Category Archives: Human Genetic Engineering

Cuba's top biotech teams have successfully tested a new AIDS vaccine on mice, and are ready to soon begin human testing, a leading researcher told a biotechnology conference in Havana on Monday.

"The new AIDS trial vaccine already was tested successfully (on mice) and now we are preparing a very small, tightly controlled phase one clinical trial" with HIV-positive patients who are not in the advanced stages of disease, researcher Enrique Iglesias said.

Iglesias, who heads up the vaccine development team at the Biotech and Genetic Engineering Center (CIGB) here, was speaking at the International Biotech Conference-Havana 2012, which started Monday in Cuba's capital.

He told the crowd at the convention center that the vaccine TERAVAC-HIV-1 was made from recombinant proteins aiming "to cause a cellular response against the (HIV) virus."

While upbeat, the Cuban expert was quick to downplay high hopes for a long-awaited successful AIDS vaccine.

"So far, there have been more than 100 clinical tests (on humans) with HIV" in Cuba and other countries, "and all of them have failed," he stressed.

Cuba, the Americas' only one-party Communist-ruled state, spends more than $200 million a year on its AIDS prevention and care programs, including free care with antiretrovirals, some of them Cuban-made.

The CIGB, which groups about 20 research units on Havana's leafy western end, is the engine behind a major Cuban export: biotech products including vaccines and other drugs.

The Caribbean country exports $400 million a year in these products, making them its official number-two export after nickel.

Some 600 scientists from about 38 countries are taking part in the event including Nobel-winning US chemist Peter Agre, also a medical doctor and molecular biologist.

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Cuba to test new AIDS vaccine on humans

13-02-2012 00:36 ICS 691 Computers in Medicine Lecture 2 Part 4 of 4. Questions or comments? Contact: Dr. Julia Patriarche, PhD E-mail: julia4@hawaii.edu / julia@chalkdust.net Office: 808-294-5335 Website: www2.hawaii.edu

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Evolution and Genetic Engineering - Video

March 1, 2012

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have figured out how the human body keeps essential genes switched on and silences the vast stretches of genetic repeats and junk DNA.

Frdric Chdin, associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, describes the research in a paper published today (March 1) in the journal Molecular Cell. The work could lead to treatments for lupus and other autoimmune diseases, by reversing the gene-silencing process known as cytosine methylation.

R-loops are the key, say graduate student Paul Ginno, Chdin and colleagues. The loops emerge in the RNA transcription process in DNA sections that are rich in cytosine and guanine, the C and G in the four-letter DNA code. These C and G stretches serve as on switches, or promoters, for about 60 percent of human genes.

Scientists have known since the 1980s that these so-called CG island promoters are not subject to methylation. But, Chdin said, the mechanism has been a long-standing mystery.

The UC Davis researchers built a catalog of almost 8,000 CG islands in the human genome, studied their DNA sequences and found the CG sequences to be skewed toward having one strand of the double helix rich in guanine, and the complementary strand rich in cytosine.

Then, in RNA transcription, the G-rich RNA remains stably bound to a C-rich DNA strand, forcing the G-rich DNA strand into a loop which then prevents methylation.

DNA methylation is considered part of the new field of epigenetics, which studies inheritable genetic changes that are not directly coded in the DNA sequence. However, the new work shows that, at least at CG islands, the epigenetic state is determined by the DNA sequence.

Scientists know that reduced methylation of DNA plays a key role in triggering autoimmunity in lupus, Chdin said. However, the molecular events behind this DNA under-methylation have been unclear.

Our work establishes that excessive R-loop formation may drive under-methylation and autoimmunity, Chdin said.

The rest is here:
R-loops break walls of gene silencing

After my post on the race question I thought it would be useful to point to Jerry Coynes Are there human races?. The utility is that Coynes book Speciation strongly shaped my own perceptions. I knew the empirical reality of clustering before I read that book, but the analogy with species concept debates was only striking after becoming more familiar with that literature. Coynes post was triggered by a review of Race?: Debunking a Scientific Myth and Race and the Genetic Revolution: Science, Myth, and Culture. He terms the review tendentious, and I generally agree.

In the early 20th century Western intellectuals of all political stripes understood what biology told us about human taxonomy. In short, human races were different, and the white European race was superior on the metrics which mattered (this was even true of Left-Socialist intellectuals such as H. G. Wells and Jack London). In the early 21st century Western intellectuals of all political stripes understand what biology teaches us about human taxonomy. Human races are basically the same, and for all practical purposes identical, and equal on measures which matter (again, to Western intellectuals). As Coyne alludes to in his post these are both ideologically driven positions. One of the main reasons that I shy away from modern liberalism is a strong commitment to interchangeability and identity across all individuals and populations as a matter of fact, rather than equality as a matter of legal commitment. In a minimal government scenario the details of human variation are not of particular relevance, but if you accept the feasibility of social engineering (a term I am not using in an insulting sense, but in a descriptive one) you have to start out with a model of human nature. So this is not just an abstract issue. For whatever reason many moderns, both liberals and economic conservatives, start out with one of near identity (e.g., H. economicus in economics).

I want to highlight a few sections of Coynes post:

What are races?

In my own field of evolutionary biology, races of animals (also called subspecies or ecotypes) are morphologically distinguishable populations that live in allopatry (i.e. are geographically separated). There is no firm criterion on how much morphological difference it takes to delimit a race. Races of mice, for example, are described solely on the basis of difference in coat color, which could involve only one or two genes.

Under that criterion, are there human races?

Yes. As we all know, there are morphologically different groups of people who live in different areas, though those differences are blurring due to recent innovations in transportation that have led to more admixture between human groups.

Why do these differences exist?

The short answer is, of course, evolution. The groups exist because human populations have an evolutionary history, and, like different species themselves, that ancestry leads to clustering and branching, though humans have a lot of genetic interchange between the branches!

More here:
Jerry Coyne on race: a reflection of evolution | Gene Expression

Public release date: 29-Feb-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Cathia Falvey cfalvey@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2165 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, February 29, 2012Although industrial parks are often considered major economic engines for the communities in which they reside, they can also consume environmental resources and produce significant pollution that can negatively affect human health and quality of life. A case study published in Environmental Engineering Science (http://www.liebertpub.com/ees), a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (http://www.liebertpub.com), describes a systems-based approach to assess and reduce the negative societal and economic impact of industrial parks. The article on sustainability management for industrial parks (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ees.2011.0109 ) is available on the Environmental Engineering Science website.

"The extent of sustainable economic development is critical to the quality of life that defines various communities," says Domenico Grasso, Ph.D, Editor-in-Chief and Vice President for Research, Dean of the Graduate College, University of Vermont (Burlington). "Industrial parks have long been a cornerstone of regional economic activity and prosperity. This paper by Ching-Ho Chen and colleagues does a wonderful job of helping policy and decision makers evaluate the environmental dimensions and consequences of these important developments."

A team of researchers from Taiwan studied the operation and management of a local industrial park. They measured air and water pollution, solid waste production, land use, and water and energy consumption and proposed a management model based on more sustainable practices. Ching-Ho Chen, National Taipei University of Education, Wei-Lin Liu, Ing-Jia Chiou, Nanya Institute of Technology, and Shu-Liang Liaw, National Central University, describe their work in the article, "Methodology and System of Total Quantity and Sustainability Management for Industrial Parks." (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ees.2011.0109)

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Environmental Engineering Science (http://www.liebertpub.com/ees) is an authoritative monthly online peer-reviewed journal.. This interdisciplinary journal publishes state-of-the-art studies of innovative solutions to problems in air, water, and land contamination and waste disposal. It features applications of environmental engineering and scientific discoveries, policy issues, environmental economics, and sustainable development. Tables of contents and a free sample issue may be viewed on the Environmental Engineering Science (http://www.liebertpub.com/ees) website.

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (http://www.liebertpub.com) is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Sustainability: The Journal of Record, Environmental Justice, and Industrial Biotechnology. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available online at Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (http://www.liebertpub.com)

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 140 Huguenot St., New Rochelle, NY 10801-5215 http://www.liebertpub.com Phone: 914-740-2100 800) M-LIEBERT Fax: 914-740-2101

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Can industrial parks be more environmentally friendly?

Lafayette College theater director Michael O'Neill has never seen the classic Czech play "R.U.R," but after teaching it in his theater classes for years, he became intrigued by the relevance of its premise.

So after reading many translations of the play about robots and a mechanized world where people show no emotions, O'Neill decided to write his own translation and produce it at the college. The play opened Wednesday and continues through Saturday at the Williams arts center.

"I made a lot of cuts," O'Neill says. "In those days, they tended to be awfully talky."

"R.U.R." or "Rossum's Universal Robots" was written in 1920 by Karel Capek. It was a response to the death and destruction he had witnessed during World War I and the emotional dislocation and upheavals of the 1917 Communist revolution in Russia.

The play was written as an expressionistic journey into genetic engineering on a mass scale, O'Neill says. It predicted a mechanized world where people have no emotional connections and where workers have lost their human rights. The play takes place in a factory that makes Robots that can think for themselves and can be mistaken for humans.

"I thought that the play had a lot to say about today and our interest in human cloning and our dependence on technology," O'Neill says. "I was concerned about our growing dependence on our cell phones and our computers and the increasing mechanization of everyday life. I also thought that that this play was particularly relevant to Lafayette, which has such a big engineering program."

The play was the first to introduce the word robot to the English language.

"Actually the word robot means 'worker' in Czech, and the Robots in our production look less like Hollywood robots than Soviet workers from the 1920s," O'Neill says. Costume designer Locklyn Brooks has created gray and monochrome outfits that make the Robots look less like machines and more like people, he says.

O'Neill says the play is not so much science fiction as a social satire with a utopian vision.

"This is actually a very traditional play, and despite the presence of the Robots, its main theme is that the human race needs love to be able to survive," he says.

See original here:
Lafayette's 'R.U.R' deals with robots, role of technology