"Today I want to talk about three broad categories: Synthetic or engineered medical research or treatments, biological (DNA) research and procedures, and various transplants that have been performed or are being researched.
Synthetic Medical Advances:
A lot of research recently has been targeted at creating synthetic life. These are not robotic solutions (so, for these purposes at least, synthetic does not mean artificial intelligence or cyborgs) but instead largely biological entities that have been tinkered with.
For example, Kurzweilai.net reports that chemists have created cells with self-assembling, artificial membranes. Because creating truly artificial life will require both an artificial membrane and an artificial genome (which has also been created) this is an important step towards creating entirely new organisms. The best part: it seems to be easy and cheap to create these new artificial membranes, so we should see a lot of movement in this area in the near future.
Once we have entirely synthetic cells, how could we make more?........" http://bit.ly/KlM1hU
"We've all played physics-based games before. But have you ever tried one based on biochemical kinetics? BioHack is a simulation game where you must solve challenging design problems. This Lite version of the game includes the first 15 levels from the full game. No science background necessary!"
"Plants don’t always seem particularly charismatic, but hidden from us in their slow-motion and chemical activities are incredible mechanisms that sense and respond to the world around them. Plants move in response to light, bending and stretching to get maximum sunlight. This phototropism extends all the way down to much smaller photosynthetic organisms. Like other bacteria, many species of photosynthetic cyanobacteria can swim and swarm to move towards areas where more food–sunlight–is available. Shading some regions will quickly clear them of bacteria, reproducing which areas were bright and which were dark, creating a living photographic image." http://bit.ly/M7IgNL
"The idea of discovering a new form of life has not only excited astronomers and astrobiologists for decades, but also the wider public. The notion that we are the only example of a successful life form in the galaxy has, for many, seemed like an unlikely statistic, as we discover more and more habitable planetary bodies and hear yet more evidence of life's ability to survive in extreme conditions. A new essay, published May 8 in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology, examines what really constitutes 'life' and the probability of discovering new life forms. Accompanying the article is an interview with the author in the latest edition of the PLoS Biology Podcast."
2 Grand Challenges Explorations grants for global health
"The innovative research of three Northwestern University professors who are making a big difference in the highly promising area of synthetic biology has been recognized with two early-stage discovery awards from Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The global health projects will focus on creating new compounds to combat malaria and on producing biosensors for low-cost, in-home diagnoses. The prestigious awards are two of 107 Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) grants announced this week. The funding supports scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs worldwide who are testing unconventional ideas that show great promise to improve the health of people in the developing world. Northwestern now has received a total of three GCE grants as part of the Gates Foundation's call to "Apply Synthetic Biology to Global Health Challenges." (Synthetic biology is the design and construction of new types of biological systems.) To date, only 30 synthetic biology grants have been awarded as part of this initiative, acknowledging Northwestern as being at the forefront of its use to address global health issues. "The Gates Foundation support allows us to pursue high-risk, high-reward projects that are utilizing cutting-edge techniques to engineer biological systems," said Keith Tyo, an investigator on all three grants. "Success on any one of these projects could result in a dramatic improvement in quality of life for millions of suffering people." Tyo is an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. Andreas Matouschek, professor of molecular biosciences in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and Tyo will develop synthetic compounds that target essential proteins in the Plasmodium parasite for destruction by its own protein degradation mechanisms. This strategy could lead to new treatment modalities as well as small molecule drug development efforts to combat malaria. In the other project, Tyo and Joshua Leonard, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, will work to engineer yeast-based biosensors that identify protein biomarkers in samples like blood and urine. An array of yeast strains could serve as a low-cost, in-home device providing patients with a panel of diagnostics to improve treatment and diagnosis in resource-poor settings...." http://bit.ly/JIX83m
Harvard University selected XVIVO to develop an animation that would take their cellular biology students on a journey through the microscopic world of a cell, illustrating mechanisms that allow a white blood cell to sense its surroundings and respond to an external stimulus. This award winning piece was the first topic in a series of animations XVIVO is creating for Harvard's educational website BioVisions at Harvard. http://www.xvivo.net http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/
This is an amazing resource to help explain to students how science helped in discoveries of how food preservation works, and what techniques work best for certain foods. It also connects food preservation (Home Economics) to better understanding the limitations of all life and can give students a broader understanding of the importance of such information and research.
"Amyris, a company that uses synthetic biology to make alternatives to conventional petroleum products, recently decided to wind down its biofuels business and focus on selling higher-value products such as cosmetics. Now it's clear why.
Details about Amyris were disclosed during the company's earnings call last night. They show just how far the company is from making biofuel profitably, and illustrate why the company is getting out of the biofuels business—for now.
Shortly after it was founded, Amyris had set out to make biofuel using genetically modified organisms and simple chemistry to turn sugar into a type of oil that's similar to diesel. It had some success making biodiesel for buses in Brazil. But the chemicals produced by the company's microörganisms can be used for other things as well, such as moisturizers and fragrances, that sell for higher prices.
Last night, the company said the average selling price for all its products is $7.70 per liter, or $29 per gallon, far higher than the price for petroleum-based diesel. (In Brazil, diesel costs about $1 per liter.)....."
"For desktop designers, consumer-grade 3-D printers are nothing short of revolutionary. But the technology is still fairly crude, limited to producing “low-resolution” shapes made out of plastic. What’s next? There are a host of new tools coming down the pike that promise to radically improve both the form and function of the stuff you can print, from chess pieces to chocolate...."
Synbiota is building a bio-lab in a browser. Synthetic Biology promises to revolutionize the world in ways we have yet to imagine. Synbiota is working towards this revolution by developing powerful, standards-based, open and free tools for synthetic biology design. We need your help!
Javier Macía, Francesc Posas, Ricard V. Solé "Synthetic biology (SB) offers a unique opportunity for designing complex molecular circuits able to perform predefined functions. But the goal of achieving a flexible toolbox of reusable molecular components has been shown to be limited due to circuit unpredictability, incompatible parts or random fluctuations. Many of these problems arise from the challenges posed by engineering the molecular circuitry: multiple wires are usually difficult to implement reliably within one cell and the resulting systems cannot be reused in other modules. These problems are solved by means of a nonstandard approach to single cell devices, using cell consortia and allowing the output signal to be distributed among different cell types, which can be combined in multiple, reusable and scalable ways." http://bit.ly/J7wk8y
This symposium will act as a cornerstone for the creation of a synthetic biology research hub at and for Concordia University (May 21 - Building Biology: A symposium on synthetic biology: http://t.co/3JUVMCOT #biology...
Singh P, Batth TS, Juminaga D, Dahl RH, Keasling JD, Adams PD, Petzold CJ. "As synthetic biology matures to compete with chemical transformation of commodity and high-value compounds, a wide variety of well-characterized biological parts are needed to facilitate system design. Protein quantification based on selected-reaction monitoring (SRM) mass spectrometry compliments metabolite and transcript analysis for system characterization and optimizing flux through engineered pathways. By using SRM quantification, we assayed red fluorescent protein (RFP) expressed from plasmids containing several inducible and constitutive promoters and subsequently assessed protein production from the same promoters driving expression of eight mevalonate pathway proteins in Escherichia coli. For each of the promoter systems, the protein level for the first gene in the operon followed that of RFP, however, the levels of proteins produced from genes farther from the promoter were much less consistent. Second, we used targeted proteomics to characterize tyrosine biosynthesis pathway proteins after removal of native regulation. The changes were not expected to cause significant impact on protein levels, yet significant variation in protein abundance was observed and tyrosine production for these strains spanned a range from less than 1 mg/L to greater than 250 mg/L. Overall, our results underscore the importance of targeted proteomics for determining accurate protein levels in engineered systems and fine-tuning metabolic pathways." http://1.usa.gov/JndoGi
Dymond J, Boeke J. "We have recently reported the first partially synthetic eukaryotic genome. Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosomes synIXR and semi-synVIL are fully synthetic versions of the right arm of chromosome IX and the telomeric segment of the left arm of chromosome VI, respectively, and represent the beginning of the synthetic yeast genome project, Sc2.0, that progressively replaces native yeast DNA with synthetic sequences. We have designed synthetic chromosome sequences according to principles specifying a wild-type phenotype, highly stable genome, and maintenance of genetic flexibility. Although other synthetic genome projects exist, the Sc2.0 approach is unique in that we have implemented design specifications predicted to generate a wild-type phenotype until induction of "SCRaMbLE," an inducible evolution system that generates significant genetic diversity. Here we further explore the significance of Sc2.0 and show how SCRaMbLE can serve as a genome minimization tool."
The winemaker's bug: From ancient wisdom to opening new vistas with frontier yeast science.
by
Pretorius IS, Curtin CD, Chambers P.
"The past three decades have seen a global wine glut. So far, well-intended but wasteful and expensive market-intervention has failed to drag the wine industry out of a chronic annual oversupply of roughly 15%. Can yeast research succeed where these approaches have failed by providing a means of improving wine quality, thereby making wine more appealing to consumers? To molecular biologists Saccharomyces cerevisiae is as intriguing as it is tractable. A simple unicellular eukaryote, it is an ideal model organism, enabling scientists to shed new light on some of the biggest scientific challenges such as the biology of cancer and aging. It is amenable to almost any modification that modern biology can throw at a cell, making it an ideal host for genetic manipulation, whether by the application of traditional or modern genetic techniques. To the winemaker, this yeast is integral to crafting wonderful, complex wines from simple, sugar-rich grape juice. Thus any improvements that we can make to wine yeast fermentation performance or the sensory properties it imparts to wine will benefit winemakers and consumers. With this in mind, the application of frontier technologies, particularly the burgeoning fields of systems and synthetic biology, have much to offer in their pursuit of "novel" yeast strains to produce high quality wine. This paper discusses the nexus between yeast research and winemaking. It also addresses how winemakers and scientists face up to the challenges of consumer perceptions and opinions regarding the intervention of science and technology; the greater this intervention, the stronger the criticism that wine is no longer "natural". How can wine researchers respond to the growing number of wine commentators and consumers who feel that scientific endeavors favor wine quantity over quality, and "technical sophistication, fermentation reliability and product consistency" over "artisanal variation"? This paper seeks to present yeast research in a new light and a new context, and it raises important questions about the direction of yeast research, its contribution to science and the future of winemaking."
"As bacteria digest sewage, they also generate electrons. Scientists have tried to harness this phenomenon through microbial fuel cells, in which bacteria generate usable power as they clean wastewater. Now, electro-microbiologist Oriana Bretschger, of the J. Craig Venter Institute, has announced big strides this two-in-one technology. They’ve taken the typical lab prototype and debugged it, scaled it up, and made it cheaper to build.
ORIANA BRETSCHGER (J. Craig Venter Institute):
We’ve moved away from your typical expensive hand-blown laboratory equipment, into something that you could buy from your typical hardware store...."
International workshop highlights opportunities for synthetic biology to improve field based diagnostics. By: Robert Angus May 9, 2012 12:27 PM. An international workshop on 'Novel field based diagnostics' was held at FERA on the 14th ...
Gerald F. Joyce "All known examples of life belong to the same biology, but there is increasing enthusiasm among astronomers, astrobiologists, and synthetic biologists that other forms of life may soon be discovered or synthesized. This enthusiasm should be tempered by the fact that the probability for life to originate is not known. As a guiding principle in parsing potential examples of alternative life, one should ask: How many heritable “bits” of information are involved, and where did they come from? A genetic system that contains more bits than the number that were required to initiate its operation might reasonably be considered a new form of life." http://bit.ly/J8I7H0
To get content containing either thought or leadership enter:
To get content containing both thought and leadership enter:
To get content containing the expression thought leadership enter:
You can enter several keywords and you can refine them whenever you want. Our suggestion engine uses more signals but entering a few keywords here will rapidly give you great content to curate.
Your new post is loading...
