Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

A Vision of the Future of Civil and Environmental Engineering by Students of Professors of MIT
CEEVideo DimasBrommerGiesa Lyrics: Leon: Oh golly! 3D printers, genetic engineering, atomistic modelling, are these the new tools of a civil engineer? Rapper...

By: Tristan Giesa

Read more here:
A Vision of the Future of Civil and Environmental Engineering by Students of Professors of MIT - Video

Genetic Engineering 4
Denne videoen handler om Genetic Engineering 4.

By: Fridos Lunde

See the original post:
Genetic Engineering 4 - Video

Transgenic species and genetic engineering
I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (http://www.youtube.com/editor)

By: sproulecat000

Read the original post:
Transgenic species and genetic engineering - Video

The Hedonistic Imperative - David Pearce
Filmed at the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne Australia http://hedweb.com - The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will...

By: Adam Ford

Continued here:
The Hedonistic Imperative - David Pearce - Video

Genetic engineering 3
Denne videoen handler om Genetic engineering 3.

By: Fridos Lunde

Visit link:
Genetic engineering 3 - Video

David Pearce - The Hedonistic Imperative vs The Abolitionist Project The Differences
http://hedweb.com - The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life. The abolitioni...

By: Adam Ford

More here:
David Pearce - The Hedonistic Imperative vs The Abolitionist Project The Differences - Video

14 hours ago Figure 1:Synechocystis cyanobacteria could become factories of bioplastic production. Credit: Kiminori Toyooka, RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science

The production of plastics using biological systems such as bacteria could lead to the sustainable manufacture of biodegradable and biocompatible plastics using carbon from the atmosphere. So far, however, it has proved exceedingly difficult to increase the yields of bioplastics to industrially viable levels. Takashi Osanai, Masami Yokota Hirai and colleagues from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science have now engineered a cyanobacterium strain that produces triple the normal yield of the bioplastic polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB).

The species of cyanobacterium known as Synechocystis (Fig. 1) starts to produce PHB when nutrients such as nitrogen become scarce. This metabolic adaptation helps the cyanobacteria survive under low resource conditions. However, the organisms do not naturally produce sufficient yields of PHB for commercial applications.

To boost the levels of PHB produced by the organism, the research team created a strain of Synechocystis with higher than normal expression levels of Rre37, a regulatory protein known to be involved in sugar metabolism during times of nitrogen starvation. Genetic and metabolic analyses showed that Rre37 facilitates the conversion of glycogen, a sugar storage molecule, into PHB. "In Rre37, we found a novel regulator activating bioplastic production in cyanobacteria," says Osanai.

The same team previously identified another protein, SigE, involved in bioplastic production. Similar to the results with Rre37, the researchers found that overexpression of SigE, which contributes to the initiation of RNA synthesis, led to more PHB accumulation under nitrogen-limited conditions.

Their latest Synechocystis strain expressed elevated levels of both Rre37 and SigE. Gene expression analysis revealed that Rre37 and SigE each activate different pairs of genes involved in PHB biosynthesis. Extraction of PHB from the cyanobacteria showed that the bioplastic concentrations were even greater in the strain with bolstered Rre37 and SigE activity compared to those with only one overexpressed protein or in the unaltered 'wild-type' strain. "By the double overexpression of Rre37 and SigE, PHB levels increased by three times compared to the wild type," says Osanai. "However, even further increase in bioplastic production is required for commercial applications," he notes.

In addition to helping transform glycogen into PHB, the researchers documented an important new role played by Rre37 in nitrogen metabolism. Levels of aspartate, a type of amino acid, increased in the Rre37-overexpressing strain of Synechocystis. Compiled transcriptome and metabolome data point to a new metabolic cycle that is something of a hybrid between the well-known Kreb's and urea cycles, which describe common biochemical reactions in the body.

Explore further: Modifying one cell factor alters many others

More information: Osanai, T., Oikawa, A., Numata, K., Kuwahara, A., Iijima, H., Doi, Y., Saito, K. & Hirai, M. "Pathway-level acceleration of glycogen catabolism by response regulator Rre37 in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803." Plant Physiologyadvance online publication, 12 February 2014 (DOI: 10.1104/pp.113.232025). http://dx.doi.org/10.1104/pp.113.232025

Using a widely studied species of cyanobacterium, researchers from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Sciences have shown how difficult it is to alter the metabolism of a unicellular organism with ...

See the article here:
Genetic engineering increases yield of biodegradable plastic from cyanobacteria

The First Life Created In The Lab 1/2
Genetic entrepreneur Craig Venter explains how his team of researchers created a new life form and what happens next. Scientists have created the worlds firs...

By: TheDocumentaryStream

Excerpt from:
The First Life Created In The Lab 1/2 - Video

Genetically modified crops are often viewed with suspicion by the people, and hence there is a greater responsibility on the companies developing these transgenic crops to follow the laid down protocols in letter and spirit, former co-chairman of Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), Arjula R. Reddy, said.

To ensure the safety of the transgenic crops and compliance of guidelines by companies there is an urgent requirement to appoint independent, fulltime regulators in the bodies like GEAC, he said.

Each crop has a potential to yield more than what it produces in a farm, and to feed the burgeoning population it is necessary to reduce the gap between potential yield and the farm yield. Genetic modification plays a crucial part in this process of increasing the yield, he explained.

Prof. Reddy was delivering the keynote lecture at an awareness workshop on Biosafety procedures for recombinants and genetically modified crops held here on Wednesday.

Rice crops yield just 25 percent of their potential and wheat varieties produce just 18 percent of their potential. When compared to these, the latest maize varieties have a yield of about 75 percent of their potential. This indicates that farm output can be increased to a great extent, he said.

If transgenic crops are dangerous for human consumption, the American population would have been affected by now as that country has been consuming high yielding transgenic varieties for many years, he pointed out.

Terming the questions being posed by few people on the safety of genetically modified crop varieties as mainly philosophic, Prof. Reddy said that the scientists should instead ensure that the newly developed molecule is what it is supposed to be.

It is imperative for us to develop safe, but high yielding, genetically modified crop varieties. To ensure this we need a robust Biosafety testing setup and stringent regulatory framework, Prof Reddy added. To ensure that a better regulatory setup is created, academics should start training some of their students in regulatory procedures, he suggested.

View post:
Develop safe, but high yielding GM crops

In what is being called a major step forward in genetic engineering, scientists have built a customized copy of an entire yeast chromosome. Experts say it may lead to a better understanding of how the thousands of genes contained in these packages of genetic material work together in everything from yeast to humans. And it may make it easier to make designer yeast, creating living factories that churn out everything from antibiotics to biofuels.

Johns Hopkins University professor Jef Boeke says it started with a coffee shop conversation with a colleague.

I mentioned casually to him that, of course we could make the yeast chromosome if we wanted to, but why on Earth would we want to do that? And he practically literally started jumping up and down with excitement when I told him that, he said.

So Boeke, the colleague, Srinivasan Chandrasegaran and a third partner, Joel Bader, spent the next year discussing how they could engineer the chromosome to make it worth the enormous investment of time and money it would take.

They decided to create an artificial version of chromosome III, one of the smallest of yeasts 16 chromosomes. It carries about 100 genes. Boeke says scientists have studied it for years, adding It is the sentimental favorite of yeast geneticists.

Block by block

Boeke and his colleagues recreated their favorite chromosome, gene by gene, with synthetic chemical building blocks. They included molecular seams, so they could cut the chromosome apart, take some genes out, add others, rearrange them and stitch it back together in ways that would help them understand how different combinations of genes work together.

Since yeast genes are a lot like ours, Boeke says the research could lead to a better understanding of human genetics.

And perhaps most interesting of all, we think it will be useful for actually improving the strain under certain conditions of growth or production of some useful product, he said.

Different strains of yeast are already used to produce antibiotics, antimalarial drugs, vaccines, biofuels and much more. The ability to custom-tailor chromosomes could give the biotech industry a boost.

Continued here:
Scientists Build Artificial Chromosome