Seen any clone armies in your backyard lately? Probably not. This might surprise you if you are old enough to remember the ethical panic that greeted the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, in Scotland 21 years ago.

The cloned creature set off a crazy overreaction, with fears of clone armies, re-creating the dead, and a host of other horrors, monsters, abuses and terrors none of which has come to pass. That is why it is so important, amid all the moral hand-wringing about what could happen as human genetic engineering emerges, to keep our ethical eye on the right ball. Freaking out over impending superbabies and mutant humans with the powers of comic book characters is not what is needed.

An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University, has used genetic engineering on human sperm and a pre-embryo. The group is doing basic research to figure out if new forms of genetic engineering might be able to prevent or repair terrible hereditary diseases.

How close are they to making freakish superpeople using their technology? About as close as we are to traveling intergalactically using current rocket technology.

So what should we be worrying about as this rudimentary but promising technique tries to get off the launch pad?

First and foremost, oversight of what is going on. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has banned federal funding for genetic engineering of sperm, eggs, pre-embryos or embryos. That means everything goes on in the private or philanthropic world here or overseas, without much guidance. We need clear rules with teeth to keep anyone from trying to go too fast or deciding to try to cure anything in an embryo intended to become an actual human being without rock-solid safety data.

Second, we need to determine who should own the techniques for genetic engineering. Important patent fights are underway among the technology's inventors. That means people smell lots of money. And that means it is time to talk about who gets to own what and charge what, lest we reinvent the world of the $250,000 drug in this area of medicine.

Finally, human genetic engineering needs to be monitored closely: all experiments registered, all data reported on a public database and all outcomes good and bad made available to all scientists and anyone else tracking this area of research. Secrecy is the worst enemy that human genetic engineering could possibly have.

Let your great-great-grandkids fret about whether they want to try to make a perfect baby. Today we need to worry about who will own genetic engineering technology, how we can oversee what is being done with it and how safe it needs to be before it is used to try to prevent or fix a disease.

That is plenty to worry about.

Arthur L. Caplan is head of the division of medical ethics at the New York University School of Medicine.

More:
Don't fear the rise of superbabies. Worry about who will own genetic engineering technology. - Chicago Tribune

(Ralwel/Dreamstime)Conservatives and progressives both have reasons for opposing it.

The genetic engineering of human beings has been a dream and a nightmare since scientists first speculated about it a century ago. Futurists and transhumanists have long thought that genetic engineering could radically improve the human race, extending our lifespans or boosting our intelligence, while more responsible scientists have suggested that genetic modification could be used to cure diseases like Huntingtons, Tay-Sachs, and other deadly inherited conditions.

Over the past few years, a new technology has emerged that seems to finally make precise genetic modifications of human beings possible. This week, scientists, ethicists, and policy experts from the American, Chinese, and British national academies of science are gathered for a conference in Washington, D.C., to discuss the prospects of editing human genes.

The new technology that has brought questions about genetically modifying humans back on the agenda is called CRISPR-Cas9. It stands above previous methods for genetic engineering in both its precision and its simplicity. CRISPR-Cas9 relies on a single enzyme system that can be guided by small strings of RNA molecules to any site in the genome. Older methods for genetic engineering required scientists to find or design new proteins to target different sites in the genome, a technically demanding and labor-intensive task. The RNA molecules that CRISPR-Cas9 relies on, on the other hand, can simply be ordered from any number of biotechnology companies.

What makes this new technology especially controversial is the prospect that it could be used to modify the human germline that is, that it could be used to make changes that would not only affect a particular patient but would also be passed on to that patients children, and so on through the generations. Modifying genes in a human embryo is one way to accomplish this, and speakers at the meeting also discussed a different form of germline engineering, one that involves modifying the stem cells that produce sperm. This can be done either by performing gene therapy on men directly or by extracting their stem cells and then genetically modifying them in the lab to produce genetically modified sperm that could be used for in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination.

RELATED: U.S. Prepares to Push Human Genetic Engineering

All too often, deliberations about new biotechnologies seem to focus on managing public opinion so that scientists wont have to worry about the pesky obstructions of democratic oversight or moral arguments. Those who take a strong moral stance against the manipulation of human genetics or the destruction of human embryos are generally not welcome at these kinds of meetings. After all, the suggestion that we should not pursue some scientific avenues because they represent the unjust exploitation of human beings spoils the whole idea of coming to a consensus about how best to move forward.

Deliberations about new biotechnologies seem to focus on managing public opinion so that scientists wont have to worry about the pesky obstructions of democratic oversight or moral arguments.

This consensus-based approach was well on display in the statement released by the meetings organizers recommending that modification of the germline not be done until the technology can be made safe and there is broad societal consensus about the appropriateness of the proposed application, and furthermore that as scientific knowledge advances and societal views evolve, the clinical use of germline editing should be revisited on a regular basis. Recommendations like these ignore the possibility that there might be some wisdom in the view that it is morally wrong to genetically design our children, or that some future consensus that we come to hold as our societal views evolve might be foolish and misguided. Whats more, the organizers recommended allowing the genetic modification of human embryos, on the condition that the modified cells should not be used to establish a pregnancy.

There were unfortunately no conservative or pro-life scholars at this meeting who might have pushed back against this technological boosterism and callous disregard for unborn human life. Yet the absence thus far of conservative and pro-life voices does not mean that everyone at the conference was resolutely in favor of genetic engineering. There were a number of liberal critics of biotechnology, notably Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society, who made a compelling case against using gene editing to modify the human germline. On the other side were ethicists like John Harris, a utilitarian philosopher at Manchester University, who demanded that genetic engineering be made available with only minimal restrictions. Many of the scientists were very excited about what this technology might enable us to do, though some, like Eric Lander, a geneticist at MIT, expressed skepticism about whether the genetic modification of human embryos would have much practical use.

#share#The scientists speaking at the conference tend to see the moral issues in terms of individual patients. Their focus is on whether these new technologies can be safe and effective ways of treating disease and satisfying the preferences and desires of individuals. But progressive critics argue that these scientists are missing the broader social context in which the technologies would be implemented, and the ways in which biotechnology might contribute to the oppression of marginalized groups.

Both these perspectives can be valuable. Focusing on what is good for individual patients can be an important corrective to the tyrannical impulse to use medicine and public-health measures not for actual human beings, but for whatPaul Ramsey calledthat celebrated non-patient, the human species. But the progressives are also right that medical procedures, especially those dealing with reproduction, are not simply about the patient and the doctor: The child must also be considered, and we should remember as well the kinds of social and economic pressures that might be driving individuals to seek medical interventions to prevent the birth of a child with disabilities.

Conservatives and todays progressives ought to share a concern about the risks of a potential new type of eugenics to harm minorities and the disabled.

Both the scientists, with their emphasis on individuals, and the progressives, with their emphasis on group oppression, draw lessons from the dark history of eugenics, the Progressive Era movement to sterilize the unfit that had a baleful influence on the laws of many nations, including the United States, in the early 20th century. At the conference, science historian Daniel J. Kevles gave a presentation on the origins of eugenics in the sciences of genetics and statistics and discussed the crude racial stereotypes and prejudices held by many Americans in the early 1900s. He described how the eugenics movement harmed and oppressed racial minorities and people with disabilities. (Kevless bookIn the Name of Eugenicsis an excellent introduction to this dark chapter in our history.) Conservatives and todays progressives ought to share a concern about the risks of a potential new type of eugenics to harm minorities and the disabled.

But conservatives are uniquely suited to point out that gene editing unites two errors characteristic of our age: genetic perfectionism and an overemphasis on individual autonomy. First, we conservatives understand that the family is the foundational unit of society, and that its basic structure a married man and woman having children whom they love and care for unconditionally should not be tinkered with by social or biological engineers. The eugenics movement put an abstraction, the human gene pool, above that fundamental unit of society, the family.

Second, biotechnologies like gene editing risk combining the problem of genetic perfectionism with an extreme emphasis on individual autonomy. Gene
editing is thought to offer a way for parents to maximize their control over the properties of their offspring, transforming a relationship that should be characterized by unconditional love and acceptance into one in which children are seen as products of their parents desires and wishes, to be provisionally accepted and molded in accord with parental preferences.

This is how we should look at the debates over emerging biotechnologies: by focusing on the relationship between parents and children, and on how that relationship might be undermined by increasing the power of parents to control the biological properties of their offspring. That this conservative insight has been largely absent from these debates over gene editing is unfortunate. Conservatives should be doing more to make their voices heard on this issue.

Link:
Human Genetic Engineering: Wrong | [site:name] | National ...

The human body is not perfect. Some are created with inherent faults and others break down before their time. Science has the potential to make good these problems by altering how humans are made. This is genetic engineering, and this article looks at the pros and cons of the technology in humans

This is part one of a two-part series. Here I will look at a definition of genetic engineering and the pros of human genetic engineering. In part two the cons and the ethics of human genetic engineering are discussed.

Before weighing up the pros and cons of genetic engineering in humans, it's worth taking the time to understand just what is meant by the idea. Simply put, it's a way of manipulating our genes in such a way as to make our bodies better. This alteration of a genome could take place in the sperm and egg cells. This is known as germline gene therapy and would alter the traits that a child is born with. The changes would be inheritable and passed down through the generations. It is currently illegal in many countries.

The other way to change our genome is to swap our bad genes for good ones - in cells other than the sex cells. This is known as somatic cell gene therapy. This is where a functioning gene could be fired into our bodies on a viral vector to carry out the functions that a faulty gene is unable to. This technology is permitted, though it has enjoyed a very limited success rate so far (largely because it is technically very difficult). Nonetheless, it still holds out a great deal of promise.

There are many potential advantages to being able to alter the cells in our bodies genetically.

To make disease a thing of the past

Most people on the planet die of disease or have family members that do. Very few of us will just pop up to bed one night and gently close our eyes for the last time. Our genomes are not as robust as we would like them to be and genetic mutations either directly cause a disease such as Cystic fibrosis, or they contribute to it greatly i.e. Alzheimer's. Or in the case of some conditions such as the heart disease Cardiomyopathy, genetic mutations can make our bodies more susceptible to attack from viruses or our own immune system. If the full benefits of gene therapy are ever realised we can replace the dud genes with correctly functioning copies.

To extend life spans

Having enjoyed life, most of us want to cling on to it for as long as possible. The genetic engineering of humans has the potential to greatly increase our life spans. Some estimates reckon that 100-150 years could be the norm. Of course gene therapy for a fatal condition will increase the lifespan of the patient but we're also talking about genetic modifications of healthy people to give them a longer life. Once we fully understand the genetics of ageing it may be possible to slow down or reverse some of the cellular mechanisms that lead to our decline - for example by preventing telomeres at the ends of chromosomes from shortening. Telomere shortening is known to contribute to cell senescence.

Better pharmaceuticals

The knowledge gained by working out genetic solutions for the above could help with the design of better pharmaceutical products that are able to target specifically genetic mutations in each individual.

So What's the Downside?

As deliriously exciting as some people believe genetic engineering to be - there are several downsides and ethical dilemmas. Click the link to read the cons.

This two part series explores some of the pros and cons of human genetic engineering.

Follow this link:
Pros and Cons of Genetic Engineering in Humans

Human genetic engineering is moving forward exponentially and we are still not having any meaningful societal, regulatory, or legislative conversations about whether, how, and to what extent we should permit the human genome to be altered in ways that flow down the generations.

But dont worry. The scientists assure us, when that can be done, there will (somehow) beSTRICT OVERSIGHT From the AP story:

And lots more research is needed to tell if its really safe, added Britains Lovell-Badge. He and Kahn were part of a National Academy of Sciences report earlier this year that said if germline editing ever were allowed, it should be only for serious diseases with no good alternatives and done with strict oversight.

Please!No more! When I laugh this hard it makes mystomach hurt.

Heres the problem: Strict guidelines rarely are strict and the almost never permanently protect. Theyare ignored, unenforced, or stretched over time until they, essentially, cease to exist.

Thats awful with actions such as euthanasia. But wecant let that kind of pretense rule the day withtechnologies that could prove to be among themost powerful and potentially destructive inventions in human history. Indeed, other than nuclear weapons, I cant think of a technology with more destructive potential.

Strict oversight will have to include legal limitations and clear boundaries, enforced bystiff criminalpenalties, civil remedies, and international protocols.

They wont be easy to craft and it will take significant time to work through all of the scientific and ethical conundrums.

But we havent made a beginning. If we wait until what may be able to be done actually can be done, it will be too late.

Wheres the leadership? All we have now is drift.

See the article here:
Genetic Engineering with 'Strict Guidelines?' Ha! - National Review

Edited human embryos. Image: OHSYU

This week, news of a major scientific breakthrough brought a debate over genetically engineering humans front and center. For the first time ever, scientists genetically engineered a human embryo on American soil in order to remove a disease-causing mutation. It was the fourth time ever that such a feat has been published on, and with the most success to date. It may still be a long way off, but it seems likely that one day we will indeed have to grapple with the sticky, complicated philosophical mess of whether, and in which cases, genetically engineering a human being is morally permissible.

On the heels of this news, on Thursday a group of 11 genetics groups released policy recommendations for whats known as germline editingor altering the human genome in such a way that those changes could be passed down to future generations. The statement, from groups including the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said that doctors should not yet entertain implanting an altered embryo in a human womb, a step which would be against the law in the United States. But they also argued that there is no reason not to use public money to fund basic research on human germline editing, contrary to a National Institutes of Health policy that has banned funding research involving editing human embryo DNA.

Currently, there is no reason to prohibit in vitro germline genome editing on human embryos and gametes, with appropriate oversight and consent from donors, to facilitate research on the possible future clinical applications of gene editing, they wrote. There should be no prohibition on making public funds available to support this research.

Safety, ethical concerns and the impact germline editing might have on societal inequality, they wrote, would all have to be worked out before such technology is ready for the clinic.

Genetic disease, once a universal common denominator, could instead become an artifact of class, geographic location, and culture, they wrote. In turn, reduced incidence and reduced sense of shared risk could affect the resources available to individuals and families dealing with genetic conditions.

If and when embryo editing is ready for primetime, the group concluded that there would need to be a good medical reason to use such technology, as well as a transparent public debate. Some have questioned the medical necessity of embryo editing, arguing that genetic screening combined with in vitro fertilization could allow doctors to simply pick disease-free eggs to implant, achieving the same results via a method that is less morally-fraught.

In February, the National Academy of Sciences released a 261-page report that also gave a cautious green light to human gene-editing, endorsing the practice for purposes of curing disease and for basic research, but determining that uses such as creating designer babies are unethical. Other nations, like China and the UK, have forged ahead with human embryo editing for basic research, though there have been no published accounts of research past the first few days of early embryo development.

Given the way the culture, religion and regional custom impact attitudes toward genetically-engineering human life, its safe to say that this debate will not be an easy one to settle. As the policy recommendations point out, views on the matter vary drastically not just across the US, but around the world, and yet one nation making the decision to go ahead with implanting edited embryos will create a world in which that technology exists for everyone.

In the meantime, though, there are still more than a few kinks to work out in the science before were faced with these questions in the real world.

Read the original here:
Experts Call on US to Start Funding Scientists to Genetically Engineer Human Embryos - Gizmodo

Hope for families with genetic conditions, and scientific breakthrough: that is how headlines are proclaiming a project that modified human embryos to remove mutations that cause heart failure. But anyone who has concerns about such research is often subjected to moral blackmail. We are regularly lumped in with religious reactionaries or anti-abortion campaigners.

The medical justification for spending millions on such research is thin: it would be better spent on developing cures

I am neither. If you peel away the hype, the truth is that we already have robust ways of avoiding the birth of children with such conditions, where that is appropriate, through genetic testing of embryos. In fact, the medical justification for spending millions of dollars on such research is extremely thin: it would be much better spent on developing cures for people living with those conditions. Its time we provided some critical scrutiny and stopped parroting the gospel of medical progress at all costs.

Where genetic engineering really can do something that embryo selection cannot is in genetic enhancement better known as designer babies. Unfortunately, thats where its real market will be. We have already seen that dynamic at work with the three-parent IVF technique, developed for very rare mitochondrial genetic conditions. Already, a scientist has created babies that way in Mexico (specifically to avoid US regulations) and a company has been set up with the aim of developing the science of designer babies.

Scientists who started their careers hoping to treat sick people and prevent suffering are now earning millions of dollars creating drugs to enhance cognitive performance or performing cosmetic surgery. We already have consumer eugenics in the US egg donor market, where ordinary working-class women get paid $5,000 for their eggs while tall, beautiful Ivy League students get $50,000. The free market effectively results in eugenics. So its not a matter of the law of unintended consequences or of scaremongering the consequences are completely predictable. The burden of proof should be on those who say it wont happen.

Once you start creating a society in which rich peoples children get biological advantages over other children, basic notions of human equality go out the window. Instead, what you get is social inequality written into DNA. Even using low-tech methods, such as those still used in many Asian countries to select out girls (with the result that the world is short of more than 100 million women), the social consequences of allowing prejudices and competitiveness to control which people get born are horrific.

Most enhancements in current use, such as those in cosmetic surgery, are intended to help people conform to expectations created by sexism, racism and ageism. More subtly, but equally profoundly, once we start designing our children to perform the way we want them to, we are erasing the fundamental ethical difference between consumer commodities and human beings. Again, this is not speculation: there is already an international surrogacy market in which babies are bought and sold. The job of parents is to love children unconditionally, however clever/athletic/superficially beautiful they are; not to write our whims and prejudices into their genes.

Its for these reasons that most industrialised countries have had legal bans against human genetic engineering for the last 30 years. Think about that for a moment: its pretty unusual for societies that normally put technological innovation at the centre of their policies to ban technologies before theyre even feasible. There have to be very good reasons for such an unprecedented step, and its not to do with protecting embryos. Its to do with the social consequences.

Genetically modified crops are a good comparison. Faced with a similarly irresponsible absolutism from the scientific community as well as with the obvious competition for fame and profit the green movement and the left felt they had to take the issue of GM food into their own hands. Now it looks like its time to campaign for a global ban on the genetic engineering of people. We must stop this race for the first GM baby.

Dr David King is a former molecular biologist and founder of Human Genetics Alert, an independent secular watchdog group that supports abortion rights

Read the original here:
Editing the human genome brings us one step closer to consumer eugenics - The Guardian

What to read while youre self-isolating to avoid the coronavirus? How about books about all the various plagues humankind has survived before?

There are classics like Giovanni Boccaccios 1353 classic The Decameron, about Italian aristocrats who flee the bubonic plague in Florence, or Daniel Defoes 1722 novel A Journal of the Plague Year, an account of the Black Death in London half a century before.

There are many more recent works about pandemics, some nonfiction, some historical fiction, some speculative fiction. On March 8, Stephen King resisted comparisons of the current crisis to his 1978 novel The Stand, set in a world where a pandemic has killed 99% of the population. King tweeted, No, coronavirus is NOT like THE STAND. Its not anywhere near as serious. Its eminently survivable. Keep calm and take all reasonable precautions.

Despite Kings protestations, readers often look to books to help explain real-world phenomena, especially in bewildering times like these. Here are a few more plague books to consider.

Fiction

Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939) by Katherine Ann Porter is a short novel set during the influenza pandemic of 1918, which killed five times as many Americans as did World War I. Its main character, Miranda, is a young reporter who falls in love with a soldier; the books fever-dream style captures the experience of the disease.

The Andromeda Strain (1969) by Michael Crichton is a bestselling techno-thriller that begins when a military satellite crashes to earth and releases an extraterrestrial organism that kills almost everyone in a nearby small town. Then things get bad.

Love in the Time of Cholera (1985) by Gabriel Garca Mrquez is the great Colombian authors beguiling tale of a 50-year courtship, in which lovesickness is as debilitating and stubborn as disease.

The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood, which includes Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009) and MaddAddam (2013), is a masterwork of speculative fiction by the author of The Handmaids Tale. Set in a near future in which genetic engineering causes a plague that almost destroys humanity, its savagely satirical, thrilling and moving.

The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy is a bleak, beautifully written, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set after an unspecified extinction event has wiped out most of humanity. An unnamed man and boy travel on foot toward a southern sea, fending off cannibals and despair.

Nemesis (2010) by Philip Roth is the authors 31st and last novel, a sorrowful story set in Newark, N.J., in 1944, as the United States is in the grip of the polio epidemic that killed and disabled thousands of children.

Station Eleven (2014) by Emily St. John Mandel is a bestselling novel about a group of actors and musicians traveling through the Great Lakes region in future years after a mysterious pandemic called the Georgian flu has killed almost everyone.

The Old Drift (2019) by Namwalli Serpell is a dazzling debut novel set in Zambia, spanning a century but focusing in part on the disaster wrought in that country by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Nonfiction

The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance (1995) by Laurie Garrett is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters clear-eyed look at how rapidly the modern world has changed the nature of disease, how important preparedness is and how endangered we are without it.

Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic (2013) by David Quammen is the great science writers fascinating look at zoonotic diseases, such as AIDS and Ebola (and now coronavirus), that jump from animal species to ours.

Excerpt from:
Books about pandemics to read in the time of coronavirus - Milford Daily News

A coral reef takes thousands of years to build, yet can vanish in an instant.

The culprit is usuallycoral bleaching, a disease exacerbated by warming watersthat today threatens reefs around the globe. The worst recorded bleaching eventstruck the South Pacific between 2014 and 2016, when rising ocean temperatures followed by a sudden influx of warm El Nio waters traumatizedthe Great Barrier Reef.In just one seasonbleaching decimated nearly a quarter of thevast ecosystem, which once sprawled nearly 150,000 square miles through the Coral Sea.

As awful as it was, that bleaching event was a wake-up call, says Rachel Levin, a molecular biologist who recently proposed a bold technique to save these key ecosystems. Her idea, published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, is simple:Rather than finding healthy symbiontsto repopulate bleached coral in nature, engineer them in the lab instead.Given that this would requiretampering with nature in a significant way, the proposal is likely to stir controversial waters.

But Levin argues that with time running out for reefs worldwide, the potential value could wellbe worth the risk.

Levin studied cancer pharmacology as an undergraduate, but became fascinated by the threats facing aquatic life while dabbling in marine science courses. She was struck by the fact that, unlike in human disease research, there were far fewer researchers fighting to restore ocean health. After she graduated, she moved from California to Sydney, Australia to pursue a Ph.D. at the Center for Marine Bio-Innovation in the University of New South Wales, with the hope of applying her expertise in human disease research to corals.

In medicine, it often takes the threat of a serious disease for researchers to try a new and controversial treatment (i.e. merging two womens healthy eggs with one mans sperm to make a three-parent baby).The same holds in environmental scienceto an extent.Like a terrible disease [in] humans, when people realize how dire the situation is becoming researchers start trying to propose much more, Levin says.When it comes to saving the environment, however, there are fewer advocates willing to implementrisky, groundbreaking techniques.

When it comes to reefscrucial marine regions that harbor an astonishing amount of diversity as well as protect land massesfrom storm surges, floods and erosionthat hesitation could be fatal.

Coral bleachingis often presented as the death of coral, which is a little misleading. Actually, its the breakdown of the symbiotic union that enables a coral to thrive. The coral animal itself is like a building developer who constructs the scaffolding of a high rise apartment complex. The developer rents out each of the billions of rooms to single-celled, photosynthetic microbes called Symbiodinium.

But in this case, in exchange for a safe place to live, Symbiodinium makes food for the coral using photosynthesis. A bleached coral, by contrast, is like a deserted building. With no tenants to make their meals, the coral eventually dies.

Though bleaching can be deadly, its actually a clever evolutionary strategy of the coral. The Symbiodinium are expected to uphold their end of the bargain. But when the water gets too warm, they stop photosynthesizing. When that food goes scarce, the coral sends an eviction notice. Its like having a bad tenantyoure going to get rid of what you have and see if you can find better, Levin says.

But as the oceans continue to warm, its harder and harder to find good tenants. That means evictions can be risky. In a warming ocean, the coral animal might die before it can find any better rentersa scenario that has decimated reef ecosystems around the planet.

Levin wanted to solve this problem,by creatinga straightforward recipe for building a super-symbiont that could repopulate bleached corals and help them to persist through climate changeessentially, the perfect tenants. But she had to start small. At the time, there were so many holes and gaps that prevented us from going forward, she says. All I wanted to do was show that we could genetically engineer [Symbiodinium].

Even that would prove to be a tall order. The first challenge was that, despite being a single-celled organism, Symbiodinium has an unwieldy genome. Usually symbiotic organisms have streamlined genomes, since they rely on their hosts for most of their needs. Yet while other species have genomes of around 2 million base pairs, Symbiodiniums genome is 3 orders of magnitude larger.

Theyre humongous, Levin says. In fact, the entire human genome is only slightly less than 3 times as big as Symbiodiniums.

Even after advances in DNA sequencing made deciphering these genomes possible, scientists still had no idea what 80 percent of the genes were for. We needed to backtrack and piece together which gene was doing what in this organism, Levin says. A member of a group of phytoplankton called dinoflagellates, Symbiodinium are incredibly diverse. Levin turned her attention to two key Symbiodinium strains she could grow in her lab.

The first strain, like most Symbiodinium, was vulnerable to the high temperatures that cause coral bleaching. Turn up the heat dial a few notches, and this critter was toast. But the other strain, which had been isolated from the rare corals that live in the warmest environments,seemed to be impervious to heat. If she could figure out how these two strains wielded their genes during bleaching conditions, then she might find the genetic keys to engineering a new super-strain.

When Levin turned up the heat, she saw that the hardySymbiodinium escalated its production of antioxidants and heat shock proteins, which help repair cellular damage caused by heat. Unsurprisingly, the normal Symbiodinium didnt. Levin then turned her attention to figuring out a way to insert more copies of these crucial heat tolerating genes into the weaker Symbiodinium, thereby creating a strain adapted to live with corals from temperate regionsbut with the tools to survive warming oceans.

Getting new DNA into a dinoflagellate cell is no easy task. While tiny, these cells are protected by armored plates, two cell membranes, and a cell wall. You can get through if you push hard enough, Levin says. But then again, you might end up killing the cells. So Levin solicited help from an unlikely collaborator: a virus. After all, viruses have evolved to be able to put their genes into their hosts genomethats how they survive and reproduce, she says.

Levin isolated a virus that infected Symbiodinium, and molecularly altered it it so that it no longer killed the cells. Instead, she engineered it to be a benign delivery system for those heat tolerating genes. In her paper, Levin argues that the viruss payload could use CRISPR, the breakthrough gene editing technique that relies on a natural process used by bacteria, to cut and paste those extra genes into a region of the Symbiodiniums genome where they would be highly expressed.

It sounds straightforward enough. But messing with a living ecosystem is never simple, says says Dustin Kemp, professor of biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who studies the ecological impacts of climate change on coral reefs. Im very much in favor of these solutions to conserve and genetically help, says Kemp. But rebuilding reefs that have taken thousands of years to form is going to be a very daunting task.

Considering the staggering diversity of the Symbiodinium strains that live within just one coral species, even if there was a robust system for genetic modification, Kemp wonders if it would ever be possible to engineer enough different super-Symbiodinium to restore that diversity. If you clear cut an old growth forest and then go out and plant a few pine trees, is that really saving or rebuilding the forest? asks Kemp, who was not involved with the study.

But Kemp agrees that reefs are dying at an alarming rate, too fast for the natural evolution of Symbiodinium to keep up. If corals were rapidly evolving to hand
le [warming waters], youd think we would have seen it by now, he says.

Thomas Mock, a marine microbiologist at the University of East Anglia in the UKand a pioneer in genetically modifying phytoplankton, also points out that dinoflagellate biology is still largely enshrouded in mystery. To me this is messing around, he says. But this is how it starts usually. Provocative argument is always goodits very very challenging, but lets get started somewhere and see what we can achieve. Recently, CSIRO, the Australian governments science division, has announced that it will fund laboratories to continue researching genetic modifications in coral symbionts.

When it comes to human healthfor instance, protecting humans from devastating diseases like malaria or Zikascientists have been willing to try more drastic techniques, such as releasing mosquitoes genetically programmed to pass on lethal genes. The genetic modifications needed to save corals, Levin argues, would not be nearly as extreme. She adds that much more controlled lab testing is required before genetically modified Symbiodinium could be released into the environment to repopulate dying corals reefs.

When were talking genetically engineered, were not significantly altering these species, she says. Were not making hugely mutant things. All were trying to do is give them an extra copy of a gene they already have to help them out ... were not trying to be crazy scientists.

More:
A Blueprint for Genetically Engineering a Super Coral - Smithsonian

(KTSDESIGN/Science Photo Library)

Science issues whether connected with climate, childhood vaccines or new techniques in biotechnology are part of the fabric of civic life, raising a range of social, ethical and policy issues for the citizenry. As members of the scientific community gather at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) this week, here is a roundup of key takeaways from our studies of U.S. public opinion about science issues and their effect on society. If youre on Twitter, follow @pewscience for more science findings.

The data for this post was drawn from multiple different surveys. The most recent was a survey of 3,627 U.S. adults conducted Oct. 1 to Oct. 13, 2019. This post also draws on data from surveys conducted in January 2019, December 2018, April-May 2018 and March 2016. All surveys were conducted using the American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of being selected. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, education and other categories. Read more about the ATPs methodology.

Following are the questions and responses for surveys used in this post, as well as each surveys methodology:

1Some public divides over science issues are aligned with partisanship, while many others are not. Science issues can be a key battleground for facts and information in society. Climate science has been part of an ongoing discourse around scientific evidence, how to attribute average temperature increases in the Earths climate system, and the kinds of policy actions needed. While public divides over climate and energy issues are often aligned with political party affiliation, public attitudes on other science-related issues are not.

For example, there are differences in public beliefs around the risks and benefits of childhood vaccines. Such differences arise amid civic debates about the spread of false information about vaccines. While such beliefs have important implications for public health, they are not particularly political in nature.

In fact, Republicans and independents who lean to the GOP are just as likely as Democrats and independents who lean to the Democratic Party to say that, overall, the benefits of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine outweigh the risks (89% and 88% respectively).

2Americans have differing views about some emerging scientific and technological developments. Scientific and technological developments are a key source of innovation and, therefore, change in society. Pew Research Center studies have explored public reactions to emergent developments from genetic engineering techniques, automation and more. One field at the forefront of public reaction is the use of gene editing of babies or genetic engineering of animals. Americans have mixed views over whether the use of gene editing to reduce a babys risk of serious disease that could occur over their lifetime is appropriate (60%) or is taking medical technology too far (38%), according to a 2018 survey. Similarly, about six-in-ten Americans (57%) said that genetic engineering of animals to grow organs or tissues for humans needing a transplant would be appropriate, while four-in-ten (41%) said it would be taking technology too far.

When we asked Americans about a future where a brain chip implant would give otherwise healthy individuals much improved cognitive abilities, a 69% majority said they were very or somewhat worried about the possibility. By contrast, about half as many (34%) were enthusiastic. Further, as people think about the effects of automation technologies in the workplace, more say automation has brought more harm than help to American workers.

One theme running through our findings on emerging science and technology is that public hesitancy often is tied to concern about the loss of human control, especially if such developments would be at odds with personal, religious and ethical values. In looking across seven developments related to automation and the potential use of biomedical interventions to enhance human abilities, Center studies found that proposals that would increase peoples control over these technologies were met with greater acceptance.

3Most in the U.S. see net benefits from science for society, and they expect more ahead. About three-quarters of Americans (73%) say science has, on balance, had a mostly positive effect on society. And 82% expect future scientific developments to yield benefits for society in years to come.

The overall portrait is one of strong public support for the benefits of science to society, though the degree to which Americans embrace this idea differs sizably by race and ethnicity as well as by levels of science knowledge.

Such findings are in line with those of the General Social Survey on the effects of scientific research. In 2018, about three-quarters of Americans (74%) said the benefits of scientific research outweigh any harmful results. Support for scientific research by this measure has been roughly stable since the 1980s.

4The share of Americans with confidence in scientists to act in the public interest has increased since 2016.

Public confidence in scientists to act in the public interest tilts positive and has increased over the past few years. As of 2019, 35% of Americans report a great deal of confidence in scientists to act in the public interest, up from 21% in 2016.

About half of the public (51%) reports a fair amount of confidence in scientists, and just 13% have not too much or no confidence in this group to act in the public interest.

Public trust in scientists by this measure stands in contrast to that for other groups and institutions. One of the hallmarks of the current times has been low trust in government and other institutions. One-in-ten or fewer say they have a great deal of confidence in elected officials (4%) or the news media (9%) to act in the public interest.

5Americans differ over the role and value of scientific experts in policy matters. While confidence in scientists overall tilts positive, peoples perspectives about the role and value of scientific experts on policy issues tends to vary. Six-in-ten U.S. adults believe that scientists should take an active role in policy debates about scientific issues, while about four-in-ten (39%) say, instead, that scientists should focus on establishing sound scientific facts and stay out of such debates.

Democrats are more inclined than Republicans to think scientists should have an active role in science policy matters. Indeed, most Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (73%) hold this position, compared with 43% of Republicans and GOP leaners.

More than four-in-ten U.S. adults (45%) say that scientific experts usually make better policy decisions than other people, while a similar share (48%) says such decisions are neither better nor worse than other peoples and 7% say scientific experts decisions are usually worse than other peoples.

Here, too, Democrats tend to hold scientific experts in higher esteem than do Republicans: 54% of Democrats say scientists policy decisions are usually better than those of other people, while two-thirds of Republicans (66%) say that scientists decisions are either no different from or worse than other peoples.

6Factual knowledge alone does not explain public confidence in the scientific method to produce sound conclusions. Overall, a 63% majority of Americans say the scientific method generally produces sound conclusions, while 35% think it can be used to produce any result a researcher wants. Peoples level of knowledge can influence beliefs about these matters, but it does so through the lens of partisanship, a tendency known as motivated reasoning.

Beliefs about this matter illustrate that science knowledge levels sometimes correlate with public attitudes. But partisanship
has a stronger role.

Democrats are more likely to express confidence in the scientific method to produce accurate conclusions than do Republicans, on average. Most Democrats with high levels of science knowledge (86%, based on an 11-item index of factual knowledge questions) say the scientific method generally produces accurate conclusions. By comparison, 52% of Democrats with low science knowledge say this. But science knowledge has little bearing on Republicans beliefs about the scientific method.

7Trust in practitioners like medical doctors and dietitians is stronger than that for researchers in these fields, but skepticism about scientific integrity is widespread. Scientists work in a wide array of fields and specialties. A 2019 Pew Research Center survey found public trust in medical doctors and dietitians to be higher than that for researchers working in these areas. For example, 48% of U.S. adults say that medical doctors give fair and accurate information all or most of the time. By comparison, 32% of U.S. adults say the same about medical research scientists. And six-in-ten Americans say dietitians care about their patients best interests all or most of the time, while about half as many (29%) say this about nutrition research scientists with the same frequency.

One factor in public trust of scientists is familiarity with their work. For example, people who were more familiar with what medical science researchers do were more trusting of these researchers to express care or concern for the public interest, to do their job with competence and to provide fair and accurate information. Familiarity with the work of scientists was related to trust for all six specialties we studied.

But when it comes to questions of scientists transparency and accountability, most Americans are skeptical. About two-in-ten or fewer U.S. adults say that scientists are transparent about potential conflicts of interest with industry groups all or most of the time. Similar shares (roughly between one-in-ten and two-in-ten) say that scientists admit their mistakes and take responsibility for them all or most of the time.

This data shows clearly that when it comes to questions of transparency and accountability, most in the general public are attuned to the potential for self-serving interests to skew science findings and recommendations. These findings echo calls for increased transparency and accountability across many sectors and industries today.

8What boosts public trust in scientific research findings? Most say its making data openly available. A 57% majority of Americans say they trust scientific research findings more when the data is openly available to the public. And about half of the U.S. public (52%) say they are more likely to trust research that has been independently reviewed.

The question of who funds the research is also consequential for how people think about scientific research. A 58% majority say they have lower trust when research is funded by an industry group. By comparison, about half of Americans (48%) say government funding for research has no particular effect on how much they trust the findings; 28% say this decreases their trust and 23% say it increases their trust.

See more here:
Key findings about Americans' confidence in science and their views on scientists' role in society - Pew Research Center

Infectious disease experts warn that it's inevitable that a virus will jump from animals to humans and kill tens of millions. Here's everything you need to know:

Why are experts worried?Picture a new viral disease like the Wuhan coronavirus, now called COVID-19, that passes easily from person to person and spreads rapidly around the globe. But unlike COVID-19, which kills perhaps 2 or 3 percent of its victims, this virus kills 20 percent of those infected. Or 40 percent. It might sound like a disaster movie premise (and in fact it was, in 2011's Contagion), but viral disease experts are in wide agreement that such a pandemic is coming, and that it will inflict unimaginable devastation. The only question is when it will hit. Last September, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), a group convened in 2018 by the World Bank and the World Health Organization, warned of "a very real threat" of a pandemic that would kill 50 million to 80 million people, cost $3 trillion, and create "widespread havoc, instability, and insecurity." We need only look to the recent past to see how dire things can get: The Spanish flu of 1918 killed between 50 million and 100 million (including 675,000 Americans), or about 3 percent of the global population.

Where would such a virus come from?The most likely scenario is a pathogen that jumps from animals to humans and can spread through the air. The outbreak of COVID-19 was traced to a live-animal market in Wuhan, China, where a bat virus appears to have added some genetic material from a soldierfish. Many viral diseases have been traced to animals, including HIV (which originated in chimpanzees), MERS (camels), SARS (probably bats and civet cats), and Ebola (unknown, but probably bats). Last year researchers at Johns Hopkins ran a simulation of a hypothetical coronavirus emerging from a Brazilian pig farm: The result was 65 million dead within 18 months. Another concern is a familiar very deadly virus that mutates, allowing it to spread more easily. The avian flu H5N1, for example, has proven highly lethal but not very communicable so far. The intentional or accidental release of a manmade pathogen is another threat; new genetic engineering tools have made them far easier to create. A laptop captured from ISIS in 2014 contained instructions on how to weaponize plague bacteria.

Why is this more of a problem now?Human population growth. People are encroaching on previously wild areas where unknown viruses and bacteria lurk in animals; those who become infected carry the pathogens back to densely packed cities, where disease is easily spread. The 1998 emergence of the Nipah virus, for example, was linked to deforestation in Malaysia that displaced fruit bats and put them near pig farms. Pigs became infected, and the virus then spread to farmworkers. In the past 50 years, more than 300 pathogens have emerged or re-emerged, including Zika and yellow fever. At the same time, climate change has enabled insects and animals that carry disease to expand their habitats to new regions. Human migratory patterns are a factor as well: The surge in international travel allows viruses to spread around the globe quickly. "We've created an interconnected, dynamically changing world that provides innumerable opportunities to microbes," says Richard Hatchett of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. "If there's weakness anywhere, there's weakness everywhere."

Are we prepared for a major pandemic?Not at all. A report released last October by the Global Health Security Index found glaring gaps in readiness; out of 195 countries surveyed, not one was judged fully prepared to handle a major event. In the U.S. under President Trump, the federal budgets for both research and response preparation have been cut, the National Security Council's global health security unit has been disbanded, and the White House official in charge of pandemic response left his job in 2018 and has not been replaced. We're caught in a "cycle of panic and neglect," World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "We throw money at an outbreak, and when it's over, we forget about it and do nothing to prevent the next one."

What needs to be done?Experts say the U.S. and other countries need to spend vastly more money on pandemic preparedness. We need to develop better diagnostic tools, stockpile drugs and vaccines, and fund research into new treatments and vaccine technologies. Above all, there needs to be an international effort to improve sanitation, medical care, and response capability in poorer countries where new diseases are most likely to arise and spread. All of this requires a major change in mindset, say experts. "The world needs to prepare for pandemics the same way it prepares for war," said Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who's invested tens of millions in viral disease research. Humanity's biggest threat, he says, is "not missiles, but microbes."

It's happened many times beforeEpidemics have been a fact of life since the first human settlements. As humans built cities and trade routes, the capacity for pandemics grew, and history is marred by many devastating outbreaks. The earliest on record dates to 430 B.C., when a pestilence that may have been typhoid fever took root in Athens, killing up to two-thirds of the city's population. In A.D. 541, the Justinian plague spread through the Mediterranean world; recurrences over the next two centuries would kill more than 25 percent of the world's population. In the 14th century, another outbreak of plague, called the Black Death driven by fleas that live on rats but can bite humans claimed over 75 million lives, including some 60 percent of the population of Europe, whose cities were piled with reeking corpses. In the 16th and 17th centuries Native Americans were ravaged by smallpox and other diseases brought by European conquerors and colonists; in some areas as much as 90 percent of native populations were wiped out. The pandemic with the greatest number of casualties in history was the Spanish flu of 1918. It infected some 500 million people worldwide a third of the population and killed as many as 100 million.

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, try the magazine for a month here.

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The growing viral threat - The Week

Millions of new scientific research papers are published every year, shedding light on everything from the evolution of stars to the ongoing impacts of climate change to the health benefits (or determents) of coffee to the tendency of your cat to ignore you. With so much research coming out every year, it can be difficult to know what is significant, what is interesting but largely insignificant, and what is just plain bad science. But over the course of a decade, we can look back at some of the most important and awe-inspiring areas of research, often expressed in multiple findings and research papers that lead to a true proliferation of knowledge. Here are ten of the biggest strides made by scientists in the last ten years.

The human family tree expanded significantly in the past decade, with fossils of new hominin species discovered in Africa and the Philippines. The decade began with the discovery and identification of Australopithecus sediba, a hominin species that lived nearly two million years ago in present-day South Africa. Matthew Berger, the son of paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, stumbled upon the first fossil of the species, a right clavicle, in 2008, when he was only 9 years old. A team then unearthed more fossils from the individual, a young boy, including a well-preserved skull, and A. sediba was described by Lee Berger and colleagues in 2010. The species represents a transitionary phase between the genus Australopithecus and the genus Homo, with some traits of the older primate group but a style of walking that resembled modern humans.

Also discovered in South Africa by a team led by Berger, Homo naledi lived much more recently, some 335,000 to 236,000 years ago, meaning it may have overlapped with our own species, Homo sapiens. The species, first discovered in the Rising Star Cave system in 2013 and described in 2015, also had a mix of primitive and modern features, such as a small brain case (about one-third the size of Homo sapiens) and a large body for the time, weighing approximately 100 pounds and standing up to five feet tall. The smaller Homo luzonensis (three to four feet tall) lived in the Philippines some 50,000 to 67,000 years ago, overlapping with several species of hominin. The first H. luzonensis fossils were originally identified as Homo sapiens, but a 2019 analysis determined that the bones belonged to an entirely unknown species.

These three major finds in the last ten years suggest that the bones of more species of ancient human relatives are likely hidden in the caves and sediment deposits of the world, waiting to be discovered.

When Albert Einstein first published the general theory of relativity in 1915, he likely couldnt have imagined that 100 years later, astronomers would test the theorys predictions with some of the most sophisticated instruments ever builtand the theory would pass each test. General relativity describes the universe as a fabric of space-time that is warped by large masses. Its this warping that causes gravity, rather than an internal property of mass as Isaac Newton thought.

One prediction of this model is that the acceleration of masses can cause ripples in space-time, or the propagation of gravitational waves. With a large enough mass, such as a black hole or a neutron star, these ripples may even be detected by astronomers on Earth. In September 2015, the LIGO and Virgo collaboration detected gravitational waves for the first time, propagating from a pair of merging black holes some 1.3 billion light-years away. Since then, the two instruments have detected several additional gravitational waves, including one from a two merging neutron stars.

Another prediction of general relativityone that Einstein himself famously doubtedis the existence of black holes at all, or points of gravitational collapse in space with infinite density and infinitesimal volume. These objects consume all matter and light that strays too close, creating a disk of superheated material falling into the black hole. In 2017, the Event Horizon Telescope collaborationa network of linked radio telescopes around the worldtook observations that would later result in the first image of the environment around a black hole, released in April 2019.

Scientists have been predicating the effects of burning coal and fossil fuels on the temperature of the planet for over 100 years. A 1912 issue of Popular Mechanics contains an article titled Remarkable Weather of 1911: The Effect of the Combustion of Coal on the ClimateWhat Scientists Predict for the Future, which has a caption that reads: The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.

Just one century later, and the effect is considerable indeed. Increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have produced hotter global temperatures, with the last five years (2014 to 2018) being the hottest years on record. 2016 was the hottest year since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) started recording global temperature 139 years ago. The effects of this global change include more frequent and destructive wildfires, more common droughts, accelerating polar ice melt and increased storm surges. California is burning, Venice is flooding, urban heat deaths are on the rise, and countless coastal and island communities face an existential crisisnot to mention the ecological havoc wreaked by climate change, stifling the planets ability to pull carbon back out of the atmosphere.

In 2015, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) reached a consensus on climate action, known as the Paris Agreement. The primary goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. To achieve this goal, major societal transformations will be required, including replacing fossil fuels with clean energy such as wind, solar and nuclear; reforming agricultural practices to limit emissions and protect forested areas; and perhaps even building artificial means of pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Ever since the double-helix structure of DNA was revealed in the early 1950s, scientists have hypothesized about the possibility of artificially modifying DNA to change the functions of an organism. The first approved gene therapy trial occurred in 1990, when a four-year-old girl had her own white blood cells removed, augmented with the genes that produce an enzyme called adenosine deaminase (ADA), and then reinjected into her body to treat ADA deficiency, a genetic condition that hampers the immune systems ability to fight disease. The patients body began producing the ADA enzyme, but new white blood cells with the corrected gene were not produced, and she had to continue receiving injections.

Now, genetic engineering is more precise and available than ever before, thanks in large part to a new tool first used to modify eukaryotic cells (complex cells with a nucleus) in 2013: CRISPR-Cas9. The gene editing tool works by locating a targeted section of DNA and cutting out that section with the Cas9 enzyme. An optional third step involves replacing the deleted section of DNA with new genetic material. The technique can be used for a wide range of applications, from increasing the muscle mass of livestock, to producing resistant and fruitful crops, to treating diseases like cancer by removing a patients immune system cells, modifying them to better fight a disease, and reinjecting them into the patients body.

In late 2018, Chinese researchers led by He Jiankui announced that they had used CRISPR-Cas9 to genetically modify human embryos, which were then transferred to a womans uterus and resulted in the birth of twin girlsthe first gene-edited babies. The twins genomes were modified to make the girls
more resistant to HIV, although the genetic alterations may have also resulted in unintended changes. The work was widely condemned by the scientific community as unethical and dangerous, revealing a need for stricter regulations for how these powerful new tools are used, particularly when it comes to changing the DNA of embryos and using those embryos to birth live children.

Spacecraft and telescopes have revealed a wealth of information about worlds beyond our own in the last decade. In 2015, the New Horizons probe made a close pass of Pluto, taking the first nearby observations of the dwarf planet and its moons. The spacecraft revealed a surprisingly dynamic and active world, with icy mountains reaching up to nearly 20,000 feet and shifting plains that are no more than 10 million years oldmeaning the geology is constantly changing. The fact that Plutowhich is an average of 3.7 billion miles from the sun, about 40 times the distance of Earthis so geologically active suggests that even cold, distant worlds could get enough energy to heat their interiors, possibly harboring subsurface liquid water or even life.

A bit closer to home, the Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn for 13 years, ending its mission in September 2017 when NASA intentionally plunged the spacecraft into the atmosphere of Saturn so it would burn up rather than continue orbiting the planet once it had exhausted its fuel. During its mission, Cassini discovered the processes that feed Saturns rings, observed a global storm encircle the gas giant, mapped the large moon Titan and found some of the ingredients for life in the plumes of icy material erupting from the watery moon Enceladus. In 2016, a year before the end of the Cassini mission, the Juno spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, where it has been measuring the magnetic field and atmospheric dynamics of the largest planet in the solar system to help scientists understand how Jupiterand everything else around the sunoriginally formed.

In 2012, the Curiosity rover landed on Mars, where it has made several significant discoveries, including new evidence of past water on the red planet, the presence of organic molecules that could be related to life, and mysterious seasonal cycles of methane and oxygen that hint at a dynamic world beneath the surface. In 2018, the European Space Agency announced that ground-penetrating radar data from the Mars Express spacecraft provided strong evidence that a liquid reservoir of water exists underground near the Martian south pole.

Meanwhile, two space telescopes, Kepler and TESS, have discovered thousands of planets orbiting other stars. Kepler launched in 2009 and ended its mission in 2018, revealing mysterious and distant planets by measuring the decrease in light when they pass in front of their stars. These planets include hot Jupiters, which orbit close to their stars in just days or hours; mini Neptunes, which are between the size of Earth and Neptune and may be gas, liquid, solid or some combination; and super Earths, which are large rocky planets that astronomers hope to study for signs of life. TESS, which launched in 2018, continues the search as Keplers successor. The space telescope has already discovered hundreds of worlds, and it could find 10,000 or even 20,000 before the end of the mission.

The decade began with a revolution in paleontology as scientists got their first look at the true colors of dinosaurs. First, in January 2010, an analysis of melanosomesorganelles that contain pigmentsin the fossilized feathers of Sinosauropteryx, a dinosaur that lived in China some 120 to 125 million years ago, revealed that the prehistoric creature had reddish-brown tones and stripes along its tail. Shortly after, a full-body reconstruction revealed the colors of a small feathered dinosaur that lived some 160 million years ago, Anchiornis, which had black and white feathers on its body and a striking plume of red feathers on its head.

The study of fossilized pigments has continued to expose new information about prehistoric life, hinting at potential animal survival strategies by showing evidence of countershading and camouflage. In 2017, a remarkably well-preserved armored dinosaur which lived about 110 million years ago, Borealopelta, was found to have reddish-brown tones to help blend into the environment. This new ability to identify and study the colors of dinosaurs will continue to play an important role in paleontological research as scientists study the evolution of past life.

In November 2018, measurement scientists around the world voted to officially changed the definition of a kilogram, the fundamental unit of mass. Rather than basing the kilogram off of an objecta platinum-iridium alloy cylinder about the size of a golf ballthe new definition uses a constant of nature to set the unit of mass. The change replaced the last physical artifact used to define a unit of measure. (The meter bar was replaced in 1960 by a specific number of wavelengths of radiation from krypton, for example, and later updated to define a meter according to the distance light travels in a tiny fraction of a second.)

By using a sophisticated weighing machine known as a Kibble balance, scientists were able to precisely measure a kilogram according to the electromagnetic force required to hold it up. This electric measurement could then be expressed in terms of Plancks constant, a number originally used by Max Planck to calculate bundles of energy coming from stars.

The kilogram was not the only unit of measure that was recently redefined. The changes to the International System of Units, which officially went into effect in May 2019, also changed the definition for the ampere, the standard unit of electric current; the kelvin unit of temperature; and the mole, a unit of amount of substance used in chemistry. The changes to the kilogram and other units will allow more precise measurements for small amounts of material, such as pharmaceuticals, as well as give scientists around the world access to the fundamental units, rather than defining them according to objects that must be replicated and calibrated by a small number of labs.

In 2010, scientists gained a new tool to study the ancient past and the people who inhabited it. Researchers used a hair preserved in permafrost to sequence the genome of a man who lived some 4,000 years ago in what is now Greenland, revealing the physical traits and even the blood type of a member of one of the first cultures to settle in that part of the world. The first nearly complete reconstruction of a genome from ancient DNA opened the door for anthropologists and geneticists to learn more about the cultures of the distant past than ever before.

Extracting ancient DNA is a major challenge. Even if genetic material such as hair or skin is preserved, it is often contaminated with the DNA of microbes from the environment, so sophisticated sequencing techniques must be used to isolate the ancient humans DNA. More recently, scientists have used the petrous bone of the skull, a highly dense bone near the ear, to extract ancient DNA.

Thousands of ancient human genomes have been sequenced since the first success in 2010, revealing new details about the rise and fall of lost civilizations and the migrations of people around the globe. Studying ancient genomes has identified multiple waves of migration back and forth across the frozen Bering land bridge between Siberia and Alaska between 5,000 and 15,000 years ago. Recently, the genome of a young girl in modern Denmark was sequenced from a 5,700-year-old piece of birch tar used as chewing gum, which also contained her mouth microbes and bits of food from one of her last meals.

This decade included the worst outbreak of Ebola virus diseases in history. The epidemic is believed to have begun with a single case of an 18-month-old-boy in Guinea infected by bats in December 2013. The disease quickly spread to neighboring countries, reaching the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone by July 2014, providing an unprecedented opportunity for the transmission of the
disease to a large number of people. Ebola virus compromises the immune system and can cause massive hemorrhaging and multiple organ failure. Two and a half years after the initial case, more than 28,600 people had been infected, resulting in at least 11,325 deaths, according to the CDC.

The epidemic prompted health officials to redouble their efforts to find an effective vaccine to fight Ebola. A vaccine known as Ervebo, made by the pharmaceutical company Merck, was tested in a clinical trial in Guinea performed toward the end of the outbreak in 2016 that proved the vaccine effective. Another Ebola outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in August 2018, and the ongoing epidemic has spread to become the deadliest since the West Africa outbreak, with 3,366 reported cases and 2,227 deaths as of December 2019. Ervebo has been used in the DRC to fight the outbreak on an expanded access or compassionate use basis. In November 2019, Ervebo was approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and a month later it was approved in the U.S. by the FDA.

In addition to a preventative vaccine, researchers have been seeking a cure for Ebola in patients who have already been infected by the disease. Two treatments, which involve a one-time delivery of antibodies to prevent Ebola from infecting a patients cells, have recently shown promise in a clinical trial in the DRC. With a combination of vaccines and therapeutic treatments, healthcare officials hope to one day eradicate the viral infection for good.

Over the past several decades, physicists have worked tirelessly to model the workings of the universe, developing what is known as the Standard Model. This model describes four basic interactions of matter, known as the fundamental forces. Two are familiar in everyday life: the gravitational force and the electromagnetic force. The other two, however, only exert their influence inside the nuclei of atoms: the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force.

Part of the Standard Model says that there is a universal quantum field that interacts with particles, giving them their masses. In the 1960s, theoretical physicists including Franois Englert and Peter Higgs described this field and its role in the Standard Model. It became known as the Higgs field, and according to the laws of quantum mechanics, all such fundamental fields should have an associated particle, which came to be known as the Higgs boson.

Decades later, in 2012, two teams using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to conduct particle collisions reported the detection of a particle with the predicted mass of the Higgs boson, providing substantial evidence for the existence of the Higgs field and Higgs boson. In 2013, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Englert and Higgs for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle. As physicists continue to refine the Standard Model, the function and discovery of the Higgs boson will remain a fundamental part of how all matter gets its mass, and therefore, how any matter exists at all.

Continued here:
The Top Ten Scientific Discoveries of the Decade - Smithsonian

Using immunotherapy with genetically modified T cells that express chimeric antigen receptors or CARs designed to target tumor-associated molecules, have impressive efficacy in the treatment hematological malignancies.

A CAR is a synthetic construct that, when expressed in T cells, mimics T cell receptor activation and redirects specificity and effector function toward a specified antigen.[1]

In the treatment of cancer, this process is accomplished by linking an extracellular ligand-binding domain specific for a tumor cell surface antigen to an intracellular signaling module that activates T cells upon antigen binding.[1]

The presented studies include results from emerging second-generation cellular immunotherapy products that strive to overcome the limitations of existing products such as resistance and reduce toxicity and simplify treatment.

Cellular immunotherapy uses genetic engineering to enhance the ability of the immune system the bodys defense system against infection and disease to kill malignant cells in the blood, the bone marrow, and other sites, in order to keep cancer from coming back.

CAR T-cell TherapyChimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies, better known as CAR T-cell therapies, are developed by harvesting a patients own T-cells, the immune systems primary cancer-killing cells, engineering them to target proteins specific to the surface of cancer cells, and reintroducing these modified T-cells back into the patients immune system to kill the cancer cells.

First generationFirst-generation CAR T-cell therapies primarily target CD-19, a protein found on the surface of most normal and malignant B cells in B cell cancers such as lymphoma. These therapies have been shown to produce long-term remissions in about one-third of patients with B-cell lymphomas that have not responded to prior therapies.

We are now seeing efforts to enhance the effectiveness of CAR T-cell therapy by designing products capable of attacking multiple targets, expand the availability of cellular immunotherapy to other blood cancers such as multiple myeloma and replace the complex manufacturing process required for CAR T-cell therapy with a uniform off-the-shelf product, noted Gary Schiller, MD, UCLA Health, an academic medical center which includes a number of hospitals and an extensive primary care network in the Los Angeles, California, region.

One of the phase I studies evaluates an off-the-shelf cellular immunotherapy product that targets two proteins found on the surface of lymphoma cells, including its potential to revive previously administered CAR T-cells that have stopped working.

Another study presents preclinical results for one of the first cellular immunotherapies to be based on off-the-shelf natural killer (NK) cells and the first, according to its manufacturer, to be genetically engineered to contain three active anti-tumor components.

The other two studies, also phase I studies, assess novel CAR T-cell therapies for multiple myeloma that test different dual-target strategies.

One investigational agent is genetically engineered to contain two proteins that attach to BCMA, a protein found almost exclusively on the surface of plasma cells, the immune-system cells that become cancerous in multiple myeloma.

The other is designed to target both BCMA and CD-38, another protein found on the surface of plasma cells. In both studies, many patients achieved minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity, which means that using highly sensitive testing fewer than one myeloma cell per 100,000 cells was identified in the bone marrow. Previous studies have shown that patients who achieve this milestone have a lower risk of relapse after more than three years of follow-up.

Dual-targeted CAR T-cell therapiesThe three phase I studies also hint at the possibility that dual-targeted CAR T-cell therapies might result in fewer patients experiencing moderate to severe cytokine release syndrome (CRS), a known adverse effect caused by an immune response in the body to the activated T cells that are attacking the cancer. CRS causes flu-like symptoms such as fever, body aches, and fatigue, and in severe cases can be life-threatening. Treatment with the drug tocilizumab can reduce CRS symptoms.

Dual-Targeted Antibody Elicits Durable ResponsesPatients with B-cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) that had returned after or failed to respond to a median of three prior therapies showed complete responses (CR) and durable remissions after being treated with an investigational drug called mosunetuzumab (RG7828; Genentech/Roche). [2]

This investigational agent is a humanized, T-cell bispecific antibody designed to engage T cells and redirect their cytotoxic activity against malignant B cells. The drug works by activating the patients own T-cells, stimulating them to attack and kill cancerous B cells to which they have been introduced by the novel antibody.

Mosunetuzumab simultaneously binds to CD3 epsilon (CD3), a component of the T-cell receptor (TCR) complex, and to CD20, a B-cell surface protein expressed in a majority of B-cell malignancies. This results in crosslinking of the TCR, inducing downstream signaling events that leads to B-cell killing.

Among patients whose lymphoma progressed after treatment with CAR T-cell therapy, 22% had complete remissions when treated with mosunetuzumab. This new drug targets two proteins, one on the surface of tumor cells and the other on the surface of the recipients Tcells.

Unlike CAR T-cell therapy, mosunetuzumab is an off-the-shelf immunotherapy product that can be given to patients without having to genetically modify their T cells, noted lead author Stephen J. Schuster, MD, of Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Mosunetuzumab generates long-lasting responses with a very tolerable safety profile in patients with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas for whom multiple prior treatments have failed and whose prognosis is poor. Of particular interest, we are seeing durable complete remissions in patients whose lymphomas progressed after CAR T-cell therapy, he added.

The researchers observed many remissions continue after patients stop receiving the drug.

I have stopped therapy in some patients after six months and they have remained in remission. Some patients have remained in remission without additional therapy for more than a year, Schuster said.

New treatment options are needed not only for patients in whom CAR T-cell therapy has failed, but also for those patients whose lymphomas are getting worse so quickly that they cannot wait for CAR T-cell manufacturing, which takes several weeks, Schuster explained.

The data presented during the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology included 270 patients (median age 62, 172 men) enrolled in the phase I trial in seven countries (the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, South Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom). All participating patients had B-cell lymphomas that had come back or not responded to a median of three prior therapies. Two-thirds of patients (67%) had fast-growing lymphomas; 85 (31%) patients had more slow-growing forms of the disease. In 30 patients (11%), the cancer was resistant to or returned after an initial response to CAR T-cell therapy; in 77 patients (29%), the disease had progressed after a stem cell transplant.

All patients were treated with mosunetuzumab by intravenous infusion. They had an imaging test at either six weeks or three months after starting therapy to assess the initial response to treatment, and responses continued to be followed every three months thereafter.

Forty-six of 124 patients with fast-growing lymphomas (37%) had measurable decreases in the extent of their cancer (objective response); 24 of 124 patients (19%) saw all detectable tumors disappear (complete response). A higher response rate was observed in patients with higher exposure to mosunetuzumab. Among patients with slow-growing lymphomas, 42 of 67 (63%) h
ad objective responses and 29 of 67 (43%) had complete responses. Both objective response rate and complete response rate were maintained in subgroups of patients at high risk for relapse.

Complete remissions appear to be long lasting, Schuster said.

With a median follow-up of six months since first complete remission, 24 of 29 patients (83%) who achieved complete remissions of their slow-growing lymphomas and 17 of 24 patients (71%) who achieved complete remissions of their fast-growing lymphomas remain free of disease. In some patients whose cancers progressed after receiving CAR T-cell therapy, highly sensitive molecular testing showed that the previously administered CAR T cells increased in number.

This suggests that, in addition to its ability to kill cancerous B cells, mosunetuzumab may also help augment the effect of the prior CAR-T treatment, Schuster noted.

Cytokine-release syndromeIn this study, 29% of patients treated with mosunetuzumab experienced cytokine-release syndrome that was mostly mild.

Cytokine release syndrome or CRS is caused by a large, rapid release of cytokines into the blood from immune cells affected by the immunotherapy. While most patients have a mild reaction, sometimes patients may have a severe, life threatening, reaction.

In 3% of patients, CRS was treated with tocilizumab (Actemra; Genentech/Roche). Four percent of patients experienced moderately severe neurologic side effects. Patients who received higher doses of mosunetuzumab were no more likely to have CRS or neurologic side effects than patients treated at lower doses.

A study of a higher dose of mosunetuzumab is now enrolling patients and long-term follow-up of these patients will ultimately help to better evaluate the durability of response data.

Larger, randomized trials are needed to further confirm these promising data and determine whether the treatment benefit of mosunetuzumab is enhanced when it is used earlier in the course of lymphoma therapy or in combination with other agents, Schuster concluded.

Novel Off-the-Shelf CARPreclinical studies provide the first evidence that cellular immunotherapy for B cell cancers could ultimately become an off-the-shelf product, capable of being uniformly manufactured in large quantities as prescription drugs are.

We have taken the concept of traditional pharmaceutical drug development and applied it to cellular therapy, explained senior author Bob Valamehr, Ph.D, of Fate Therapeutics, a San Diego biopharmaceutical company.

The product called FT596, is among the first cellular immunotherapies to be based on off-the-shelf NK cells the first line of defense of the immune system and is the first cellular immunotherapy to be genetically engineered to contain three active anti-tumor components, Valamehr explained.

Comparable with standard CAR T-cell therapyFT596 demonstrated comparable ability to kill cancerous white blood cells as standard CAR T-cells and, when combined with the drug rituximab (Rituxan; Genentech/Roche), killed cancerous white blood cells that were no longer responding to standard CAR T-cell therapy due to loss of the CD19 antigen target.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Fate Therapeutics Investigational New Drug Application for FT596 in September 2019 and the company hopes to begin a first-in-human phase I clinical trial for the treatment of B-cell lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia in the first quarter of 2020.

The primary purpose of this trial will be to assess the safety and activity of FT596 in patients.

ManufacturingThe development and manufacturing of FT596 begins with human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that are uniquely capable of unlimited self-renewal and can differentiate into more than 200 types of human cells. These iPSCs are genetically engineered, after which a single genetically engineered cell or clone is selected and multiplied in the laboratory to create a master engineered cell line that can be repeatedly used to generate cancer-fighting immune-system cells such as NK and T cells.

Natural Kiler Cells or NK cells are a type of lymphocyte and a component of innate immune system, the bodys first line of defense against infection and disease. Unlike T-cells, which have to be trained to recognize their target and can kill only cells that display that target on their surface, NK cells do not need special preparation before going on the attack and can kill many different types of transformed or infected cells.

NK cells are multifaceted and can be viewed as a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to protecting the host, whereas T cells can act in only one way, Valamehr explained.

But NK cells are also different in other ways. They are inherently limited in their capacity to multiply and expand when infused into patients, and they have a shorter lifespan.

Valamehr and his colleagues used genetic engineering to address these shortcomings. In addition to engineering FT596 to carry a CAR targeting the CD19 protein, which is produced by nearly all B-cell lymphomas and leukemias, they inserted two other novel proteins: CD16, which boosts and broadens the NK cells ability to kill cancer cells, and IL15, which stimulates FT596 to proliferate and persist.

Valamehr explained that FT596 has been designed to address two more limitations of CAR T-cell therapy .

The investigational agent is an off-the-shelf product. As a result, it significantly improves the current patient-by-patient CAR T-cell treatment paradigm by eliminating the time-consuming and costly process that is currently required to treat a patient with CAR T-cells.

The addition of the CD16 protein gives FT596 broader therapeutic activity and versatility. In combination with rituximab, FT596 has the potential to lead to deeper and more durable responses and overcome resistance that hampers the long-term efficacy of CAR T-cell therapy.

Eliminating the high production cost, weeks of manufacturing time, and complex manufacturing process required for CAR T-cell therapy and replacing it with a mass-produced, off-the-shelf product, promises to expand access to effective cell-based cancer immunotherapy to many more patients who may benefit from it, Valamehr concluded.

Results from CARTITUDE-1 in R/R Multiple MyelomaPatients with multiple myeloma who had received a median of five prior therapies, and for whom standard-of-care treatments were no longer working, had a high response rate when treated with the investigational CAR T-cell therapy JNJ-68284528 (JNJ-4528), which targets BCMA, a protein commonly found on the surface of multiple myeloma cancer cells.

These patients participated in a clinical trials (NCT03548207), supported by Janssen Research & Development, designed to characterize safety of and establish the recommended Phase II dose (RP2D) (Phase Ib) and to evaluate the efficacy of JNJ-68284528 (Phase II).

We are seeing a high response rate, with most patients achieving MRD negativity, noted lead study author Deepu Madduri, MD, of The Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai in New York.

Considering these patients have all received multiple prior therapies, these results are extremely encouraging, Madduri added.

All evaluable patients receiving this CAR T-cell therapy have achieved MRD-negative disease state and 27 of 29 patients are progression free at a median follow-up of six months, Madduri said.

Multiple myeloma is a cancer of plasma cells, which are found in the bone marrow and are part of the immune system, the bodys defense system against infection. Typical signs and symptoms of multiple myeloma may be bone pain or fractures, high levels of calcium in the blood, kidney damage, and anemia. Multiple myeloma affects an estimated 160,000 people each year, occurs most often in people over 60. The disease is slightly more common in men than in women.

Although new therapies for multiple myeloma have recently become available that can extend patients life expectancy, a cure for the disease remains elusive.

We can g
et the disease into remission, but most patients unfortunately relapse, and outcomes are very poor for patients who have relapsed multiple times, she said.

Researchers explained that JNJ-4528 is a novel CAR T-cell therapy featuring two molecules that bind to BCMA, a protein found on the surface of multiple myeloma cells.

We are learning that every CAR T-cell therapy is different, Madduri said.

JNJ-4528 has a unique CAR T-cell composition in patients, preferentially enriched in CD8 T cells, which are believed to be one of the most important T cells in killing cancer cells, she noted.

This phase Ib/II trial is continuing to enroll patients.

During the 2019 annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, Madduri reported results for the first 29 patients enrolled.

Patients T-cells were collected and sent to a laboratory where they were genetically engineered to express JNJ-4528. Prior to re-infusing these CAR T-cells, the patients received three days of chemotherapy to make room in their immune systems for the engineered T-cells.

Following chemotherapy, each patient received a single infusion of the JNJ-4528 CAR T-cells.

After a minimum of 28 days, these patients had blood and bone marrow exams, which was followed by exams at six months, and one year after treatment to assess their response. The primary aims of the trial are to assess the therapys safety and to confirm the dose to be tested in a larger, phase II trial.

The median follow-up time in the current analysis is six months. Overall, 100% of patients had a clinical response to JNJ-4528. Moreover, 66% had a stringent complete response, meaning that sensitive laboratory and microscopic tests found no evidence for myeloma proteins or cells in blood, urine, or bone marrow.

Most patients (93%) experienced some form of CRS. One patient had severe (grade 3) CRS, and one patient died from its complications 99 days after the CAR T-cell infusion. In 76% of patients, CRS was treated with tocilizumab.

To see some patients in this heavily pretreated population surviving for a year or more with a one-time treatment and a manageable safety profile is remarkable, Madduri explained.

These patients feel that they have their quality of life back. They no longer have to come into the clinic for weekly treatments and some are well enough to travel, Madduri concluded.

The phase II portion of this study is ongoing to evaluate the overall response rate of patients treated with JNJ-68284528 (JNJ-4528). Additional clinical studies are evaluating the safety and efficacy of JNJ-4528 in different multiple myeloma treatment settings.

BreakthroughEarlier this week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation for JNJ-68284528 (JNJ-4528).

The granting of Breakthrough Therapy Designation for JNJ-68284528 (JNJ-4528) is a significant milestone as we continue to accelerate the global development of this innovative CAR-T therapy in collaboration with Legend Biotech, noted Sen Zhuang, MD, Ph.D., Vice President, Oncology Clinical Development, Janssen Research & Development.

We look forward to continuing to work closely with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to advance the clinical development program for JNJ-68284528 (JNJ-4528) and ultimately bring this BCMA-targeted immunotherapy to patients living with multiple myeloma who are in need of a new therapeutic option, Zhuang concluded.

Encouraging Results for Dual-Targeted CAR T-Cell TherapyMore than three out of four patients with multiple myeloma that returned or did not respond to at least two therapies remained in remission seven months after treatment with a novel CAR T-cell therapy targeting two proteins that are frequently found on myeloma cells.

Nine patients experiencing sustained remissions in this study, which ws supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Major Technological Innovation Special Project fund of Hubei Province of China, and Cellyan Therapeutics, were diagnosed with a difficult-to-treat form of multiple myeloma in which the disease has spread beyond the bone marrow.

Roughly one in 10 patients with multiple myeloma develop tumors in the organs or soft tissues such as the blood vessels, muscles, and nerves. These so-called extramedullary tumors respond poorly to treatment, and patients who develop them have a poor outlook and poor health related quality of life (hrQoL)

Our results show that this CAR T-cell product can effectively achieve elimination of extramedullary tumors, said study author Yu Hu, MD, Ph.D, of Union Hospital, Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China.

Although these are preliminary data, they are encouraging for patients with multiple myeloma who have not responded to other therapies, Hu added.

Hu and his colleagues are developing the first CAR T-cell therapy to be genetically engineered to target BCMA and CD38, two proteins found on the surface of plasma cells. Multiple myeloma is a cancer of plasma cells, which are found in the bone marrow and are part of the immune system, the bodys defense system against infection and disease.

Our thinking was that targeting both of these proteins would improve treatment efficacy without increasing toxicity, and induce deeper, more durable remissions, Hu noted.

The first-in-humans phase I trial enrolled 22 patients whose average age was 59, of whom 11 were men. All had multiple myeloma that had returned or not responded to at least three therapies. Nine of the 22 patients had extramedullary tumors. The study aims were to determine the safest and most effective dose of the CAR T-cell therapy as well as to initially evaluate its effectiveness.

Just like in other trials with CAR T-cell therapies, the participating patients received three days of chemotherapy to make room in their immune systems for the engineered T-cells. Then each patient was infused with the dual-targeted CAR T cells. Patients were divided into five groups, with each group receiving a higher dose than the previous one. Depending on the cell dose, patients received either one or two infusions.

At a median of 36 weeks of follow-up, 18 patients (90.9%) had MRD-negative disease. Twelve patients (54.5%) had a stringent complete response, meaning that no plasma cells were detected in the bone marrow. Seven patients (31.8%) had a good or very good partial response, meaning that the level of M-protein (an abnormal protein produced by cancerous plasma cells) in the blood or urine was reduced but still detectable. In eight of the nine patients with extramedullary lesions, these tumors were undetectable on their computed tomography scans. For the 17 patients who remained in remission at seven months after treatment, the median duration of response was 28.8 weeks.

The adverse events observed included 20 patients who experienced CRS, of whom six needed treatment. No serious adverse neurologic effects such as seizures, movement impairment, difficulty speaking or understanding speech, or fatal swelling in the brain were reported.

With this dual-targeted CAR T-cell therapy, we have demonstrated a high response rate, especially a higher rate and longer duration of stringent complete response, compared with other therapies, as well as effective elimination of extramedullary lesions, with no serious neurologic adverse effects and manageable levels of other adverse effects, Hu concluded.

The investigators continue to follow the patients for the next two years. They are also planning to conduct a phase II trial in both China and the United States to test the treatments effectiveness in a larger number of patients.

Clinical trialsA Study of JNJ-68284528, a Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell (CAR-T) Therapy Directed Against B-Cell Maturation Antigen (BCMA) in Participants With Relapsed or Refractory Multiple Myeloma (CARTITUDE-1) NCT03548207

References[1] Srivastava S, Riddell SR. Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell Therapy: Challenges to Bench-to-Bedside Efficacy. J Immunol. 2018;
200(2):459468. doi:10.4049/jimmunol.1701155 [Abstract][2] Schuster SJ, Bartlett NL, Assouline S, Yoon SS, Bosch F, Sehn LH, Cheah CY, Shadman M, et al. Mosunetuzumab Induces Complete Remissions in Poor Prognosis Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Patients, Including Those Who Are Resistant to or Relapsing After Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell (CAR-T) Therapies, and Is Active in Treatment through Multiple Lines. 61st annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology. Program: General Sessions. Session: Plenary Scientific Session. Hematology Disease Topics & Pathways: antibodies, Follicular Lymphoma, CRS, Diseases, Biological, Therapies, neurotoxicity, Adverse Events, CAR-Ts, Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, DLBCL, immunotherapy, Lymphoid Malignancies. [Abstract][3] Goodridge JP, Mahmood S, Zhu H, Gaidarova S, Blum R, Bjordahl R, Cichocki F, et al. FT596: Translation of First-of-Kind Multi-Antigen Targeted Off-the-Shelf CAR-NK Cell with Engineered Persistence for the Treatment of B Cell Malignancies. 61st annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology. Program: Oral and Poster Abstracts. Type: Oral. Session: 625. Lymphoma: Pre-ClinicalChemotherapy and Biologic Agents: Targeting Apoptosis Pathways in Lymphoma.[Abstract][4] Madduri D, Usmani SZ, Jagannath S, Singh I, Zudaire E, Yeh TM, Allred AJ, Banerjee A, et al. Results from CARTITUDE-1: A Phase 1b/2 Study of JNJ-4528, a CAR-T Cell Therapy Directed Against B-Cell Maturation Antigen (BCMA), in Patients with Relapsed and/or Refractory Multiple Myeloma (R/R MM). 61st annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology. Program: Oral and Poster Abstracts. Type: Oral Session: 653. Myeloma: Therapy, excluding Transplantation: Novelty in CAR T in Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma. [Abstract][5] Li C, Mei H, Hu Y, Guo T, Liu L, Jiang H, Tang L, Wu Y, et al. A Bispecific CAR-T Cell Therapy Targeting Bcma and CD38 for Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma: Updated Results from a Phase 1 Dose-Climbing Trial61st annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology. Program: Oral and Poster Abstracts. Type: Oral. Session: 653. Myeloma: Therapy, excluding Transplantation: Novel Therapy for Relapsed Myeloma. Hematology Disease Topics & Pathways: Biological, Diseases, Adult, Therapies, Lymphoma (any), Adverse Events, CAR-Ts, Elderly, Biological Processes, Technology and Procedures, Cell Lineage, Study Population, Clinically relevant, Lymphoid Malignancies.

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ASH 2019: Second-gen CAR T-Cell Therapy Overcome Resistance, Reduce Toxicity and Simplify Treatment - OncoZine

In September 2017, when temperatures in Pakistans Gilgit-Baltistan region were mild and the thick snow blankets that block passage around the Himalayas later in the season were a still-distant threat, Sadar U. Siddiqui and his companions trekked up through the mountains on a mission to find a wild variety of chickpea. Back in Islamabad, hed visited the National Herbarium and gotten a good look at the plant species called Medicago sativa subsp. falcata that had sickle-shaped fruit and thin, spiky leaves. If the plant was somewhere out there on the precipitously rocky slopes, Siddiqui, Genebank curator of Pakistans Plant Genetic Resources Program (PGRP), had yet to find evidence of it.

One day, though, driving along no roads, only dangerous jeep tracks as the afternoon waned, Siddiqui and his companions spotted a goat finding something to eat, he says. That something was Medicago sativa subsp. falcata. The goat had ravaged the shrubby clump of plants until all that remained were a few pods and leaves. Siddiqui and his companionstaxonomist Amir Sultan and biologist Shakeel Ahmad Jatoichased the animal off. They poured seed from two or three of the remaining pods into paper sacks and counted themselves lucky. Jatoi had gone on a similar expedition to Balochistan and had found, rather than Octhochloa compressa and other species, A housing colony, cemented roads, and not a single plant, says Siddiqui.

Siddiquis efforts ran parallel to those of seed collectors from 24 developing countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, who have spent the last several years in a race against ravenous livestock, habitat loss, and the effects of climate change as they search for wild relatives of crops vital to human diets. The endeavor, called Crop Wild Relatives Project (CWRP) and overseen by the Crop Trust in Bonn and Kews Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) outside London, has three phases. Phase one was a gap analysis to identify what critical seeds were missing in gene banks in certain regions. Phase two, which Siddiqui took part in, entailed seed collecting and distribution to international gene banks. Phase three, currently ongoing, focuses on pre-breedingidentifying desirable characteristics in those collected wild seeds.

As phase three begins, the question is: Were these efforts enough to ensure longterm global food security in the face of climactic upheaval?

For all the evident diversity in your supermarket shopping cart, agriculture has a dirty secret hidden in plain sight. Only nine crops out of a 120 cultivated worldwide supply three-quarters of the energy we get from plant-based foods. A mere three cropswheat, rice, and maizesupply half of that, according to the UNs Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). By comparison, when our ancestors began to transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture some 13,000 years ago, they were eating thousands of different plants.

Once upon a not-so-distant time, there was also much greater variety in the species of seeds that produced our wheat, rice, and maize. Wheat is the main staple crop in Pakistan, which once grew hundreds of varieties of it. That number has dwindled to 95. Almost all the remaining varieties of wheat were genetically modified to be high-yield and disease-resistant monocultures, and to grow with chemical inputs. This story repeats in many countriesChina had 10,000 varieties of wheat in 1949, but only 1,000 in 1970, and considerably fewer now. Chickpeas, barley, lentils, sorghum, pigeonpeas, carrots, apples, millet, alfalfa, sweet potatoes, and rye have all been whittled down to a handful of mostly-engineered species. Theyre controlled by massive international agrochemical conglomerates: Dow/Dupont, ChemChina/Syngenta, Bayer/Monsanto.

This precipitous drop in diversity began in the 1950s and 60s, during the Green Revolution. Confronted with a burgeoning global population, governments worked furiously to ramp up crop production in order to feed more people. A super-productive rice breed called IR8, for example, was hailed as a miracle seed and credited with staving off starvation in India, even producing enough for export; traditional rice varietals were then abandoned in its favor.

Crop-by-crop, country-by-country, weve achieved a worldwide homogeneityand genetic erosion. Its a massive threat to food security, according to a paper published in 2014 by the National Academy of Sciences that was co-written by Hannes Dempewolf, Crop Trusts senior scientist. In the words of Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva, weve hit a state of seed emergency.

Crop monocultures that rely on chemical inputs are destructive to soil, water, air, and biodiversity, says the Union of Concerned Scientists. Reduced crop diversity is also bad for human health, and has been linked to upticks in conditions of over-nourishment like diabetes and obesity. Agriculture is already experiencing negative impacts from climate changefloods, droughts, extreme temperature fluctuations, earlier or later growing seasons, soil erosion, decreased pest and disease resilience, reduced nutritional value of crops. That makes this global monoculture of monocultures, all created from the same genetic building blocks, a few perfect storms or floods or fires away from being wiped out. Our commercial crops lack resistance, and theres not enough genetic diversity in the seeds weve got left to cultivate new strains to fight new battles on our fields.

This is where crop wild relatives, which geneticist Jack Harlan credited with standing between us and catastrophic starvation on a scale we cannot imagine, come in. If we can collect enough wild seeds before the goats eat them all, we might regain the diversity we need to develop hardy crops, locally, that can weather whatever future hardships are in store on our rapidly morphing planet.

During phase twos collecting years, CWRP expeditions yielded 4,644 collections, from 371 species and 28 crop gene pools. Some of these are already being pre-bred in their countries of origin; scientists are determining their particular traits and developing germplasmliving genetic materialthat can be used to create resilient hybrids. (Notably, not all modified crops are engineered to be, say, Roundup-ready; individual farmers have been selectively breeding seeds to tap their useful properties for millennia.)

Under the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, signatory countries and gene banks agree to freely share seeds to improve crops. Companies making commercialized hybrids from these resources must contribute a portion of profits to promote sustainable farming or conservation of genetic diversity in developing countries, according to Science News.

In joining the CWRP, Pakistan stood out compared to other countries in how the project [got] a conversation going about the importance of crop wild relatives, says Dempewolf. It stimulated a national movement to conserve and collect material and use it in pre-breeding. Over two years, Siddiqui and his team bolstered Pakistans depleted seed bank collections with 2 million wild seeds from 32 species of 18 crops.

The effort was fraught with challenges on multiple fronts, though. Siddiquis gene bank staff is comprised largely of a shifting cast of temp workers; teaching them basic protocolslike how to not mislabel materialsis an ongoing struggle. The vehicles at his disposal for collecting expeditions (they continue to collect seeds on their own) are prone to breakdowns and his state funders think its luxurious for government servants to buy a double-cab 4-wheel-drive car that can [make it] into the mountains, and not get stuck in sand, he says.

Help came in various forms from the CWRP. Siddiqui and Jatoi, along with another researcher, travelled to the Millennium Seed Bank for training in seed processing, handling, germination, and viability testing. MSB also compiled a Pakistan-specific collecting guide that provided taxonomical details, info on where plants have historically been found, and when they b
loom. Says Kews CWRP coordinator Christopher Cockel, such guides are valuable so you dont waste so much time going out on speculative trips.

Siddiqui did find the guide helpful, even though its accuracy could be hobbled by unexpected variables. Sometimes we couldnt [collect] seed because theyd matured earlier than expected, and sometimes we found drought conditions [and no seed], he says. Sometimes, enthusiastic locals unwittingly sent him on long wild goose chases.

Still, the team managed to collect Pakistans first-ever wild rice specimen, Oryza coarctata, in a delta near the Arabian Sea. It was the end of the season and we were not sure we could find anything, he says. But there the panicles stood in brackish water amid the tides, being munched by buffalo, with what Siddiqui feels sure is a salt-tolerant gene that will be very important for us as sea levels rise. Not least because, as a new study out of the University of Minnesota found, in developing countries like Pakistan, crop yields are already plummeting and hunger is inching upward.

Two-thirds of Oryza coarctata and all the seed Siddiqui collected were sent back to MSB. It stores ideally, 10,000 per species and sends about 100 on to crop-specific gene banks. Cereals go to the International Center for Agriculture Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), apples, carrots, and peas to the USDA, and bananas to KU Leuven in Belgiumbecause the worlds banana experts are based there, says Cockel. The gene banks grow out the seeds to actively regenerate them, providing them with enough to work with. Collections of these new lines of seed, which inevitably lose some of their wild traits when regenerated, are sent to the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, for additional backup.

One-third of Siddiquis collected seed remains in Pakistan. The National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering in Faisalbad has started pre-breeding a chickpea wild relative; Sargodha University in Punjab is pre-breeding Daucus carota carota, a wild carrot relative. It can take a decade or longer to get them to a point where they can be crossed with modern varieties from there.

What Siddiqui really wants is a pre-breeding lab of his own, to make up for gaps in our knowledge of how to use crop wild relatives effectively. Hes got his eye on an x-ray machine like one he trained on at MSB, to determine if seed contain intact embryos that can germinate; and a hyper-efficient Austrian cooling system that uses only 1 kilowatt of energy to keep an entire stored seed collection at optimum temperature.

The collection phase of the CWRP is over. But Siddiquis ongoing 12 expeditions a year target, not just wild relatives, but indigenous heirloom varieties grown by small farmers who continue to play a key role in maintaining biological diversity, according to FAO. A new accession now growing in PGRPs botanical garden is a primitive wheat landrace found in Balochistan that contains twice the world average of zinc and iron.

Some critics of the CWRP fear the likes of Bayer/Monsanto using crop wild relatives to usher in a new era of chemical-dependent monocultures. Rescuing seeds has effectively configured a use pipeline to guide genetic resources away from the farming communities and toward breeders and biotechnologists, whose craft is strongly shaped by private sector interests in sellable seed, writes Maywa Montenegro in Gastronomica.And although the Plant Treaty stipulates that genetic materials from wild relatives cant be patented in the form received, Montenegro points out that their derived products can be. What threats to seed sovereigntythe right to collect, grow, and exchange seedfor non-commercial-scale farmers will that engender?

Dempewolf of Crop Trust maintains that seed collections are a key public good and that its the responsibility of public institutions to get engaged and not leave it to private institutions to do the right thing. But whether a large-scale model of agriculture can now be built in which agrochemical companies do not dominate, and at a scale that can make a difference, remains to be seen. At the very least, capturing some wild and landrace varietals before they vanish along with all our genetic inheritance, as Dempewolf puts it, has been accomplished.

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Can Crops' Wild Relatives Save Troubled Agriculture? - JSTOR Daily

(Photo : Photo by seligmanwaite on Foter.com / CC BY) Results of the new study show that some placental mammals like cows are more resistant to skin cancer compared to humans.

One of mammals' winning designs for survival is pregnancy and the ability to nurture its young inside the womb to be fully adapted upon birth. However, a new study shows that there are connections between the evolution of pregnancy and the spread of cancer among placental mammals.

PLACENTAL MAMMALS AND THE RISK OF CANCER

There are three types of mammals: the marsupials (those who develop their young in 'pouches'), monotremes (mammals that lay eggs), and placental mammals -- technically known as the eutherians -- or those that develop their young in the womb and facilitates the exchange of nutrients through an organ called placenta. Most mammal species, including humans, are classified under placental mammals, and this is where the connection between pregnancy and cancer starts.

It is observed that the placenta invades the uterus in a similar way a cancer cell invades tissues in its vicinity during metastasis. However, a study discovers that the high risk for cancer -- specifically skin cancer -- among placental mammals are not observed with bovines and equines even though they are placental mammals as well.

Scientists from Yale's Systems of Biology Institute analyzed the evolution of invasibility of the connecting stromal tissue, which affects both placental and cancer invasion.In a press releaseissued by Yale University, Gunter Wagner, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the university and the study's senior author explains, "Previous research has shown that cancer progression in humans includes the reactivation of embryonic gene expression normally controlling placenta development and immune evasion." He adds that the team would like to find out why melanoma may acquire in pigs, cows, and horses, but it will always be benign, unlike when it occurs in humans where it will almost automatically be malignant.

The study by Wagner and his team has beenpublished on Nature Ecology & Evolution--it focuses on the differences between cows and humans in terms of the rates of cancer cell division. The team worked with in-vitro models and gene expression manipulation to be able to identify genes that can affect the vulnerability of the human stroma when being invaded by cancer cells. This methodology is spearheaded by Dr. Kshitiz, a research associate at the university's Levchenko laboratory and a professor of Biomedical Engineering.

Based on the results of the study, the researchers behind this study modified a certain group of genes in human fibroblast cells to make it similar to the genetic profile in cow cells. These modified cells, in turn, showed strong resistance to melanoma when tested. The results also showed that these differences might be caused by species differences in resistance of stromal cells against invasion.

According to the study, the high risk of cancer among humans and the high level of metastatic potential of cancer in the species could be a consequence of some evolutionary compromise to have better fetuses for a higher chance of species survival.

The researchers, on the other hand, are optimistic about the results of this study. It was able to provide an insight into how to deal with cancer and how to make human cells more resistant to it. Gene modification could certainly lead to therapies to make tumors manageable.

Read more from the original source:
New Study Explains Connections of the Evolution of Pregnancy and Cancer - Science Times

Emerging medical research and cutting-edge technology will dramatically increase human life expectancy and quality of life in the near future, according to a recent fireside chat titled How Do We Make 100 Years Old Our New 60? hosted by Bob Reby, Ambassador of the Fairfield- Westchester Chapter of Singularity University and CEO of Reby Advisors, with special guest Sam Gandy, MD, Ph.D., a prominent internationally recognized expert in neurology and psychology.

Anyone interested in learning more about these medical breakthroughs may watch a video of the event for free on the Reby Advisors website: http://www.rebyadvisors.com/live-events-videos

Dr. Gandy, Chairman Emeritus of the National Medical and Scientific Advisory Council of the Alzheimer's

Association shared new research on human stem cells, genetic codes and the complex hereditary nature of Alzheimers Disease, among other topics.

With regard to stem cell research, Dr. Gandy explained, Its possible now to restore sight and hearing in certain conditions. This was not possible before. These are people who were deaf and blind, doomed to being deaf and blind lifelong.

He continued, Stem cells are the primordial type of cell that can ultimately be differentiated or specialized to form any type of cell in the body. If you have a stem cell from someone, you can then recreate the heart cells or lung cells or brain cells that a particular person has. It can really [lead to] person-based medicine.

Reby also brought up the topic of CRYSPR Genome Editing, and the potential of this research to be used for both good and harm.

CRYSPR is basically gene editing, which means that you can go into the DNA and make changes, edits. If you want to eradicate genetic diseases, it's possible to use this technology to go into an egg, or a sperm, and correct the mutation. So, you could edit out a hereditary disease.

As futuristic as these advancements in medical technology and genetic engineering may be, finding the cure for some complex diseases, like Alzheimers, remains a major challenge.

Most people with Alzheimer's Disease, it's not that simple. The challenge is to find an intervention that we can use beginning in midlife that is safe and will prevent Alzheimer's. Some of the ways that we have of intervening now are not perfectly safe and would not be things that you'd want to give people for 50 years.

The fireside chat was the first event for the Fairfield-Westchester Chapter of Singularity University, a global learning and innovation community using exponential technologies to tack the worlds biggest challenges and build a better future for all.

According to Reby, future events will focus on artificial intelligence, robotics and other exponential technologies. He explained, The reason I like [Singularity University] is their faculty is made up of a lot of business owners, so theyre not just talking about it. Theyre doing it as well.

Community leaders, business owners and technology enthusiasts are encouraged to contact Reby

Advisors if they would like to participate in the Fairfield-Westchester Chapter of Singularity University.

To watch the video of this first event, go to: http://www.rebyadvisors.com/live-events-videos

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Will We Live to Age 120? International Expert Weighs in at Danbury Event - HamletHub

The average American consumes about one ton of food each year. Livestock chomp on approximately 50 billion servings of grain and other foods annually. Together, these figures represent trillions of meals since 1996, when crops modified by biotechnology, mostly corn and soybeans, but also alfalfa, potatoes, squash and papaya, went on sale in the United States.

How many deaths or illnesses have been linked to genetically modified crops? Not one. Not so much as a sniffle.

Thats not a surprise to scientists, as almostevery food-related expert and every major oversight or regulatory body in the world has concluded that biotech crops are as safe for human and animal consumption as food grown conventionally or organically. These conclusions should have put the GMO controversy to rest years ago, but misinformation still swirls. And as anyone familiar with Europes continued opposition to cultivating GMO and gene-edited crops knows, skepticism of genetic engineering shows no signs of fading.

Some crops have been approved for cultivation in the EU but few are grown. Spain is the largest producer, with GMO corn representing about 20% of its output. Smaller amounts are grown in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Portugal, Romania and Poland. But because of near-hysterical consumer and political opposition, almost no GMO-derived foods are available in supermarkets (the relatively small amount of maize is used for animal feed). Because of its role as a major global trading partner, and the oversized influence of its anti-biotechnology environmental groups, Europe has spread its ideology to much of Africa and Asia.

So, how did a movement so at odds with accepted science catch on and continue to thrive?

According to a November 2019 study published in European Management Journal by Bayer Crop Science researchers, the answer can mostly be explained by the impact of social media, which thrives on disinformation. After examining the popularity of 94,993 unique online articles about GMOs between 2009 and 2019, the researchers concluded that this digital landscape has attracted organizations (such as the Non-GMO Project) and ideologically sympathetic activists who have used social media to dominate the discussion about crop biotechnology. These groups and individuals represent:

. a new kind of competitor that seeks to monetize attention to disrupt, disparage, and support alternative campaigns through misleading information . Preliminary results suggest that a small group of alternative health and pro-conspiracy sites received more totals engagements on social media than sites commonly regarded as media outlets on the topic of GMOs.

Some people may immediately challenge the study, as it was written by researchers at Bayer Crop Science, which was previously Monsanto. Despite the obvious concern that the authors conclusions are self-serving after all, Monsanto has been the target of anti-GMO activists for more than two decades there is much in this report worth pondering. The study examines the strategies and incentives driving the mobilization of disinformation, and highlights data that illustrate how effectively crop biotech critics undermine the publics confidence in mainstream science.

In the era of fake news dominated by partisan coverage of impeachment hearings, perhaps the most important takeaway from the analysis is that consumers are increasingly dependent on unaccountable social media platforms that reward the spread of sensationalism and disinformationoften with devastating results.

Social media allows its users to interact with more people than ever before and consume information from an effectively unlimited number of sources, the authors note. These arent inherently negative attributes; indeed, this kind of open access enables people to educate themselves and network in ways that werent possible just two decades ago. But theres a steep downside. In the environment created by Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, people who can weave convincing narratives (whether true or not) exploit consumers confirmation biases and desire to share the same views as their tribal peers, as the researchers explained:

Users or readers tend to believe what they see on their computer screen . Humans are story seekers, so intuitively follow a (compelling) storyline . Adding to all of this are the base human cognitive habits of confirmation bias, bandwagon effect, or herd mentality where citizens tend to conform their beliefs about science, society, and risks to beliefs that predominate among their peers.

For example, the Non-GMO Project took totweeting about five countries supposedly imposing bans on glyphosate, a controversial herbicide paired with biotech crops. The tweet itself was misleading as two of the countries (Austria and Thailand) have since halted their bans, and a third, Germany, imposed a ban that takes force four years from now, and scientists are already unified in challenging it.

But no matter. The clever post served its purpose. Those in the US who read the tweet, and it was aimed at them, were unlikely to question its veracity and even less likely to seek out evidence analyzing the rationale for such a ban. The Non-GMO project has no incentive to play straight with the facts and Twitter users have no reason to scrutinize the Tweet. GLP reached out to the Non-GMO Project for its response to the study, but received no reply.

The example illustrates how social medias free-for-all-environment rewards attention seeking over factual communication. This effect is often magnified because Twitter prioritizes loud and provocative over measured and balanced; disinformation captures attention. The scale of the problem is immense as almost 3.5 billion people use social media daily.

The popular appeal and often sensational nature of disinformation attracts millions of readers,' the researchers noted. And because it attracts the masses, it can be weaponized to undermine or target products, people, and ideas and ultimately used for monetary gain.

While legacy news outlets like the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal attract a sizable readership when they cover crop biotechnology, the numbers pale in comparison to alternative news sources that rely on social media to amplify their message. These include well-trafficked activist sites like Mercola, Natural Newsor Sustainable Pulse, and news sites like RT (formerly Russia Today), which has been lambasted by biotech experts for its dubious coverage of agriculture. All these outlets advance counter-consensus narratives about GMO safety, thus influencing the broader discussion about biotechnology, and turn a profit while doing it. As Cami Ryan, a social scientist with Bayer and one of the studys co-authors, told the GLP by email:

In the case of GMOs, its likely that motivations behind this movement include efforts to both sway public opinion and for monetary gain. Based on our initial analysis of the data, it appears that for the $26B non-GMO project to be as successful as it is, there needed to be a market for it. And that market was built on disinformation.

Scientific consensus vs social consensus

If you want to encourage a certain behavior, you pay people to engage in it. Social media platforms in effect pay activists (already motivated by ideology) to spread questionable narratives by rewarding deceptive messaging with higher readership, advertising revenue and natural product sales. This incentive structure helps create a scenario in which societys views on a given issue are increasingly divorced from the relevant facts, and the consequences can be devastating, as the authors concluded:

The socioeconomic costs of disinformation campaigns as illustrated in the case of GMOs are significant . [L]ess visible costs are diminished confidence in science, and the loss of important innovations and foregone innovation capacities. The most deleterious effect . may be to smallholder farmers in developing countries. Unnecessary social and political controversy about
GM crops create barriers to access to technologies for those that stand to benefit from them the most.

Can anything be done to clean up our corrupted public discourse about biotechnology?

We are not making recommendations on how to stop [online disinformation] nor would we presume to know where to begin, Ryan added in her email to the GLP. Critical thinking is required to differentiate between what is disinformation and what is not and that always starts with increased awareness that it even exists in the first place. Scientists have accelerated this awareness effort by getting on social media, starting podcasts and writing directly for the public, but this has yet to solve the problem.

One other possibility not discussed in the new study is that the benefits of new technologies may eventually overwhelm the fear that stifles innovation. The plant-based Impossible Burger, for instance, has proven enormously popular with American consumers because of its remarkable similarity to beef and perceived environmental benefits, even though it contains GMO-derived soy. Gene-edited crops with qualities that appeal to consumers offer a related case study of how innovation could counter the effects of social media disinformation. Yet useful products arent a surefire solution to anti-science activism, as the medical community has discovered with vaccines.

So, while progress has been made in countering the spread of online disinformation, the fact remains that social media is still a relatively new phenomenon whose effects on human behavior are not fully understood. As a result, the unsatisfactory answer to how do we control the spread of disinformation? may be we dont know yet.

Cameron J. English is the GLPs senior agricultural genetics and special projects editor. He is a science writer and podcast host. BIO. Follow him on Twitter @camjenglish

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'Natural health' and conspiracy sites exploit social media to fester opposition to GMO crops. Here's a study about what can be done to stop it -...

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The central dogma of biology describes the flow of genetic information from DNA to RNA to proteins. While RNA was originally believed to be a carrier of genetic information, subsequent work has shown something completely different: RNA is now known to have function independent of proteins, with a rich layer of regulatory networks. In fact, a large amount of the RNA present in a cell does not actually make proteins. This increased appreciation and understanding has led to many fascinating mechanistic insights into RNA and its role as a central player in cellular regulation and human disease.

Helping to facilitate RNA function are a large number of proteins that can bind to and regulate RNA. These RNA-binding proteins, or RBPs, number in the thousands and are made up of many different independent modular segments similar to a childs set of building blocks. In much a similar fashion, these blocks or domains provide nature with a way of mixing and matching different domains to generate new functions. In recent years, researchers have sought to learn from biology and use these building blocks to engineer new proteins with unique functions that are helpful in research and human health. In a recent study published in WIREs RNA, Professor Andrew Berglund and his colleagues describe recent advances and challenges in engineering RBPs.

Engineering [RBPs] is a powerful tool for researchers to probe the mechanisms of RNA processing pathways says Dr. Andrew Berglund, the newly appointed Director of the RNA Institute at the University at Albany. It is also a promising approach for the development of novel therapeutic molecules.

Potential targets for this approach are abundant as many human diseases have a strong RNA or RBP component, including the most common cause of muscular dystrophy and amylotrophic lateral sclerosis. For therapeutic purposes, engineered RBPs can be designed to replace a defective cellular RBP or bind and destroy toxic RNA. RBPs can also be engineered with new functions and/or targets as well as being marked or tagged so that the researcher can follow their progression within the cell, like a GPS tracker for RNA. The modular nature of RBPs makes it possible to add or mix function to suit the goal of almost any researcher.

In their study published in WIREs RNA, the research team highlights two specific types of RBDs domains, PPR and PUF domains, which are the most straightforward choice for protein engineering. Researchers have studied these domains, understand how to design them to bind specific RNA sequences, and even have websites that can be used to design a domain to target your RNA of choice. Not all RBP engineering is this straightforward, with most researchers having to consider other factors such as the type of linker between domains, where in the tissue or the cell that protein must go, and how to attach other domains to give the engineered protein function.

Ultimately, as more functions of RNA are discovered and more diseases are linked to RNA misregulation, the greater the importance will be for designing, engineering, and testing novel RNA binding proteins. Somewhere in a jumble of RBP building blocks may lie the key to unlocking the next big discovery on RNA and potentially the next generation of therapeutics to improve human health.

Kindly contributed by the authors.

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Engineering RNA Binding Proteins to Improve Human Health - Advanced Science News

OPINION: There's an old saying that paraphrases Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat: "If you don't know where you're going, any road will do".

Sir Peter Gluckman and Dr Mark Hanson include it intheir new book,Ingenious: The Unintended Consequences of Human Innovation, which charts the 150,000 years of biological and cultural evolution that has made us such incredible innovators.

Since stepping down as the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor last year, Gluckman has been asking the big existential questions Can we deal with climate change? Will artificial intelligence surpass us? Are superbugs going to wipe us out?

As he was advocating for evidence-based decision making and informed public debate, we saw the rise of anti-science, alternative facts andTrumpism. Our ability to find consensus on the important issues seems to be diminishing.

READ MORE:* Why NZ should rethink rules on genetic modification* Testing standards were a hot meth* The high public cost of muzzling scientists

As Hanson, aprofessor of cardiovascular science at the University of Southampton, and Gluckman point out, we have harnessed technology to develop and thrive while other species live much as they did 10,000 years ago.

Still, every innovation has unintended consequences. The coal powering our dark satanic mills of industry deposited the carbon in the atmosphere that is now dangerously warming the planet.

Processing and preserving food created the energy-dense diet that is fuelling the obesity epidemic.

Hygiene and antibioticssaved lives but the side effects have been antibiotic resistance and autoimmune diseases.

CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF

Sir Peter Gluckman, pictured, and coauthor Mark Hanson want genuine, informed discussion on science-related issues.

We've effectively run a series of live experiments throughout history and got away with it.

The authors of Ingenious worry that now we face "runaway cultural evolution". The pace of change is so great, the problems so wicked, we risk blundering down a dead-end.

What's the answer? GluckmanandHansonwant a better way of making trans-national decisions on whether new innovations such as genetic modification and climate geo-engineering should be used.

They want genuine, informed discussion on science-related issues, more respect for science, an education system that produces critical thinkers.

This will take time we may not have.

History tells us that we will again needtechnology to solve the problems past technologies have created.

As the authors soberly put it:"In the balance hang our well-being, our social relationships, our health, our environment, our economies, our governments, and our planet."

Read this article:
In the balance hangs our well-being - Stuff.co.nz

October 31stwill mark the 37th anniversary of one of biotechnologys most significant milestones -- the approval by the FDA of human insulin synthesized in genetically engineered bacteria.It launched a revolutionary new era in pharmaceutical development, and as the FDA medical reviewer of the product and the head of the evaluation team, I had a front-row seat.

The saga is remarkable in several ways, not least of which is that although both the drugmakers and regulators were exploring unknown territory, the development of the drug and its regulatory review progressed smoothly and rapidly.

Insulin in crude form was first produced in 1922 by Canadian researchers Frederick Banting and Charles Best, which lifted the death sentence that had previously been imposed on diabetics. By the end of that year drug company, Eli Lilly and Company had devised a method for much higher purification. Over the next half-century or so, the purified insulins obtained from pig or cow pancreases, which differ slightly in chemical composition from human insulin, were constantly improved in purity and formulated in ways that refined their performance.

During the early 1970s, as the supply of animal pancreases declined and the prevalence of insulin-requiring diabetes grew, there were widespread fears of possible future shortages of insulin.Fortuitously, around the same time, a new and powerful tool recombinant DNA technology, also known as genetic modification, genetic engineering, or gene-splicing became available and offered the promise of unlimited amounts of insulin that was identical to the molecule produced by humans.

The seminal molecular genetic engineering experiment wasreported in a 1973 research articleby academic scientists Stanley Cohen, Herbert Boyer and their collaborators. They isolated a ringlet of DNA called a plasmid from a bacterium, used certain enzymes to splice a gene from another bacterium into that plasmid, and then introduced the resulting recombinant, or chimeric, DNA intoE. colibacteria.

When these now recombinant bacteria reproduced, the plasmids containing the foreign DNA were likewise propagated and produced amplified amounts of the functional recombinant DNA. And because DNA contains the genetic code that directs the synthesis of proteins, this new methodology promised the ability to induce genetically modified bacteria (or other cells) to synthesize desired proteins in large amounts.

The scientists at Lilly immediately saw the promise of this technology for the production of unlimited quantities of human insulin in bacteria. After obtaining from startup Genentech, Inc., the recombinantE. colibacteria that contained the genetic blueprint for and that synthesized human insulin, they developed processes for the large-scale cultivation of the organism (in huge fermenters similar to those that make wine or beer) and for the purification and formulation of the insulin.

Insulins had long been Lillys flagship products, and the companys expertise was evident in the purification, laboratory testing and clinical trials of human insulin. The companys scientists painstakingly verified that their product was extremely pure and identical to pancreatic human insulin (which differs slightly in chemical composition from beef and pork insulin).

Lilly began clinical trials of its human insulin in July 1980. The product performed superbly. There were no systematic problems with treating naive patients (who had never before received injections of insulin) or those switched from animal to human insulin. A small number of patients who had had adverse reactions of some kind to the animal insulins tolerated the human insulin well.

The dossier that provided evidence of safety and efficacy was submitted in May 1982 to the FDA, where I was the medical reviewer and head of the evaluation team. Over many years the FDA had had prodigious experience with insulins and also with drugs derived from various microorganisms, so it was decided that no fundamentally new regulatory paradigms were necessary to evaluate the recombinant human insulin.

In other words, recombinant DNA techniques were viewed as an extension, or refinement, of long-used and familiar methods for making drugs. That proved to be a historic, precedent-setting decision.

Based on my teams exhaustive review of Lillys data, which were obtained from pre-clinical testing in animals and clinical trials in thousands of diabetics, FDA granted marketing approval for human insulin in October 1982. The review and approval took only five months when the agencys average approval time for new drugs was 30.5 months.

In retrospect, that rapid approval was particularly remarkable for a drug that was produced with a revolutionary new technology, and that after approval would be available in pharmacies nationwide to millions of American diabetics.

The back story, however, is revealing. My team and I were ready to recommend approvalafterfour months review. But when I took the packet to my supervisor, he said, Four months? No way! If anything goes wrong with this product down the road, people will say we rushed it, and well be toast. Thats the bureaucratic mind-set. I dont know how long he would have delayed it, but when he went on vacation a month later, I took the packet to his boss, the division director, and he signed off.

That anecdote illustrates Milton Friedmans observation that to understand the motivation of an individual or organization, you need to follow the self-interest. A large part of regulators self-interest lies in staying out of trouble. One way to do that, my supervisor understood, is not to approve in record time products that might experience unanticipated problems, even if it is the right thing to do.

The Humulin approval had significant effects. A New York Timesarticlementioned my prediction that the speedy approval was a major step forward in the scientific and commercial viability of recombinant DNA technology. We have now come of age, I said, and potential investors and entrepreneurs agreed. Seeing that biopharmaceuticals would compete with other medicines on a level playing field, the biotechnology industry was on the fast track.

Scores of genetically engineered drugs have been approved over the years, but the rapidity of the human insulin approval proved to be an anomaly. Even with a toolbox of improved technologies available to both the FDA and industry, bringing a new drug to market on average now takes 10-12 years and costs, on average, over$2.5 billion.Regulators are highly risk-averse, few new drugs are approved without convening extramural advisory committees, and decisions are sometimes hijacked by political forces exerted on the FDA.

Other FDA-regulated biotech sectors have fared worse.Incomprehensibly, the FDAdeclined to grant Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) statusto two proteins that would be life-saving as additives to oral rehydration solution administered to children with diarrhea.

In addition, FDA officials have made a horrendousmessof the regulation of genetically engineered animals, which FDA chose to regulate as new animal drugs, including a grotesquely prolonged, 20-plus year review of a faster-growing Atlantic salmon, and genetically engineered mosquitoes to control mosquitoes that carry viral diseases.(It took FDA more than five years to realize that the latter were actually pesticides which are outside the Agencys purview -- and that jurisdiction should, therefore, be turfed to EPA.)As a result, the entire biotech sector of genetically engineered animals is moribund.

Its too bad that government regulation hasnt aged as gracefully as genetic engineering technology itself.

Original post:
Record-Time FDA Approval of Human Insulin In 1982: When Genetic Engineering Came of Age - American Council on Science and Health

(Mike Blake/Reuters)

Bioethicist Jacob M. Appel wants the bioethics movement to educate your children about the policy and personal conundrums that involve medical care and health public policy. He claims that most of us give little thought to issues that may arise, such as end-of-life care and prenatal screening. Then, when an issue arises, people are unprepared to make wise and informed decisions. From, The Silent Crisis of Bioethics Illiteracy, published in Scientific American:

Change will only occur when bioethics is broadly incorporated into school curricula [at an early age] and when our nations thought leaders begin to place emphasis on the importance of reflecting meaningfully in advance upon these issues

Often merely recognizing such issues in advance is winning the greater part of the battle. Just as we teach calculus and poetry while recognizing that most students are unlikely to become mathematicians or bards, bioethics education offers a versatile skill set that can be applied to issues well outside the scientific arena. At present, bioethics is taught sporadically at various levels, but not with frequency, and even obtaining comprehensive data on its prevalence is daunting.

Is this really an appropriate field for children? Consider the issues with which bioethics grapples and whether elementary-, middle-, and high-school children have the maturity to grapple with them in a meaningful and deliberative way (not to mention, the acute potential that teachers will push their students in particular ideological directions):

Even if some students are mature enough to grapple with these issues thoughtfully, the next problem is that bioethics is extremely contentious and wholly subjective. Its not science, but focuses on questions of philosophy, morality, ideology, religion, etc.. Moreover, there is a dominant point-of-view among the most prominent voices in the field e.g., those who teach at leading universities and would presumably be tasked with writing the educational texts. These perspectives would unquestionably often stand in opposition to the moral values taught young students by their parents.

Appel is typical of the genus (if you will). He has called for paying women who plan to abort to gestate longer in their pregnancy so that more dead fetuses will be available sufficiently developed to be harvested for organs and used in experiments. He advocates mandatory termination of care for patients who are diagnosed as persistently unconscious to save resources for what he considers more important uses. He has also supported assisted suicide for the mentally ill.

Appels perspectives are not unique in bioethics. The movement went semi-berserk when President George W. Bush appointed the conservative bioethicist Leon Kass to head the Presidents Council on Bioethics one even called him an assassin for opposing human cloning research as many worked overtime to discredit the Councils work in the media.

Indeed, activists without a modifier like Catholic or pro-life before the term bioethicistare overwhelmingly very liberal politically and intensely secular in their approach. Most support an almost unlimited right to abortion, the legalization of assisted suicide, genetic engineering (once safe), and accept distinguishing between human beings and persons, that is, they deny universal human equality.

Some wish to repeal the dead donor rule that requires organ donors to be dead before their body parts are extracted an idea that admittedly remains somewhat controversial in the field. Most mainstream bioethicists deny the sanctity of human life and many think that an animal with a greater cognitive capacity has greater value than a human being with lower cognition. Add in the sectors general utilitarianish approach to health-care issues, such as supporting rationing, and the potential for propagandizing becomes clear.

With such opinions, often passionately held, how long would it be before early bioethics education devolved into rank proselytizing? But Wesley, Appel might say. the classes would be objective! Every side would be given equal and a respectful and accurate presentation.

Sure. If you believe that, you must think current sex education curricula and high school classes in social justice present all sides of those issues dispassionately and without attempt to persuade the students to particular points of view and cultural perspectives.

I have a deal for Appel: In-depth courses in bioethics should not be taught before college unless I get to write the textbooks! I promise to be objective and fairly present all sides. Honest!

Do you think he and his mainstream colleagues would approve of that deal?

Neither do I. And we shouldnt go along with his idea for the very same reason.

Read more here:
Keep Bioethics out of Elementary and High Schools - National Review