Category Archives: Human Genetic Engineering

There may be an unexpected solution for the challenge of shrinking transistor sizes.

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, say they have succeeded in growing new mineral architectures by "directing the evolution" silicateins, which are the proteins responsible for the formation of silicon skeletons in marine sponges. For the first time, it was shown that it is possible to develop the enzymatic synthesis of a semiconductor using genetic engineering and molecular evolution. The implication? Companies may be able to use DNA information to develop their own "specialized" materials.

The key to the research was the use of silicateins, which are genetically encoded and are used as a blueprint for the creation of silica skeletons. According to the UCSB researchers, the process is very similar to the way animal and human bones are formed. In their study, polystyrene microbeads coated with specific silicateins were "put through a mineralization reaction by incubating the beads in a water-in-oil emulsion that contained chemical precursors for mineralization." As the silicateins reacted with the dissolved metals, "they precipitated them, integrating the metals into the resulting structure and forming nanoparticles of silicon dioxide or titanium dioxide." The result was the creation of a silicatein gene pool that enabled the researchers to pick silicateins with the specific properties they were looking for.

"This genetic population was exposed to two environmental pressures that shaped the selected minerals: The silicateins needed to make materials directly on the surface of the beads, and then the mineral structures needed to be amenable to physical disruption to expose the encoding genes," said Lukmaan Bawazer, the author a corresponding paper that is published in the current issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The beads that exhibited mineralization were sorted from the ones that didn't, and then fractured to release the genetic information they contained, which could either be studied, or evolved further."

Bawazer said that he is now trying to evolve to evolve the research result into a functional device.

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Scientists Create First Genetically Evolved Chip Material

Why Genetically Engineered Food Is Dangerous

New report by genetic engineers Press release for immediate release Earth Open Source 17 June 2012

LONDON, UK - Aren't critics of genetically engineered food anti-science? Isn't the debate over GMOs (genetically modified organisms) a spat between emotional but ignorant activists on one hand and rational GM-supporting scientists on the other?

A new report released today, "GMO Myths and Truths",[1] challenges these claims. The report presents a large body of peer-reviewed scientific and other authoritative evidence of the hazards to health and the environment posed by genetically engineered crops and organisms (GMOs).

Unusually, the initiative for the report came not from campaigners but from two genetic engineers who believe there are good scientific reasons to be wary of GM foods and crops.

One of the report's authors, Dr Michael Antoniou of King's College London School of Medicine in the UK, uses genetic engineering for medical applications but warns against its use in developing crops for human food and animal feed.

Dr Antoniou said: "GM crops are promoted on the basis of ambitious claims - that they are safe to eat, environmentally beneficial, increase yields, reduce reliance on pesticides, and can help solve world hunger.

"I felt what was needed was a collation of the evidence that addresses the technology from a scientific point of view.

"Research studies show that genetically modified crops have harmful effects on laboratory animals in feeding trials and on the environment during cultivation. They have increased the use of pesticides and have failed to increase yields. Our report concludes that there are safer and more effective alternatives to meeting the world's food needs."

Another author of the report, Dr John Fagan, is a former genetic engineer who in 1994 returned to the National Institutes of Health $614,000 in grant money owing to concerns about the safety and ethics of the technology. He subsequently founded a GMO testing company.

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Why Genetically Engineered Food Is Dangerous

ANN ARBOR Six new human embryonic stem cell lines derived at the University of Michigan have just been placed on the National Institutes of Healths registry, making the cells available for federally funded research.

UM now has a total of eight cell lines on the registry, including five that carry genetic mutations for serious diseases such as the severe bleeding disorder hemophilia B, the fatal brain disorder Huntingtons disease and the heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which causes sudden death in athletes and others.

Researchers at UM and around the country can now begin using the stem cell lines to study the origins of these diseases and potential treatments. Two of the cell lines are believed to be the first in the world bearing that particular disease gene.

The three UM stem cell lines now in the registry that do not carry disease genes are also useful for general studies and as comparisons for stem cells with disease genes. In all, there are 163 stem cell lines in the federal registry, most of them without major disease genes.

Each of the lines was derived from a cluster of about 30 cells removed from a donated five-day-old embryo roughly the size of the period at the end of this sentence. The embryos carrying disease genes were created for reproductive purposes, tested and found to be affected with a genetic disorder, deemed not suitable for implantation and would have otherwise been discarded if not donated by the couples who donated them.

Some came from couples having fertility treatment at UMs Center for Reproductive Medicine, others from as far away as Portland, Ore. Some were never frozen, which may mean that the stem cells will have unique characteristics and utilities.

The full list of UM-derived stem cell lines accepted to the NIH registry includes:

UM9-1PGD Hemophilia B

UM17-1PGD Huntingtons disease

UM38-2PGD- HypertrophicCardiomyopathy (MYBPC3)

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Six New UM Stem Cell Lines Now Publicly Available

ScienceDaily (June 14, 2012) Six new human embryonic stem cell lines derived at the University of Michigan have just been placed on the U.S. National Institutes of Health's registry, making the cells available for federally-funded research.

U-M now has a total of eight cell lines on the registry, including five that carry genetic mutations for serious diseases such as the severe bleeding disorder hemophilia B, the fatal brain disorder Huntington's disease and the heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which causes sudden death in athletes and others.

Researchers at U-M and around the country can now begin using the stem cell lines to study the origins of these diseases and potential treatments. Two of the cell lines are believed to be the first in the world bearing that particular disease gene.

The three U-M stem cell lines now in the registry that do not carry disease genes are also useful for general studies and as comparisons for stem cells with disease genes. In all, there are 163 stem cell lines in the federal registry, most of them without major disease genes.

Each of the lines was derived from a cluster of about 30 cells removed from a donated five-day-old embryo roughly the size of the period at the end of this sentence. The embryos carrying disease genes were created for reproductive purposes, tested and found to be affected with a genetic disorder, deemed not suitable for implantation and would have otherwise been discarded if not donated by the couples who donated them.

Some came from couples having fertility treatment at U-M's Center for Reproductive Medicine, others from as far away as Portland, OR. Some were never frozen, which may mean that the stem cells will have unique characteristics and utilities.

The full list of U-M-derived stem cell lines accepted to the NIH registry includes:

"Our last three years of work have really begun to pay off, paving the way for scientists worldwide to make novel discoveries that will benefit human health in the near future," says Gary Smith, Ph.D., who derived the lines and also is co-director of the U-M Consortium for Stem Cell Therapies, part of the A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute.

"Each cell line accepted to the registry demonstrates our attention to details of proper oversight, consenting, and following of NIH guidelines," says Sue O'Shea, Ph.D., professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the U-M Medical School, and co-director of the Consortium for Stem Cell Therapies.

U-M is one of only three academic institutions to have disease-specific stem cell lines listed in the national registry, says Smith, who is a professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan Medical School. The first line, a genetically normal one, was accepted to the registry in February.

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Six new stem cell lines now publicly available

13-06-2012 14:20 Year 10 doing genetic engineering.

Excerpt from:
Christian Fellowship School - Genetic Engineering/Making Human Insulin from Bacteria - Video

SANTA BARBARA In the not-too-distant future, scientists may be able to use DNA to grow their own specialized materials, thanks to the concept of directed evolution. UC Santa Barbara scientists have, for the first time, used genetic engineering and molecular evolution to develop the enzymatic synthesis of a semiconductor.

"In the realm of human technologies it would be a new method, but it's an ancient approach in nature," said Lukmaan Bawazer, first author of the paper, "Evolutionary selection of enzymatically synthesized semiconductors from biomimetic mineralization vesicles," published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Bawazer, who was a Ph.D. student at the time, wrote the paper with co-authors at UC Santa Barbara's Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Biomolecular Science and Engineering; Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies; California NanoSystems Institute and Materials Research Laboratory; and Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. Daniel Morse, UC Santa Barbara professor emeritus of biochemistry of molecular genetics, directed the research.

Using silicateins, proteins responsible for the formation of silica skeletons in marine sponges, the researchers were able to generate new mineral architectures by directing the evolution of these enzymes. Silicateins, which are genetically encoded, serve as templates for the silica skeletons and control their mineralization, thus participating in similar types of processes by which animal and human bones are formed. Silica, also known as silicon, is the primary material in most commercially manufactured semiconductors.

In this study, polystyrene microbeads coated with specific silicateins were put through a mineralization reaction by incubating the beads in a water-in-oil emulsion that contained chemical precursors for mineralization: metals of either silicon or titanium dissolved in the oil or water phase of the emulsion. As the silicateins reacted with the dissolved metals, they precipitated them, integrating the metals into the resulting structure and forming nanoparticles of silicon dioxide or titanium dioxide.

With the creation of a silicatein gene pool, through what Bawazer only somewhat euphemistically calls "molecular sex" the combination and recombination of various silicatein genetic materials the scientists were able to create a multitude of silicateins, and then select for the ones with desired properties.

"This genetic population was exposed to two environmental pressures that shaped the selected minerals: The silicateins needed to make (that is, mineralize) materials directly on the surface of the beads, and then the mineral structures needed to be amenable to physical disruption to expose the encoding genes," said Bawazer. The beads that exhibited mineralization were sorted from the ones that didn't, and then fractured to release the genetic information they contained, which could either be studied or evolved further.

The process yielded forms of silicatein not available in nature, that behaved differently in the formation of mineral structures. For example, some silicateins self-assembled into sheets and made dispersed mineral nanoparticles, as opposed to more typical agglomerated particles formed by natural silicateins. In some cases, crystalline materials were also formed, demonstrating a crystal-forming ability that was acquired through directed evolution, said Bawazer.

Because silicateins are enzymes, said Bawazer, with relatively long amino acid chains that can fold into precise shapes, there is the potential for more functionality than would be possible using shorter biopolymers or more traditional synthetic approaches. In addition, the process could potentially work with a variety of metals, to evolve different types of materials. By changing the laboratory-controlled environments in which directed evolution occurs, it will be possible to evolve materials with specific capacities, like high performance in an evolved solar cell, for example.

"Here we've demonstrated the evolution of material structure; I'd like to take it a step further and evolve material performance in a functional device," said Bawazer.

Research for this paper was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Synthesis of genetically evolved semiconductor material