Lifeboat Foundation

A naturally occurring sugar called 2-deoxy-D-ribose (2dDR) may boost hair growth.

Nanotransfection is very useful and could be used as a way to heal oneself on a smartphone in one touch with cell reprogramming and much more like gene transfer.

Tissue nanotransfection (TNT), a cutting-edge technique of in vivo gene therapy, has gained substantial attention in various applications ranging from in vivo tissue reprogramming in regenerative medicine, and wound healing to cancer treatment. This technique harnesses the advancements in the semiconductor processes, facilitating the integration of conventional transdermal gene delivery methods—nanoelectroporation and microneedle technologies. TNT silicon chips have demonstrated considerable promise in reprogramming fibroblast cells of skin in vivo into vascular or neural cells in preclinical studies to assist in the recovery of injured limbs and damaged brain tissue. More recently, the application of TNT chips has been extended to the area of exosomes, which are vital for intracellular communication to track their functionality during the wound healing process.

The field of organoid intelligence is recognized as groundbreaking. In this field, scientists utilize human brain cells to enhance computer functionality. They cultivate tissues in laboratories that mimic real organs, particularly the brain. These brain organoids can perform brain-like functions and are being developed by Dr. Thomas Hartung and his team at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

For nearly two decades, scientists have used organoids to conduct experiments without harming humans or animals. Hartung, who has been cultivating brain organoids from human skin samples since 2012, aims to integrate these organoids into computing. This approach promises more energy-efficient computing than current supercomputers and could revolutionize drug testing, improve our understanding of the human brain, and push the boundaries of computing technology.

The conducted research highlights the potential of biocomputing to surpass the limitations of traditional computing and AI. Despite AI’s advancements, it still falls short of replicating the human brain’s capabilities, such as energy efficiency, learning, and complex decision-making. The human brain’s capacity for information storage and energy efficiency remains unparalleled by modern computers. Hartung’s work with brain organoids, inspired by Nobel Prize-winning stem cell research, aims to replicate cognitive functions in the lab. This research could open new avenues for understanding the human brain by allowing ethical experimentation. The team envisions scaling up the size of brain organoids and developing communication tools for input and output, enabling more complex tasks.

Human brain organoids represent a remarkable platform for modeling neurological disorders and a promising brain repair approach. However, the effects of physical stimulation on their development and integration remain unclear. Here, we report that low-intensity ultrasound significantly increases neural progenitor cell proliferation and neuronal maturation in cortical organoids. Histological assays and single-cell gene expression analyses reveal that low-intensity ultrasound improves the neural development in cortical organoids. Following organoid grafts transplantation into the injured somatosensory cortices of adult mice, longitudinal electrophysiological recordings and histological assays reveal that ultrasound-treated organoid grafts undergo advanced maturation. They also exhibit enhanced pain-related gamma-band activity and more disseminated projections into the host brain than the untreated groups. Finally, low-intensity ultrasound ameliorates neuropathological deficits in a microcephaly brain organoid model. Hence, low-intensity ultrasound stimulation advances the development and integration of brain organoids, providing a strategy for treating neurodevelopmental disorders and repairing cortical damage.

One of the most debated ethical concerns regarding brain organoids is the possibility that they will become conscious (de Jongh et al. 2022). Currently, many researchers believe that human brain organoids will not become conscious in the near future (International Society for Stem Cell Research 2021). However, several consciousness theories suggest that even existing human brain organoids could be conscious (Niikawa et al. 2022). Further, the feasibility depends on the definition of “consciousness.” For the sake of argument, we assume that human brain organoids can be conscious in principle and examine the legal implications of three types of “consciousness” in the order in which they could be easiest to realize. The first is a non–valenced experience—a mere sensory experience without positive or negative evaluations. The second is a valenced experience or sentience— an experience with evaluations such as pain and pleasure. The third is a more developed cognitive capacity. We assume that if any consciousness makes an entity a subject of (more complex) welfare, it may need to be legally (further) protected.

As a primitive form of consciousness, a non–valenced experience will, if possible, be realized earlier by human brain organoids than other forms of consciousness. However, the legal implications remain unclear. Suppose welfare consists solely of a good or bad experience. In that case, human brain organoids with a non–valenced experience have nothing to protect because they cannot have good or bad experiences. However, some argue that non–valenced experiences hold moral significance even without contributing to welfare. In addition, welfare may not be limited to experience as it has recently been adopted in animal ethics (Beauchamp and DeGrazia 2020). Adopting this perspective, even if human brain organoids possess only non–valenced experiences—or lack consciousness altogether—their basic sensory or motor capacities (Kataoka and Sawai 2023) or the possession of living or non-living bodies to utilize these capacities (Shepherd 2023), may warrant protection.

We developed click editors, comprising HUH endonucleases, DNA-dependent DNA polymerases and CRISPR–Cas9 nickases, which together enable programmable precision genome engineering from simple DNA templates.

Genomes can be modelled with language approaches by treating nucleotide bases A, C, G and T like text, but there is no natural concept of what the words would be and whether there is even a ‘language’ to be learned this way. Sanabria et al. have developed a language model called GROVER that learns with a ‘vocabulary’ of genome sequences with byte-pair encoding, a method from text compression, and shows good performance on genome biological tasks.

What is the new LB.1 variant and is it causing a summer COVID-19 wave? Experts discuss symptoms, vaccines, isolation guidelines, and more.

A new antibiotic that works by disrupting two different cellular targets would make it 100 million times more difficult for bacteria to evolve resistance, according to new research from the University of Illinois Chicago.