Category Archives: BioEngineering

For millions of sufferers, there is nothing more debilitating than chronic back or joint pain. It can feel like a lifetime of misery.

But researchers led by University of Utah bioengineering assistant professor Robby Bowles have discovered a way to curb chronic pain by modulating genes that reduce tissue- and cell-damaging inflammation.

"This has applications for many inflammatory-driven diseases," Bowles says. "It could be applied for arthritis or to therapeutic cells that are being delivered to inflammatory environments that need to be protected from inflammation."

The team's discovery was published in a new paper this month, "CRISPR-Based Epigenome Editing of Cytokine Receptors for the Promotion of Cell Survival and Tissue Deposition in Inflammatory Environments," in a special issue of Tissue Engineering. University of Utah bioengineering doctoral student, Niloofar Farhang, co-authored the study, which is a collaborative project between the University of Utah, Duke University and Washington University in St. Louis.

In chronic back pain, for example, slipped or herniated discs are a result of damaged tissue when inflammation causes cells to create molecules that break down tissue. Typically, inflammation is nature's way of alerting the immune system to repair tissue or tackle infection. But chronic inflammation can instead lead to tissue degeneration and pain.

Bowles' team is using the CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat) system -- new technology of modifying human genetics -- to stop cell death and keep the cells from producing molecules that damage tissue and result in chronic pain. But it doesn't do this by editing or replacing genes, which is what CRISPR tools are typically used for. Instead, it modulates the way genes turn on and off in order to protect cells from inflammation and thus breaking down tissue.

"So they won't respond to inflammation. It disrupts this chronic inflammation pattern that leads to tissue degeneration and pain," Bowles says. "We're not changing what is in your genetic code. We're altering what is expressed. Normally, cells do this themselves, but we are taking engineering control over these cells to tell them what to turn on and turn off."

Now that researchers know they can do this, doctors will be able to modify the genes via an injection directly to the affected area and delay the degeneration of tissue. In the case of back pain, a patient may get a discectomy to remove part of a herniated disc to relieve the pain, but tissue near the spinal cord may continue to breakdown, leading to future pain. This method could stave off additional surgeries by stopping the tissue damage.

"The hope is that this stops degeneration in its tracks, and the patient could avoid any future surgeries," Bowles says. "But it's patient to patient. Some might still need surgery, but it could delay it."

So far, the team has developed a virus that can deliver the gene therapy and has filed a patent on the system. They hope to proceed to human trials after collecting initial data, but Bowles believes it could be about 10 years before this method is used in patients.

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Materials provided by University of Utah. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Pain in the neck: Engineers use CRISPR technology to prevent ... - Science Daily

SALT LAKE CITY Relief for chronic back and neck pain may be on the horizon, thanks to emerging science technology under development at the University of Utah.

Bioengineering researchers have discovered a technique to control chronic pain by regulating genes that reduce tissue- and cell-damaging inflammation.

This has applications for many inflammatory-driven diseases, said assistant professor Robby Bowles, who led the research. It could be applied for arthritis or to therapeutic cells that are being delivered to inflammatory environments that need to be protected from inflammation.

In laymens terms, the therapy has the potential to treat chronic pain by relieving swelling in affected areas and healing the tissue, he said.

For instance, chronic pain in slipped or herniated discs result from damaged tissue when swelling causes cells to create molecules that break down tissue, he explained. Inflammation is natures way of alerting the immune system to repair tissue or fight infection, but chronic inflammation can lead to tissue degeneration and pain, he said.

Bowles team uses the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat system known as CRISPR a new technology that modifies human genetics to halt cell death and keep cells from producing molecules that damage tissue and result in chronic pain, he said.

This is something that could be injected into your (damaged) discs to stop the signaling that is driving disc degeneration and the painful signaling, Bowles said. It would keep you from getting worse and it would stop the pain.

But Bowles said the therapy does not edit or replace genes, which is what CRISPR tools are typically used for. Instead, the therapy modulates the way genes turn on and off in order to protect cells from inflammation.

So they wont respond to inflammation. It disrupts this chronic inflammation pattern that leads to tissue degeneration and pain, he said. Were not changing what is in your genetic code. Were altering what is expressed. Normally, cells do this themselves, but we are taking engineering control over these cells to tell them what to turn on and turn off.

He said now that researchers know they can do this, doctors would be able to modify the genes using direct injection into the affected area which delays tissue degeneration. In the case of back pain, a patient may get a discectomy to remove part of a herniated disc to relieve the pain, but tissue near the spinal cord may continue to break down, leading to future pain, he said. This method could stave off additional surgeries by stopping the tissue damage, he noted.

The hope is that this stops degeneration in its tracks, and the patient could avoid any future surgeries, Bowles said. But its patient to patient. Some might still need surgery, but it could delay it.

So far, the team has developed a virus that can deliver the gene therapy and has filed for a patent on the system with the hope of moving to human trials after collecting initial data. One caveat Bowles noted was that there are currently no gene therapies approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, so it may take some time to receive necessary acceptance.

So long term there are technological and regulatory hurdles to (overcome), he said. It could be about 10 years before this method is ready for use in patients.

Despite the regulatory issues, Bowles was optimistic about the long-range prospects for treating pain using this new therapy.

The CRISPR systems give us control that would allow us to begin treating these diseases in ways we couldnt treat them before, Bowles said. Over the next 10 to 15 years, were going to see a lot of these CRISPR technologies change these debilitating conditions.

The teams discovery was published in a new paper this month in a special issue of Tissue Engineering. The study was co-authored by University of Utah bioengineering doctoral student Niloofar Farhang and several other researchers in a collaborative project between the U., Duke University and Washington University in St. Louis.

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U. scientists develop cell therapy for chronic disc pain - Deseret News

At just 12 years old, the graduate programs at the University of California, Merced, are already among the best in the nation, according to the U.S. News & World Reports 2018 Best Graduate Schoolsrankings.

UC Merceds School of Engineering made its second appearance in the graduate school rankings, released today (March 14), rising to No. 127 in the nation after debuting at No. 140 in 2015.

The school made an impressive debut in the environmental engineering rankings, placing No. 70 in the nation in that discipline. UC Merced also made a major jump in the psychology rankings, appearing at No. 90 in the nation after debuting at No. 158 in2015.

In addition to the environmental engineering ranking, the campus was also ranked No. 135 in electrical engineering and was recognized for bioengineering and mechanical engineering. Only the top 75 in bioengineering and top 115 in mechanical engineering received numericalrankings.

Dean Mark Matsumoto said the School of Engineerings ranking reflects the perception of a university that is quickly coming into itsown.

This ranking is an indication of a maturing School of Engineering with an improving reputation, Matsumoto said. This milestone is due to the quality of the faculty and students we are recruiting. I am proud of the achievements of ourschool.

U.S. News surveyed graduate programs at more than 200 schools that grant doctoral degrees, and the rankings are based on a variety of criteria. For the engineering designation, the criteria included mean GRE quantitative scores, acceptance rate, student-to-faculty ratio and researchactivity.

Matsumoto said the engineering rankings, particularly environmental engineering, were bolstered by a number of important research initiatives being led or supported by UC Merced, including the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, UC Water, UC Solar and the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). The campus offers graduate degrees through interdisciplinary groups such as Environmental Systems, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Biological Engineering and Small-Scale Technologies, and Mechanical Engineering.

The U.S. News rankings in psychology, as with all doctoral programs in the social sciences and humanities, are based solely on the results of peer assessment surveys sent to academics in each discipline. UC Merced has developed particular strengths in areas such as developmental psychology, health psychology and quantitative psychology.

UC Merceds inclusion in prominent national rankings adds to a growing reputation and global profile for the newest UC campus. Since opening in 2005 as the first research university built in the 21st century, UC Merced has grown from 875 students to more than 7,000, with plans to enroll up to 10,000 students upon completion of the Merced 2020 Project.

UC Merced made its debut on the U.S. News overall Best Colleges list last year, ranking No. 78 among public universities and No. 152 overall. Also last year, UC Merced made its first appearance on the industry-leading Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, earning designation as a doctoral-granting university with higher research activity or R2, the second-highest classification for American research universities. It is the youngest campus on that list, aswell.

The campus also ranked No. 8 in Washington Monthlys Best Bang for the Buck: Western Colleges list and No. 41 in the magazines national rankings, with the fifth-best mark among all schools in the area of social mobility. It also placed in the top 100 for the fourth time in five years on the Sierra Clubs Cool Schools list, which honors the nations most environmentally sustainable colleges anduniversities.

I am very pleased that our graduate programs continue to rise in the rankings of national organizations such as U.S. News & World Report, especially because we are still such a young institution, Vice Provost and Graduate Dean Marjorie Zatz said. This is due in large part to the dedication of our excellent faculty and the shared values of diversity, interdisciplinarity and research excellence that support and inform our graduate training programs. It is an exciting time to be a part of UCMerced.

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Graduate Programs on the Rise, US News Rankings Show - UC Merced University News

Newswise For millions of sufferers, there is nothing more debilitating than chronic back or joint pain. It can feel like a lifetime of misery.

But researchers led by University of Utah bioengineering assistant professor Robby Bowles have discovered a way to curb chronic pain by modulating genes that reduce tissue- and cell-damaging inflammation.

This has applications for many inflammatory-driven diseases, Bowles says. It could be applied for arthritis or to therapeutic cells that are being delivered to inflammatory environments that need to be protected from inflammation.

The teams discovery was published in a new paper this month, CRISPR-Based Epigenome Editing of Cytokine Receptors for the Promotion of Cell Survival and Tissue Deposition in Inflammatory Environments, in a special issue of Tissue Engineering. University of Utah bioengineering doctoral student, Niloofar Farhang, co-authored the study, which is a collaborative project between the University of Utah, Duke University and Washington University in St. Louis.

In chronic back pain, for example, slipped or herniated discs are a result of damaged tissue when inflammation causes cells to create molecules that break down tissue. Typically, inflammation is natures way of alerting the immune system to repair tissue or tackle infection. But chronic inflammation can instead lead to tissue degeneration and pain.

Bowles team is using the CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat) system new technology of modifying human genetics to stop cell death and keep the cells from producing molecules that damage tissue and result in chronic pain. But it doesnt do this by editing or replacing genes, which is what CRISPR tools are typically used for. Instead, it modulates the way genes turn on and off in order to protect cells from inflammation and thus breaking down tissue.

So they wont respond to inflammation. It disrupts this chronic inflammation pattern that leads to tissue degeneration and pain, Bowles says. Were not changing what is in your genetic code. Were altering what is expressed. Normally, cells do this themselves, but we are taking engineering control over these cells to tell them what to turn on and turn off.

Now that researchers know they can do this, doctors will be able to modify the genes via an injection directly to the affected area and delay the degeneration of tissue. In the case of back pain, a patient may get a discectomy to remove part of a herniated disc to relieve the pain, but tissue near the spinal cord may continue to breakdown, leading to future pain. This method could stave off additional surgeries by stopping the tissue damage.

The hope is that this stops degeneration in its tracks, and the patient could avoid any future surgeries, Bowles says. But its patient to patient. Some might still need surgery, but it could delay it.

So far, the team has developed a virus that can deliver the gene therapy and has filed a patent on the system. They hope to proceed to human trials after collecting initial data, but Bowles believes it could be about 10 years before this method is used in patients.

Other researchers on the team include University of Utah orthopaedic surgeon Brandon Lawrence, Duke University biomedical engineering associate professor Charles. A. Gersbach, biomedical engineering professor Farshid Guilak and Distinguished Professor Lori A. Setton of Washington University in St. Louis.

This news release and photos may be downloaded from: http://www.unews.utah.edu

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Pain in the Neck - Newswise - Newswise (press release)

Jonathan Himmelfarb, co-director of the UWs Center for Dialysis Innovation and also director of the UWs Kidney Research Institute. (UW Photo)

Dialysis can be a life-saving treatment forthe millions of people across the globe who face kidney failure. But despite the importance of this treatment, the technology behind it is still essentially the same as when the process was pioneered at the University of Washington in Seattle in the early 60s.

Now, a new UW center is hoping to revolutionize the technology again. The Center for Dialysis Innovation brings together researchers from around the university with the goal of greatly improving dialysis technology, and it just received a $15 million grant from nonprofit dialysis providerNorthwest Kidney Centers to pursue that goal.

Northwest Kidney Centers says the grant will support startup projects within the Center for Dialysis Innovation, with the goal of one day developing dialysis technology that can completely restore kidney health.

Dialysis is currently the only treatment for kidney failure, short of a kidney transplant. Today, over 450,000 people in the U.S. are on dialysis, and the life expectancy for those patients is only 3 to 5 years.

We are excited about the Center for Dialysis Innovation because it brings together creative, entrepreneurial, can-do minds from a wide range of fields including nephrology and bioengineering. This team also wants to involve people living with kidney disease to help direct the centers focus, said Joyce Jackson, CEO of Northwest Kidney Centers, said in a pressrelease.

Their aim is to develop revolutionary dialysis technologies, including a wearable dialysis system that is low-cost, and energy- and water-efficient. This would not only sustain users lives, but give them more vitality and productivity. This work is desperately needed, she said.

The $15 million will be delivered to the center over the next five years. It is the first outside funding the center has receivedand makes up over half of its goal budget of $25 million.

The Center for Dialysis Innovation opened last Novemberand brings together researchers from the UWsKidney Research Institute and the universitys department of biomaterials and bioengineering. It is led by co-directors Jonathan Himmelfarb, director of the UWs Kidney Research Institute, and Buddy Ratner, a professor of bioengineering and chemical engineering.

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UW Center for Dialysis Innovation gets $15M grant to improve ... - GeekWire

More Than Bread and Beer

Humans have found a friend in yeast. The single-celled eukaryotes are used by humans for a wide variety of applications, such as making alcoholic beverages and baking, among others. Scientists are heading toward a breakthrough in bioengineering that could create synthetic organisms that will help make new kinds of drugs and fuels.

An international team of researchers has been able to devise a way to synthesize a large part of yeasts genetic code. Prior to this announcement, the team had been able to completely synthesize one of yeasts 16 chromosomes. Now, the team has published a series of papers in the journal Scienceshowing that they have been able to add another five chromosomes, thus bringing their total to six. They say theyre on track to finish the remaining ten chromosomes to form a completely synthetic genome by the end of this year.

While the scientific community remains leery of synthetic genome creation, many have united in praising this projects work. In an article accompanying the research, Daniel Gibson, vice president of DNA technologies at Synthetic Genomics, stated, This is really going to allow us to understand how to design cells from the bottom up that can be reprogrammed for many applications.

Some of those many applications are what worry bioethicists, biologists, and environmentalists, among others. Todd Kuiken from North Carolina State Universitys Genetic Engineering and Society Center compares the potential accidental orpurposeful release of synthetic organisms to the introduction of invasive species. You can think of it of like introducing an invasive species into a different environment. It will have some type of impact to the system.

The yeast project is operating under conditions emphasizing safety as well as ethics. This is a whole new era where were moving beyond little edits on single genes to being able to write whatever we want throughout the genome, says George Church, a prominent Harvard University geneticist. The goal is to be able to change it as radically as our understanding permits.

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Scientists Are Close to Creating a Fully Synthetic Genome - Futurism