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Month: November 2012

Biotechnology and green “urbaneering” go hand-in-hand

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Mitchell Joachim, an associate professor at NYU and co-president of Terreform ONE , a nonprofit design organization based in Brooklyn that champions green design in urban areas, talks about his “urbaneering” efforts. He touches on the importance of genetic engineering and biotechnology in his vision for green design in urban areas. His innovative approach to ecological design has led to a chair created from genetically engineered bacterium. He says:

“Part of the answer is thinking about biotechnology, synthetic biology or genetics as a potential solution to the increase in population.

Before we started manufacturing, everything we had on planet earth was produced biologically. Ventricles in your heart, your fingers, trees, the world, it all comes from biology, which is now unlocking some of the systems to produce them in vitro, or rather in laboratory environments, where we can grow industrial design.

We are currently producing chairs that are being completely grown in the laboratory. Now there’s a 21st century model! We are not producing chairs by manufacturing [them] in large-scale industries, and we don’t necessarily produce them [through] single craftsman. We can actually grow them using a combination of both worlds, one that recognizes the delicate balance of the earth’s environment.”

View the original article here: Exploring Socio-Ecological Design With Mitchell Joachim

Should we be worried about Obama’s DNA getting hacked? (Video)

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An article in The Atlantic suggests hacking the President’s DNA is actually a viable assassination threat. It sounds like something from a movie, but don’t laugh.

  Hosted by: Jacob Soboroff

GUESTS:

  • Cara Santa Maria (Los Angeles, CA) HuffPost Senior Science Correspondant@carasantamaria
  • David Brin (San Diego, CA) Futurist and Author of “The Transparent Society”@DavidBrin1
  • Jamais Cascio (Palo Alto, CA) Distinguished Fellow, Institute for the Future@cascio
  • George M Church (Boston, MA) Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. @geochurch

View the original article here: Hacking Obama’s DNA

How did “biotechnology” become a dirty word?

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How did the word biotechnology become so dangerous? Mention it in a group and people look at you with suspicion. Mention the word in your social blog and you get a quick reaction that negates or attacks it from almost anybody.

Biotechnology is defined by experts as, “any technique that makes use of organisms or parts thereof to make or modify products, to improve plants or animals, or to develop microorganisms, for specific purposes.”

Given that definition, I ask, who is afraid of biotechnology? Ancient civilization was not. There are many recorded stories that tell us ancient folks were not. They used biotechnology, its principles and applications to modify and improve agricultural products.

View the original article here: Who is afraid of biotechnology?

What will it take to convince people GM foods are safe?

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Genetically modified foods are a hot button issue for a lot of people. Just a few weeks ago, California voters said no to a proposition that would label all GM foods in stores. Proponents of the proposition—Prop 37—point to big mega-companies like Monsanto, which poured millions of dollars into ads encouraging California voters to reject the measure. Prop 37 advocates labeled the proposition as the “Right to Know” initiative and claimed that consumers should know when their food is genetically modified.

The subtext to all this is that some people believe GM crops are evil. And the proposition, like almost all discussions of GM foods, turned political quickly. But what will it take to change people’s minds about GM foods?

View the original article here: What Will Convince People That Genetically Modified Foods Are Okay?

Camel genome holds information about diabetes, high blood pressure

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Sky-high blood glucose levels, a diet loaded with salt and a tendency to pack away fat sounds like a recipe for a health disaster in a human. But in a Bactrian camel, these are adaptations that may help it survive in some of the driest, coldest and highest regions of the world. Researchers in Mongolia and China have begun to unravel the genomic peculiarities behind the physiological tricks that camels use to survive in the harshest of conditions. In a paper published in Nature Communications, the scientists describe the draft genomes of wild and domesticated Bactrian camels.

The work shows that camels can withstand massive blood glucose levels owing in part to changes in genes that are linked to type II diabetes in humans. The Bactrians’ rapidly evolving genes include some that regulate insulin signalling pathways, the authors explain. A closer study of how camels respond to insulin may help to unravel how insulin regulation and diabetes work in humans. “I’m very interested in the glucose story,” says Brian Dalrymple, a computational biologist at the Queensland Bioscience Precinct in Brisbane, Australia.

The researchers also identified sections of the genome that could begin to explain why Bactrian camels are much better than humans at tolerating high levels of salt in their bloodstreams. In humans, the gene CYP2J controls hypertension: suppressing it leads to high blood pressure. However, camels have multiple copies of the gene, which could keep their blood pressure low even when they consume a lot of salt, suggest the authors of the latest work.

View the original article here: Bactrian camel genome holds survival secrets

Telomeres linked to death risk in data from largest U.S. “biobank”

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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA—Researchers who have assembled a trove of genetic and medical data on 100,000 northern Californians unveiled their initial findings here this week at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG). The effort, which may be the largest such “biobank” in the United States, has already yielded an intriguing connection between mortality and telomeres, the protective DNA sequences that cap chromosome ends, and found new links between genetic variants and disease traits. And that’s just the beginning, say the biobank’s curators at Kaiser Permanente (KP), the giant health care organization.

On the telomere front, the KP team has verified that these DNA caps tend to be shorter in older people and in those who smoke and drink alcohol, but didn’t confirm other previously reported links. For example, they didn’t observe that telomeres were longer in people who exercised more. They did find an association between having short telomeres and an individual’s risk of dying—another finding reported earlier in smaller studies. But the KP team hasn’t yet determined if short telomeres somehow cause death directly or reflect other factors that contribute to mortality, which is a controversial question. (Some companies, including one co-founded by UCSF researcher and Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, whose lab measured telomeres for the KP study, are offering telomere tests even though critics say the value of such measurements isn’t yet clear.)

View the original article here: Largest U.S. Genetic Biobank Reveals Early Findings

The genes we eat: a conversation

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Thanks to the genetic revolution, we now know more than ever before about the evolution of our favorite foods, and we have the power to shape their future by introducing genes that increase resistance against disease, drought, and pests.

However, many worry that these advances could also result in risks to our health and the environment—concerns that surfaced again in the fight over Proposition 37, the defeated California initiative that would have required all genetically modified foods to be labeled, and in a controversial French study suggesting that GM corn causes tumors in rats. How should scientists address these fears? What will the explosion in genome sequencing reveal about the history of our favorite crops? How will the foods of the future differ from those of the past? And how will the controversy about GM foods play out over the next decade?

ScienceLive hosted a live web chat on the topic featuring experts in the field.

Guests:

  • Dr. Hans-Jörg Jacobsen, head of Institute for Plant Genetics of Leibniz University Hannover
  • Dr. Jordi Garcia-Mas, researcher at IRTA and Head of the Plant Genetics Department at the Center for Research and Agricultural Genomics in Barcelona, Spain
  • Dr. William Hallman, director of the Food Policy Institute at Rutgers University
[Note: this live chat took place on Thursday, 15 November. See below.]

View the original article (transcript of the chat) here: Live Chat: The Genes We Eat

Genetically Modified: two words worth $45 million

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Despite significant popular support for the labeling of genetically modified foods in recent polls, when it came time to vote on election day, Californians rejected Proposition 37, which would have required businesses to label products containing genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Many attribute the loss to a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign against the proposition funded largely by agriculture and food companies like Monsanto (MON), PepsiCo (PEP), Coca-Cola (KO), Kraft (KRFT), and Kellogg (K). Opponents of Proposition 37 raised at least $45 million to affect voter sentiment, while supporters of the proposed law — mostly consumer advocacy groups — raised only about $8 million.

Advocates in Washington state, Connecticut, and Vermont are pushing to require labeling in their own states. Others are trying to utilize the national awareness arising from California’s campaign to gain signatures on a petition asking the FDA to require labeling of GMO foods nationally.

View the original article here: Genetically Modified: The 2 Words the Food Industry Spent $45 Million to Avoid Using

Animal rights activists challenge patents on genetically engineered chimps

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Animal rights activists in Germany are contesting three patents on genetically engineered chimpanzees granted this year by the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich. One of the challenges was filed today; the other two will follow shortly, says Ruth Tippe, a spokesperson for a German advocacy group called No Patents on Life.

“It is incomprehensible why the patent office would grant patents on these animals,” Tippe told ScienceInsider in a phone conversation minutes after filing papers with EPO to oppose the first of the three patents.

View the original post here: E.U. Patents on Transgenic Chimps Challenged

Mapped pig genome may aid medical research, food production

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Scientists have mapped the genome of the domestic pig in a project that could enhance the animal’s use for meat production and the testing of drugs for human disease.

A study published in science journal Nature identified genes that could be linked with illnesses suffered by farmed pigs, providing a reference tool for selective breeding to increase their resistance to disease.

View the original article here: Scientists go the whole hog in genome mapping

Biosecurity concerns for new animal disease research lab

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For over 50 years the United States has carried out research on dangerous animal diseases at Plum Island, just off the coast of New York. However after 9/11 the Department of Homeland Security raised concerns about the suitability of the location and its vulnerability to terrorist attack.

After carrying out an exhaustive search for an alternative, the Department selected Manhattan, Kansas as its preferred location. The National Bio and Agro defence facility (NBAF) would be the first US lab able to research diseases like foot and mouth in large animals. But reviews have raised worries about virus escapes in the middle of cattle country.

Read the original article here: US high security bio lab faces uncertain future

Company wants to use GM insects to protect crops

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Whether you like them or not, genetically modified ingredients are hard to avoid in the food supply–they’re found in most processed foods in the U.S. and elsewhere. These crops–generally things like cotton, soy, and corn–are tweaked in labs so that they’re immune to pest-killing products made by companies like Monsanto. The pesticides used on the crops can be harmful to humans, and scientists have questioned the safety of modifying crops in the first place. A British company called Oxitec has a plan to ditch pesticides and GMO crops, instead using genetic modification to eliminate the bugs that feed on certain crops like broccoli, cabbage, and fruit. What could possibly go wrong?

View the original article here: Are Genetically Modified Insects The Next Step For The GMO Industry?

Alzheimer’s tied to mutation harming immune response

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In a surprising coincidence, two groups of researchers working from entirely different starting points have converged on a mutated gene involved in another aspect of Alzheimer’s disease: the immune system’s role in protecting against the disease. The mutation is suspected of interfering with the brain’s ability to prevent the buildup of plaque.

The discovery, researchers say, provides clues to how and why the disease progresses. The gene, known as TREM2, is only the second found to increase Alzheimer’s risk substantially in older people.

View the original article here: Alzheimer’s Tied to Mutation Harming Immune Response

Book: How synthetic biology will reinvent nature and ourselves

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In the future, genetically modified organisms could be making our medicines, our fuel, our housewares, our houses — and they could even help us remake ourselves. All that may sound like science-fiction, but the future is already arriving, in the form of the bioplastic bottle you may be holding in your hand. Harvard geneticist George Church lays it all out in a new book, “Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves,” written with Ed Regis.

View the original article here: How synthetic biology will change us

Hacking the President’s DNA

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The U.S. government is surreptitiously collecting the DNA of world leaders, and is reportedly protecting that of Barack Obama. Decoded, these genetic blueprints could provide compromising information. In the not-too-distant future, they may provide something more as well—the basis for the creation of personalized bioweapons that could take down a president and leave no trace.

View the original article here: Hacking the President’s DNA

Debunking the “humans are getting dumber” study

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A new study published in Trends in Geneticsis suggesting that humans are slowly but surely losing their intellectual and emotional capacities. According to Stanford University’s Gerald Crabtree, humanity peaked in intelligence about 2,000 years ago, and we’ve been heading downhill since then, owing to genetic mutations that aren’t being selected against. It’s possible that Crabtree is right — but his argument may be a moot point.

View the original article here: Are humans getting dumber?

Brain gene separates humans from apes

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An international team of researchers have discovered a new gene that helps explain how humans evolved from apes. Scientists say the gene – called miR-941 – appears to have played a crucial role in human brain development and may shed light on how we learned to use tools and language. Researchers say it is the first time that a new gene – carried only by humans and not by apes – has been shown to have a specific function within the human body.

View the original article here: New brain gene born, study shows

UCSF Genetics Symposium: personalized medicine is the theme

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Personalized medicine advances arising from genetic discoveries were the primary focus of wide-ranging presentations at the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics  2012 Symposium on Nov. 5.

Speakers described clinical research that has resulted in the identification of gene mutations that often drive deadly breast cancers in black populations; explained how rare mutations responsible for devastating developmental defects in infants can now be discovered in studies of just a handful of individuals from affected families; offered a preview of results expected to emerge from studies of genes and environment in hundreds of thousands of patients through a Kaiser Permanente-UCSF project; and described technical advances that continue to increase scientists’ ability to identify links between DNA and disease.

What is a posthuman being?

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What is a posthuman being? For years, I have been hearing that we are gradually moving towards a new state. Transhumanism is, by definition, a step between our current human form and what we will become. I see a lot of ideas on how we will merge with our technology, how things will be radically different after the Singularity, how we will be immortal and how human and machine will become one new being in a glorious new world. But one thing I hear very little about is the end product.

View the original article here: Posthuman: The Endgame?