Category Archives: Human Genetic Engineering

There is bad news everyday about the negative impact of climate change on every nook and corner of the planet. Most of the planet (with parts of the US and Brazil serving as illustrative, and dishonourable, examples) is currently engaged with setting goals to avoid a catastrophic point-of-no-return, even though scientists have argued that some systems are already dangerously close to tipping points: the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, some coral reefs, the Amazon rainforest, etc.

But what isnt entirely clear is how all this relentless gloom and doom is affecting the children. The climate action movement led by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg appears to have found some traction among the youth but what should they aspire to beyond simply demanding that business as usual wont do?

At the moment, these aspirations include a vegetarian diet, no travel, and a constant background fear of sea-level rise, disease, pests, floods, droughts and forest fires. Obviously, this is not a good way to grow up or think about the future.

There is a clear need here to use the climate crisis as an opportunity (arguably of a lifetime) to turn the focus of current and future generations towards climate solutions. Even as human activity continues to emit more greenhouse gases faster, precipitating deforestation and other forms of environmental degradation, there are simultaneous efforts to invent new solutions for problems in energy, water, food and health. Indeed, just as much as there are enough reasons to become cynical about the worlds prospects, theres also ample reason to be optimistic that humanity will wean itself off fossil fuels.

Some examples follow.

With global heating, especially in the tropics, the demand for air-conditioning is expected to grow exponentially. This in turn means more and more hydrofluorocarbons, which are powerful greenhouse gases, being released into the atmosphere. In 2015, scientists reported developing a carbon-nanotube-based coating for a wood fibre which has been shown to be able to regulate surface body heat. That is, clothes made of this fibre with the special coating can double up as wearable thermal regulation systems. Imagine a future in which the ghastly window-units found nearly everywhere in India have disappeared because everybody is wearing clothes that heat or cool them naturally.

Building materials have been improved the same way. In May this year, researchers reported in a paper that theyhad created a material called cooling wood from which all the lignin has been removed and which was then compressed to form a high-density material. Cooling wood was found to be strong enough to build structures with as well as so reflective that it absorbs very little heat during the day.

A fancier way to help cool or heat buildings involves the use of photovoltaic envelopes: devices that that can generate electricity, provide heating or shade for cooling, and control daylight inside the building. Dynamic envelopes can also track the Suns position in the sky and move its modules accordingly to be more efficient. Savings of up to 50% in electricity use have been achieved.

Water, like temperature, is another major problem, but water-related crisis have been happening and are in the offing for climatic as well as non-climatic reasons. On this front, scientists have devised compounds called metal organic frameworks (MOFs). Their molecular structure contains micropores that can trap gaseous substances in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide or water vapour such that a kilogram of MOFs can yield a litre of water in a xeric environment in 24 hours. Researchers expect the yield can be increased to 7-10 litres by combining the compounds with a solar-powered fan and a heater.

Warmer air, land and water is very conducive to the growth of human pathogens, rendering the worlds tropics a hotbed of waterborne diseases. To tackle this challenge, researchers created an affordable and biodegradable water filter using plant xylem in 2014. When water is pumped through them at high pressure, they remove harmful microbes.

Where cleaner water might not be enough to beat back, say, malaria, researchers have also been experimenting with technologies like genetic engineering. In this approach, scientists infect mosquitoes with bacteria that can prevent the insect from spreading diseases. For example, scientists have injected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes with Wolbachia pipientis, a bacterium that prevents viruses from replicating within the mosquito. The mosquito will subsequently fail to transmit the virus when it bites a human. There have been successful reports of such tests in Australia, Indonesia and Nigeria.

Scientists have also been able to genetically engineer Escherichia coli bacteria, which are natural heterotrophs, to become autotrophs. They tested their efforts by engineering a variety of E. coli that powers itself by consuming carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

* * *

This is only a small cross-section of R&D currently underway to help humankind deal with the climate crisis. We must share their stories as much as we spread news of negative effects if only to motivate the youth to work towards humans as well as the planets wellbeing. In fact, we dont just need scientists and engineers; we also need sociologists, anthropologists and humanities scholars to help strike the increasingly finer balance between improving the human condition and protecting our planet.

Positive news will also help counter the immutable psychological impact and keep away the sense of hopelessness arising from contemplating individual responsibility. The infinite opportunities offered by the growing need for solutions can, and should, drive an optimistic vision of the future.

RaghuMurtuguddeis a professor of atmospheric and oceanic science and Earth system science at the University of Maryland. He is currently a visiting professor at IIT Bombay.

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The Climate Crisis Is Also a Chance to Motivate a New Generation of Inventors - The Wire

Milestone, an organisation for the welfare of persons with disabilities (PWDs), was established in 1993 focusing mainly on mainstream inclusion of PWDs into the society by incorporating the concept of independent living (IL), a barrier-free society, awareness and capacity building. We speak to Shafiq ur Rehman, president of Milestone, on employing the concept of IL for improving the lives of PWDs.

The News on Sunday: When we talk about social integration of persons with disabilities (PWDs) there is talk of independent living (IL). How essential is it to mainstream PWDs through IL?

Shafiq ur Rehman: According to the concept of independent living (IL), PWDs are neither gods who have to be worshipped nor children who need to be taken care of. Instead, they are human beings who can and should take responsibility for their own lives and can make responsible decisions about their lives.

Our challenge is that PWDs are treated as some kind of a social disaster, a tragedy. World over there is a struggle to end disability through genetic engineering or the like. In reality, disability is not something that human beings suffer from. It is caused by the unavailability of required services in the environment of the PWDs. In developed countries, PWDs are not only contributing to economies but are also playing active roles due to practical implementation of IL. In Japan, PWDs have started services using the concept of IL where they have set up centres providing attendant services. In this way, they have become active members of the economy. In underdeveloped countries, PWDs are limited to basic survival activities such as eating and sleeping, and are not engaged as useful members of the society.

TNS: How much social acceptance is there towards independent living of PWDs? How willing are they to take control of their lives in a society like ours?

SR: Our societys attitude towards PWDs has largely been that of pity. This is the general behaviour of people in Pakistan. It is because of this that they often acquire the habit of taking pity on themselves, especially those who have a physical disability from birth. For some of these individuals, living on charity offered by others becomes the easiest solution. They lead their lives without taking any responsibility. When we talk of a lack of social acceptance regarding independent living it is because there is very little PWD visibility.

Courage and fortitude are often portrayed as desirable traits in our society, particularly for those faced with various disabilities. Self realisation and acceptance are the core values that should be focused upon. People dont understand this. We need to understand what resources we have, the environment we live in and how we can improve our lives through technologies. What could be better than learning this basic principle right at the start instead of trying to make the same mistakes over and over again? How is repeated failure an accomplishment?

TNS: What sort of work is being done regarding employment opportunities for the PWDs?

SR: The Lahore Businessmen Association for Rehabilitation of the Disabled (LABARD) has done a lot in the area of providing employment opportunities for PWDs. Run by the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), the institution offers several vocational training programmes. The Punjab Skills Development Programme has also started offering various six-month vocational training programmes, including cooking, cutting and the like. This is a good initiative. The first session of this programme started four months ago so we have yet to see the results, which we should be able to judge in a year.

TNS: In terms of policy regarding the PWDs and their employment, how has the government fared?

SR: This debate surrounding PWDs started during the era of Gen Zia ul Haq whose daughter had a disability. That is when it all began in Pakistan. The Disabled Persons (Employment and Rehabilitation) Ordinance 1981 set aside an employment quota as well. To our misfortune, however, that is where the debate pretty much ended. Unfortunately, after Zia, none of the presidents and prime ministers of this country had an offspring who was disabled. And I say this with regret, because from our experience we have learned that this is how legislations have been addressed in this country. Today, legislative cover on this front remains weak a dilemma for the remaining PWDs who could have been an actively contributing segment of the society.

TNS: How can the IL model be implemented by the government on a larger scale?

SR: Independent living is a low-cost solution to making PWDs independent. If theres a single PWD in a family it paralyses the entire family. But look at this situation from a different angle: it creates job opportunities for caregivers and attendants. In a traditional set up, parents are left worrying about the well being of their child with disability. Through affordable caregivers, there is opportunity for creating new jobs while making the rest of the family of a PWD more independent through affordable attendant services.

In Japan alone, there is a need for 500,000 attendants for their PWDs population. There is great potential to create an entire industry surrounding the concept of IL within Pakistan by employing the younger population to further development in the social sector. There is a huge opportunity in this population of PWDs that is hidden away in homes by their own families, away from the gaze of the society that thinks of it as a burden. Only if we can think rationally, all this could change.

The writer is a staff member

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Our challenge is that persons with disabilities are treated as a tragedy - The News on Sunday

By Jon Atherton

Scientists at Yale have explained a potentially important connection in the evolution of mammalian pregnancy and the spread of cancer.

In many mammals, including humans, the placenta invades the wall of the uterus in much the same way that cancer cells invade the surrounding tissues at the outset of metastasis. But in other mammals where the placenta does not implant as invasively including horses, cows, and pigsskin cancers rarely metastasize.

To explain this apparent coincidence, scholars at Yales Systems Biology Institute investigated the evolution of invasibility, or ELI, of connecting stromal tissue, that affect both placental and cancer invasion.

Previous research has shown that cancer progression in humans includes the reactivation of embryonic gene expression normally controlling placenta development and immune evasion, said Gnter Wagner, the Alison Richard Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and the studys senior author.

We wanted to find out why, for example, melanoma occurs in bovines and equines but remains largely benign, while it is highly malignant in humans.

Published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution, the scholars focused on differences between cows and humans in the rates of cancer cell invasion rather than differences in rates of tumor origination examined in previous studies.

Dr Kshitiz, a Research Associate in the laboratory of Andre Levchenko, director of the Yale Systems Biology Institute and the John C. Malone Professor of Biomedical Engineering, worked with the Wagner and Levchenko labs on in vitro models and experimental gene expression manipulation to identify genes that affect the vulnerability of human stroma to invasion by cancer cells.

Based on experimental results the authors modified a group of genes in human fibroblast cells towards the genetic profile in cow cells, with the modified cells showing increased resistance to melanoma invasion.

The results demonstrate that differences in malignancy rates between species may, in part, be caused by species differences in the resistance of stromal cells against invasion.

The findings also suggest that the higher metastatic potential of human cancers may be a consequence of an evolutionary compromise, allowing for better fetus development at the expense of more deadly cancer outcomes later in life.

Making human cells more resistant to the spread of cancer by manipulating their gene expression effectively making them similar to cow cells could lead to therapies to make tumors more manageable rather than eradicate them, which brings with it the danger of selecting for resistant tumors.

Alongside senior authors Levchenko and Wagner, first author of the study was Dr. Kshitiz, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Connecticut. The collaborators are members of the Cancer Systems Biology at Yale (CaSB @ Yale)program, funded by the National Cancer Institute.

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Linkage between evolution of pregnancy and cancer spread explained - Yale News

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Global and Regional CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market 2019 by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2025 - Daily...

Genetic testing may also apply another scientific strategy to the field of eugenics, or to intervene to promote a social philosophy that improves the genetic characteristics of humans. In the past, eugenics was used to demonstrate practices including involuntary sterilization and euthanasia.

Today, many people are concerned that preimplantation genetic diagnosis may be well established and can be applied technically to select specific non-disease features (rather than eliminating the serious diseases currently used) implanted embryos, thus equivalent to a eugenics Form of study.

In the media, this possibility has been sensational and often referred to as the so-called designer baby creation, which is even included in the Oxford English Dictionary. Although possible, this genetic technology has not yet been implemented; nevertheless, it still brings many intense moral issues.

The selection and enhancement of embryo characteristics can lead to ethical issues involving individuals and society. First, does the choice of specific characteristics poses a health risk, otherwise, these risks do not exist?

The safety of procedures for preimplantation genetic diagnosis is currently under investigation and, as this is a relatively new form of reproductive technology, lacks long-term data and a sufficient number of subjects.

However, a security question often asked about the fact that most genes have multiple effects. For example, in the late 1990s, scientists discovered a gene associated with memory (Tang et al., 1999).

Modification of this gene in mice greatly improved learning and memory, but it also caused an increased sensitivity to pain (Wei et al., 2001), which is clearly not an ideal feature.

In addition to security issues, personal freedom issues arise. For example, when a child cannot express consent by himself, should parents be allowed to manipulate the childs genes to select certain characteristics?

Suppose a mother and father choose an embryo based on their so-called musical sexual predisposition, but the child does not like music when he grows up. Does this change the childs feelings about his or her parents, and vice versa?

Finally, as far as society is concerned, everyone cannot get this expensive technology. Therefore, perhaps only the most privileged members of society can have designer children with more intelligence or physical appeal. This can cause genetic aristocracy and lead to new forms of inequality.

At present, these questions and conjectures are purely hypothetical because the techniques required for feature selection are not yet available. In fact, this technique may not be possible considering that most features are complex and involve many genes. Nevertheless, if you can create genetically enhanced humans, then thinking about these and other issues related to genetic engineering is also important.

After all, the vision of a designer baby may not be that far away. Last year was full of news about genetic engineering most of which was driven by cutting and pasting technique called Crispr. At the top of the list. Crisp can modify human embryos to correct relatively common, often fatal, mutations.

A controversial cell biologist named Shoukhrat Mitalipov, who pioneered work in the US, said his team not only used CRISPR to correct mutations in newly fertilized embryos, but they did it through a mechanism.

If not novel, at least it is unusual. The response of the scientific community is direct and negative. They just didnt buy a bit. So, Wednesday, in Nature Mitafilov published the initial working journal two groups of researchers published a criticism of the Mitalipov 2017 paper and Mitalipovs sharp, acronym and infographic filled with criticism trying to respond. Because morality doesnt matter well, not yet if science doesnt actually work.

You know how the baby is made, right? Ok, Mitalipovs team didnt do that. Scientific research using existing human embryos is contraindicated in most cases in the United States, so scientists fertilize them with normal human eggs and fertilize them with sperm containing the mutant MYBPC3 gene.

This version is a disease called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is the most common cause of sudden death in young athletes. People with two mutants MYBPC3 one from mom, another from dad, or homologous alleles, in genetic language rarely survived childhood. Only one person who replicates heterozygotes often develops heart problems as they age.

To try to correct the mutation, Mitalipovs team used CRISPR to cut the mutant gene from the paternal chromosome and then insert the synthetic corrected version.

But the second step did not happen. In contrast, according to the analysis of Mitalipov, the cells replicated the wild-type gene from the maternal chromosome and inserted it. Results: The embryo has two wild-type alleles. It is called homology-dependent repair or homologous homeopathic repair.

Some of these authors have been studying DNA repair, and somehow they missed the elephant in the room, said Mitalipov, director of the Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy Center at Oregon Health and Science University. We point out that there is a huge gap in how genes are repaired. We are not sure if it occurs in the somatic lineage, but in the embryonic lineage we have now demonstrated this.

Embryologists and cell biologists dont think they missed the elephant. They dont think so. We think there is another explanation, said Paul Thomas, the editor of the SA genome at the South Australian Institute of Health and Medical Research, a lead author of a review article.

Thomass research shows that in mice, Crispy tends to cut large pieces of DNA from the genome, the so-called large deletions. He suspects that this is also what happened in the Mitalipov embryos they missed a lot of deletion failures. If you create a lot of deletes on a chromosome, you need to specialize in that event, Thomas said. If you use the test method they use, this is a very standard test and cannot be detected.

Its like trying to figure out how many bagels a bakery makes by calculating whats on the shelf at the end of the day. Your statistics will say that the bakery mainly produces blueberries, but thats because the good taste of poppy seeds, garlic, salt and plains is invisible until you arrive. Your number will overestimate the proportion of blueberry production to the overall bagel.

Is this just a problem for mice and men? of course. Of course, more and more people are seeing a large number of mouse embryos missing. It is unclear whether a large number of deletions have occurred in human embryos because in fact we only have this research and a few other studies, Thomas said.

So Mitalipovs team returned to the lab. They took their old samples and re-analyzed them. This technique, called polymerase chain reaction, allows sequencing and analysis of a large enough amount of DNA. This time, they watched a longer chromosome.

We used large-scale PCR for analysis, up to 10,000 base pairs, and we still dont see any missing, Mitalipov said. He did not expect to find anything. The first paper of his group reported a success rate that is, a modified mutation rate about 70%. Mitalipov said it is hard to believe that 70% of his embryos will have a large number of defects caused by Crispr. He said that this made the technology unusable.

However, the case has not yet been closed. We were very surprised that they did not see any evidence of deletion in any of their responses, Thomas said. We dont think they completely rule out this possibility. One of Thomass co-authors, Fatwa Adikusuma, proposed a more accurate method of detection, such as qPCR (quantitative detection of DNA amount hence Q value). Mitalipov has not tried it.

Other teams have other questions. For example, a team led by Dieter Egli of Columbia University and Maria Jasin of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (including the outspoken Georges Biotech expert George Church) wondered how the CRISPR complex could support the maternal wild-type gene because, In the early part of cell division, mother contribution and father contribution are separate.

According to Mitalipov, the parental DNA cluster contained in an envelope called a pronucleus is exposed enough time for the repair process to work. Paul Knoepfler, a cell biologist at the University of California, Davis, said: If this is correct, what puzzles them is that they dont report more mosaics in these embryos.

Refers to a single organism with different genomes in different cells. The fragility is so late, for example in the two-cell embryo stage, which can lead to different genetic results, Knoepfler said and this could lead to later unhealthy embryos.

So is it possible for Mitalipov to do the right thing? As mentioned above, the new data is consistent with the genetic correction, Jasin wrote in an email. However, she said that Mitalipovs own response shows how difficult this research is.

When his team could not detect the parents allele, one of his embryos showed allele dropout. Not sure if there is no genetic correction for gene homologous recombination in all embryos, some embryos, or in the most extreme cases, adds Jasin.

Everyone, including Mitalipov, said that more research is needed to determine. It doesnt matter to him; he knows that people have a lot of concerns about what he said. If his method does work, then it only applies to embryos with a wild-type copy of the gene, on the one hand, there must be a wild-type gene version to replicate the cells.

But more importantly, new ideas require time and work to penetrate into one area. There is dogma, especially in biology, Mitalipov said. We just accepted our findings, calling it an unknown but powerful repair pathway in human embryos.

This dogma definitely takes time to make way for this approach. Mitalipovs team has strengthened their case to some extent, Knoepfler said. Maybe this points to the direction we fundamentally understand the new mechanism in early human embryos, but it is also possible that we will treat this completely differently a year later. Either way, for something going to the clinic, its my performance must exceed 70%. This means its time to do more work in the lab.

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Genetic Engineering in Humans About Its Future Pros and ...

One of the main health concerns with space travelis radiation exposure. If, for example, scientists could figure out a way to make human cells more resilient to the effects of radiation, astronauts could remain healthier for longer durations in space. Theoretically, this type of technology could also be used to combat the effects of radiation on healthy cells during cancer treatments on Earth, [geneticist Chris] Mason noted.

One way that scientists could alter future astronauts is through epigenetic engineering, which essentially means that they would turn on or off the expression of specific genes, Mason explained

Alternatively, and even more strangely, these researchers are exploring how to combine the DNA of other species, namely tardigrades, with human cells to make them more resistant to the harmful effects of spaceflight, like radiation. This wild conceptwas explored in a 2016 paper.

Genetically editing humans for space travel would likely be a part of natural changes to the human physiology that could occur after living on Mars for a number of years, Mason said. Its not if we evolve; its when we evolve, he added.

Read full, original post: Can We Genetically Engineer Humans to Survive Missions to Mars?

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We may need to genetically engineer astronauts to protect them from radiation during long space flights - Genetic Literacy Project