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Even as companies rush to develop and test vaccines against the new coronavirus, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health are betting that scientists can do even better than whats now in the pipeline.

If, as seems quite possible, the Covid-19 virus becomes a permanent part of the worlds microbial menagerie rather than being eradicated like the earlier SARS coronavirus, next-gen approaches will be needed to address shortcomings of even the most cutting-edge vaccines: They take years to develop and manufacture, they become obsolete if the virus evolves, and the immune response they produce is often weak.

With Gates and NIH funding, the emerging field of synthetic biology is answering the SOS over Covid-19, aiming to engineer vaccines that overcome these obstacles. Its all of us against the bug, said Neil King of the University of Washington, who has been part of the hunt for a coronavirus vaccine since 2017.

Although the Gates Foundation is spreading its bets among several cutting-edge vaccine platforms, including those using genetic material, one based on synthetic biology has real promise. We may need an approach that can get you millions and even billions of doses, said immunologist and physician Lynda Stuart, who directs the foundations vaccine research. Gatesannouncedlast month that it will funnel $60 million to Covid-19 research, including vaccines.

A vaccine created through the tinkering of synbio looks not only scalable to a level of billions but also like it will work without the need for refrigeration. All that, Stuart said, will be super important to protect people from coronavirus who are otherwise left behind, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa.

King and his synbio colleagues knew there would be another coronavirus epidemic, like the SARS and MERS outbreaks before this one, he said, and there will be another one after this, perhaps from yet another member of this virus family. We need a universal coronavirus vaccine.

Achieving that is so high on scientists to-do list that when President Trump visited NIH last week, his tour included the lab thats collaborating with UWs, and researchers showed him a mock-up of what synthetic biology can do: Design and build nanoparticles out of proteins and attach viral molecules in a repetitive array so that, when the whole thing is packed into a vaccine, it can make people resistant to the new coronavirus. (The human immune system has evolved to interpret repetitive arrangements of molecules as a sign of danger: bacterial cell walls have repetitive chemical groups on them.)

With a few tweaks, the nanoparticle can be studded with molecules from additional coronaviruses to, scientists hope, protect against all of themthe original SARS virus, MERS, and, crucially, a mutated form of the Covid-19-causing virus, called SARS-CoV-2.

Even compared to the DNA and RNA vaccines against Covid-19 that Moderna Therapeutics, CureVac, and Inovio Pharmaceuticals are speeding toward human testing, the synbio approach has advantages. Thesecompanies experimental vaccines contain synthetic (that is, lab-made) strands of RNA or DNA that code for protein molecules on the viruss surface. Once the vaccine delivers the genetic material into cells, the cells follow the genetic instructions to churn out the viral protein. The idea is that the body would see that as foreign, generate antibodies to it, and if all goes well thereby acquire immunity to the virus. But safety tests of mRNA vaccines have turned upadverse events, and its not clear how potent theyll be. Moderna plans to begin safety testing in healthy volunteers next month.

With all due respect to nature, synthetic biologists believe they can do better. Using computers, they are designing new, self-assembling protein nanoparticles studded with viral proteins, called antigens: these porcupine-like particles would be the guts of a vaccine. If tests in lab animals of the first such nanoparticle vaccine are any indication, it should be more potent than either old-fashioned viral vaccines like those for influenza or the viral antigens on their own (without the nanoparticle).

The first step toward the molecule that was presented to Trump is to play Legos with proteins, as King put it.

That starts with the nanoparticlethe body of the porcupine. Its shape and composition must be such that the proteins building blocks not only spontaneously self-assemble and stick together but also turn into something that can display the viral antigens in a way the immune system will strongly respond to. Using a computational protein-design algorithm, scientists might determine that, for instance, a nanoparticle 25 nanometers across and made of 60 identical pieces is ideal for presenting the antigens sotheir most immunity-inducing side faces outward, where the immune system can most easily see it.

We might try 1 million variants on the computer before finding the optimal shape and protein composition, meaning which protein sequence will spontaneously form the ideal nanoparticle, King said.

The next step is to take lab-made DNA that codes for the designed protein, stick it into E. coli bacteria, and wait for the bugs to follow the genetic instructions, manufacturing the desired protein like a tiny, living assembly line. Extracted from the bacteria, purified, and mixed together in a test tube, the proteins spontaneously self-assemble into the bespoke nanoparticle.

When it works, we get exactly the protein we designed by computer, with every atom where we want it, King said.

The next step is to stick the quills onto the porcupine. For the virus that causes Covid-19, the quills are the spike protein, a molecule that fits into receptors on cells and ushers the virus inside. Scientists led by UWs David Bakerpredictedthe structure of this antigen from the viruss genome, and scientists at the University of Texas, Austin, and NIHconfirmedit with a Nobel-winning form of electron microscopy.

King and his colleagues then scrutinize the spike protein to see which part of it might work best in a vaccine and how to position multiple copies of it. It turns out that if you stick 20 of them onto your nanoparticle in an ordered, repetitive array, you can get a stronger immune response than with the [spike] protein alone, Baker saidanother reason why the nanoparticle approach might prove more effective than RNA and DNA vaccines. NIH and the UW groups have begun testing the antigen-studded nanoparticles in mice to see what kind of immune response they trigger.

Making nanoparticles the core of a vaccine does a number of useful things, Stuart said. It reduces or eliminates the need for anadjuvant, an ingredient that boosts the immune response; the nanoparticle is enough on its own. Sticking antigens on it makes the whole complex so tolerant of heat (you could almost boil it, Stuart said) that refrigeration isnt necessary, a crucial feature for vaccines to be deployed in resource-poor countries. And because the nanoparticle can be studded with antigens from several viruses, she said, you could get a pan-coronavirus vaccine.

Theyre cautiously optimistic because of a recent success. An experimental vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the main cause of pneumonia in children, is also made of a computer-designed nanoparticle that self-assembles from protein building blocks and is studded with an engineered version of RSVs key antigen. When tested in mice and monkeys, it produced 10 times more antibodies than an experimental RSV vaccine based on traditional technology, Kings teamreportedlast year in Cell. The Seattle biotech start-upIcosavaxis moving the vaccine toward clinical trials. (King chairs its scientific advisory board.)

It was the first time the structure and other characteristics of an antigen had been designed at the atomic level and incorporated into a vaccine, scientists at vaccine giant GSKwrote, hailing the work as a quantum leap in vaccine design.

The Gates Foundation, in addition to supporting the research, is working to pair the scientists with manufacturers, Stuart said: We want to identify the people who can manufacture these at scale.

As Covid-19 spreads, scale is looking larger than anyone imagined.

Republished with permission from STAT. This article originally appeared on March 9 2020

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Synthetic Biologists Think They Can Develop a Better Coronavirus Vaccine Than Nature Could - Scientific American

The gene-editing revolution is already here, and these stocks will help you capitalize on the movement.

Gene-editing therapies allow you to remove cells from the body, modify them and reintroduce them. With this technique, theres hope for a cure for cancer, blood disorders, blindness, AIDS, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, Huntingtons disease and a host of other diseases.

For example, gene-editing has already been used to eliminate HIV in mice.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, HIV-1 could be eliminated in mice using a combination of two antiviral technologies long-acting viral reservoir-targeted antiretroviral therapy and CRISPR/Cas-9 gene editing.

Doctors are even attempting to cure blindness after hacking a patients genes.

A patient recently had the procedure done at the Casey Eye Institute at Oregon Health & Science University for an inherited form of blindness.

We literally have the potential to take people who are essentially blind and make them see, said Charles Albright, chief scientific officer at Editas Medicine. We think it could open up a whole new set of medicines to go in and change your DNA.

If the procedure is found to be a success, doctors plan on testing it on more children and adults. Success for one company could also create a sizable opportunity in the sector for related stocks as well.

Source: Catalin Rusnac/ShutterStock.com

CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CRSP) is one of the top names in the gene-editing market with nine drug candidates.

One candidate is CTX001, a drug that targets sickle cell and transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia (TBT). With both, patients have poorly formed red blood cells that just cant delivery oxygen throughout the body well. In Nov. 2019, CTX001 successfully helped to eliminate symptoms in a patient with TBT, and another with sickle cell.

Overall, while still very early, the results provide the first suggestion of curative potential for this cutting-edge technology in such genetic diseases, and with potential for further safety refinement of Crispr/Cas9 administration, could suggest broad long-term potential of the many early-stage gene editing therapeutic tools VRTX has accumulated, RBC Capital Markets Brian Abrahams wrote.

Other candidates (CTX110, CTX120, CTX130) are also candidates for a cancer treatment known as chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy.

Source: vxhal/ShutterStock.com

Editas Medicine (NASDAQ:EDIT) along with Allergan (NYSE:AGN) just treated a blind patient with EDIT-101 as part of a Brilliance phase clinical trial for the treatment of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA). With this study, its the first time a patients genes are being modified in the body itself, which is known as in vivo treatment.

Editas is also working on a sickle-cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia (TDT) drug, EDIT-301. EDiT-102 is being developed for Usher Syndrome 2a, a genetic condition characterized by hearing loss and vision loss that begins in adolescence or adulthood.

Source: CI Photos/ShutterStock.com

Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NTLA) is also working on a sickle-cell disease drug. Its also working on NTLA-5001, a drug that could help treat acute myeloid leukemia (AML). This is a rare type of cancer found in the bone marrow, which leads to the production of abnormal red and white blood cells.

In addition, the company is working on NTLA-2001 for transthyretin amyloidosis, a rare condition characterized by buildups of protein deposits called amyloids throughout the body, which can lead to the loss of sensation in extremities, and in internal organs.

Better, according to the company, In 2019, we advanced our full-spectrum strategy, guiding both ourin vivoandex vivo lead programs toward the clinic. We also continued to build on our genome editing and delivery capabilities to enable a rapid succession of candidates, said Intellia President and Chief Executive Officer, John Leonard, M.D., adding:

We are off to a productive start in 2020. We announced the nomination of NTLA-5001, a WT1-directed TCR-T cell therapy for the treatment of AML, and plan to select our third development candidate in the first half of this year, which will be for the treatment of HAE. In addition, in the second half of the year, we expect to begin dosing ATTR patients with NTLA-2001, a potential single-course treatment for ATTR patients. This is anticipated to be the first-ever systemically delivered CRISPR/Cas9-based therapy to enter the clinic, representing an important milestone in our mission to deliver potentially curative therapies from our proprietary modular platform.

Ian Cooper, an InvestorPlace.com contributor, has been analyzing stocks and options for web-based advisories since 1999. As of this writing, Ian Cooper did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

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The Top 3 Gene-Editing Stocks to Own in 2020 - Investorplace.com

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Dubai: Its a race against time. The battle to subdue the new coronavirus. Scientists are frantic, governments are desperate.

The virus has gone past the initial state of control: containment.

Its a stealthy character, people do not show symptoms when they are initially infected, so the range of spread is truly difficult to control because people become silent carriers.

Authorities cannot logically just pounce on people based on nationalities and areas of travel. The world cannot function in this moribund state.

It is bad for our sense of well-being and definitely not a happy state for economies.

So, is it all doom?

No, because Nature and science are going to help humanity battle the crowned fiend into submission.

Weather and the virus

There was a ray of hope as the weather turned that the new coronavirus will disappear as it gets warmer. Certain viruses do not survive higher temperatures and increased humidity. But, alas no.

As per a Vox.com report that quoted Maimuna Majumder, a Harvard epidemiologist: Just because some respiratory diseases, like flu, demonstrate seasonality doesnt mean that Covid-19 will.

She published a paper that found changes in the weather in China did not seem to halt the outbreak, but she and her colleagues are still working on the potential effect of temperature on transmissibility.

So, the data is still provisional. Obviously, the virus is not going anywhere soon, it might subside as summer peaks, but will be back next winter.

The pop-culture phrase, Winter is coming, is going to have a whole new connotation, come autumn.

Whats the prognosis, then?

Well, some scientists and researchers say that if it cannot be stopped by physical containment, then the only real answer humanity has is immunity. Now, this is where it gets a bit tricky.

It is a new, young virus. Initially it was said to have come from snakes, but that has been dismissed by scientists. The mapping of this virus genome by Chinese scientists has shown to have resemblance to two other viruses found in bats, which is now being considered a probable source.

But, viruses are known for the ability to mutate, so research is saying that the new coronavirus is a combination of a bat virus and virus that live within the scales of pangolins, actively used in Chinese medicine that came about in early December.

What does this mean? That one virus jumped species, mutated to create Covid-19.

So, essentially, we, as a people, have no immunity to it. We have not encountered it previously.

So, as per epidemiologists quoted by vox.com, the only way for this to get under control is for 50 per cent of people to become immune to it. If enough people get Covid-19, and develop an immune response, essentially it creates its own herd immunity. But thats after causing millions of worldwide infections.

In essence, it becomes a full-fledged pandemic that then converts into an endemic, which means it will continue to infect the human population like the common cold.

But, by then we would have a vaccines and targeted anti-viral drugs.

Another option: Evolution?

Well, in theory, apparently evolution could make Covid-19 far less lethal.

Most organisms on this planet create survival strategies, in which case, the fatal strains of the virus will die off when its host passes away.

Definitely, not ideal, because that is not going to happen overnight.

But, as per another Harvard epidemiologist, it is probable that nearly 60 per cent of the worlds population will be exposed and could contract the virus before the end of 2020. Ermmm not exactly ideal. (China really needs to ban these live markets I know that's a whole different tangent, but we would not be in this place in the first place, if endangered species were not part of the meal plan.)

So, what can truly stop the coronavirus?

Only two things: vaccine and targeted anti-viral drugs. And work is being done on them at a frenetic pace. And this where it gets cool on a geeky, nerdy level.

Science is coming to the rescue, especially the field of genetics and bio-engineering.

- What will stop the coronavirus?

Earlier, to put it quite simplistically, vaccine manufacture involved isolating the actual virus, making them toothless and then injecting into test cases.

So that the body can be trained to fight it off with the creation of antibodies, without getting infected. But, there was a downside to that, it had the probability of actually badly infecting the test cases, resulting in death sometimes.

This is the fundamental reason human trials for any new drug or vaccine takes a while.

This time around, weve got a bit smarter. Labs are synthesizing what is called mRNA, or messenger RNA.

It works quite like the Greek mythological deity Hermes, who was the messenger between Mt Olympus or where the divine deities apparently resided, and humanity. In this case, mRNA, which resembles parts of the DNA that houses all the instructions for our body, to the outside cytoplasm.

Cytoplasm is the processor or implementer of the instructions sent by the DNA via the mRNA.

And what are scientists doing, they are taking this and synthesizing mRNA in the lab, which will then be released into muscles, with instructions to help create antibodies against Covid-19.

We are fighting the virus at a highly drilled down level.

But, there is still a timeline linked to that. We cannot realistically expect anything with efficacy before a year.

Who is doing what?

1) Inovio Pharmaceuticals

As per global reports, the biotech company Inovio Pharmaceuticals and its partner Beijing Advaccine Biotechnology are working on a DNA vaccine called INO-4800. It hasnt yet been tested on humans. The vaccine will deliver lab-created genes into a persons cells, which then pushes the persons immunological response to Covid-19.

2) NIAID-Moderna

The international Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is working with the biotech company Moderna to deliver mRNA-1273. This vaccine will push the recipients cells to start creating the viral protein, to which the immune system will go into battle mode.

- What is the world doing to find a cure to coronavirus?

The great news, it is further down the development stage and should enter human trials in a few weeks time. If approved, it will be the first vaccine of its kind, along with being faster, safer (no live viruses) and cheaper to manufacture.

3) CureVac

The biotech CureVac is also working on an mRNA vaccine. And they are quite confident about success because they have tried a rabies mRNA vaccine in humans, and were successful in immunizing with low dosages.

4) Baylor College of Medicine

A few years ago, the vaccine research center at Baylor College of Medicine developed a vaccine for another coronavirus SARS. But, it did not go into human testing, as global interest waned. As per scientists at the college, both SARS and Covid-19 are about 80 per cent similar in their amino acid and genetic code, and they bind to the same receptor, as reported by several news sites. They just needfunding to start human trials.

Note: As per the World Health Organisation, the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) was identified in 2003. SARS-CoV is thought to be an animal virus from an as-yet-uncertain animal reservoir, perhaps bats, that spread to other animals (civet cats) and first infected humans in the Guangdong province of southern China in 2002.

Calling for urgent funding

Apparently the money needed for the research, testing and trials are about $2 billion (Dh7.4 billion). Microsoft founder Bill Gates charity foundation is providing around $100 million (Dh368 million) in Covid-19 research funding.

But, there is still a big need for additional funding, and this is a cause for concern for many others using different technologies, such as premade antibodies (antibodies, also known as an immunoglobulins, are proteins produced by cells used by the immune system to eliminate bad bacteria and viruses) and attempting to deliver a vaccine as fast as possible.

Time for the world to step up and do their bit, especially those who can afford to.

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What is the world doing to find a cure for coronavirus? - Gulf News

Scientists at the Casey Eye Institute, in Portland, Ore., have have injected a harmless virus containing CRISPR gene-editing instructions inside the retinal cells of a patient with a rare form of genetic blindness. KTSDesign/Science Photo Library/Getty Images hide caption

Scientists at the Casey Eye Institute, in Portland, Ore., have have injected a harmless virus containing CRISPR gene-editing instructions inside the retinal cells of a patient with a rare form of genetic blindness.

For the first time, scientists have used the gene-editing technique CRISPR to try to edit a gene while the DNA is still inside a person's body.

The groundbreaking procedure involved injecting the microscopic gene-editing tool into the eye of a patient blinded by a rare genetic disorder, in hopes of enabling the volunteer to see. They hope to know within weeks whether the approach is working and, if so, to know within two or three months how much vision will be restored.

"We're really excited about this," says Dr. Eric Pierce, a professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Inherited Retinal Disorders Service at Massachusetts Eye and Ear. Pierce is leading a study that the procedure launched.

"We're helping open, potentially, an era of gene-editing for therapeutic use that could have impact in many aspects of medicine," Pierce tells NPR.

The CRISPR gene-editing technique has been revolutionizing scientific research by making it much easier to rewrite the genetic code. It's also raising high hopes of curing many diseases.

Before this step, doctors had only used CRISPR to try to treat a small number of patients who have cancer, or the rare blood disorders sickle cell anemia or beta-thalassemia. While some of the initial results have been promising, it's still too soon to know whether the strategy is working.

In those other cases, doctors removed cells from patients' bodies, edited genes in the cells with CRISPR in the lab and then infused the modified cells back into the volunteers' bodies to either attack their cancer or produce a protein their bodies are missing.

In this new experiment, doctors at the Casey Eye Institute in Portland, Ore., injected (into the eye of a patient who is nearly blind from a condition called Leber congenital amaurosis) microscopic droplets carrying a harmless virus that had been engineered to deliver the instructions to manufacture the CRISPR gene-editing machinery.

Beginning in infancy, the rare genetic condition progressively destroys light-sensing cells in the retina that are necessary for vision. Vision impairment with LCA varies widely, but most patients are legally blind and are only able to differentiate between light and dark or perhaps to detect movement.

"The majority of people affected by this disease have the most severe end of the spectrum, in terms of how poor their vision is," Pierce says. "They're functionally blind."

The goal is that once the virus carrying the CRISPR instructions has been infused into the eye, the gene-editing tool will slice out the genetic defect that caused the blindness. That would, the researchers hope, restore production of a crucial protein and prevent the death of cells in the retina, as well as revive other cells enabling patients to regain at least some vision.

"It's the first time the CRISPR gene-editing is used directly in a patient," Pierce says. "We're really optimistic that this has a good chance of being effective."

The study is being sponsored by Editas Medicine, of Cambridge, Mass., and Allergan, based in Dublin. It will eventually involve a total of 18 patients, including some as young as ages 3 to 17, who will receive three different doses.

"We're very excited about this. This is the first time we're doing editing inside the body," says Charles Albright, the chief scientific officer at Editas.

"We believe that the ability to edit inside the body is going to open entire new areas of medicine and lead to a whole new class of therapies for diseases that are not treatable any other way," Albright says.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, calls the advance "a significant moment."

"All of us dream that a time might be coming where we could apply this approach for thousands of diseases," Collins tells NPR. "This is the first time that's being tried in a human being. And it gives us hope that we could extend that to lots of other diseases if it works and if it's safe."

Pierce, Albright and others stressed that only one patient has been treated so far and that the study, still at a very early stage, is designed primarily to determine whether injecting the gene-editing tool directly into the eye is safe.

To that end, the researchers are starting with lowest dose and the oldest patients, who have already suffered extensive damage to their vision. And doctors are only treating one eye in each patient. All of those steps are being taken in case the treatment somehow backfires, causing more damage instead of being helpful.

"CRISPR has never been used directly inside a patient before," Pierce says. "We want to make sure we're doing it right."

Still, he says, if the underlying defect can be repaired in this patient and others with advanced damage, "we have the potential to restore vision to people who never had normal vision before. It would indeed be amazing."

The study involves a form of Leber congenital amaurosis known as Type 10, which is caused by a defect in the CEP290 gene.

If the approach appears to be safe and effective, the researchers will start treating younger patients.

"We believe children have the potential to have the most benefit from their therapy, because we know their visual pathways are still intact," Albright explains.

The procedure, which takes about an hour to perform, involves making tiny incisions that enable access to the back of the eye. That allows a surgeon to inject three droplets of fluid containing billions of copies of the virus that has been engineered to carry the CRISPR gene-editing instructions under the retina.

The idea is that once there, the CRISPR editing elements would snip out the mutation that causes a defect in CEP290. The hope is that this would be a one-time treatment that would correct vision for a lifetime.

If it works, the volunteers in the study might be able to have the procedure repeated on the other eye later.

"If we can do this safely, that opens the possibility to treat many other diseases where it's not possible to remove the cells from the body and do the treatment outside," Pierce says.

The list of such conditions might include some brain disorders, such Huntington's disease and inherited forms of dementia, as well as muscle diseases, such as muscular dystrophy and myotonic dystrophy, according to Pierce and Albright.

"Inherited retinal diseases are a good choice in terms of gene-based therapies," says Artur Cideciyan, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania, given that the retina is easily accessible.

But Cideciyan cautions that other approaches for these conditions are also showing promise, and it remains unclear which will turn out to be the best.

"The gene-editing approach is hypothesized to be a 'forever fix,' " he says. "However, that's not known. And the data will have to be evaluated to see the durability of that. We'll have to see what happens."

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CRISPR Used To Edit Genes Inside A Patient With A Rare Form Of Blindness : Shots - Health News - NPR

Staff Report

ROCKFORD Mercyhealth has added Dr. Valentina Dalili-Shoaie to thegenetics staff at Mercyhealth Physician Clinic-Riverside in Rockford.

Dalili-Shoaie says she strives to help patients of all ages with genetic conditions.

Simple lessonslearned during childhood resonated with how I defined myself and what I wanted toachieve in life, creating an impetus to serve and to heal through the field of medicine, she said. Preemptive diagnosis, detection and screening are the paradigm of my Genetics practice,representing one of the most enjoyable aspects of what I do. While the field of genetics istraditionally grounded in Pediatrics, my training in Internal Medicine serves as a uniquewindow into detecting hereditary conditions in the adult population and continuing thesurveillance of syndromes originally identified in childhood.

Dalili-Shoaie earned her medical degree at the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara,Jalisco, Mexico, and served her Internal Medicine residency at UMDNJ/Overlook Hospital,Summit, New Jersey. She also completed a Clinical Genetics fellowship at Harvard Medical School,Boston. Shes a fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics (FACMG) and certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, and the AmericanBoard of Medical Genetics and Genomics with added certification in Clinical Genetics andGenomics. Her special interests include cardiovascular genetics, neurogenetics and cancergenetics.

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Merchyhealth adds doctor to genetics staff - The Rock River Times

University of Georgia senior Callan Russell, an Honors student from McDonough, has been selected for the third cohort of Knight-Hennessy Scholars, a global graduate-level program at Stanford University.

Established in 2016, the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program provides full funding for graduate students as they pursue studies ranging from medicine to law to doctoral programs as well as joint and dual degrees.

The program is designed to prepare students to take leadership roles in finding creative solutions to complex global issues.

Callan is a very active Honors student who has been selected for some of our most impressive scholarships and programs, including the Crane Leadership Scholarship, said David S. Williams, associate provost and director of the Honors Program. Callan has also been greatly engaged with undergraduate research through CURO, which has positioned her to enter a most exciting new field, genetic counseling. Given that Stanford has arguably the top program in this cutting-edge area, the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship is a perfect fit for her.

Callan Russell. (Photo by Stephanie Schupska)

Russell will graduate in May with a bachelors degree in genetics and a minor in music and will begin a masters degree in human genetics and genetic counseling at Stanford University this September. Her long-term goal is to be a prenatal genetic counselor in a hospital setting, educating potential parents about their family histories and the role genetics play in family planning.

Genetic counseling combines hard science with caring for people and the opportunity to directly interact with patients, Russell said. Stanford, the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program, and the niche they provide are a dream fit for my career goals.

For the past two years, Russell has conducted genetics research in the lab of Robert Schmitz, Lars G. Ljungdahl Distinguished Investigator in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. A CURO research assistant, she has been studying heat tolerance and photomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant widely used as a model organism in genetics and plant biology. She also spent six weeks last summer shadowing genetic counselors through the University of South Carolinas School of Medicine.

Russell is band captain and trombone section leader in both the UGA Redcoat Marching Band and various UGA ensembles and coordinates community and university events. She volunteers with Extra Special People, assisting children and adults with disabilities; co-founded UGA G.E.N.E.S., the first genetics club at UGA; and has presented her Arabidopsis research at the CURO Symposium. She also received the Vince Dooley Redcoat Band Scholarship.

UGAs major scholarships coordinator, housed in the Honors Program, provides students from across campus with assistance as they apply for national, high-level scholarships. For more information, contact Jessica Hunt at 706-542-6206 or jhunt@uga.edu.

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Callan Russell named a Knight-Hennessy Scholar - University of Georgia