little idea of what to do next, she moved to Cape Town and started tutoring high school learners in science and biology to generate an income. But this role didnt last very long. When she successfully applied for a joint national Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation internship based in the African International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in UCTs Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, it was the start of something great. The internship paved the way to her PhD, which she formally started in 2018 in UCTs Africa CMM Medical Mycology Research Unit.

Research has taught me resilience, perseverance, critical thinking and undying problem-solving capabilities. Without lifes curveballs, a PhD is not an easy challenge to take on. It requires a specific emotional and academic intelligence, passion, a methodical approach and persistence. It is equally frustrating as it is rewarding, Maxine said.

Ground-breaking research

The topic of Maxines dissertation was Understanding the immune response to Emergomyces africanus. Emergomyces species are a group of fungi that opportunistically cause disease among people with weakened immune systems. Emergomyces africanus is a newly discovered fungus within the Emergomyces group and was first identified at Groote Schuur Hospital in 2013. The disease affects people with advanced HIV and causes high fatality rates, especially in patients who dont receive anti-fungal treatment. The true burden of disease in South Africa remains unknown. However, as diagnostic testing improved in recent years, the country recorded a dramatic increase in the number of reported cases.

The aim of Maxines research project was to better understand the immune response to the Emergomyces africanus fungus. She set out to identify key immune mechanisms which a healthy host (body) uses to fight and clear an infection, establish which of these responses are absent in an immunocompromised host and as a result could lead to invasive Emergomycosis and ultimately to death.

Fungal infections kill an estimated 1.5 million people annually and the majority of deaths occur in Africa. Yet, fungi remain underestimated and research in this field is severely neglected. My PhD was an opportunity to understand an emerging disease endemic to South Africa and to identify key immune components that could be used to control this fungal pathogen, Maxine said.

The findings

Maxines research results indicate that a T-helper 1 cell, also known as a CD4+ cell, mediates an immune response during Emergomyces africanus infection and identifies the main cytokine (a broad and loose category of small proteins that regulate inflammation and play a vital role in regulating the immune response in health and disease) and antibody responses to the infection.

This work had laid the foundation to better understand Emergomyces and the study has added valuable insight into disease kinetics and fungal clearance mechanisms.

Her research also highlighted the key cytokine immune response currently lacking in immunocompromised hosts. This, she added, may provide a possible explanation as to why people living with HIV/AIDS are suspectable to the infection. This process may also bring into focus other vulnerable patients at high risk of contracting the infection, which includes organ transplant recipients, cancer patients, and patients who receive high doses of corticosteroids and other immunosuppressive therapy.

This work has laid the foundation to better understand Emergomyces and the study has added valuable insight into disease kinetics and fungal clearance mechanisms. From case study reports we see that people living with HIV/AIDS are far more likely to develop serious symptomatic and disseminated Emergomyces disease, she said. Our model could also be further exploited to look at new avenues for therapy. Research focusing on immune therapy and possible vaccine development will have a tremendous impact on the treatment and management of the disease.

Where to from here

Many of Maxines peers have already relocated abroad to pursue postdoctoral fellowships at various universities. But her feet are firmly planted on South African soil. After all, she pointed out that Africa bears the highest burden of poverty-related and neglected infectious diseases, and desperately requires the skills of clinicians and researchers in the field.

Africa and South Africa depend heavily on research findings from first-world countries where their healthcare challenges are incomparable to ours and their population demographics are vastly different. Our country is burdened by infectious diseases that are not encountered in many developed countries, and we desperately need to build capacity of home-grown medical researchers to lead our battle in tackling our countrys healthcare challenges, she said.

Maxine will continue her postdoctoral research at UCT and plans to engage with various laboratories and collaborators to gain clinical research experience to equip herself with the knowledge she needs to help tackle some of the biggest health challenges that South Africans and Africans face.

Having more researchers in the neglected fields of medical mycology and fungal immunology, who can make government and funders aware of the serious fungal pathogens infecting those who are HIV positive will contribute toward reducing the mortality rate among HIV-positive and immunocompromised people, especially those in developing countries. We need better diagnostic tools and better treatment, and I want to contribute, Maxine said.

Wise words of advice

Reflecting on her journey, Maxine said a quote by Robert Collier helped her through many dark days, when all she wanted was to give up on her dream: Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. By pasting the quote on her wall it reminded her of her progress.

I have since taken comfort in accepting that tough times will always be inevitable in our lives. But its how we respond to them that defines our future. I have found that there can be a weird symbiotic relationship between painful experiences and achieving your goals. Working towards a goal can give you purpose during a time when you might have little hope, she said.

With a chuckle, she reminded current, and the incoming cohort of undergraduate and postgraduate students, that while her journey to her PhD was filled with many hurdles, there were many highs too. She said she especially loved returning to a university setting to conduct research in an area she loved and was delighted when during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic she was presented with an opportunity to write a full chapter in a Springer Nature textbook.

Id like people to remember that there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Writing the chapter was daunting but was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. It was such a highlight and a real silver lining during a time when I felt so much was lost during a critical time of my PhD. So, it wasnt all bad, and Id like people to remember that there is always light at the end of the tunnel. Stay strong and be prepared to grab the opportunity that awaits you, Maxine said.

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'Success is the sum of small efforts' - University of Cape Town News

Scientists led by a team at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities say they have developed a novel method that allows scientists and engineers to visualize mRNA molecules in the brains of living micereportedly for the first time. The study reveals new insights into how memories are formed and stored in the brain and could provide scientists with new information about diseases such as Alzheimers, according to the researchers who published their work Real-time visualization of mRNA synthesis during memory formation in live mice in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

It is well known that mRNA is produced during the process of forming and storing memories, but the technology for studying this process on the cellular level has been limited. Previous studies have often involved dissecting mice in order to examine their brains. The new technique gives scientists a window into RNA synthesis in the brain of a mouse while it is still alive.

Memories are thought to be encoded in populations of neurons called memory trace or engram cells. However, little is known about the dynamics of these cells because of the difficulty in real-time monitoring of them over long periods of time invivo. To overcome this limitation, we present a genetically encoded RNA indicator (GERI) mouse for intravital chronic imaging of endogenousArcmessenger RNA (mRNA)a popular marker for memory trace cells, write the investigators.

We used our GERI to identifyArc-positive neurons in real time without the delay associated with reporter protein expression in conventional approaches. We found that theArc-positive neuronal populations rapidly turned over within 2 d in the hippocampal CA1 region, whereas 4% of neurons in the retrosplenial cortex consistently expressedArcfollowing contextual fear conditioning and repeated memory retrievals. Dual imaging of GERI and a calcium indicator in CA1 of mice navigating a virtual reality environment revealed that only the population of neurons expressingArcduring both encoding and retrieval exhibited relatively high calcium activity in a context-specific manner.

This invivo RNA-imaging approach opens the possibility of unraveling the dynamics of the neuronal population underlying various learning and memory processes.

We still know little about memories in the brain, explained Hye Yoon Park, PhD, an associate professor in the University of Minnesota department of electrical and computer engineering and the studys lead author. Its well known that mRNA synthesis is important for memory, but it was never possible to image this in a live brain. Our work is an important contribution to this field. We now have this new technology that neurobiologists can use for various different experiments and memory tests in the future.

The process involved genetic engineering, two-photon excitation microscopy, and optimized image processing software. By genetically modifying a mouse so that it produced mRNA labeled with green fluorescent proteins, the researchers were able to see when and where the mouses brain generated Arc mRNA, the specific type of molecule they were looking for.

Because the mouse is alive, the scientists could study it for longer periods of time. Using this new process, the researchers performed two experiments on the mouse in which they were able to see in real time over a month what the neurons were doing as the mouse was forming and storing memories.

Historically,neuroscientists have theorized that certain groups of neurons in the brain fire when a memory is formed, and that those same cells fire again when that moment or event is remembered.However, in both experiments, the researchers found that different groups of neurons fired each day they triggered the memory in the mouse.

Over the course of several days after the mouse created this memory, they were able to locate a small group of cells that overlapped, or consistently generated the Arc mRNA each day, in the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) region of the brain, a group which they believe is responsible for the long-term storage of that memory.

Our research is about memory generation and retrieval, Park said. If we can understand how this happens, it will be helpful for us in understanding Alzheimers disease and other memory-related diseases. Maybe people with Alzheimers disease still store the memories somewherethey just cant retrieve them. So in the very long-term, perhaps this research can help us overcome these diseases.

Scientists from Seoul National University and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology were also involved in this research.

Watch a 3D video visualizing the hippocampus region of a live mouse brain.

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Gene Expression Visualized in Brains of Live Mice in Real Time - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

By Antoine Awad, chief operating officer, Synlogic, Inc.

The rise of high-throughput molecular biology and DNA sequencing, in parallel with the increased sophistication of computational models, has enabled the field of synthetic biology, where precision genetic engineering is used to program bacterial cells in much the same way we program computers to perform different functions. In 2014, our co-founders, Jim Collins and Tim Lu, recognized world experts in synthetic biology, pitched the idea to Atlas Ventures of forming the first company that would apply the principles of synthetic biology to the creation and development of biotherapeutics. The idea was that this approach would allow us to address significant medical needs using a completely new approach based on our drug candidates, which we call synthetic biotics. Within eight years, Synlogic opened five INDs with the FDA, dosed more than 350 patients, and built a clinical-stage pipeline focused on metabolic and immunological diseases. This includes achieving proof of concept in one program (in phenylketonuria, or PKU), and proof of mechanism in another (hyperoxaluria, or HOX). From the beginning, we knew that as pioneers, manufacturing would present challenges and also would be a critical success factor.

Our drug candidates to date have used the same starter strain, or chassis, a well-studied probiotic called E. coli Nissle 1917. As live potential biotherapeutics, these present unique challenges. As is the case with many biotechnology companies, especially those advancing innovative therapeutic approaches, we evaluated the benefits of outsourcing manufacturing to third parties that have specialized expertise in producing medicines based on synthetic biology. We started discussions early in our development programs and assessed all our options to determine the optimal pathway that would deliver the levels of quality and precision that are essential in development of drugs based on synthetic biology.

Using E. coli Nissle (ECN) has advantages in a history of robust safety data validated in more than 100 years of clinical research. A challenge, however, when producing ECN as synthetic biotics is the need to strike a balance between increasing cell densities and inducing target enzymes. A disproportionate focus on one of these parameters can have an adverse effect on the other. While the technology to grow cells is very effective, the cells need to be kept alive and able to maintain high viability, which is imperative to their proper function in disease targeting. Fermenting bacteria for protein production is common, but expertise in maintaining high cell viability is both essential and rare.

To help address these challenges, we reached out to contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) with specialized expertise. While many CDMOs were using fermentation techniques for industrial purposes, these technologies would not meet good manufacturing practice (GMP) standards and FDA compliance guidelines for production of biotherapeutics. Many also do not have both fermentation and lyophilization (freeze drying) capabilities under one roof. The ones that do often have limited lyophilization capacity that does not align with fermentation scaling. Among the limited number of CDMOs that will work with live bacteria, most have long lead times and high costs, especially following demands on production associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Given the limited options for third-party support available, Synlogic invested in manufacturing to meet our needs at every phase of development and to keep a vigilant focus on product viability. Our drugs include cells that must remain metabolically active; over time, they will die unless they are formulated into a stable powder. To minimize the duration of our processing time, we decided to co-locate fermentation and downstream processing and lyophilization to prevent cell death and maintain high drug viability. We also implemented a lyophilization step that enhances the shelf life of our therapies and allows for more patient-friendly presentation as an oral powder.

In operations involving fermenters, lyophilizers, and analytical instruments in quality control settings, automation is critical to make processes efficient and minimize production costs. For example, a fermenter for E. coli Nissle must run between 16 and 22 hours. Without automated capabilities, this process would require manufacturing operators to be on-site around the clock. Automated technologies also play a central role in helping us meet both demand and quality control (QC) requirements at every stage of the product life cycle.

Our ambr 15 and ambr 250 high-throughput automated bioreactors or fermenters are used in process development, process optimization, and scale down models. With these systems, we can test different conditions and process parameters in a short timeframe and at low volumes, which gives us a quicker path to an established process while reducing costs per experiment. We have another high-throughput automatic analyzer that enables screening and analysis of fermentation metabolites. With this production system in place, we can better understand what is required to keep cells healthy, growing, and active. The technology also allows us to be faster and more confident in our decision-making and potentially reduce cycle time.

We also implemented a range of single-use technologies throughout our facility as well as customized processes to address specific challenges in manufacturing our biotherapeutics. Single-use technology allows us to switch between programs faster by minimizing required cleaning and risk of cross-contamination. It also reduces the facility footprint, thus decreasing the necessary up-front capital investment. We also established a cleanroom that incorporates procedures and layouts that reduce the risk of microbial contamination and product cross-contamination through an air pressure cascade, segregation of product operations, and cleaning requirements.

One of the major challenges with any new technology or therapeutic approach is the ability to rapidly scale manufacturing as needed from early-stage research through to commercialization. Recognizing our needs in terms of scaling up as well as the challenges in considering both in-house capabilities and engagement of CDMOs, we quickly recognized the potential benefits of a hybrid approach.

Our physical cleanrooms come with a menu of services that can be handled by CDMOs, including inventory control, warehousing, environmental monitoring, and other support areas. Meanwhile, we built an internal infrastructure at Synlogic that is able to meet product needs based on available resources and our own highly experienced staff who are trained in GMPs. Our in-house capabilities include process development, analytical development, formulation, current GMP production, packaging and labeling, QC, and quality assurance. In a hybrid model, we have the flexibility to outsource some of the required tests and assays to labs/CROs when needed. The facility was also designed to handle our process needs with the ability to readily scale up and expand further as our development programs advance.

When planning a manufacturing strategy, it can be advantageous for biotechnology companies to co-establish research and CMC process development in the same facility, allowing for more efficient exchange of technical expertise. Generally, companies advancing a program into clinical development can often handle production needs related to Phase 1 or Phase 2 clinical trials internally when required scales are more modest.

It is important that companies consider investing in automated processes wherever feasible and recognize that scaling up can require larger equipment and potentially exponential increases in the need for raw materials and consumables, many of which can have long procurement times. Planning early is essential to address potential supply chain issues and avoid bottlenecks. It can also often be advantageous to consider collaborating with regulators and other stakeholders early in the development process. Early input from regulatory agency contacts and consultants can support smoother transitions as companies advance to later stage clinical development.

Whether companies decide to establish in-house manufacturing capabilities, outsource to CDMOs, or build a hybrid model, planning to meet production goals at every stage can require significant levels of innovation and flexibility. Teams must be prepared to address new challenges and make quick, thoughtful decisions throughout the product life cycle to be successful. These demands can be even more important in emerging areas of research such as synthetic biology that can require development of entirely new and previously untried strategies and technologies to keep manufacturing on track.

About the Author:

Antoine (Tony) Awad is chief operating officer at Synlogic. He has more than 18 years of experience in the biotech and pharma industry with substantial experience in the development and manufacturing of novel therapeutics from pre-IND studies through global commercialization. Prior to joining Synlogic, he was most recently at Abpro Therapeutics and served as senior vice president of CMC and operations, where he was responsible for the development of bi-specific antibodies for oncology and leading corporate operational functions. Previously, he was at L.E.A.F. Pharmaceuticals and Merrimack Pharmaceuticals. Awad is a graduate of Boston University and holds a bachelors degree in biochemistry and molecular biology and conducted graduate research at Boston University School of Dental Medicine.

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Manufacturing Biotherapeutics Based On Synthetic Biology Lessons Learned - BioProcess Online

Bitcoin isnt the great evil we have been led to believe. Until youve looked deeply into something, youre not in a position to judge it, says Daniel Batten.

John Lennon once said, Life is what happens when youre busy making other plans. I remembered this line today when I recalled the plans I was making for this year, and what actually happened.

For as long as I can remember, protecting the environment was my #1 value. At drama school, a friend affectionately teased me by christening me Daniel loves trees more than people Batten. In my teenage years and twenties, I was a regular on protest marches: against the confiscation of indigenous land, against Genetic Engineering, and against the logging of native forest to name a few. The most recent one I went on was 9 years ago against Deep Sea Oil Drilling off New Zealands coast.

I still remember the day a friend from Greenpeace, an organization I supported over 4 decades, rang me up to ask me to lead an action against one of McDonalds environmental practices. Together with a flock of humans dressed as chickens, we stormed the McDonalds HQ and I, dressed in Ronald McDonald-like regalia, announced my resignation. Oh, and there is a slight chance youll be arrested he mentioned at the end. I was CEO of a technology company Id founded at the time. Without telling my board what I was planning, I said yes.

Slowly it dawned on me though, I was a better supporter of technology than I was a protestor. What if I used that skill to make a difference? That led me to create a ClimateTech VC fund.

It was an easy decision. Id been investing in technology companies for 19 years, so I knew what to look for, what to avoid and how to optimize a founding teams chance of success.

We invested in companies that not only made commercial sense but who we felt proud of. One company is on a mission to decarbonize the entire Zinc industry by 2045. Another has a goal to remove 50% of all CO2 emissions from the Greenhouse industry by 2030. The way theyre going, theyll probably make it.

About the same time, a friend of mine started talking to me a lot more about Bitcoin. I felt conflicted. On one side, I could see the social good: how it helped build a world where wealth transfer from the poor to the rich via quantitative easing was no longer possible.But as an environmentalist, Id heard the stories about its energy usage and was unconvinced if it did enough good to justify its carbon emissions.

When Greenpeace came out against Bitcoin the inner conflict intensified. My Bitcoiner friend was telling me that it helped build out the renewable grid. My friends at Greenpeace were saying this was Greenwash propagated by greedy Bitcoin investors who would say anything to increase the user-adoption upon which their returns depended.

I realized I had to do my own research.

I didnt know what Id find, but I suspected the truth would lie somewhere in the middle.

For the first time in my life, I spent an extended period of time simply researching something I was curious about and wanted the answer to.

My research led me to read more about Climate Change, CO2 emissions, and methane emissions than Id ever read. Ill be honest: discovering the true enormity of the climate crisis and the task ahead of us was not easy reading. I forced myself to understand physics, energy, the jargon of the electrical grid, energy trading, and Bitcoin mining. I interviewed or listened to interviews with climate scientists, solar engineers, grid operators, analysts at utility companies, utility scale wind operators, solar installers, battery experts and onchain analysts.

Slowly but surely, a picture started to emerge from the haze. It was a consistent picture, consistently espoused by all the people I spoke to who had looked into it deeply.

The conclusion was this:

1. Bitcoin mining can be used in a way that is bad for the environment. Examples of this include the re-opening of a gas plant in NY State for the sole purpose of Bitcoin mining.

2. Bitcoin mining can also be used in a way that is good for the environment. Examples of this include the solar and wind operators I discovered who would not have got financing to build their plants had it not been for having a Bitcoin mining customer.

That looks like a neutral outcome, some arguments for and against. The outcome was anything but neutral.

I also found out

1. That the direction Bitcoin mining is heading is towards renewable energy

2. That the rate at which it is transitioning to renewable energy is faster than any other industry Id seen (as a VC who sees around 50 cleantech pitches a year, wed seen a whole stack!)

3. The current % of renewable energy use is also higher than any other industry

4. All the solar engineers, battery engineers, grid operators and utility analysts I spoke to, people whod widely studied how you build out a renewable grid, said the same thing.

1. You cannot build a renewable grid without having flexible load customers

2. Bitcoin miners are the best flexible load customers theyve seen

3. Bitcoin mining is increasingly using energy that would have otherwise been wasted (such as solar energy at midday or wind at midnight when people didnt need it)

4. Bitcoin mining provided a path to retire all fossil fuel-based turbines needed as backups during peak load times

5. Bitcoin mining helped with maintaining the frequency and voltage regulation of the grid (which become progressively harder with every 10% of variable renewable energy you add)

6. Bitcoin mining could make power more affordable to consumers by reducing the curtailment fees that utilities otherwise had to pay to renewable operators for not taking their surplus power.

There were a host of other benefits too. But this would require some deeper analysis (and jargon) about how electrical grids work.

But really, the first two points say it all: grids built on variable renewable energy must have flexible customers who can adjust their usage according to generation supply. They must also be able to reduce their usage given minutes notice. Bitcoin miners are the only customers who provide this flexibility.

Or to put it even more bluntly: without Bitcoin mining, the renewable grid will simply not happen it will remain an ideal: Grid operators and utilities will say they are working towards it.

So what problem with renewables does Bitcoin uniquely solve?

Grid operators #1 goal is to maintain the stability of the grid. Cost-effectiveness and renewable composition is important, but not as important as stability. Thats because when grids fail, people die and grid operators lose their jobs (as recently happened during the Texas 2021 Winter Blackouts). Even with battery technology, this stability becomes progressively harder to achieve when you base your grid on variable renewable energy.

While we must move away from fossil fuel plant, coal and gas did offer one advantage over renewables: you could increase or decrease the generation of a gas plant at will. Solar and Wind dont have that flexibility. They are also highly unpredictable.

When you add inflexible and unpredictable generators such as solar and wind, unless you counterbalance this with flexible, predictable customers the entire grid will become unstable because of either under-supply or oversupply of electricity and there will be a higher risk of blackouts.

Ironically, as climate change bites, extreme weather events are becoming more common. This means that grid operators are faced with the Herculean task of trying to transition to a grid made up of variable renewable energy at a time when even the existing grid is becoming more unstable due to climate events.

Grid operators have investigated a number of other options: Hydrogen, batteries, pumped hydro, device control programs, and Demand response based on curtailing steel plants. None of them come anywhere close to the flexibility of Bitcoin miners. Even batteries are only a partial solution for reasons I cover in detail in my separate article

Bitcoins location-agnostic and time-of-day agnostic features turn out to make it the ideal way to remove most of the worlds atmospheric methane caused by human intervention too, but thats another story.

In summary: here are some quotes directly from some of the key players.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined a customer as ideal as Bitcoin miners [Utility Scale Wind Operator]

I started off researching batteries as a solution to the intermittency of solar. I soon realized that without another offtaker for surplus power, batteries were incomplete. After testing a number of possible offtakers, I realized the that best one by far was Bitcoin Mining. [Sam Kivi, Solar Engineer]

We can use that cryptocurrency to find a home for more solar and more wind to come to our grid. Then they reduce consumption when we need that power for other customers. So its a great balancing act. [Brad Jones, Interim CEO, ERCOT (The Grid Operator for Texas)]

A big component of how we get [to our 2050 renewable grid goal] is new demand response strategies. And Bitcoin mining is different because you can reduce demand in minutes to the exact level you need with pinpoint precision. You just dont see that level of flexibility or response in these legacy (demand response) programs. [lead analyst, major US Electrical Utility]

So, there you have it. It wasnt what I was expecting to find. I had to put aside everything I thought I knew about Bitcoin. The more I go through life, the more I realize that until youve looked deeply into something, youre not in a position to judge it.

A deeper look at Bitcoin reveals a surprising truth. Bitcoiners sometimes despair that the mainstream media narrative does not take this deeper look. I would encourage these Bitcoiners to not be concerned. Every novel disruptive technology gets attacked because, well, it disrupts some people who do not want to be disrupted.

Meanwhile behind the scenes, Bitcoin is enabling one of the single most important transitions of a generation: the transition to the renewable grid. Sooner or later this truth will become so undeniable that Bitcoin detractors will be forced to choose a different attack vector. In the meantime, as an environmentalist, I could not be more delighted that we have Bitcoin in our world.

There is a phrase in the climate movement: the perfect is the enemy of the good. Solar isnt perfect but its good. So is the case for Wind. For Bitcoin also, its in the same club: not perfect, but good. Bitcoin offers us a practical way to build out the renewable grid at a time were in a footrace against a fast-warming world.

Daniel Batten is a ClimateTech investor, author, ESG analyst and environmental campaigner who previously founded and led his own tech company which exited in 2019.

Got something to say about Bitcoin and the enviroment or anything else? Write to usor join the discussion in our Telegram channel. You can also catch us on Tik Tok, Facebook, or Twitter.

DisclaimerAll the information contained on our website is published in good faith and for general information purposes only. Any action the reader takes upon the information found on our website is strictly at their own risk.

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Bitcoin: Why Environmentalists Need to Relax, It's Better Than You Think - BeInCrypto

The Pitt research community will celebrate the Dickson Prize in Medicine winners for 2020, 2021 and 2022 with the the first-ever Dickson Prize Day on July 19.

The Dickson Prize in Medicine is the most prestigious honor given by the Pitt School of Medicine. It has been given out annually since 1971 to an American biomedical researcher who has made significant, progressive contributions to medicine. The award consists of a specially commissioned medal, a $50,000 honorarium and an invitation to present a seminal lecture at Pitt. The winners for the past two years were unable to travel to campus because of the pandemic.

For the Dickson Prize Day, the past three years winners will give in-person talks to the Universitys research community, followed by talks from Pitt faculty whose work complements that of the Dickson Prize recipients.

Pitt faculty panelists include Warren Ruder, Vaughn Cooper, Alexander Deiters, Alison Morris, Toren Finkel, Arjumand Ghazi, Aditi U. Gurkar, Andrey A. Parkhitko, Kay Brummond, Robert Ferris and JoAnne L. Flynn.

The event will be from 8 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. July 19 in the University Club, with a reception to follow. All events also will be livestreamed.Register now.

Carolyn Bertozzi,the Dickson Prize honoree for 2022, will give a talk, Therapeutic Opportunities in Glycoscience. Bertozzi is a professor of chemistry at Stanford University.

Bertozzis research interests span the disciplines of chemistry and biology, with an emphasis on studies of how sugar molecules on cell surfaces are important contributors to diseases like cancer, inflammation and bacterial infection. Her lab has identified ways to modify these sugar molecules through bioorthogonal chemistry a method that employs chemical reactions that do not interfere with normal cellular processes. This approach has allowed her to develop new therapeutic approaches to treat many diseases, including most recently in the field of cancer immunotherapy.

In addition to her research, Bertozzi works actively to translate her science into new therapies. She has cofounded several startups, including Redwood Bioscience, Enable Biosciences, InterVenn Biosciences, OliLux Biosciences and Lycia Therapeutics.

Cynthia Kenyon, the 2021 Dickson Prize winner, will discuss The Plasticity of Aging. Kenyon is vice president of aging research at Calico Life Sciences, an American Cancer Society professor, and emeritus professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California-San Francisco.

In 1993 as a faculty member at UCSF, Kenyon discovered that a single gene mutation could double the lifespan of healthy roundwormsa finding that sparked an intensive study of the molecular biology of aging. Her research showed that the aging process is not random and haphazard as previously thought but, instead, is subject to active genetic regulation. Her work led to the realization that a hormonal network influences the rate of aging in many organisms, possibly including humans.

Since then, Kenyon and her lab members discovered a variety of genes that influence aging by coordinating diverse processes that protect cells and tissues. In addition, Kenyon and her team found that different kinds of tissues work together to control the pace of the aging process, and that individual neurons and germ cells can control an animals lifespan.

James J. Collins, 2020 Dickson Prize honoree, will give a talk on Harnessing Synthetic Biology and Deep Learning to Fight Pathogens. Collins is the professor of medical engineering and science and professor of biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also is affiliated faculty with theBroad Instituteof MIT and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University.

Using engineering principles to design and construct synthetic gene networks, he was one of the first to harness the biochemical and biophysical properties of nucleic acids and proteins to create biological circuits. A seminal 2000 publication in Nature describing the successful creation of a bistable, synthetic gene switch inEscherichia colihas been cited more than 4,000 times and marks the arrival of an important new discipline in biomedicine.

Collins later demonstrated that synthetic gene networks could be linked with a cells genetic circuitry as a regulatory mechanism to create programmable cells for biomedical applications.More recently, Collins has created engineered microbes and whole-cell biosensors to serve asin vivodiagnostics and therapeutics. One innovative platform that he and colleagues developedembeds freeze-dried, cell-free synthetic gene networks onto paperand other materials with a wide range of potential clinical and research applications.

The resulting materials contain properties of a living cell, are stable at room temperature and can be activated by simply adding water.Collins work on freeze-dried, cell-free synthetic biology has established a platform for a new class ofrapid, programmablein vitrodiagnosticsfor emerging pathogens, including drug-resistant bacteria and viruses.Collinsand his team currently are developing a rapid self-activatingCOVID-19 face mask as a wearable diagnostic.

Excerpt from:
Dickson Prize Day will celebrate past three winners - University Times

If you are doubtful whether climate change is real, just ask a farmer. Set aside the debate over the degree to which humans or natural cycles are driving it, farmers globally are grappling with temperature extremes, droughts broken by intense rainfalls and flooding, increasing wind intensity, and more and more dangerous pests. Its a global threat.

As crop productivity is particularly sensitive to shifting and increasingly unfavorable weather patterns, farmers need to find ways to enhance their systems resilience. As with other sectors, agriculture needs to address its unique emissions footprint. But looking beyond these challenges, agriculture has the opportunity to help mitigate the threat of climate change.

There are a number of practices that farmers could adopt to manage their land in ways that would optimally remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground in stable forms of organic matter. Such systems could be called climate action farming. While these practices are fairly well known they are not yet widely adopted because of practical and economic challenges. It will take a true paradigm shift in mainstream farming for these methods to be adopted at the scale and in the time frame necessary to have sufficient impact on the trajectory of climate change.

Fortunately, there is a historical precedent a similarly significant farming paradigm shift, a response to a different environmental crisis of human origin that helped rescue American agriculture 90 years ago. The crisis was the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and the solution that evolved was something called no-till farming.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the first commercial no-till field grown in Kentucky in 1962.What is no-till farming and why is it so important for addressing climate change?

Minimum tillage is the foundation for climate action farming as the potential to capture and store carbon is enhanced by complimenting that system with things like cover crops, some diverse crop rotation or double cropping options, certain forms of animal farming integrations, and controlled wheel traffic to minimize soil compaction.

Unfortunately, traditional farming methods depend on plowing and tillage to control weeds and to prepare a seed bed. In the process, they degrade the soil. Much of the captured carbon dioxide is then released through accelerated microbial breakdown of the organic matter, the soil particles become smaller and more susceptible to erosion, and earthworm populations crash. These tilled soils are less able to capture and store water. The impacts of tillage have always been problematic, but they are more so in an age of climate change with greater heat stress and more extreme rainfall and drought events.

In contrast, no-till farming systems developed over the last 60 years are able to restore soil health, give crops greater climate resilience and reduce the use of fossil fuel for the plowing process. No-till farming is a system that avoids virtually all mechanical disruption of soil. It was originally developed as a solution to soil erosion.

Here is how it works. Undisturbed, natural soils are diverse, living systems that are fed by the roots of growing plants. Over time some of the carbon captured by the plants is stored in the soil in the form of long-lived organic chemicals that help to form three-dimensional aggregated particles that give the soil physical stability, air circulation and nutrient buffering. The plants are able to absorb key nutrients through their roots for growth, and then earthworms help to recycle those nutrients by carrying some of last seasons plant material down from the surface through their tunnels that also enhance aeration. The resulting, healthy soils are good at capturing and storing rainwater and at resisting erosion by wind or water.

Sixty years ago, no-till was a radical concept. Today, more than 100 million acres of US farmland are tended using no-till and related methods. According to the United Nations Environmental Program,no-tillage operations in the United States have helped avoid 241 million metric tons of carbon dioxide since the 1970s. Thats equivalent to the annual emissions of about 50 million cars.

It is important to understand what enabled the large-scale shift to minimum tillage and also to identify the factors that stood in the way because these same factors will almost certainly influence the trajectory of agricultures role in addressing climate challenges going forward

The Dust Bowl was a prolonged and massive series of wind erosion events that occurred during a drought in the 1930s.

Leading up to that time, what had once been deep, rich prairie soil had been degraded by decades of plow-intensive farming methods. In 1934 a soil surveyor named Hugh Hammond Bennett timed his congressional testimony about the crisis to a day when one of those dust clouds was sweeping over Washington DC.

Congress acted unanimously to establish the Soil Conservation Service which made some progress in reducing erosion with conservation tillage methods that involved less dramatic soil disturbance,but the fundamental farming paradigm had not changed;nor had the erosion problem been fully addressed.Then in 1943 an agricultural agent in Ohio named William Faulkner published a book titled Plowmans Folly which raised the then radical concept of farming without any plowing or tillage as the solution to wind and water erosion.

Faulkners vision of farming without the use of the plow was initially advanced through the efforts of visionary mechanical engineers and agronomists in the public sector. They developed prototype equipment and did the trial and error in field plots until they had systems that could be shown to farmers, often in the form of a demonstration plot. It was one such demo by an agronomist from Illinois named George McKibben that inspired that Kentucky farmer to try no-tilling in 1962. There was also a good deal of ongoing cooperation between the researchers and the early adopters of no-till because both then and now the growers have much to add to the process as described in the next section.

There has been a great deal of public sector research on the other climate action procedures such as cover cropping, forage double cropping, and non-traditional crop rotations. A watch-out for today is declining funding for that sort of public, applied research, and a shortage of young people pursuing careers in agricultural sciences at just the time when the baby boom generation is retiring. Hopefully increasing climate concern could help remedy that situation.

After the research phase for new cropping methods, the next stage was early commercialization. Dwane Beck, the long-term director of the Dakota Lakes Research Farm, says that there are three groups that provided the leadership during this phase: innovators, adapters and early adopters.

The innovators are those who have the inclination to try out-of-the-box ideas and who are not dissuaded by the potential for failure. As Beck puts it, if you dont ever fail you arent being creative enough. Some of their ideas actually worked. It then fell to the adapters to work out the practical details. These two groups were often involved in the development of new, specialized machinery long before the mainstream manufacturers stepped in.

In the next stage, early adopter farmers are open to new ideas; they need to see and touch real-world examples before trying it out on their own farms.

These three kinds of farmers are the kind of leaders needed to advance climate-action farming. Agricultural trade publications such as No-till Farmer, Strip-Till Farmer and Progressive Farmer are full of stories about these leaders and their innovation with new methods and systems. This is the base for the next phase of wider adoption.

The early adopters of no-till faced criticism and even ridicule about their trashy farms, so much so that many avoided the traditional coffee shop meeting places where they would be subject to that kind of harassment. Fellow no-tillers ended up developing their own supportive communities in which they could find affirmation, encouragement, advice and assistance.

By 1972 they had their own magazine, No-till Farmer, which featured stories based on research and experience as well a cartoon series featuring tongue in cheek exchanges between Plowman Pete and No-till Ned.

They instituted annual meetings and gave out No-till Innovator awards.

Farmers who self-identify as No-tillers still comprise a distinct community today as do strip-tillers who favor a different, but still soil health-compatible approach. Strip-till is a field tillage system that combines no-till and shallow tillage of strip that make up a small portion of the field to produce row crops. Striptillsystems remove residue from the soil surface over the seedbed, resulting in soil temperatures similar to conventional tillage systems.

Most observers agree that these cutting-edge farmers are most likely to drive the expansion of climate action farming. Climate activists in the non-farming population need to see past the unfair but all too common portrayal of agriculture as a faceless, monolithic sector engaged in industrial farming. Yes, it is an industry (and an amazingly productive one), but it is made up of nearly all family farms and it includes a sizable subset of thoughtful people who should be seen and respected as climate care allies, not as an enemy.

As one of the main purposes of tillage is to take care of weeds, no-till farmers had to find other ways to manage them. The adoption of no-till increased more rapidly once certain key herbicides, such as glyphosate, paraquat, and 2,4-D became available in the 1970s through the early 90s. Herbicides also enabled termination of the vegetation that was kept on the field from fall through spring without soil disturbance.

Another major driver of no-till expansion was the introduction of genetically engineered, herbicide-tolerant crops, starting in the 1990s, with glyphosate-tolerant crops the most popular. As farmers adapted to the new technology, some complications emerged. Weed control, an ongoing challenge for all of agriculture, is now complicated by the emergence of herbicide-resistant weed species, regulatory limitations and the difficulty of finding new herbicide chemistry.

Some of the climate care practices can help with weed management while others create new weed and vegetation management issues. Herbicides will continue to be important, but there is a great deal of room for innovation here including things like small, autonomous mobile devices that are guided by aerial imagery to hunt down and mechanically terminate invasive weeds.

Farming is a business, and generally one that is high risk with moderate reward. The transition to no-till does save money because of reduced fuel consumption, but there are capital expenses for the specialized equipment. Over time untilled farmland fields can produce higher yields, particularly under drought stress. This is because undisturbed soil has larger aggregates and more earthworm activity which allows it to better aerate, better capture and retain rain or irrigation water, and more effectively buffer nutrient supplies. Thus, the system tends to pay for itself in the medium term.

Climate action farming systems further enhance these soil health benefits, and they have some bottom-line impacts through reduced fertilizer requirements or revenue from grazing or through double cropping. Some systems can reduce income if some growing seasons are devoted to less profitable rotational crops for instance in order to increase carbon capture with deep-rooted crops. There are seed and fertilizer costs for some practices. In any case these systems may eventually be able to pay for themselves. These economic tradeoffs are a logical topic for applied research in the public sector and something that would also logically fall to the adapters described above.

There are ways that farmers can be paid to farm in ways that sequester carbon. Companies can buy carbon credits if they have a carbon footprint goal that they cant achieve by reducing their own emissions. McKinsey estimates that there will be a $50 billion market for carbon credits by 2030. There are programs specifically designed to pay farmers to adopt practices in the climate action category.

But questions abound both from within and outside the farming community. Can it pay enough to make it worthwhile for the farmers? Does it discriminate against those who have already made desirable changes? How should the sequestration be measured and verified? What about rented land on which the next lease-holder may change practices? What happens after a contract expires? [There is a thorough exploration of these questions in the farming trade publication AgriPulse.]

There are major efforts underway to use genetic improvement methods to develop crops that are more climate resilient, more productive and more pest resistant. Some of this can be accomplished through conventional breeding, but CRISPR gene editing and other modern biotechnology tools are in many cases more effective. It may also be possible to modify crops in ways that make them even better at carbon capture and storage.

Unfortunately, there are significant barriers that limit the use of advanced genetic technologies for all but a few crops in selected regions. Some industries, such as citrus growers, have been reluctant to adopt biotechnology techniques for fear of consumer resistance even in cases in which genetic engineering could help contain its biggest nemesis, citrus greening.

The European Union, most prominently among some regions and countries, has ignored the advice of their own scientists and blocked most uses of genetic engineering that could benefit their own farmers and the public. EU rejectionism has had global implications. Through their leverage as a major importer and through post-colonial influence in Africa and elsewhere, they have effectively blocked these technologies being used on other crops (e.g. wheat, although a climate-adaptive GE wheat is now grown in Argentina and exported elsewhere). There had been some hope that the next generation of genetic technology, gene editing, would break through these barriers, but this remains uncertain at best.

The term regenerative agriculture is often used in discussions of how agriculture can contribute to climate action. As with organic, the diverse and evolving definitions for what is considered regenerative are often ideological rather than scientific, excluding synthetic fertilizers and crop protection products and also excluding GMOs and gene editing.

In terms of soil disturbance regenerative agriculture definitions typically call for the use of conservation tillage because without herbicides, true no-till or strip-till is impractical at scale.

A technologically constrained, organic-like system is definitely not a good model for climate action farming. Organic farming has a clearly documented yield disadvantage on average 15-40% which means that if it were ever to be widely practiced it would require the use of much more land just to maintain current yields, a climate-unfriendly proposition in a world in which there is no more arable land, save for clear-cutting forestry.

Also, the organic business model depends on a price premium, sometimes double the price of conventionally produced food, with no evidence of nutrition or health advantages. This makes it inherently worse at serving those in lower economic strata. No-till has seen vastly more adoption than organic, particularly for the row crops which represent the majority of land available for agricultural carbon sequestration. Yet there was never a price premium associated with the crops that were managed with that system.

If society hopes to see farmers play a role in climate change mitigation, it is more appropriate to respectfully ask them what can you do? rather than to tell them to do something without the help of key technologies. The ideas, innovation, communities, and technologies that enabled large-scale adoption of no-till farming represent an encouraging model for how agriculture could make a next-generation farming method paradigm shift.

Only farmers can make this happen. They need research support, rational regulations, possibly carbon market income, understanding land owners, and the respect of the broader climate action movement. This challenge is too important to intermingle with ideological or marketing agendas.

Steve Savageis a plant pathologist and senior contributor to the GLP.Follow Steve on Twitter@grapedoc

Jon Entineis the foundingexecutivedirectorof theGenetic Literacy Project, and winner of 19 major journalism awards. He has written extensively in the popular and academic press on agricultural and population genetics. You can follow him on Twitter@JonEntine

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Climate Action Farming: What farmers need to do to adapt as our planet heats upand why organic and 'regenerative agriculture' cannot meet the...