Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

Satire

Happy National Companion Animal Day!!

Have you ever looked at your animal companion (probably a cat) and thought I would love to be you? Well, now you can! With the Mewgaroo Hoodie from Unihabitat in Japan, you can now literally morph into a half breed of a cat and kangaroo.

Why half kangaroo?

First of all, why not? And second because then you have a little pouch to that hold furry fuzzball of a cat. Unless your cat is a diabolical independent pet that comes to you only for food and when it wants attention.

I cant wait to hold my kitty Joey around literally like a Joey these guys are like my heroes, said obsessed cat owner Nat Bobtail.

The producers have genetically modified the material of the sweater to not only conform your DNA into a Mewgaroo kangacat like some science experiment gone wrong to just hold your cat in a pouch which you could do anyway with your HANDS, but it is also really soft and cozy.

Lets make the world half mutant animals, here I come X-Men! Not so special now are you Wolverine?!?! screamed Mat Sphynx, a guy with no cats whatsoever.

Have fun on your National Companion Animal Day!

The satire is based on the following information: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/21/mewgaroo-pet-sweatshirt-very-handsome_n_7354080.html

http://www.museumofanimals.org/#/animal-holidays/4425087

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Warrior Record Online : New genetic engineering turns people into ... - Warrior Record Online

The newest and most promising therapies for challenging cancers are adopting molecular biology strategies. Brain tumors are especially problematic because their location impedes patient function and presents formidable barriers to surgical treatments. But new molecular approaches show promise.

A series of new techniques from viruses genetically trained to attack the tumor to genetic modifications of immune cells to new types of monoclonal antibodies represent a few of the new tricks researchers are now deploying in the fight against these deadly conditions.

Dr. Duane Mitchell is a Professor at the University of Florida. He is a neurosurgeon that is discovering and refining the leading next-generation therapies. In todays podcast, he shares his expertise onthe new types of technologies and the promise they bring.

Website: Dr. Duane Mitchell and the UF Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program

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Talking Biotech: Florida neurosurgeon Duane Mitchell on how genetic engineering opens doors in cancer fight - Genetic Literacy Project

By Staff Friday, April 7, 2017

In spite of my hair, no one has ever mistaken me for Einstein. In the gym, after a shower, some people have thought I was Bernie Sanders. But as soon as they started talking to me, they could see that I didnt have his native intelligence.

Science requires no experience, profession, skill or money. Luckily, I was, and am, qualified. If you are a little curious and can think clearly, you can probably do an experiment. I suppose it helps to be a little CDO (which is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder with the letters in the correct sequence). It also helps to be able to focus on a single topic for a long period of time. This requirement has hampered me throughout my career.

Being a scientist probably takes a little money, too, but much less than you might think if you listen to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Scientists seldom complete all the studies that are possible using a single tool. Every time technology comes up with a new piece of equipment scientists need it to see what they can do with it. Everyone wants the new electric microscopes when we really havent exhausted the old steam-powered microscopes yet.

Science rushes recklessly ahead. Now we have a new method of engineering genetics called CRISPR. This is an acronym for CRISPR/cas9 which stands for Clustered Regularly-Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR associated protein 9. Id call it CRISPR for sure if I had to say the full name too many times. One could sprain their frenulum or something trying to say all that.

The deal is that CRISPR has decreased the time and costs of genetic engineering by about 99 percent. Generally, reducing time and costs is a great boon to mankind. As a scientist, I am thrilled! However, it just occurred to me that making it faster and cheaper to destroy ourselves may not be in our best interests.

While Monsanto and the two other food monopolies are excited to make more food, now some medical scientists want to eliminate certain neurological and psychiatric diseases that have been the key to producing the great minds of history. Medical scientists seem to see variations in life as problems to be solved. There should be no deviations or abnormalities outside of a normal curve.

However, humans would be smart to notice that genetic variants contribute to psychiatric conditions that may be beneficial depending on ones environment or genetic background. For example, both Thomas Edison and Einstein were considered addled and were kicked out of school. Tennessee Williams feared the process of thought and nearly went mad. The rate of bipolar disorder is 10 times higher among writers than among the general population, and 40 times higher among poets.

I will insert a shameless self-promotion here concerning my book Between Two Mirrors, available on Amazon.

It is a mixture of science essays by a scientist with a spotty record in public school and poetry by the same person, who some continue to believe may have mental problems.

In short, genetic engineering shows a gross misunderstanding of evolution.

Evolution does not progress toward some ideal species where each individual is identical to the others. Instead, it tinkers around the edges of a species toward adaptation to some local niche that itself changes as the species change. It is impossible to predict the result of evolution because the environment selects the species, and the selected species alters the environment. The best one can say is that evolution produces diversity.

Unruly white hair is a characteristic of old, white males of European descent and, in and of itself, is not a sign of genius. However, mental aberrations are not always something to be eliminated. They may be capable of enriching mankind beyond what one might expect. If CRISPR had been available 72 years ago, you might have been spared this column. However, Id have had a lot less fun.

Gary McCallister, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), is a professor emeritus of biological sciences at Colorado Mesa University.

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Engineering a solution to genetic uniqueness - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

[Nteranya Sanginga is director general of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture.]

The role of genetic engineering in agriculture and food has generated enormous interest and controversies, with large-scale embrace by some nations and wholesale bans by others.

Many studies have been done and much research remains to be done on the impact genetically modified organisms (GMO) can have on broader food systems.

Fast-moving developments, however, suggest that lines drawn in the sand both for or against the broader use of GMOs risk becoming a distraction, particularly in Africa.

It appears we are on the brink of a deluge of new discoveries many of which may not need the kind of capital-intensive agricultural operations where GMOs were first developed and can instead directly address the needs of smallholders in developing countries and the specific food and nutrition security and climate change challenges they face.

Genome editing can now economically be applied to the crop cultivars that farmers in a given locale prefer, consisting of highly targeted interventions that can address specific challenges, and dont take years of breeding to consolidate.

Its a new world. Lets have a new debate, not the old one.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post:The Challenge Ahead: Harnessing Gene Editing to Sustainable Agriculture

For more background on the Genetic Literacy Project, read GLP on Wikipedia

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CRISPR crops focused on sustainable farming could soften African ... - Genetic Literacy Project

[The following is a Q&A with Dr.Emily Flashman, organic chemistry researcher at the University of Oxford, about a study she co-authored published in Nature Communications March 23, 2017.]

Why is this study so important?

Most living things need oxygen to survive, including plants, but flooding is a major threat to agriculture and vegetation. A plants oxygen levels are jeopardised during a flood, and they basically cant breathe. To protect themselves from flooding and survive longer, plants have a built-in stress response survival strategy, which re-configures their metabolism and supports them to generate more energy.

Emily Flashman

Scientists knew about this stress response, but they didnt know exactly how it was controlled. Our research underpins not only an understanding of how plants respond to loss of oxygen, but also how this response could be manipulated to protect them long term. With climate change of increased prevalence in todays society, flooding is a constant source of concern, so it is even more important for us to understand how hypoxia affects plants and crops, so that we can find new ways to preserve and protect them from it. Manipulating the enzymes involved in the process may help us to cultivate new crops and even to weather-proof them.

What was the aim of your research?

The overall aim [is] to genetically modify crops to make them flood tolerant.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post:Manipulating plant enzymes could protect crops from flooding

For more background on the Genetic Literacy Project, read GLP on Wikipedia

Continued here:
Key to developing flood-resistant crops: Genetically engineering plants' stress response survival strategy - Genetic Literacy Project

Lead author on the study Luis Matas-Hernndez, Ph.D., began to study the formation of trichomes in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana when he was a postdoctoral researcher at the CRAG group led by Dr. Pelaz. The knowledge gained in that endeavor caused Dr. Hernandez to hypothesize that the formation of trichomes could be manipulated in plants with industrial applications. For the past several years, his research has been aimed at obtaining Artemisia plants that produce copious amounts of artemisininwhich he focuses on as a principal investigator at Sequentia Biotech.

"One of the main goals of Sequentia Biotech is to produce artemisinin of the same quality, but at a lower cost, Dr. Hernandez noted. Our ambition is to reduce the price of the drug so that it can be accessible to everyone in the future. We want to use Artemisia as a natural, low-cost factory for antimalarials, and we are testing different strategies to do it."

Along with collaborators at the Linnaeus University in Sweden, the researchers were able to identify the gene AaMYB1 among the array of genes expressed in Artemisia trichomes. At CRAG, the researchers designed transgenic plants that overexpressed this gene and found that they accumulated larger doses of artemisinin than non-genetically modified plants.

Additionally, to confirm the role of the AaMYB1 gene in the formation of plant trichomes, the researchers searched for orthologs in the model plant A. thaliana and found the gene AtMYB61. When this gene was overexpressed in the model plant, it also produced a higher amount of trichomes on its leaves, demonstrating that these genes play a key role in the formation of trichomes in evolutionarily distant species.

In addition to its role in Artemisia, the identification of this gene can also be useful for other plants whose trichomes produce substances of interest, Dr. Pelaz concluded.

Originally posted here:
GMO Plants Could Aid in the Fight against Malaria | GEN - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (blog)

My previous post on pesticides attracted some interest, so I wanted to follow up with simple to digest bits about the upsides of genetic engineering. Ill tie it back to why it might eventually be a critical technology for application in the vineyards too (since this is WineMag). Pass the smelling salts for everyone who just fainted at that and lets get started.

Again, a quick clarification on some terms used.

Since RoundUp/glyphosate is quickly becoming a straw man in this whole debate, Ill pull in a few different examples of existing and potential advancements. There are, of course, concerns about GE tech. Maybe Ill round out this tangent with a third piece focusing on the real issues vs the imagined ones. But for today, I want to focus on the good stuff:

Bt crops with built-in pesticidesBt toxins (proteins from a bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis) have been inserted into transgenic crops to confer resistance against certain insects. In 2013, Bt brinjals were introduced commercially in Bangladesh as part of GM trials. To date, it has been planted on 12 ha across 120 farms. These farmers have cut pesticide use by 80% so far a rate which would not only alleviate negative environmental effects but also the health of farmers. Farmers are also reporting unprecedented increases in yield, which bodes well for their economic well-being.

Golden Rice the unavailable lifesaverThis one kills me. But not literally. Not like Vitamin A deficiency kills thousands of children annually, and leaves many thousands more disabled. Between 250,000 350,000 children go blind each year due to Vitamin A Deficiency. Golden Rice a GE cultivar enriched with Vitamin A has been available since 2002. Syngenta had been key in developing the technology and essentially made it freely available for use, in an attempt to bypass opposition from the anti-GMO lobby. It didnt work. The technology was opposed and Golden Rice remains unused aside from a handful of free licenses for subsistence farming not nearly the potential scale to make a significant difference in communities severely affected by malnutrition.

Organic cotton a celebrity gets it wrongIn 2016, Emma Watson wore a Calvin Klein dress, made in collaboration with green consultancy Eco-Age. Via Instagram, Ms Watson extolled the virtues of organic cotton above conventional, specifically that organic cotton is farmed without using harmful chemicals. It seems that Hermione didnt do her homework this time around though. The Bt technology I mentioned previously is also in cotton. While not as harmful as, say, copper sulfate, organic cotton farmers do spray their crops with Bt and other substances to battle severe crop damage from insects. Farmers growing Bt cotton have reduced their insecticide spraying significantly. States like Oklahoma report yields doubling over the past 20 years, improved fibre quality, better weed control and insecticide use down by more than 50%. You know what that is? Thats an improvement in sustainability. Impressive, no?

What about grapevine?The potential for GE technology in grapevine (including whats being worked on and what has been proposed) is a topic for discussion all on its own. It should definitely be noted that the potential application for GE technology is not limited to pest control. The creeping effects of climate change will eventually irrevocably change the viticulture landscape. The ability of different regions to produce quality grapes will change as rainfall and temperatures rise or fall outside the ideal conditions for grape growing.

If a technology was available to mitigate these effects a grapevine that can deal with increased CO2 levels, or one that is able to produce equivalent yield at higher temperatures and prolong a wine regions lifespan in the face of major climate shifts, isnt that something we need to consider reasonably, and without hysteria?

Tagged Marthlize Tredoux

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Marthlize Tredoux: Why genetic engineering is not all bad - Wine Magazine

PETER MCDONALD

Last updated10:25, March 29 2017

TIM CRONSHAW/FAIRFAX NZ

Genetically engineered cows at AgResearch's Animal Containment Facility at the Ruakura Research Centre in 2009.

There seems to be some big issues appearing on the horizon for New Zealand agriculture. Two of these being our status in regard to Genetic Engineering (GE) and the realisation that on farm animal emissions will need to be addressed in the near future.

While many may think these are issues to be dealt separately some believe that the two are linked and one may fix the other.

Is our central government putting too much faith into the premise that potential GE technologies may have a significant impact on reducing animal emissions?

READ MORE:Big meat processors to face consequences of smaller sheep flock

We would be foolish to pin all our hopes on technologies that aren't even developed yet.The enormity of the issue regarding "farm emissions" will dictate that the methods employed to mitigate will have to be broader.

My greatest concern however about GE in agriculture as a nation reliant on exports, is how will we be viewed by our customers? Whether these overseas consumers of our products are informed or uniformed it doesn't really matter,what matters is what they believe. To blindly brush aside our consumer's beliefs then move forward with GE without a thorough understanding of potential in market effects would be reckless.

Could we do long term damage to our exporting base overnight with a "flick of the GE switch?"

Following on, would we then as a country be consigned to the global commodity "bargain bin"?

All the currenttalk is about elevating ourselves out of the commodity mind-set into one of value. If New Zealand wasto embrace GE my question would be, can we then go on to compete with other large producing nations, all wrestling for positions exclusively on price? These countries most likely are closer to large consuming populations and do not have the costs of compliance surrounding employment and environment.

If we decide to try to take on these competitors on cost, we will fail. The benign introduction of GE technologies into our agricultural systems may well make this decision for us in the value versus volume debate.

In 1970 one of the greatest people that you may never have heard of wasDr Norman Borlag,described as the father of the "green revolution". In his Nobel Laureate lecture on the eve of receiving his prize, he was very clear when he said in regards to global food demand:"I've only given the world a 30 year breathing space before other technologies must present themselves".

He also went on to say:"For the genetic improvement of food crops to continue at a pace sufficient to meet the needs of humankind in the future both conventional breeding and biotechnology methodologies will be needed"

Is GE part of these new technologies Dr Borlag spoke of? Most probably so.

Does New Zealand need to uptake this technology so as to feed the world? Not necessarily.

-Stuff

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Genetic engineering could damage export market - Stuff.co.nz

Scientists just might revive the woolly mammothby splicing genes from ancient mammoths into Asian elephant DNABut heres a sad irony to ponder: What if that dream came at the expense of todays Asian and African elephants, whose numbers are quickly dwindling because of habitat loss and poaching?

Recently, Joseph Bennett, an assistant professor and conservation researcher at Carleton University, confronted a new question: If molecular biologists can potentially reconstruct extinct species, such as the woolly mammoth, should society devote its limited resources to reversing past wrongs, or on preventing future extinctions?

If you have the millions of dollars it would take to resurrect a species and choose to do that, you are making an ethical decision to bring one species back and let several others go extinct, Dr. Bennett said. It would be one step forward, and three to eight steps back.

[Ben Novak, the lead researcher for the nonprofit Revive & Restore argues that] funding for de-extinction and conservation is a zero-sum game, noting that all of the funding for Revive & Rescues biotechnologies comes from private donors or institutional grants outside the realm of conservation efforts.

[The study can be found here.]

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post:We Might Soon Resurrect Extinct Species. Is It Worth the Cost?

For more background on the Genetic Literacy Project, read GLP on Wikipedia.

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We may soon resurrect extinct species with genetic engineering but should we? - Genetic Literacy Project

Aflatoxin is a well-known global health threat. This poison, produced by the Aspergillus fungus, is common in corn, wheat, rice and many other crops. Hot climates and inadequate storage practices augment the spread of the fungus and its accompanying toxin. It has also proved extremely difficult to eliminate or even reduce. A new gene-based approach could change that.

[U]p to a quarter of all liver cancer cases worldwide could be due to aflatoxin exposure.

This approach has a lot of potential, says [Nancy] Keller [who studies fungal pathogens at the University of Wisconsin-Madison]. But she questions whether it will gain widespread acceptance due to the skepticism surrounding genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. The government bureaucracy and public opinion are significant hurdles for the experimental corn to overcome. Keller wonders if the severity of the health hazards could be enough to overcome the reluctance. Can people accept something like this because its genetically engineered? asks Keller. Maybe its better to have this new strainand not get cancer.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post:A genetically modified corn could stop a deadly fungal poison if we let it

For more background on the Genetic Literacy Project, read GLP on Wikipedia

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Will toxin-blocking biotech corn help win over skeptics of genetic engineering? - Genetic Literacy Project