Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

A 90-year-old Belgian woman has been revealed to be the first documented case of a person being infected with two different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus at the same time. The woman, who got infected in March this year, was found to be carrying both the Alpha and Beta variants (first detected in UK and South Africa respectively). She died five days after being hospitalised.

Her unique case was discussed at the annual European Congress on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, according to a Reuters report.

Its not surprising

Such cases of double infection, in which someone is found infected with two variants of the virus at the same time, might be rare but it is not at all surprising, said experts The Indian Express spoke to. Infections from multiple persons within a short period of time is neither impossible, nor unheard of.

If somebody is exposed to more than one infected person, he or she can get the infection from any or all of them. There is nothing that prevents such an eventuality, said V S Chauhan, former director of the Delhi-based International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology.

The virus takes some time to multiply inside the body and affect all the cells. Till that happens, some cells can be available to host the virus from another source. The immunity against the pathogen takes some time, a few days, to be built. During that time period, it is entirely possible to get infected from more than one person, Chauhan said.

Chauhan said such cases of double infection were very common among HIV patients.

but its very rare

The probability of such a thing happening is low, mainly because the infection does not get passed on at every instance of interaction between people. An infected person does not infect everyone who he or she comes in contact with. Therefore, a person meeting more than one infected person during a short period of time, and getting the virus from all of them, has a statistically lower probability.

Also, most of the time, it would not be evident whether a person has got the infection from one person, or more than one.

The case of the Belgian woman is only the first one that has been detected. But I am sure many more such occurrences would have happened across the world, and may be happening even now. One cannot know unless you do genome analysis of the virus sample from the infected person. Even then, if the multiple infections are from the same variant of the virus, the differences in the genome sequences are very minor, and can easily get overlooked, said Shahid Jameel, director of the Trivedi School of Biosciences at the Ashoka University.

In this case, the person was infected with two different variants, and got picked up. In most cases, it would not be that easy unless researchers are actively looking for it. There is far lesser probability of a person getting infected with multiple variants at the same time, said Jameel.

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No cause for alarm

Multiple infections at the same time does not affect the condition of the patient in any way, even when the variants are different, as in the case of the Belgian woman. All the variants affect the patients health in a similar way; therefore, it doesnt matter whether the virus has come from one source, or more than one.

The severity of the disease caused by the virus depends on the infected persons health and immunity, and the lethality of the virus. It does not depend on the number of sources the virus has come from. So, the fact that the person has received the infection from two or more people would not make him or her more sick, Chauhan said.

Jameel said the case of the Belgian woman might be an interesting revelation, but not a cause of any fresh worry. I dont think there is any new cause of concern. The Belgian case does not present any fresh threat to anyone. There is no reason for people to feel alarmed, he said.

Additionally, all the current vaccines have been found to be nearly equally effective against the different variants of the coronavirus.

The medicines and treatment for all the variants are the same. So, what is effective against one variant is effective against the other as well. The same is true of vaccines. Right now, none of the variants are truly escape mutants. In the future, if a mutation arises that is able to escape the immunity built in the human body, then maybe, there will be some cause of worry. But not right now, Chauhan said.

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Explained: When two Covid-19 variants infect someone at the same time - The Indian Express

The U.S. military says it is months away from launching clinical trials of a pill designed to block or reduce many degenerative effects of agingan oral treatment that a leading researcher in the field says is better than nothing while questioning how effective it will ultimately prove.

U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM)which develops and employs Special Operations Forces worldwide to advance U.S. policies and objectiveshas completed preclinical safety and dosing studies in anticipation of follow-on performance testing of a first-in-class nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, oxidized state (NAD+) enhancer, a small molecule drug being developed by Metro International Biotech (MetroBiotech), Navy Cmdr. Timothy A. Hawkins, a spokesperson for SOCOM, told GEN.

SOCOM and MetroBiotech are set to start clinical trials during the 2022 federal fiscal year, which starts October 1.

If the preclinical studies and clinical trials bear out, the resulting benefits include improved human performance, such as increased endurance and faster recovery from injury, Hawkins said.

This effort in particular is about enhancing the mission readiness of our forces by improving performance characteristics that typically decline with age, Hawkins explained. These efforts are not about creating physical traits that dont already exist naturally.

The SOCOM testing is among studies being carried out to assess MetroBiotechs lead candidate, David J. Livingston, PhD, MetroBiotechs president and CSO, told GEN.

I can confirm that we and our clinical partners have completed multiple Phase I human safety trials of a lead molecule, Livingston said. Metrohas also initiated exploratory Phase II studies in several areas of therapeutic application, including the treatment of rare diseases, diseases of aging, and incollaboration with SOCOM, studies on the effects of our compounds on muscle energetics and human performance.

Livingston said MetroBiotech wont discuss details of its clinical trials in advance offuture postings on ClinicalTrials.govor joint publications of clinical data.

SOCOM has spent $2.8 million on its anti-aging effort since it began in 2018, Hawkins said.

Lisa R. Sanders, director of science and technology for Special Operations Forces, Acquisition, Technology, & Logistics, said during a virtual conference last month that SOCOM was able to fund its anti-aging testing through Other Transaction Authority (OTA) funds and Middle Tier Acquisition authority, created in 2015 to enable rapid acquisitions designed to deliver capabilities within 25 years.

This small molecule has the potential, if it is successful, to truly delay aging [and] truly prevent onset of injury, which is just amazingly game-changing, Sanders said, addressing Assisting the Modern Warfighter, a featured session held as part of the Defense One Defense Tech Summit, held June 2125.

Weve stayed out of long-term genetic engineeringthat makes people very, very uncomfortablebut theres a huge commercial marketplace for things that can avoid injury, that can slow down aging, that can improve sleep, Sanders added.

That marketplace is set to grow 55% over the next five years, according to a market study issued in January by 360 Market Updates, from $84.6 billion this year to $130.87 billion by 2026a compound annual growth rate of 7.5%.

Can MetroBiotechs treatment be the one that can tap into that potentially lucrative anti-aging marketplace?

This is better than nothing, but not much better, cautioned Aubrey D.N.J. de Grey, PhD, a biomedical gerontologist who is CSO and co-founder of SENS Research Foundation. De Grey is also editor-in-chief of Rejuvenation Research, a peer-reviewed journal published by GEN publisher Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

Based in Mountain View, CA, SENS Research Foundation aims to prevent and reverse age-related ill-health by applying principles of regenerative medicine to repair the damage of agingat the level where it occurs. The foundation focuses on rejuvenation biotechnologies designed to restore the normal functioning of the bodys cells and essential biomolecules, returning aging tissues to health and bringing youthful vigor back to the human body.

According to de Grey, SENS approach to anti-aging contrasts with MetroBiotechs, which he characterized as reflective of a consensus view within gerontology toward simply reducing the rate of cellular damage from aging.

Unfortunately the field of gerontology went about it in another wrong way, which was to try to, in effect, clean up metabolism, to slow down the rate at which metabolism generates damage and thereby to postpone the age at which damage reaches this pathogenic threshold. That has been basically unsuccessful, de Grey said. The pill that MetroBiotech is looking at is probably going to fail, for that reason.

Not so, insists MetroBiotech.

Our companys strategy is to design small molecule therapeutics that leverage our scientists detailed understanding of the biochemistry and genetics of human pathways of aging and stress response, Livingston said. Based on discoveries in these exciting areas of biology, Metro has created a library of novel NAD enhancers as therapeutics for the treatment of human disease and preservation of muscle and cognitive performance.

Privately-owned MetroBiotech, based in Worcester, MA, states on its website that it has established the most comprehensive portfolio of proprietary NAD+ precursors in the world. The company reasons that increasing NAD+ to preserve health and normal metabolism has broad pharmaceutical potential since levels of NAD+ have been shown to decline as people age. Reduced levels of NAD+ are linked to aging and numerous diseases, including mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation, and a variety of associated diseases.

NAD+ plays a key role in the function of all living cells,as a cofactor required for the enzymatic processes that generate energy within the cell through the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) cycleboth in traditional oxidoreductase reactions and as a signaling molecule for reactions catalyzed by sirtuins, which regulate cellular health, and poly-ADP ribose polymerases (PARPS), proteins that help cells repair themselves.

MetroBiotechs lead pipeline candidate, MIB-626, is one of over 100 novel NAD+ enhancers the company says it has designed, synthesized, and screened for optimal therapeutic properties. MetroBiotech says its efforts have resulted in robust preclinical data that support the broad therapeutic potential of modulating NAD+.

Most recently, in a study published last year in the journal Experimental Neurology, researchers at Medical University of South Carolina and Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland studies two approaches to increasing NAD+availability in mouse models of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): Ablation of a NAD+-consuming enzyme (CD38), and supplementation with a bioavailable NAD+precursor, nicotinamide riboside or NR.

While the ablation approach showed no effect on the survival of the mouse models, adding NR delayed motor neuron degeneration, decreased markers of neuroinflammation in the spinal cord, appeared to modify muscle metabolism and modestly increased the survival of the hybrid superoxide dismutase 1 G93A (hSOD1G93A) mouse model of ALS.

The results indicate that the approach used to enhance NAD+levels critically defines the biological outcome in ALS models, suggesting that boosting NAD+levels with the use of bioavailable precursors would be the preferred therapeutic strategy for ALS, researchers concluded in the study, whose corresponding author Marcelo R. Vargas, PhD, is now at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

While acknowledging that an oral treatment to reverse aging would be much easier for patients than a surgical approach, de Grey of SENS added; The way I look at it is, first of all get something that works, even if its really nasty in terms of needing surgery, and then you can refine it and make it injectable and maybe even oral.

He cited growing researcher interest in an anti-aging application for one already-marketed drug long in use by patients. The type 2 diabetes treatment Metformin is set to be the subject of the proposed Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME) Trial. TAME, to be managed by the American Federation for Aging Research, will be a series of nationwide, six-year clinical trials at 14 top-tier research institutions across the United States that are designed to engage over 3,000 individuals between the ages of 6579.

Another potential anti-aging treatment already under clinical study is rapamycin, a natural anti-fungal antibiotic that has shown antitumor and immunosuppressive activity. The University of California, Los Angeles, partnered with AgelessRx last year to launch the Phase II Participatory Evaluation (of) Aging (With) Rapamycin (for) Longevity Study (PEARL) trial (NCT04488601), designed to evaluate Rapamycin in an estimated 1,000 older adults.

The researchers aim to establish a long-term safety profile, determine the long-term efficacy of Rapamycin in reducing clinical aging measures, and biochemical and physiological endpoints associated with declining health and aging in healthy older adults, according to the trials ClinicalTrials.gov page.

MetroBiotech has disclosed one clinical trial for its lead NAD+ candidate MIB-626 on ClinicalTrials.gov. The Phase II trial (NCT04817111) does not involve SOCOM, but is designed instead to assess MIB-626 in up to 10 adults with Friedreichs Ataxia (FA) without overt heart failure and with a left ventricular ejection fraction 40%.

A key secondary objective is to test the effects of MIB-626 on cardiac and skeletal muscle bioenergetics, according to MetroBiotech.

The trials estimated primary completion date is April 10, 2022.

Link:
US Special Operations Command to Test Anti-Aging Pill - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

14-Jul-2021

Design and Build | Pharmaceuticals

Poseida Therapeutics has agreed to provide insight into autologous and allogeneic CAR-T workflows, as well as emerging programs that include TCR-T, genetically modified NK cells, and other cell therapy manufacturing workflows for Cellares Corporation

Cellares Corporation, a life sciences technology company pioneering a revolutionary automated approach to cell therapy manufacturing, has announced that Poseida Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company utilising proprietary genetic engineering platform technologies to create cell and gene therapeutics with the capacity to cure, has joined its Early Access Partnership Program (EAPP).

Poseida is the third organisation to participate in Cellares' EAPP, following industry partner PACT Pharma and academic partner Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Cellares initiated the EAPP in 2020 to provide participants with visibility and early access to Cellares' Cell Shuttle, a next generation cell therapy manufacturing platform enabling closed, automated, and scalable production of cell therapies.

By entering the programme, Poseida is helping advance the Cell Shuttle's development, range of use, and applicability via insight and experience with respect to manufacturing workflows for a variety of autologous and allogeneic cell therapies.

The Cell Shuttle is an automated and closed end-to-end manufacturing solution that enables running the exact processes specified for each cell therapy

"We're thrilled to have Poseida Therapeutics on board to help broaden the possibilities for our Cell Shuttle platform," said Cellares co-founder and chief executive officer Fabian Gerlinghaus. "Poseida's tremendous expertise in the cell therapy space, especially spanning a diverse range of therapeutic modalities, is a huge boon to our developmental efforts. We anticipate our work with Poseida to demonstrate the Cell Shuttle's adaptability for multiple cell therapy modalities, particularly CAR-T cells."

Poseida currently has two autologous CAR-T product candidates in the clinic, including P-BCMA-101, for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, and P-PSMA-101, for patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer. The company, which completed an initial public offering in July 2020, also has off-the-shelf versions of both therapies in development, and is exploring TCR-T, anti-c-kit CAR-T, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and genetically modified hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and NK cells. Immunotherapy pioneer and distinguished oncologist Carl June, M.D., an advisor to Cellares who helped guide the development of the Cell Shuttle, recently joined Poseida's Immuno-Oncology Scientific Advisory Board.

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"The flexibility of the Cell Shuttle matches the breadth of approaches we are developing at Poseida," said Kerry Ingalls, Chief Operating Officer at Poseida. "To work across our cell therapy portfolio, an automated manufacturing system should be capable of reliably producing a range of therapies autologous and allogeneic CAR-T and in both solid and hematological cancers, for research and at scale for clinical trials and, ultimately, commercial applications. By joining forces with Cellares, we believe we can leverage the Cell Shuttle's capabilities to help support our overall manufacturing strategy, further advancing cell therapy manufacturing."

As part of Cellares' EAPP, Poseida will evaluate the Cell Shuttle prototypes and provide data and written feedback relevant to its function and performance. This will include user studies that assess the Cell Shuttle's hardware and software, product requirements, release criteria, and process workflows to help ensure product-market fit.

The Cell Shuttle is an automated and closed end-to-end manufacturing solution that is flexible and scalable, enabling customers to run the exact processes specified for their cell therapy.

Compared with currently available cell therapy manufacturing methods, this next-generation platform enables a three-fold reduction in process failure rates and is capable of producing 10+ patient doses in parallel, which increases manufacturing scalability by an order of magnitude. This will reduce the per-patient manufacturing cost by up to 70% for most processes.

Read more from the original source:
Cellares closed automated cell therapy system gets new industry partner - Cleanroom Technology

The Roslin Institute has responded to the UK Governments public consultation on the regulation of gene-editing technologies.

Our response is focused on our experience of fundamental and applied research using gene editing, and its potential applications to improve livestock and aquaculture production and sustainability.

Selective breeding practices have significantly improved the productivity of farmed animals, particularly in the past century, reducing the feed required per animal and consequently the carbon footprint of each animal raised.

Modern selective breeding programs are both effective and sustainable, and their applications have been expanded to include a focus on improving animal welfare.

However, some characteristics of farmed animals are not easily improved by genetic selection. Gene-editing technologies offer new opportunities to improve traits of relevance to sustainable farmed animal production, including improving animal health and welfare, and reducing environmental impact.

These new technologies have the advantages of being specific by introducing a single, planned genetic change, with reduced potential for unplanned negative effects compared to other genetic engineering technologies.

A major challenge for conventional breeding is genetic improvement for disease resistance, an important target for improving animal welfare and reducing environmental impact.

Roslin research has a major focus on using our knowledge of the fundamental biological mechanisms in major infectious diseases of farmed animals to make precise, specific genetic changes that block or otherwise mitigate infection.

This can be achieved by using gene-editing technologies, as we have shown by the production of pigs that are genetically fully resistant to infection by porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus.

These pigs have a very small genetic change, are healthy, and cannot be infected by PRRS virus.

Our response outlines our reasons for proposing that gene-editing applications in animal breeding should not fall under genetically modified organism (GMO) regulations.

We recommend that any new regulations are proportionate, assess the outcomes of the genetic change in terms of animal welfare and any potential environmental impacts, but are not driven by the use of gene editing technology itself.

The Roslin Institute is in Scotland, where regulatory changes on gene editing introduced by the UK Government may not be implemented.

There is substantial industry and academic research and development into the application of gene editing, for example, to improve sustainable aquaculture production, a major Scottish industry, and we hope to discuss these opportunities further with the Scottish Government.

"Gene-editing technology offers the potential to efficiently enable beneficial changes in DNA. Within animal agriculture, genetic engineering technologies hold great potential in mitigating disease, improving the welfare and productivity of animals, and addressing a demand for animal products driven by population growth and climate change," said Professor Bruce Whitelaw, the chair of Animal Biotechnology at the Roslin Institute.

Excerpt from:
Response to UK Government's gene editing consultation - The Pig Site

Company Already Operating With Expert Alkaloid-Based Plant Breeders, Critical to Scaling Up New, Disruptive Plant LinesExpands Companys Operating Network in the Northern Hemisphere to Provide Indoor and Outdoor Alkaloid-Based Plant Line Breeding, Scale-Up, and Cultivation ProgramFolium Botanical Is In Close Proximity to and Allows for Vertical Integration of Breeding Expertise With Needle Rock FarmsNew Lines Already Completing the Initial Two-Year Development Cycle and Emerging From Companys Vast Portfolio of Hemp/Cannabis Lines Poised to Be Monetized in the Fourth QuarterCollaborations Key to Development of New, Commercially Valuable Plant Lines and Related IP in Two-Year Cycles, A Fraction of the Time Typically Required to Develop New PlantsAddition of Southern Hemisphere Breeder to Be Announced Shortly Will Provide 22nd Century with Year-Round Growing Capabilities

BUFFALO, N.Y., July 14, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 22nd Century Group, Inc. (NYSE American: XXII ), a leading plant-based biotechnology company focused on tobacco harm reduction, reduced nicotine tobacco, and hemp/cannabis research, today announced that it has added strategic partnerships with expert commercial-scale plant breeders Sawatch Agriculture and Folium Botanical. The partnerships with these two northern hemisphere breeders add to the breeding capabilities that 22nd Century already has through its close partnership with Aurora Cannabis, and another southern hemisphere-based breeder that will be announced shortly, providing 22nd Century year-round growing capabilities.

With decades of combined specialized alkaloid plant breeding and plant biotechnology experience, these expert breeders have proven next-generation technologies and innovations on breeding, commercial scale-up, and cultivation, many of which are far beyond those of independent competitive breeders or in-house breeding in consumer product companies. Under 22nd Centurys direction, proprietary plants will be developed with optimum levels of cannabinoids that meet high-quality standards when grown at commercial scale.

We are thrilled to announce the addition of these world-class alkaloid-based plant breeding specialists to complement 22nd Centurys capabilities in our upstream value chain. Our four breeding partnerships complete our portfolio of comprehensive plant science capabilities, enabling the rapid creation and scale-up of stable, tailored, highly disruptive plant lines with predictable yields critical to the mass cultivation of hemp/cannabis, which will be absolutely necessary to meet the rapidly growing market demand for improved, stable genetics. We are giving growers a competitive advantage by substantially improving crop yield and optimizing the time that it takes to develop new lines to a two-year cycle, a reduction from the 7 to 10 years that would typically be necessary to create new lines using our proprietary capabilities, said James A. Mish, chief executive officer of 22nd Century Group. Along with new lines progressing in development, we have lines emerging from our vast portfolio of hemp/cannabis lines that are completing the initial two-year development cycle. We look forward to the monetization of these lines and our current hemp/cannabis IP portfolio, with our first revenue from our hemp/cannabis franchise expected in the second half of 2021. Our complete upstream hemp/cannabis capabilities enable us to rapidly offer additional disruptive, commercially valuable hemp/cannabis plant lines at large scale and with increased, stable yields to very attractive end-use markets.

Strategic Partnerships Maximize 22nd Centurys Cannabinoid Value Chain

With todays announcement of these expert breeding partnerships, 22nd Century has secured all key partnerships needed to maximize and support each of the segments of its cannabinoid value chain: plant profiling (CannaMetrix), plant biotechnology (KeyGene), plant breeding, commercial-scale plant cultivation, and ingredient extraction/purification (Sawatch Agriculture, Folium Botanical, Aurora Cannabis, Needle Rock Farms, and Panacea).

22nd Centurys plant science mission and expertise serve as the crucial link between these partner companies to create the specific traits needed to optimize hemp/cannabis products at commercial scale. Mass cultivation is quickly becoming a critical challenge in the hemp/cannabis industry. Most existing plant lines do not exhibit the stable genetics, predictable yield, or specific composition of cannabinoids required to fully unlock the value of the hemp/cannabis industry. 22nd Centurys upstream capabilities provide for optimized plant products and scale-up as the industry evolves toward mass production.

The Companys goal is to provide leading brands in the life science, consumer product, and pharmaceutical end-use markets a license to utilize the new lines or ingredients (flower, distillate, isolate, etc.) derived from the most stable, predictable, and reliable hemp/cannabis lines with differentiated traits. These licenses or ingredients will serve to enhance their respective products, consumers experience, and commercial success. Using its genetically engineered hemp/cannabis plants and ability to scale, 22nd Century can accelerate development and speed to market of products with desired end-user benefits based on specific cannabinoid and terpene profiles at scale in a fraction of the time of competitors.

Multiple Hemp/Cannabis Revenue Streams in 2021 anda Long Growth Runway

The Company is actively pursuing multiple hemp/cannabis revenue streams in 2021 and beyond. These include monetization of a portion of the Companys valuable hemp/cannabis intellectual property, including through its recently announced strategic partnership with Aurora Cannabis, and offtake commitments for the Companys high CBD and CBG plant lines currently growing in its prime Colorado hemp/cannabis growing location, 22nd Centurys world-class Needle Rock Farms, for commercialization in the forms of flower, distillate, and isolate. Additional new plant lines coming through the development pipeline will expand revenue generation opportunities for years to come creating a long growth runway.

About 22nd Century Group, Inc. 22nd Century Group, Inc. (NYSE American: XXII) is a leading plant biotechnology company focused on technologies that alter the level of nicotine in tobacco plants and the level of cannabinoids in hemp/cannabis plants through genetic engineering, gene-editing, and modern plant breeding. 22nd Centurys primary mission in tobacco is to reduce the harm caused by smoking through the Companys reduced nicotine content tobacco cigarettes containing 95% less nicotine than conventional cigarettes. The Companys primary mission in hemp/cannabis is to develop and commercialize proprietary hemp/cannabis plants with valuable cannabinoid profiles and desirable agronomic traits.

Learn more at xxiicentury.com, on Twitter @xxiicentury, and on LinkedIn.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations, and assumptions contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements typically contain terms such as anticipate, believe, consider, continue, could, estimate, expect, explore, foresee, goal, guidance, intend, likely, may, plan, potential, predict, preliminary, probable, project, promising, seek, should, will, would, and similar expressions. Actual results might differ materially from those explicit or implicit in forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are set forth in Risk Factors in the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on March 11, 2021. All information provided in this release is as of the date hereof, and the Company assumes no obligation to and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of any offer to buy the securities discussed herein, nor shall there be any offer, solicitation, or sale of the securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state.

Investor Relations & Media Contact: Mei Kuo Director, Communications & Investor Relations 22nd Century Group, Inc. (716) 300-1221 mkuo@xxiicentury.com

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22nd Century Group Adds Strategic Partnerships With Sawatch Agriculture and Folium Botanical ... - The Bakersfield Californian

London, July 14, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Roots Analysis has announced the addition of Cell Line Development and Characterization Services Market, 2020- 2030 report to its list of offerings.

The development and characterization of cell lines is both technically challenging and financially demanding; as a result, drug developers and academic institutions are becoming increasingly reliant on contract service providers, which have the necessary infrastructure and the adequate skillset to carry out advanced genetic engineering and routine analytical procedures in minimum time with reduced chances of failure.

To order this 400+ page report, which features 150+ figures and 200+ tables, please visit https://www.rootsanalysis.com/reports/cell-line-development-and-characterization-services.html

Key Market Insights

Presently, more than 220 players claim to offer services for the development of cell linesNearly 90% of the aforementioned players provide services for the development of mammalian cell lines, while more than half the companies mentioned in the report (55%) have the necessary expertise to develop microbial expression systems.

Over 80 companies presently offer different types of cell line characterization services

Close to 83% of the abovementioned players are capable of assessing cell line identity / stability. Among available bioanalytical assays, DNA fingerprinting / profiling is currently the most widely used technique in this field. For biosafety testing, majority (37%) of the firms claim to offer tests for the detection of mycoplasma; of these, nearly 25% also offer mycoplasma clearance services.

There are 60+ non-industry players with cell line characterization capabilities

Nearly 90% of these entities offer STR-based cell line authentication services, with majority (43%) of them using Promegas GenePrint 10 System to create human genetic profiles.

Partnership activity in this domain has grown at a CAGR of 18%, between 2015 and 2020More than 330 partnership deals have been signed between industry stakeholders and sponsors in the given time period; majority of the deals were licensing agreements (23%), followed by mergers and acquisitions (18%). In 2020, nearly 30% of the established agreements were focused on R&D, manufacturing, licensing, commercialization, and distribution and supply of vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 viral strain.

The cell line development services market is anticipated to be worth over USD 5.3 billion by 2030At present, the highest share of service revenues (82%) is estimated to be generated from development projects involving mammalian cell lines; this trend is unlikely to change in the foreseen future as well. Further, majority of the market opportunity (80%) in 2030 is expected to be generated from GMP projects, focused on biotherapeutic production.

The cell line characterization services market is projected to grow at a CAGR of ~25% till 2030

In 2030, the highest share of the market (in terms of service revenues) is anticipated to be captured by North America (50%), followed by Europe (26%). In is worth mentioning that the service revenues in the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America, are expected to grow at a relatively higher rate (CAGR >15%) between 2020 and 2030.

To request a sample copy / brochure of this report, please visithttps://www.rootsanalysis.com/reports/cell-line-development-and-characterization services/request-sample.html

Key Questions Answered

The USD 5.3 billion (by 2030) financial opportunity within the cell line development services market has been analyzed across the following segments:

The USD 7.0 billion (by 2030) financial opportunity within the cell line characterization market has been analysed across the following segments:

The report features inputs from eminent industry stakeholders, according to whom, the competition within the cell line-related services market is expected to grow significantly, resulting in a corresponding increase in overall market value in the foreseen future. The report includes detailed transcripts of discussions (in reverse chronological order) held with the following individuals:

The report includes detailed profiles of key players (listed below), each featuring an overview of the company, its financial information (if available), a description of the service(s) offered, details of recent developments related to cell line development and characterization offerings, along with an informed future outlook.

For additional details, please visithttps://www.rootsanalysis.com/reports/cell-line-development-and-characterization-services.htmlor emailsales@rootsanalysis.com

You may also be interested in the following titles:

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The cell line development and characterization services markets are projected to be worth over USD 12 - GlobeNewswire

Antibody levels in people fully vaccinated with the Sinovac vaccine decline by half every 40 days, according to findings from a joint study between Thammasat University's faculty of medicine and the National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (Biotec).

The findings were revealed by Anan Jongkaewwattana, director of Veterinary Health Innovation and Management Research Group of Biotec.

Mr Anan wrote on Facebook that their study of 500 people, who received two doses of Sinovac, indicated that the level of antibodies drops by 50% every 40 days. The level of antibodies in people who received a second jab more than 60 days after the first was on average lower than that of those who got the second dose in less than 60 days, he said.

Mr Anan said the vaccine potency within 60 days of the second shot is between 60%-70% against the original strain. The potency against the original strain declines to about 50% in those receiving the second shot for over 60 days.

However, no data is available about the potency of two doses of Sinovac against variants, especially the highly contagious Alpha and Delta strains.

The overall level of immunisation is likely to drop in older people, he said, adding those aged over 40 showed lower antibody levels than those younger.

Meanwhile, Chalermchai Boonyaleepun, deputy chairman of the Senate committee on public health, posted on Blockdit that vaccines have done their job in lowering Covid-19 infections and fatalities in healthcare workers despite reports that some of them who had received the vaccines still caught the virus.

He did not mention the vaccine types but most medical workers received two doses of Sinovac.

Citing information from the Department of Disease Control, he said of the 700,000 who were fully vaccinated, 707 became infected, a ratio of 101:100,000. Of the 21,000 not vaccinated, 173 were infected, a ratio of 823:100,000. The rate among medical workers not vaccinated is eight times higher, he said.

Seven medical workers have died from Covid-19, two of whom were vaccinated. The death rate in the vaccinated group was 0.28% while in the non-vaccinated group it was 2.89%.

View original post here:
Sinovac-produced antibodies 'halve every 40 days' - Bangkok Post

Double infections also do not affect the patients condition, even if the variants are different. (Picture courtesy: IE)

A Belgian nonagenarian has been revealed as the first documented case of a person infected with two different SARS-CoV-2 variants at the same time. The 90-year-old woman was carrying both the Alpha variant, first detected in the UK, and the Beta variant, identified in South Africa. She died in hospital five days after being infected in March.

The annual European Congress on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases discussed her unique case, according to reports. While cases of double infection are rare, it is not surprising, experts toldThe Indian Express. They said a person contracting infections from several persons over a short period is not impossible and has happened before. V.S Chauhan, former chief of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology based in Delhi said if someone is exposed to multiple infected persons, they can be infected by any or all of them. He added that the virus takes time to multiply and affect all cells. Till then, some cells remain available to host the virus from other sources. Chauhan said such double infection cases were common among HIV patients.

However, the probability of double infections is low because it is not passed on every time an infected person interacts with someone. Shahid Jameel, director at Ashoka Universitys Trivedi School of Biosciences, said the Belgian womans case was only the first one to be detected. But he is certain that such cases have happened across the world, adding that a genome analysis of a sample from the infected person would be the only way to tell. Despite that, the differences in genome sequences in cases of multiple infections are very minor, and are easily overlooked.

Double infections also do not affect the patients condition, even if the variants are different. All variants of the virus affect the patient in a similar way and it is irrelevant if the virus comes from one source or multiple sources. Chauhan said the diseases severity depends on the persons health, immunity, and the virus lethality and not on the number of sources of infection. Jameel said while the Belgian womans case was an interesting revelation, it is not a cause for concern.

Additionally, the current vaccines are nearly equally effective against the virus different variants as well. Chauhan said for all the variants, the medicines and treatment are the same. He added that none of the variants that have emerged are truly escape mutants. If a mutation happens that can escape the human immunity in the future, then there might be some cause for concern.

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Can someone be infected by two coronavirus variants at the same time? Heres what studies say - The Financial Express

Ethan Hawke in Gattaca, left, and the cover of Octavia Butlers Parable of the Sower, right. (Getty Images)

A little less than halfway through the 1997 film Gattaca, Irene (Uma Thurman) steals a strand of hair from the desk of a coworker she knows as Jerome (Ethan Hawke), and takes it to an all-night DNA testing booth, passing a woman who is having her lips swabbed just five minutes after kissing her date. A few seconds later, the technician gives Irene her answer: Nine-point-threequite a catch. But 9.3 of what? How does her printout of amino acids translate to a scale of 1 to 10, a genetic quotient that leads the technician to think her boyfriend is a catch?1

After nearly a quarter century, Gattaca has aged disturbingly well. The New Zealand writer and director Andrew Niccol crafted a noir dystopian thriller of a society trapped by eugenic ideology and ubiquitous biometric surveillance. Those with poor GQ are deemed in-valid and condemned to a life of poverty, drudgery, and crime. But those with good GQ also measure themselves against impossible standards, believing that their DNA determines what they should be able to do, and they plunge into depression, suicidality, and self-sabotage when theyre unable to meet expectations. Today, as we charge into an age of biotechnology, the film feels especially prescient, providing a benchmark against which to compare our trajectory. Our capacity for both genetic manipulation and biometric assessment is advancing, but we have not improved our ability to hold conversations about genetics, disability, or even abstractions like the relationship between probability and outcomes. I worry that our Gattaca future is nigh.2

The hair fiber may have scored a 9.3 GQ, but it doesnt come from Hawkes character, whose real name is Vincent. Vincent is an invalid, a child conceived in the back seat of a Buick and allowed to develop as nature sees fit. Hes got a 99 percent chance of developing a heart condition, and his life expectancy is 30 years. Hes also brilliant and wants to be an astronaut, but he has no chance of passing the genetic screening for a space gig at the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. So he engages in a criminal conspiracy with the real Jerome (Jude Law). Jerome was genetically engineered to near perfection, becoming a champion swimmer and a silver medalist in the Olympics before suffering a spinal injury in a car crash. (Later we find out that Jerome, unable to tolerate being second best, had stepped in front of the car. Its the rare disability-suicide plot point that places the blame on society rather than on disability.) Jerome makes a deal to provide Vincent with hair, blood, urine, and skin samples in exchange for a portion of Vincents salary. The fraud works. Vincent becomes a navigator, but before he can launch into space, the mission director at Gattaca is murdered. A manhunt ensues, the cops find an eyelash from Vincent himself, and the movie rolls forward.3

Its a pretty good plot. Vincent has a genetically engineered younger brother, Anton, against whom the naturally conceived in-valid measures himself, a tension that plays out in adulthood. Vincent helps Irene realize that even if shes not perfect according to the charts (shes valid, but no 9.3), she can do more than she realizes. But its not the plot thats made the story endure; rather, its the films vision of the world.4

The premises of Gattaca feel real not just because its characters espouse long-held eugenic principles in the development of prenatal testing and genetic engineering technologies but because the movie pairs those ideologies with surveillance. Its one thing to have an ableist viewpoint about the value of people, another to have the technology for genetic engineering, and yet a third to build a society around the routine penetration of the body to extract blood, urine, and saliva and measure it against a universal database.5Current Issue

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The film isnt perfect. Aside from the presence of a Black geneticist and a few extras, its world is extremely white, and I dont think thats an accident. As we watch Vincent embark on his early career as a janitor, he provides narration about the times, saying, I belong to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the color of your skin. No, we now have discrimination down to a science. Thats nonsense. Ableism and eugenics intersect with racism, classism, and other forms of discrimination. Inventing new forms of discrimination does not erase the old ones.6

Still, a single film, like a single essay, doesnt have to do everything. Make no mistake, our Gattaca future is coming; the technology cant be held back. What we must do now is work to undermine the eugenicist ideologies that will lead those technologies to cause increasingly greater harm. And thats where this movie comes in. When I talk to people about designing babies, I often get assurances that discrimination against kids like minemy son has Down syndrome and is autisticis bad, but wheres the problem in trying to create advantages, to alleviate burdens? Gattaca, however, makes the case that you cannot design your way to happiness and that trying to do so will build a world ever less freeeven for those who achieve high marks in GQ, IQ, or whatever other rubric we use to mismeasure potential.7

David M. Perry8

The events in Octavia E. Butlers 1993 novel Parable of the Sower presage this moment of mass shootings, global warming, en masse migration from California, a pandemic that throws into relief rampant structural inequities, widespread drug abuse, and a presidential candidate who campaigned on returning the country to a sense of so-called normalcy. (In the books sequel, 1998s Parable of the Talents, one politician promises to Make America Great Again.) When the novel was published, it was set 31 years in the future. The gap between the version of life Butler imagined and the one were living in is closing.9

Parable of the Sower tells the story of activist Lauren Oya Olamina, who is 15 when the book begins and lives in an increasingly destabilized Southern California with her minister father, her stepmother, and her four brothers. Like other micro-communities in their Los Angeles County town, the Olaminas and a handful of other families live behind a wall to escape looting, murder, sexual assault, drug abuse, arson, and corporate slavery. Responding to her environment, Lauren has already started to develop Earthseed, the spiritual philosophy she creates based on the notion that God is change. She lives with a condition called hyperempathy, which causes her to become ill when she vicariously experiences the suffering of others. It is perhaps this hyperempathy that makes Lauren so attuned to the impending doom around the corner (literally, for her and her compound). She seems to be the most worried person in her community and suggests that people refine their emergency preparedness for a series of catastrophic events. She reads history books to fortify herself; in a conversation with a friend, Lauren underscores the significance of the Black Death in the 14th century, saying, It took a plague to make some of the people realize that things could change. Eventually her suspicions come true, and Lauren leads a band of travelers to Northern California in search of freedom, paying jobs, and affordable water.10

In a present-day America thats reeling from the toll of the pandemic, the War on Drugs, the prison-industrial complex, reproductive oppression, and weakened labor unions and that is constantly threatened by white supremacy, the cowardice of career politicians, and the avarice of the wealthy, the lessons of Parable of the Sower have practical application. The principles of Martine and Bina Aspen Rothblatts Terasem Movement (founded in 2002), which focuses on nanotechnology and cyber-consciousness, were inspired by the books Earthseed philosophy. adrienne maree browns 2017 manual Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds was also influenced by Earthseed. Since last spring, Tananarive Due and Monica Coleman have hosted a series of webinars called Octavia Tried to Tell Us: Parable for Todays Pandemic, in which Butler scholars explore the context and imaginative implications of the books predictions. In an October 2020 interview in The Believer, writer and housing attorney Rasheedah Phillips advised people interested in envisioning survival to start with Butler. She is the person who prepared me, to the extent that I am prepared for this, Phillips said.11

Yet it is not only because of its pragmatism that Parable of the Sower should be considered the more prescient dystopia; it also ingeniously foresaw movements in todays culture to recenter marginalized groups, including young Black girls and women; Indigenous communities, whose botanical and nutritional insights are crucial to the survival of Lauren and her band; and youth, of which the Earthseed collective is mainly composed. Lauren is a fictional forerunner to courageous young people like Darnella Frazier, X Gonzlez, Greta Thunberg, and the late Erica Garner.12

Perhaps the biggest indication of Parable of the Sowers foresight is its understanding that as powerful as empathy is, its not enough (Namwali Serpells New York Review of Books essay The Banality of Empathy is also useful in articulating this idea). When Laurens lover suggests that it might benefit society if most people had her hyperempathy, Lauren calls the notion a bad idea. You must know how disabling real pain can be, she insists. Just as hyperempathy is not enough to save Lauren, it wont be enough to save us. Empathy takes courage, compassion, and an interest in alterity, and many people in her world and ours lack those qualities. But art, at least, can prompt us to think critically. Like empathy, critical thinking requires compassion and a desire to move past pretense toward truth.13

Here again, Parable of the Sower is telling. Use your imagination, Lauren tells a friend. Any kind of survival information from encyclopedias, biographies, anything that helps you learn to live off the land and defend ourselves. Even some fiction might be useful. And the novel has been. But as Lauren learns, reading is only the first step. Explaining her impetus to move beyond studying, Lauren tells someone from her old neighborhood, I thought something would happen someday. I didnt know how bad it would be or when it would come. But everything was getting worse: the climate, the economy, crime, drugs, you know. Yeah, I do knowand all of that requires thoughtful action now.14

Niela Orr15

Link:
Which Is the More Prescient Dystopia? 'Gattaca' or 'Parable of the Sower' - The Nation

Ask any neuroscientist 20 years ago if gut bug excrement could slow down an untreatable brain disease, and theyd brush off the idea without a second thought.

Yet the gut-brain connection has emerged as one of the most tantalizing advances in neuroscience, a true paradigm shift, said Dr. Eran Blacher at Stanford University, who recently published a provocative and award-winning essay in Science.

The crux? For devastating disorders in which the brain or its nerve connections gradually disintegrate, maybe its time to look south of the necktowards the gut.

Youve heard of this class of neurodegenerative disorders. Alzheimers, which slowly eats away at ones memories. Parkinsons, which wreaks havoc on motor control centers. ALS (amytrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrigs disease), which gradually robs a person of motor abilities by killing off their motor neurons. Despite decades of research, treatment options are limited.

Perhaps, argues Blacher, our dogmatic focus on the brain is whats been hindering progress. Neuroscience is moving towards a holistic conception of health that considers the brains functions in concert with our other spongy, slippery organs, rather than as a separate entity studied alone in a jar.

What if we could tap into the gut-brain connection, and treat the brain through a remote phone line of sorts through the gut? And even weirder, what if a powerful way to slow down neurodegeneration is genetically-designed yogurt?

Were host to millions of microbes that live in harmony on our skin or inside our organs. Together, they weigh more than the human brain. Normally, its a great symbiosis. Our gut bugs, for example, eat up leftovers and pump out chemicalsmetabolitesthat can help break down toxic food compounds and synthesize critical vitamins that our bodies absorb. Its a zoo in there: thousands of species have already been discovered, and like any ecosystem, their composition can dramatically alter their nearby environment.

Over a decade ago, a slew of studies suddenly transformed the gut into a neuroscientists new favorite organ. In mice, Dr. John Cryan and psychiatrist Dr. Ted Dinan at the University College Cork found that tweaking gut bugs altered a mices behavior. Some became more anxious; others depressed. Yet others showed signs of autism and insomnia.

Wiping out a mouses gut microbiome with antibiotics, for example, can severely impact the brains ability to generate new neurons in the hippocampusa region thats critical for learning and memory. Other studies found that probiotic treatments can help restore depression or anxiety in mice, leading to a gold rush to start treating the brain with carefully-engineered yogurt slushies.

The gut microbiota are considered so necessary and so integrated into host function that some describe this population as an overlooked organ, wrote Dr. M Elizabeth Sublette and colleagues at Columbia University in a previous commentary.

Further studies found that the gut talks extensively to the brain through multiple microbiome phone lines. Gut bugs can pump out chemicals directly into the blood for a straight shot at the brain. Or they can interact with neuropod cells that line the gut, tapping into a direct electrical highway called the vagus nerve to send information up to certain neural circuits in the brain, altering their function.

But what especially caught Blachers eye was another channel: that gut bugs can tweak our immune system, which impacts the trajectory of multiple neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS. While ALS has a genetic basis, its impact only accounts for a measly 19 percent or so of cases, suggesting there are other factors that could be a guide towards better treatments.

I believe that some answers may lie in the gut and that studying the biological processes occurring outside the brain might shed a new light on some old questions in the field and maybe even revolutionize neuroscience, Blacher said.

Blacher and colleagues began with a transgenic mouse engineered with a mutation, Sod-1, that causes a genetic form of ALS.

Within a month, the mice began showing more severe motor symptoms. When placed on top of a rotating beam they fell more often, and were unable to grab onto a hanging wire compared to their litter counterparts with an intact microbiome. Peeking into the structure of the mices spinal cord, the team also found that antibiotics-treated mice had far more cell death in their motor neuronsa symptom of ALS progression.

Because the gut microbiome is sensitive to the environmentwere surrounded by microbes all the timethe team next moved the mice into a sterile facility. There, they were able to compare the gut microbiome between a Sod-1 ALS mouse type and completely normal mice by collecting and genetically sequencing their poop.

Together, they found roughly ten strains of bacteria that rapidly differed between ALS and normal mice. Digging deeper, in a series of painstaking experiments, they then one-by-one reintroduced a strain of bacteria back to the ALS mice, pretreated with antibiotics, to see how they behaved.

We adopted a probiotic approach, said Blacher. The bacteria was mixed inside the mices drinking water, like those in yogurt.

One strain, A. muciniphila, particularly stood out. When given to mice once weekly, their ability to perform on the rotating beam dramatically improvedso much so that they rivaled normal mice up to 80 days after the onset of the experiment, or more than half of their lifespan. They also lived longer on average compared to non-treated ALS mice or those given unrelated gut bacteria. Even more incredible, their brains showed less damage at 140 days old, when the lifespan of ALS mice is only 20 days longer on average.

It seems crazy that eating healthy bacteria can slow down a neurodegenerative disease. The team next used a big data approach to hunt down a source for the improvement. They screened all of the metaboliteschemicals that gut bugs pump out into the bodyand honed in on nicotinamide, a form of Vitamin B thats been a darling for combating aging in the longevity sphere.

Skipping gut bugs altogether, the team next pumped nicotinamide directly into ALS mice. Similar to A. muciniphila, the nutrient triggered hundreds of genetic changes related to brain function, with the most impact on the brains ability to remove superoxide radicalsa type of chemical that tends to bombard and rip up the cells fragile membranes.

While these results are promising, mice and men are very different, and most treatments dont make the leap. The team next took stool samples from over three dozen ALS patients and 29 healthy family members who share the same environment, and genetically sequenced their microbiomes. While the abundance of different gut bug species were marginally significant, the team found changes in several genes related to nicotinamide. Lower levels of the chemical also correlated with worse ALS symptoms.

This suggests a potential involvement of AM [A. muciniphila] that merits larger studies in the future, the authors said.

The field of treating ALS or another neurodegenerative disorder with healthy bacteria is still very young. But whats increasingly clear is that what happens in our gut may have massive, yet undiscovered effects on the brain. Blachers results will have to be tested in humans (some similar clinical trials are on the way).

But with new tools in genetic sequencing, which sometimes allow scientists to dip into the genetic pattern of every cellhuman or bacteriawere entering a new age to rethink treatments for the brain. Add in a dose of CRISPR or other genetic engineering tools, and we could then imagine tailored gut bug treatments, altered to produce chemicals such as nicotinamide, as living pharmacies that live harmoniously inside our guts to delay or even prevent age-related diseases.

Image Credit:Anatomy Insider/Shutterstock.com

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Treating the Brain Through the Stomach: Tweaking the Gut Microbiome Slowed ALS in Mice - Singularity Hub