Clipmarks | Silkweaver's 'biotechnology' clips

Future for clean energy lies in 'big bang' of evolution

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:45:01 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: For humans now there is the tantalising possibility of tweaking the photosynthetic reactions of cyanobacteria to produce fuels we want such as hydrogen, alcohols or even hydrocarbons, rather than carbohydrates.
Progress at the research level has been rapid, boosting prospects of harnessing photosynthesis not just for energy but also for manufacturing valuable compounds for the chemical and biotechnology industries. Such research is running on two tracks, one aimed at genetically engineering real plants and cyanobacteria to yield the products we want, and the other to mimic their processes in artificial photosynthetic systems built with human-made components. Both approaches hold great promise and will be pursued in parallel, as was discussed at a recent workshop focusing on the photosynthetic reaction centres of cyanobacteria, organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF).

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Amid mounting agreement that future clean, "carbon-neutral", energy will rely on efficient conversion of the sun's light energy into fuels and electric power, attention is focusing on one of the most ancient groups of organism, the cyanobacteria.

Dramatic progress has been made over the last decade understanding the fundamental reaction of photosynthesis that evolved in cyanobacteria 3.7 billion years ago, which for the first time used water molecules as a source of electrons to transport energy derived from sunlight, while converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.

The light harvesting systems gave the bacteria their blue ("cyano") colour, and paved the way for plants to evolve by "kidnapping" bacteria to provide their photosynthetic engines, and for animals by liberating oxygen for them to breathe, by splitting water molecules.

Tags: clean energy, molecular biology

Drug tries to offset 10,000 years of evolution

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:59:14 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Gene therapies, expected some time between 2015 and 2020, promise to correct this genetic problem caused by nature, but many obese people do not want to wait. They are hoping that Nastech’s new nasal spray can provide a solution now.

Within 20 to 35 minutes after taking a whiff, this new drug moves quickly through the nasal lining and into the bloodstream, sending a message to the brain that our tummy is full. So far the drug has had no negative side effects.

PYY is undergoing clinical trials now, and is expected to be in drug stores by 2009 or 2010. Obesity is the 2nd leading cause of preventable death in America, so this drug offers a great chance for more people to improve their health and get ready to enjoy our “magical future”.

Clip Source: memebox.com

Squirting a little nasal spray up the nose before mealtime is helping obese people shed an average of 50 lbs in a year.

Nastech Pharmaceutical Company of Bothell, WA said its compound, known as PYY, addresses obesity and other ailments suffered by overweight patients – diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, arthritis, and cancer.

In an Associated Press interview, Nastech CEO Steven Quay stated that in tests, PYY reduced patients’ daily calorie intake by 30 percent.

PYY is a naturally occurring hormone that our body sends to the brain 45 minutes after eating to tell us we’re full. This mechanism kept our ancestors from eating too much, but it doesn’t kick in fast enough for people eating today’s high-calorie, high-fat foods. Obesity, researchers say, is a direct result of our inherited genes.

But while our diet has changed radically over the last 10,000 years, our genes remain unchanged. We are still designed to feed a hunter-gatherer who gets a ton of exercise every day

Tags: obesity, gene therapy, biotechnology, diet

10 Big Questions for Maverick Geneticist J. Craig Venter on America's Energy Future

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:23:12 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: I think the real challenge won't necessarily come from biology, because biology is infinitely scalable, but from engineering. [If we can overcome that,] we have the potential to stop using oil and coal hopefully within the next 10 to 20 years, and even start reducing the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.

Read further on site.

Clip Source: www.popularmechanics.com

Independent geneticist J. Craig Venter raced an international consortium of scientists to map the human genome in the 1990s. Now he's putting the same cutting-edge science to work on today's energy crisis, engineering a whole new generation of biofuels.

So how did you get from mapping the human genome to creating biofuels?

We considered the biggest issues facing society that we thought we could impact. What's happening to the environment and getting weaned off oil and coal are the biggest issues out there.

Is it similar to the genome project? More daunting?

Nobody thought that such a massive project as sequencing the human genome could be undertaken by a single team, like we did. But that challenge is minor compared to trying to replace the 30 billion barrels of oil that we use globally each year, and the 3 billion tons of coal. The scale of that is beyond my imagination.

Tags: energy, genetics, biotechnology

Plants make vaccine for treating type of cancer

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:18:31 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Plants could act as safe, speedy factories for growing antibodies for personalized treatments against a common form of cancer, according to new findings from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The findings came in the first human tests of an injectable vaccine grown in genetically engineered plants.

The treatments, which would vaccinate cancer patients against their malignant cells, could lead to earlier personalized therapy to tackle follicular B-cell lymphoma, an immune-system malignancy diagnosed in about 16,000 people each year.

The standard treatment, chemotherapy, has such severe side effects that patients often opt for watchful waiting in the early stages of illness.

However, plant-grown vaccines, which lack side effects, could allow earlier, more aggressive management of the cancer.

"This would be a way to treat cancer without side effects,"

"The idea is to marshal the body's own immune system to fight cancer."

Tags: cancer, vaccine, biotechnology

A capsule-sized camera can be steered through the digestive system.

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:08:43 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Another idea to a new Bond movie: A view to a Pill.

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

Researchers in Germany have developed a magnetic device that can guide a camera inside the body.

The remote control will enable doctors to conduct internal examinations of the stomach and esophagus, procedures that are currently done with an endoscope and are often uncomfortable, requiring local anesthetic and several hours of recovery time.

Some of these discomforts may be avoided with the controllable pill camera

"The doctor can hold it in his hand during the examination and move it up and down the patient's body. The camera inside follows this motion precisely."

Roughly the same size as a multivitamin tablet, pill cameras, also known as capsule cameras, have been used for about five years. Once swallowed, the camera travels through the patient by taking advantage of peristalsis, the same involuntary muscular contractions that push food through the digestive system. During the process, the cameras transmit two to four images per second to a receiver worn on the patient's belt.

Tags: medicine, imaging, biotechnology

When Unusually Rapid Improvement Becomes Usual

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:28:53 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Given the existing pressure on such social programs as Social Security and Medicare, I believe one implication of this “unusually rapid improvement” is that these systems will need to be radically overhauled in order to survive this new demographic reality.

Clip Source: www.memebox.com

It was reported last week that US life expectancy topped 78 years as a variety of diseases – including heart disease, diabetes and flu – decreased this past year.

More interestingly, life expectancy – which has been increasing about two or three months from year to year – jumped an impressive four months this year.

It was “an usually rapid improvement,” but I’d like to argue that such rapid improvements will become “usual” for the foreseeable future.

If one tracks the amazing rate of progress in biotechnology, genomics, stem cell research and nanotechnology; it is hard – barring a devastating calamity that kills thousands or millions of people – to envision how life expectancy will do anything but continue to increase at an accelerating rate.

It seems only prudent, therefore, that we should at least begin preparing for life expectancies in the neighborhood of 100 within the next few decades.

Tags: aging, accelerating change

Nanotechnology, Biomolecules And Light Unite To 'Cook' Cancer Cells

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:02:08 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Researchers are testing a new way to kill cancer cells selectively by attaching cancer-seeking antibodies to tiny carbon tubes that heat up when exposed to near-infrared light.

Scientists are able to use biological molecules called monoclonal antibodies that bind to cancer cells. Monoclonal antibodies can work alone or can be attached to powerful anti-cancer drugs, radionuclides or toxins to deliver a deadly payload to cancer cells.

In this study, the researchers used monoclonal antibodies that targeted specific sites on lymphoma cells to coat tiny structures called carbon nanotubes.

In cultures of cancerous lymphoma cells, the antibody-coated nanotubes attached to the cells' surfaces. When the targeted cells were then exposed to near-infrared light, the nanotubes heated up, generating enough heat to essentially "cook" the cells and kill them.

This was true even when the antibody-nanotube complex was placed in a setting designed to mimic conditions inside the human body.

Tags: nanotechnology, biotechnology, cancer

Bacterial Chemical Sensors on the Horizon?

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:46:35 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Bacteria is responsible for the vast majority of all fundamental life processes on this planet. Harnessing bacteria to the service of humanity will be a technological revolution allowing anything from supersensitive sensors to weather control.

Clip Source: www.medgadget.com

New research out of MIT has deciphered part of the bacterial communication network that has long frustrated scientists.

The multitude of communication pathways in bacteria share common enzymes, yet they are still able to communicate without any interference or "crosstalk."

The MIT scientists were able solve this problem, and even program their own bacterial communication pathways, by finding pairs of amino acid co-evolution.

Co-evolution occurs when a mutation in one of the two proteins is followed by a secondary mutation in the corresponding amino acid on the other protein, allowing the protein pair to maintain their interaction.

Such manipulation could allow scientists to engineer bacteria that exhibit novel behavior such as glowing when they detect the presence of a pollutant such as toluene, said Laub.

Cheap chemical sensors that you could simply grow in a beaker would be incredibly useful.

Tags: biology, biotechnology

Artificial bladder grown in lab, soon for human patients

Fri, 23 May 2008 15:46:24 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.medgadget.com

Tengion, a company out of East Norriton, PA, has successfully grown full size replacement bladders in large mammal models, helping pave the way for the company to receive FDA clearance to initiate clinical trials on humans in 2009.

Tengion's Neo-Bladder Replacement was able to regenerate an entire urinary bladder within six months after implantation

The regenerated bladder demonstrated near-baseline capacity and cystography by six months after implantation

The regenerated bladder wall structure consisted of three layers: urothelium, muscle, and serosa by approximately two months after implantation

The regenerated bladder wall showed near native pharmacological and electrophysiological functional responses by six months after implantation

Tags: medicine, biotechnology, organ replacement

Startup can detect tiny traces of cancer markers in blood samples

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:33:15 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.kurzweilai.net

The technology uses "microwells" etched into an optical fiber and coated with protein-capturing antibodies. Each well is 2.5 micrometers wide and sits at the tip of an individual thread of the fiber. If the antibodies capture a protein from a blood sample, a chemical reaction will be triggered and fluoresce when light is sent up the fiber.

With current clinical technologies, hospital labs can detect only the most abundant proteins--only a quarter of all those known to be present in the blood.

In tests, the optical-fiber method was able to detect a human cancer biomarker in cow's blood at concentrations 250 times lower than that possible using clinical techniques.

It could potentially detect the trace amounts of characteristic proteins that tiny tumors release into the blood. Trace proteins could also reveal early signs of heart disease, Alzheimer's, and other ailments, and enable noninvasive fetal diagnostics.

Tags: medicine, biotechnology

10 High-Tech Health Breakthroughs Coming Soon to Your Body

Tue, 13 May 2008 15:15:12 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.popularmechanics.com

Health care has come a long way since whole-body bloodletting. But medicine of the future will make even today’s broad-based therapies obsolete. Breakthroughs such as cancer-hunting nanoparticles, virus-busting lasers and featherweight heart monitors have begun to usher in a new era of targeted treatment—one in which drugs go directly where they’re needed, leaving healthy body tissues intact, and the slightest sign of illness is detected in real time.

Magnetic Brain Stimulation

Stem-Cell Scaffold

Clip Source: www.popularmechanics.com

Instant Diagnosis

Pre-emptive Strike Against Cancer

Clip Source: www.popularmechanics.com

Implantable Nanowire

Superbug Zapper

Clip Source: www.popularmechanics.com

Targeted Delivery

Bloodstream Bot

Nowadays, procedures like removing tumors or Roto-Rootering plaque-filled arteries can require long hospital stints. But a mosquito-size robot developed by Oded Salomon, an engineer at Israel’s Technion Institute, may be able to pull off these surgical feats without making large incisions—so recuperation is much faster.

Clip Source: www.popularmechanics.com

EKG Untethered

Nano Cancer Fighters

Tags: medicine, biotechnology

Genetically modified human embryo stirs criticism

Tue, 13 May 2008 14:50:29 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: It is definitely unacceptable to try it when it is unsafe. It is definitely worth trying when it will be safe. It will be safe eventually, our job meanwhile is to create an adequate ethical framework that will allow the harnessing of this future technology to the benefit of all humans and other beings.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

AP) -- News that scientists have for the first time genetically altered a human embryo is drawing fire from some watchdog groups that say it's a step toward creating "designer babies."

The idea of designer babies is that someday, scientists may insert particular genes into embryos to produce babies with desired traits like intelligence or athletic ability. Some people find that notion repugnant, saying it turns children into designed objects, and would create an unequal society where some people are genetically enriched while others would be considered inferior.

The study appears to be the first report of genetically modifying a human embryo. It was presented last fall at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, but didn't draw widespread public attention then.

"We're not even close to having that technology in hand to be able to do it right," she said, and it would be ethically unacceptable to try it when it's unsafe.

Tags: biotechnology, bioethics

Nano RNA Delivery Novel delivery agents could mean a more targeted way to turn off disease genes.

Mon, 05 May 2008 01:45:29 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The MIT researchers, however, developed a way to make more than a thousand different delivery agents in parallel using a simple, one-step chemical process. And that allowed the team to quickly discover effective delivery molecules, including several that surprised the researchers. "We wouldn't have necessarily sat down and said, this is a structure that's going to work," says Daniel Anderson, a research associate at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. "It was only by making and testing over a thousand that we were able to get to that place."

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

An experimental and potentially powerful way to fight disease, called RNA interference (RNAi), could now be closer to reality, as researchers at MIT and Alnylam, a biotech company based in Cambridge, MA, have addressed a key obstacle to effectively delivering the treatment to targeted cells.

The researchers report a method for quickly synthesizing more than a thousand different lipid-like molecules and screening them for their ability to deliver short RNA molecules to cells. They've shown that some of these delivery agents are 10 times as effective at delivering RNA than previous methods were.

RNAi, which was first discovered in 1998, has attracted considerable attention as a potential treatment for a wide range of ailments, including cancer, viral infections, genetic diseases, and even heart attacks.

One big thing holding back RNAi therapy, Langer says, is the lack of an effective delivery mechanism

Tags: medicine, rna inteference, biotechnology

Selling Stem Cells

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:04:26 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

A California biotech company headed by Michael West, a prominent scientist and entrepreneur involved in stem cell research, plans to supply scientists working with stem cells the tool they most need to develop and test novel therapies--a reliable and reproducible source of the cells.

The very qualities that make stem cells so desirable--the ability to self-replicate and develop into many types of cells--can also make them difficult to control. For example, two cell lines produced the same way but from different starting materials don't always behave the same, a property that's essential for both cell-based therapies and scientific studies.

West, CEO of BioTime and its subsidiary, Embryome Sciences, plans to sell lines of cells that he dubs "human embryonic progenitors"--cells that have inched partway along the continuum from embryonic stem cell to differentiated adult cell.

Tags: biology, stem cells biotechnology

British researchers create human-animal hybrid embryo amid political row

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:31:17 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

For the first time in Britain, researchers at Newcastle University said Tuesday they had created human-animal hybrid embryos, amid a political row over a disputed embryo research bill in parliament.

The revelation comes with British MPs engaged in a fierce battle over the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which allows the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos for medical research.

The government says that the scientific advantages of allowing the creation of hybrid embryos for research purposes could help millions of people to recover from illness or disease.

Religious leaders, however, have argued against the bill, with the leader of Catholics in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, using his Easter Sunday sermon to brand the bill a "monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life" which will allow experiments of "Frankenstein proportion".

Tags: biology, biotechnology, bioethics, hybrids