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Archive for the ‘bioengineering’ category: Page 2

Mar 9, 2024

Novel Thio-lipids Developed Capable of Reaching Eyes and Lungs in Animals

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics

As a therapy for vision impairment resulting from inherited retinal degeneration, the mRNA would instruct cells in the retina, which are impaired because of a genetic mutation, to manufacture the proteins needed for sight. Inherited retinal degeneration, commonly abbreviated to IRD, encompasses a group of disorders of varying severity and prevalence that affect one out of every few thousand people worldwide.

An example of a genetic pulmonary condition is cystic fibrosis, a progressive disorder that results in persistent lung infection and affects 30,000 people in the U.S., with about 1,000 new cases identified every year. One faulty gene—the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator, or CFTR—causes the disease, which is characterized by lung dehydration and mucus buildup that blocks the airway.

The thiophene-based LNP study, which involved mice and non-human primates, stems from a $3.2 million grant from the National Eye Institute. The grant’s purpose is addressing limitations associated with the current primary means of delivery for gene editing: adeno-associated virus, or AAV.

Mar 9, 2024

An evolutionary mystery 125 million years in the making

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, evolution, genetics

Plant genomics has come a long way since Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) helped sequence the first plant genome. But engineering the perfect crop is still, in many ways, a game of chance. Making the same DNA mutation in two different plants doesn’t always give us the crop traits we want. The question is why not? CSHL plant biologists just dug up a reason.

CSHL Professor and HHMI Investigator Zachary Lippman and his team discovered that tomato and Arabidopsis thaliana plants can use very different regulatory systems to control the same exact gene. Incredibly, they linked this behavior to extreme genetic makeovers that occurred over 125 million years of evolution.

The scientists used genome editing to create over 70 mutant strains of tomato and Arabidopsis thaliana plants. Each mutation deleted a piece of regulatory DNA around a gene known as CLV3. They then analyzed the effect each mutation had on and development. When the DNA keeping CLV3 in check was mutated too much, fruit growth exploded. They published their findings in PLoS Genetics.

Mar 9, 2024

Lipid Nanoparticles Engineered to Target Lung Cells Reduce Tumor Size in Mice

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, genetics, nanotechnology

Using lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), engineers have successfully delivered genetic material to the lung that suppresses lung tumors in mice.

Mar 8, 2024

The Unexpected Key to Safe Gene Therapy: Bird Junk DNA

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

Retrotransposons can insert new genes into a “safe harbor” in the genome, complementing CRISPR gene editing.

The recent greenlighting of a CRISPR-Cas9 treatment for sickle cell disease underscores the efficacy of gene editing technologies in deactivating genes to heal inherited illnesses. However, the capability to integrate entire genes into the human genome as replacements for faulty or harmful ones remains unachievable.

A new technique that employs a retrotransposon from birds to insert genes into the genome holds more promise for gene therapy, since it inserts genes into a “safe harbor” in the human genome where the insertion won’t disrupt essential genes or lead to cancer.

Mar 2, 2024

From a year down to two weeks: Chinese scientists create efficient plant gene editing tool that leapfrogs over ‘tedious’ steps

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

“Even primary school students and old farmers can master gene editing,” says [Southern University of Science and Technology, or SUSTech] scientist Zhu Jian-Kang, who has helped develop a new approach that could greatly simplify the difficult and time-consuming process of editing genes in plants.

While conventional methods of heritable gene editing in plants often take months, and in some cases up to a year, this innovative approach could reduce the process to about two weeks, according to [Cao Xuesong, a scientist at SUSTech and a member of Zhu’s team], who is also the first author of the study.

Feb 26, 2024

The 10 Stages of Artificial Intelligence

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, bioengineering, biological, genetics, nanotechnology, quantum physics, Ray Kurzweil, robotics/AI, singularity, transhumanism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFx_UNW9I1U&si=QxOgeE59dOkGDFck

This definitely is a Lifeboat post embodying what Lifeboat is about, and it’s only about AI. They did a really good job explaining the 10 stages.


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Feb 26, 2024

Questions about historic approval of a CRISPR-based medicine

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

In November last year, UK approved a therapy that uses the CRISPR gene editing tool to treat sickle cell disease and β-thalassaemia.

Feb 23, 2024

Chemotherapy method uses patient’s own cells as trojan horse to direct cancer-killing drugs to tumors

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical

Lung cancer is not the most common form of cancer, but it is by far among the deadliest. Despite treatments such as surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy, only about a quarter of all people with the disease will live more than five years after diagnosis, and lung cancer kills more than 1.8 million people worldwide each year, according to the World Health Organization.

To improve the odds for patients with lung cancer, researchers from The University of Texas at Arlington and UT Southwestern Medical Center have pioneered a novel approach to deliver cancer-killing drugs directly into cancer cells.

“Our method uses the patient’s own cellular material as a to transport a targeted drug payload directly to the cells,” said Kytai T. Nguyen, lead author of a new study on the technique in the journal Bioactive Materials and the Alfred R. and Janet H. Potvin Distinguished Professor in Bioengineering at UTA.

Feb 23, 2024

What is in utero gene editing?

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics

Recently approved gene therapies offer patients one-time, potentially curative treatments for genetic diseases such as sickle cell anemia and beta thalassemia. But “one-time” miracle solutions can often be multi-month affairs, require millions of dollars, and cause painful side effects. What if that doesn’t have to be the case?

In utero gene editing, or prenatal somatic cell genome editing, envisions treating a fetus diagnosed with a genetic disease before birth, thereby preventing that entire protocol and the onset of symptoms in the first place. It would also challenge the need for the ethically fraught enterprise of embryo editing, as the treatment would only make edits in the DNA of the individual fetus — edits which would not be passed on in a heritable way.

Watch this video to learn more about in utero gene editing, how it works, and why scientists believe it might be an advantageous approach to treating certain genetic diseases.

Feb 23, 2024

Korea University study explores a novel and precise mitochondrial gene editing method

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics

Gene editing technology could revolutionize the treatment of genetic diseases, including those that affect the mitochondria—cell structures that generate the energy required for the proper functioning of living cells in all individuals. Abnormalities in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) could lead to mitochondrial genetic diseases.

Targeted base editing of mammalian mtDNA is a powerful technology for modeling mitochondrial genetic diseases and developing potential therapies. Programmable deaminases, which consist of a custom DNA-binding protein and a nucleobase deaminase, enable precise mtDNA editing.

There are two types of programmable deaminases for genome editing: cytosine base editors and adenine base editors, such as DddA-derived cytosine base editors (DdCBEs) and transcription activator-like effector (TALE)-linked deaminases (TALEDs). These editors bind to specific DNA sites in the mitochondrial genome and convert bases, resulting in targeted cytosine-to-thymine (C-to-T) or adenine-to-guanine (A-to-G) conversions during DNA replication or repair. However, the current gene editing approaches have many limitations, including thousands of off-target A-to-G edits while using TALEDs.

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