Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

Global Crispr And Crispr Associated Genes MarketResearch Report provides key analysis on the market status of the Crispr And Crispr Associated Genes with the best facts and figures, meaning, definition, SWOT analysis, expert opinions, and the latest developments across the globe. The report also calculates the market size, Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin, Market Share, cost structure, and growth rate. The report considers the revenue generated from the sales of This Report and technologies by various application segments and Browse Market data Tables.

The Crispr And Crispr Associated Genes Market report covers the different market scenarios that have a direct impact on the growth of the market. The Crispr And Crispr Associated Genes report study includes information on market factors such as the market dynamics, including drivers, restraints, challenges, threats, potential growth opportunities, market trends, development patterns, financial information, latest technologies, innovations, leading competitors, and regional analysis of the market.

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Following Key Players are Mentioned in this Document:

Thermo Fisher Scientific Editas Medicine Caribou Biosciences CRISPR therapeutics Intellia therapeutics Inc. Cellectis Horizon Discovery Plc Sigma Aldrich Precision Biosciences Genscript Sangamo Biosciences Inc. Lonza Group Limited Integrated DNA Technologies New England Biolabs Origene Technologies

Analysis of Cardan ShaftMarket by Type

Genome Editing Genetic engineering GRNA Database/Gene Librar CRISPR Plasmid Human Stem Cells Genetically Modified Organisms/Crops Cell Line Engineering

Analysis of Cardan ShaftMarket by Application

Biotechnology Companies Pharmaceutical Companies Academic Institutes Research and Development Institutes

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Regional Analysis for Crispr And Crispr Associated Genes Market:

North America (U.S., Canada)Europe (U.K., Italy, Germany, France, Rest of EU)Asia-Pacific (India, Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, Rest of APAC)Latin America (Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of Latin America)Middle East & Africa (Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., South Africa, Rest of MEA)

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How Covid 19 Affected the Crispr And Crispr Associated Genes Market

Since the COVID-19 virus outbreak in December 2019, the disease has spread to almost every country around the globe with the World Health Organization declaring it a public health emergency. The global impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are already starting to be felt, and will significantly affect the Impact Crispr And Crispr Associated Genes market in 2020. The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought effects on many aspects, like flight cancellations, travel bans, and quarantines, restaurants closed, all indoor/outdoor events restricted, over forty countries state of emergency declared, massive slowing of the supply chain, stock market volatility, falling business confidence, growing panic among the population, and uncertainty about future.

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In this segment, we will give you the impact of COVID-19, how it affected the Crispr And Crispr Associated Genes market, and how it will change the industrys future depending on the current government, private, and public situations. Our expert analysts keep an open eye on every situation that may change the flow of the industry which will help you make the best possible decision for your enterprise.

The objective of the study is to define the Crispr And Crispr Associated Genes market sizes of different segments and countries in previous years and to forecast the values for the next five years. The report is designed to incorporate both qualified qualitative and quantitative aspects of the industry with respect to each of the regions and countries involved in the study. Furthermore, the report also caters the detailed information about crucial aspects such as drivers and restraining factors that will define the future growth of the Crispr And Crispr Associated Genes market.

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Exclusive Research Report on Crispr And Crispr Associated Genes Market With Analysis of New Business Opportunities After Covid-19 Impact: Thermo...

Does your cat think about the meaning of life? Do chimpanzees believe in a creator? While many animals on our planet clearly have some form of intelligence, just how unique are we as human beings?

Let's take a quick dive into one of the least understood aspects of the animal kingdom - what goes on in their minds...

For anyone who has a pet cat or a dog, or other pet, it is natural for them to wonder what, if anything, their furry little friends think about.Clearly, animals have brains and some are remarkably similar to our own, but do they have the same "software" to comprehend the world as we do?

We know many animals like elephants or chimpanzees are probably not dumb, but many scientists who specialize in this area warn us not to humanize animals too much.

Clive Wynne, a British-Australian ethnologist specializing in the behavior of dogs and their wild relatives, is one of them. In his book "Do Animals Think?", Wynne explains that while itmay be romantic to ascribe human qualities to other animals, it is not very realistic.

Animals, he explains, do not have a "theory-of-mind" as we do. This means they arenot conscious of what others are thinking nor do they have the capacity for higher-level reasoning. The classic analogy for this is your innate ability to understand that another human is happy, in distress, or their favorite food is spaghetti bolognese, to name but a few things.

But, are animals able to perform this apparently simple ability? It turns out, apparently not - at least not the level we can do so easily.

So, when your pet dog nudges your leg it is probably doing it to get something, like its dinner, rather than attempting to give you moral support for whatever it is that is bothering you at the time. Though, some researchers do believe that social animals, like dogs, may have some limited capacity for empathy. But more on that later.

However, that is not to say that animals are not capable of some remarkable things. As Wynne explains in his book, honeybees, for example, are able to perform functions akin to "remembering" where they found some food. Some other studies have even shown that honeybees are able to recognize and remember different human faces.

Honeybees are, of course, also able to share information with their hive mates using a special dance.

Bats are able to locate their prey at night using sonar, catch them, and eat them - all while airborne. Such abilities require some very specific mental functions that would be beyond most of us.

But these activities aren't really forms of abstract thinking as we would understand it. So, what exactly is thinking?

This is a notoriously tricky area to define, but the very act of asking such a question is, in fact, an example of it. However, that's not really a satisfactory answer.

"Thinking is the ultimate cognitive activity, consciously using our brains to make sense of the world around us and decide how to respond to it. Unconsciously our brains are still 'thinking' and this is a part of the cognitive process, but is not what we normally call 'thinking'," suggests the websiteChanging Minds.

In this sense, you can think of "thinking" as the series of conscious cognitive processes that happen in your head with or without sensory stimulation. Such processes will usually involve processes like rationaljudgement, reasoning, concept formation, problem-solving, and deliberation. But other mental processes, like considering anidea, memory, or imagination, are also often included.

Studies of human brains have been able to map out the cellular and synaptic activities in the brain and pick out certain pathways. While deceptively simple physiologically, the complex outcomes that can be achieved can be quite remarkable.

This relatively simple process enables us to experience "thoughts" and "reasoning" as we seek to connect what we sense with our inner world of understanding, and hence do and say things that will change the outer world.

"Our ability to think develops naturally in early life. When we interact with others, it becomes directed, for example when we learn values from our parents and knowledge from our teachers. We learn that it is good to think in certain ways and bad to think in other ways. Indeed, to be accepted into a social group, we are expected to think and act in ways that are harmonious with the group culture," according toChanging Minds.

So, do animals experience similar processes?

While they may not ponder the meaning of life as we do, there is a large body of evidence that animals, to a greater or lesser degree, can actually think. We can all get a sense of this by observing animals like cats or dogs, and even birds.

They show clear signs of fear, joy, and play, for example. These kinds of "feelings" are, to many scientists, a clear sign that they have some similar mental processes to us. Many other animals are even able to solve problems and remember the solution, including abstract puzzles like mazes.

"It is incredible to me there is still a debate over whether animals are conscious and even a debate over whether human beings can know animals are conscious. If you watch mammals or even birds, you will see how they respond to the world. They play. They act frightened when theres danger. They relax when things are good. It seems illogical for us to think that animals might not be having a conscious mental experience of play, sleep, fear or love." explainsCarl Safina in an interview with National geographic.

So, in light of this, is it amore accurate question is to ask whether animals are able to experience mental processes beyond simply reacting to stimuli or basic survival?

Let's see if we can glean an insight into what might be going on in their minds.

In the vast majority of cases, just like us, animals probably think about the basic necessities of life. Where is their next meal coming from? Is that other animal a threat? I am thirsty, etc.

As we touched upon earlier, years of dedicated observations of animals have shown that they experience many traits similar to ourown species like empathy, depression, joy, curiosity, etc, and that these appear to be fairly common in various animal species.

Some species have even shown an ability to experiment to solve problems. So much so, in fact, that some species of great apes, like the chimpanzee, may have even entered their very own "Stone Age"- though this is hotly debated.

This kind of activity, while underpinned by a basic need to survive, requires some level of cognition and the ability to make rational judgements.

Other great apes have even been able to learn and communicate using human sign language.However, it should be noted that many experts now believe that the subject of one such study, Nim Chimpsky (a play on Noam Chomsky's name), was probably only imitating his teacher. Nim never managed to spontaneously create sentences of its own, nor was he able to "communicate" beyond the first and second person.

In other words, demanding things from "you" to "me", like food.

To some, like Chomsky himself, this should not be very surprising as, according to Chomsky, language as we know it is a uniquely human affair. Language, remember, is a set of rules used to convey information from one individual to another. It is, to put it another way, codified, and requires to recipient to know the rules in order to comprehend the message.

It is not clear, to say the least, that other intelligent animals have this type of "language". While most animal species do communicate to a greater or lesser degree, it is not language as we understand it.

But is language that important? If our species is anything to go by, then it is probably a prerequisite to being able to not only think, but share information with other individuals within your group.

Without this basic and powerful ability, individuals are not able to properly share their feelings, thoughts, and ideas. It may even be the case that language emerged specificallyfor this purpose.

If animals are not able to perform this on even a basic level, it is, according to some experts, a clear sign that they have not evolved the mental processes for thought as we know it. Otherwise, they'd also have evolved the mechanisms to share it with others - as with we have.

However, there is also a growing body of evidence to show that animals may very well think without the need for language - at least on a more "brute force" level.

For example, when you are sick and lying in bed, your dog may bring you a toy, or stay with you to keep you company. They appear to understand, on some level, that something is wrong with you and even seem to sympathize with your plight. While this is not the same as empathy (which requires a theory of mind), it does show a level of external awareness.

And this is seen in other species of animals beyond our "best friends".

Take the octopus, for example. Another of the animal kingdom's great problem-solvers, octopi also show at least a glimpse that they may experience fear, love, and trust too.

In the Netflix documentary "My Octopus Teacher", a human diver was able to build something of a friendship with a small female octopus. Quite how emotionally attached the animal came to the human can never be known, but it is evident that some form of "thinking" was being displayed by it.

Amazingly, connections akin to what we would think of as empathy are seen between other species too. Elephants, for example, have been documented helping beleaguered human beings, for example.

In one particular case, a partially sighted woman got lost. She was apparently found by a herd of elephants who decided to protect and guard her until more humans would arrive. They even managed to build a sort of cage of branches to protect her from hyenas.

Humpback whales have also been documented protecting seals from killer whales. This all seems very extraordinary for us, but animals have probably been doing this sort of thing for millions of years.

It is also a behavior very recognizable to us human beings. Many of us are almost unconsciously driven to help out animals in need - if we don't intend on eating them of course.

You probably have a view of this, but most people believe that animals experience something similar to what we call emotions. But, what are they really?

Sadly, this is not a very easy thing to define. Broadly defined as, "a complex state of feeling that results in physical and psychological changes that influence thought and behavior", this cold definition of emotion doesn't really answer the question satisfactorily. Emotions are clearly a real thing, but the lack of consensus on how to define them makes it very difficult for us to attempt to observe them among our cohabitants on Earth - animals.

Cats are easily scared, dogs show clear signs of separation anxiety, and caged wild animals often show signs of boredom, for example. We intuitively understand these things, but it is much harder to quantify them using scientific analysis.

Physical reactions like changes in muscle tone, posture, gait, facial expression, eye size and gaze, vocalization, changes in odor, and group behavioral changes can be observed and measured, but it is less easy to correlate such things to what is actually going on inside their brains.

Until, and unless, we are actually able to communicate effectively with animals, this vital connection will likely be beyond our capabilities for some time to come.

So, how close are we to being able to "get inside" the heads of animals?

As we've previously touched upon, while we can make some qualitative and quantitative observations of animals and their behavior, it is very difficult to know for sure what an animal is actually "feeling" in its brain. In fact, it might be the case that most animals don't actually "feel" emotions at all.

Feelings like pain, hunger, thirst, fear, envy, are quite common in the animal kingdom, but these are more basic reactions to a situation rather than emotions per se. However, there does appear to be a correlation in the animal world between the presence of other, less instinctual mental processes, andcomplex social networks.

Elephants, dogs, and primates, for example, show some close similarities with human beings in their mental functions. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise, as these are all social animals, like humans.

Empathy, or something very close to it, seems to be quite common in animals that live in social groups of one kind or another. This makes sense, as it would be evolutionarily beneficial to actually "care" for other members of your own species, especially close relatives.

This is probably a very important factor in the evolution of our own species too, laying the foundations for what would day become the earliest civilizations.

If other animals have the capacity for empathy, or their version of it, then does this mean they are able to experience other emotions, perhaps even perform some higher brain functions that we might recognize as thinking? Some believe so. However, as is often warned in many fields of science, we have to be very careful not to "anthropomorphize" another species and its behaviors.

Our species is, to put it bluntly, very special indeed. No other species on the planet is able to perform the level of thinking that we can and create both functional (i.e. useful tools) and artistic objects (i.e. non-vital or luxury objects) on the scale and size we have throughout our history.

In fact, the latter, the apparent "need" to create art is a uniquely human affair that has not genuinely been observed in any other living creature on Earth. We may never really know why art arose as a phenomenon, but it is clear that it requires some form of "theory of mind" as a prerequisite - i.e. art is made to be seen and admired by others.

While some form of creativity has been observed in other animals, like elephants, it is hotly debated if this is "real" or a "trained" behavior.

Additionally, while other animals can change their environment to some extent, either directly or indirectly, this pales in comparison to what our species can do consciously. But we have a rather unfair advantage over other animals in this respect - our extraordinarily large brains compared to our body size.

Human beings have anencephalization quotient (EQ) in the order of 7.5. Encephalization is therelative brain size of an animal, measured as the ratio between actual brain size and predicted brain mass for an animal of a given size. For example, larger animals can be expected to have larger brains. Values greater than 1.0 indicate a larger brain than expected for that body size.

To put that figure into perspective, chimps have an EQ of around 2.5, cats have an EQ of 1.0, and bottlenose dolphins have an EQ of 5.3. All well and good, but human brains are also quite literally, wired differently.

Something called the FOXP2 gene is present in most species. This geneprovidesinstructions for making a protein thatcontrols the activity of other genes. This protein, in effect, acts as a dimmer switch which helps determine to what extent other genes are expressed. Mutations in this gene have also been linked to the development of the brain's language and speech networks.

This has been verified in the lab by artificially altering the gene to find out what happens. In mice, for example, genetic manipulation of the gene shows a marked reduction in the vocalization of mice pups.

About 200,000 years ago, a mutation in this gene appears to have occurred in our species, becoming commonplace in our population within only 1,000 generations. It was clearly a beneficial mutation.

"The consensus among scientists is thattheFOXP2gene has been the target of heavy selectionduring recent human evolution because it changed the way our brain was wired for communication," explains Denise D. Cummins, a cognitive scientist, in a Scientific American article. And this really is critical.

Our brains have also become highly specialized, with certain regions dedicated to processes like language to a much greater degree than in other animals, like chimps. However, this may have come at a very significant cost - our almost uniquely high susceptibility to mental disorders like schizophrenia.

We have taken a very different evolutionary pathway to pretty much all other animals on the planet. For this reason, our ability to communicate using things like languages is far beyond the capacity of any other animal. For this reason, many experts in the field are very confident we can never actually "talk" to other animals in any meaningful way.

So, it appears that begin able to actually "ask" an animal how it feels is looking pretty unlikely. Of course, this doesn't mean animals don't have emotions and feelings.

We are the product of the same evolutionary processes as every other creature on this planet. If we have emotions, and they clearly develop naturally, then it follows that other animals should have at least some feelings too, right?

But how would we ever be able to find out? Since talking to them is out, what else can we do?

Scientists have been attempting to learn how to communicate with animals for a very long time, with varying success. Our closest relatives, the great apes, have even shown some ability to pick up communication methods like sign language and provide some very basic level of interaction with human beings.

Pet owners will also be more than familiar with the ability to have some very basic interaction with their dog or cat, for example. In many instances, dogs, for example, can be trained to respond to some verbal commands.

However, it is important to note that this is more a case of your pet connecting a series of sounds, or a particular tone, with a good or bad outcome - like getting a treat or being punished in some way. It also works the other way around.

You innately understand the difference between a growling angry dog and a happy one, for example.

However, as we've previously discussed, codified language might be a uniquely human "software function" and trying to teach other animals how we communicate could be a forlorn hope. A better approach would be for us to learn how to speak "their" tongue.

Is this possible?

Sort of.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, for example, have been able to develop a "computerized doggy vest" that, so they claim, allows humans to "talk" to dogs. Technically called "animal-computer interaction", this device has been developed to help assistance dogs ask for help if they, or their owner, get into trouble.

However, such a device is more of a trick that a dog can be taught to activate when needed. A far more sophisticated approach is currently in development by researchers atNorthern Arizona University.

The team, led byDr. Con Slobodchikoff, is working on a sophisticated algorithm that can "translate" animal sounds, body language, and expressions into human language when, for example, the animal is in pain or hungry, etc.

While very much in its infancy, such technology would prove revolutionary for human-animal interactions, but would still fall very short of being able to engage in a conversation. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is another promising field, but this also relies on making analogies with human brains or associating observed behaviors with what can be seen in the scans.

Both of which involve the "use" of the very unique wiring seen in the human brain. This may be something of a "Catch 22," ultimately limiting research in this field.

So, while thinking and feeling are very common human traits, it is not clear if any other animal experiences the world as we do. While we do have a massive advantage, our huge brains, this may only enable us to think about the world as human beings do, not as animals do. In other words, our mental "hardware" and "software" might be incompatible with the way other animals think and see the world.

For this reason, it may be the case that we can never truly understand or communicate effectively with other animals on Earth, at least with our current understanding of what consciousness is.

But, if history is anything to go by, it may only be a matter of time before some major breakthrough in human-animal communication is made. We shall have to wait and see.

Original post:
Will humans ever be able to talk to animals? - Interesting Engineering

Vaginal mesh surgery has been in practice for a long time, but it is no stranger to debate in the urology community.

In speaking about this topic, Jerry G. Blaivas, MD, FACS, debunks some of the common stigmas associated with mesh slings. He stresses the importance of both the pros and cons of this procedure as well as communicating those factors to patients who are thinking about getting this surgery to treat their incontinence. Blaivas is a professor of urology in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, New York.

Well, I think there are 2 kinds of stigmas. There's the stigma that any patient feels about incontinence, and then there's also the stigma of the operation itself. Historically, patients have always felt stigmatized about incontinence. Women with fistulas, for example, have terrible incontinence and, until effective treatments were developed, they were social outcasts for their entire lives. So, the patients are embarrassed and [a]shamed. They think that people can smell the urine, they sometimes shun social contacts, they are sometimes are isolated and depressed, but to a large extent, that's changed over the last 4 decades. So now, I think most people with incontinence understand that there are lots of other people with incontinence [and] there are lots of treatments for it. There are pads and appliances, and doctors are much more open about it and willing to talk about it, and there are better treatments. So, I think the stigma is still there, but it's much improved over the last 40 years or so.

I'd like to pay tribute to the 2 women who made this happen. One of them is Katherine Jeter [EdD, ET], and the other is Cheryl Gartley. Katherine is a retired enterostomal therapist, and [for] Cheryl, I'm not exactly sure what her background was to get interested in [this topic], but they both, coincidentally, formed [not-for-profit] patient advocacy groups [in 1982]. Katherine founded the National Association for Continence, and Cheryl founded the Simon Foundation for Continence. They raised public awareness tremendously and I think [they emphasized] the whole concept of youre not alone. They educated patients, doctors, and industry. They really got the grassroots involved to destigmatize incontinence as much as possible.

Then, there is the stigma associated with the operation itself the serious and sometimes lifestyle altering complications arising from mesh surgery, which, in my judgment, occurs in at least 5 - 10% of women and may be much higher than that. These complications have fueled over 100,00 lawsuits against mesh manufacturers in the USA.

From the patients perspective, the stigma still exists, although its much less than previously. Im sure there are still women and men who are too embarrassed to speak about incontinence and dont seek treatment. But the positive aspects of coming out, and seeking care far outweigh the stigma. I think the overwhelming majority of people who are bothered by incontinence seek treatment and I think there are now many more doctors who are experts at evaluating patients and providing the care. On the other hand, there are many women who seek care, but are scared off from surgery because of the stigmas associated with mesh complications

The urologist's role is, first and foremost, to provide the patient with a realistic assessment of the risks, benefits and alternative treatments based on the particulars of the individual patient. In my experience, all too often, when it comes to sling surgery, surgeons quote or paraphrase the refrain that slings are safe and effective, a refrain that is embedded in the official guidelines and statements from most of the urologic and gynecologic societies. Well, I think that slings are effective, [but] not as safe as they say. Its the urologist's obligation to make that clear and to offer the patient the tools (informed consent) that enables them to choose the treatment that is most appropriate for their particular condition.

If patients understand the risks and benefits and choose the most appropriate treatment and if the urologist provides them with realistic expectations, the stigmas of incontinence treatment should fall to an absolute minimum.

Those original stigmas about the surgery were well founded.Going back to the late 1950s and early 1960s, surgeons began to use mesh slings for patients with refractory incontinence, mostly those who had failed multiple operations. These slings were composed of non-absorbable, braided polyester or polypropylene Type III meshes which, even in the hands of highly skilled surgeons caused devastating, refractory complications resulting in bladder cripples, and not surprisingly, sling surgeries fell out of favor, hence the stigmata.

Then in the 1980s and 1990s autologous fascial pubovaginal slings were developed. In the mid-nineties, with the introduction of Type 1 polypropylene meshes, which proved to safer than the older versions, synthetics slings were revived and reinvented. Currently, the new generation of polypropylene slings with their disposable kits have become, by far, the most common operations performed in the USA for stress incontinence. Over time, autologous and mesh slings have proven to be of equal efficacy, but the autologous slings are much safer with respect to serious complications. There are still terrible, complications, from these mesh surgeries, but the likelihood of them occurring is much less now than they were back then.

So, autologous slings and synthetic slings are about equally effective. they both have the same success rate, [but] there are 2 huge differences between them. The synthetics slings are much easier to do. They're faster, the recovery is quicker, there are less wound complications [and] there's not a steep learning curve. That accounts for the huge popularity amongst patients and physicians alike. On the other hand, synthetic mesh slings still have a unique, troublesome complication profile that has proven impossible to shake. The most common of these adverse events are chronic pain, mesh erosion, refractory voiding dysfunction and overactive bladder. These complications are exceedingly difficult to treat, are often refractory in nature and may irrevocably alter the patients life, a consequence depicted in sobering detail in a study by Hansen et al entitled Changed Women.

Of course, autologous slings are subject to other complications, common to all operations for stress incontinence including urethral obstruction and overactive bladder and, in fact, the overall complication rate amongst the 2 cancer slings are comparable except for the fact that erosions, chronic pain and dyspareunia are practically nonexistent after autologous slings.

I mentioned, above, that at least 5 to 10% of patients undergoing mesh slings develop life style altering complications. In my judgment, the vast majority of both doctors and patients dont fully understand the impact of these numbers. Five percent is one in 20 patients whose lives may be irrevocably worsened by a 20-minute outpatient procedure. Thats not rare, thats not safe and, to me, thats sobering.

There is also a tremendous positive side to the vaginal mesh story. I started with the complications, simply because, in my judgment, they are so terribly under appreciated by doctors and patients alike. The positive side is not only that the vaginal mesh is a fast, quick procedure that works well in a lot of patients, but more to the point, it's opened up incontinence care to many more patients. Back in the 1980s when this stuff was all starting, a tiny fraction of people who suffered from incontinence went on to surgery, compared to now, where there are so many more capable surgeons. So, we offer this to many more patients whose lives are improved. But, of course, that opens up the possibility of some awful complications to many others. Thats a dilemma.

My own personal opinion is that the autologous slings, are just as effective as synthetic mesh slings and much safer. But there's an 'if,' and that 'if' is if the surgeon is adequately trained and comfortable doing an autologous sling. I'm sorry to say that the current generation is not comfortable with autologous slings; few training programs even teach them. Thats another dilemma.

I don't really foresee anything in the near future. Prevention would be nice, but I don't think there are very many things an individual person can do to prevent incontinence. Pelvic floor muscle training, exercising and, weight reduction are good things to do and they promote overall health but it is unclear to me whether they can prevent incontinence. Good prenatal and obstetric care certainly is important and can offer some protection. And then, I think there's the possibility of genetic engineering in the future to help prevent this stuff, but thats a theoretic prospect that will have to wait in a long line behind more compelling problems like curing cancer, diabetes, and hypertension.

Better synthetic slings? I'm not terribly hopeful, but its worth a try. The main problem with synthetic slings, in my estimation, is that they incite chronic inflammation in just about everybody. So, its an immunological problem. If the body can keep it at bay, then maybe sling complications will be less, but maybe not. Another possibility is better urethral bulking procedures, and that's something that may be in the future. Whether or not stem cell therapy, which some people have tried, emerges is something that's also a possibility. But, dont forget that stress incontinence is just one of a host of problems that ensue because of the frailty of pelvic floor support, vaginal atrophy and the ravages of gravity and aging.

So, I'll leave it to people smarter than me to predict and forage the future. The one thing that I think is too bad, at least for the immediate future, is that there aren't enough surgeons skilled in natural tissue repairs, because I think the autologous sling, in the hands of a skilled surgeon. is a very effective operation with few significant long-term complications>

Firstly, sling surgery, whether its using natural tissue or synthetics, is effective in the majority of patients. However, effective is not synonymous with cure; most patients are significantly improved and pleased with the results, but rigorous studies have shown that about one third to one half of patients still have some degree of incontinence.

Secondly, there is a paucity of long-term studies; the majority of patients are going to be so improved that they're pleased that they had the surgery. How long it lasts [is something] we don't know. I'm comfortable that for most people it lasts 5 to 10 years, but after that the follow up really falls off. In my own anecdotal experience, after successful surgery most people are either content with, or resigned to, whatever incontinence recurs and most dont see retreatment. But remember, anecdotes are not science.

See the article here:
Expert addresses the stigmas associated with vaginal mesh surgery - Urology Times

Highlighting key developments in future sectors to help decision-makers in both public and private sectors

Published: Fri 11 Feb 2022, 10:24 AM

The Dubai Future Foundation (DFF) launched the 'Future Opportunities Report: The Global 50', which aims to highlight the most promising opportunities in various vital and future sectors during the next 50 years.

Through highlighting key developments and trends in future sectors, the report aims to help decision makers in both public and private sectors, thought leaders, innovators, researchers, entrepreneurs and the people in the UAE and around the world in developing strategies and plans that serve humanity and build a better future.

The report outlines 50 global opportunities classified within five main pillars including nature and sustainability, enabling societies, health, human relation with technology, and future innovations.

It will determine the impact of ever-evolving trends on the future of humanity, and propose future visualizations to address the most important global challenges and identify positive transformations in different fields.

Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Managing Director of Dubai Future Foundation said, "The next 50 years will witness more changes in human scientific, economic and social achievement than ever before. These transformations will be transcontinental in nature and will affect people and societies everywhere, impacting all aspects of our lives, from our work to our relationships. Intentional thinking will help us adapt and prepare for these changes. The future is not ours to await; it's ours to create. Likewise, those who understand and plan for future transformations are best placed to design and control the path ahead of us all."

He added, "History teaches us that humanity's unbridled imagination has no limits, and that our innovation and creativity can help us achieve unexpected leaps in our development. Alongside governments and businesses, scientists and creative leaders will have a participatory and integrative role in turning future opportunities into reality."

Five main pillars

The nature and sustainability pillar include seven opportunities that focus on employing the development of technology and biomaterials to reduce the volume of plastic waste, storing harmful gases in depleted onshore and offshore oil and gas fields, modifying types of materials, trees and plants to contribute to achieving zero carbon emissions, and greening deserts. Aiming to increase habitable areas, protecting the oceans and their ecosystems and fisheries, and relying on renewable and sustainable energy sources that are safe, cheap and low in emissions.

Enabling societies

The second pillar include 11 global opportunities that consists of the government role in developing legislations, achieving individual needs, ensure the safety and privacy of personal data, launch a global charter for genetic engineering and genomics applications, set a framework defining the rights of robots in complementarity with human rights, provide electric power to all societies and reduce its costs, and assist countries in facing the effects of the climate change. In addition to employing modern technology in the development of the educational system, enhancing levels of happiness and enable talents to innovate.

Health opportunities

This third pillar consists of seven main global opportunities represented in employing technologies to identify mental and psychological health problems, use non-surgical monitoring techniques to produce medicines on demand, personalize treatments, and enhance data exchange mechanisms to increase the efficiency of health care and research efficiency rare diseases and epidemics globally.

Human relation with technology

This pillar includes 13 main opportunities, focusing on providing access to the virtual world without the need for devices, moving to the concept of comprehensive and rapid manufacturing, accelerate international shipping, and employ smart machines and technologies to enhance governance and decision-making mechanisms. Human relation with technology will also focus on the integration of software solutions to increase the efficiency of work from anywhere in the world, and cloning memory and knowledge from the human brain and storing it to serve individuals and society.

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Future innovations

This pillar includes many global opportunities associated with innovation in the use of new technologies, reliance on biological materials instead of products and chemicals, providing sustainable water resources, and developing global standards for the full cost and real value of all economic activities and their social and environmental impacts. In addition to the adoption of the concept of carbon credits, the transition of commercial and social activities to virtual reality, and the availability of data for all to benefit from in developing vital sectors.

The report identifies 10 major trends, including the development in sciences of biological and synthetic materials, the decrease in the cost of data and the focus on the quality of analyzing it, the increase in the security vulnerabilities in systems and infrastructure, the development of technologies for generation and storage of electric energy, the increase in investment in ecosystems management, the need to develop legislation and mechanisms for international disputes, the growth of virtual and digital world applications, the spread of autonomous robots, the need to redefine humanitarian goals in light of the spread of artificial intelligence and advanced technology, and the development of innovative health and agricultural technologies.

The full report is available at https://www.dubaifuture.ae/the-global-50/

reporters@khaleejtimes.com

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Dubai: Sustainability, health, innovation to be key job trends in 50 years, says report - Khaleej Times

I think the ethics and morals of genetic engineering are very complicated. It intrigues me.

Roger Spottiswoode

Genetic engineering can be defined as manipulation of an organisms genes with the help of biotechnology.

The first official genetic manipulation happened in 1972 by Paul Berg when he combined the DNA from a monkey virus with the lambda virus.

Genetic engineering is a very controversial topic in our society.

There are many pros and cons regarding this topic.

In the following, the advantages as wells as the downsides of genetic manipulation are examined.

In order to create a genetically modified organism, scientists first have to choose what gene they want to insert into the organism.

With the help of genetic screens, potential genes can be tested with the goal of finding the best candidates.

When a suitable gene has been determined, the next step is to isolate it.

The cell which contains the gene has to be opened and the DNA has to be purified.

After isolating the gene, it is ligated into a plasmid which is inserted into a bacterium.

Thus, whenever the bacterium divides, the plasmid is also replicated.

This leads to a vast number of copies of this gene.

Before inserting the gene into the target organism, it has to be combined with other genetic elements including a terminator and promoter region which end and initiate the transcription.

In the final step, the genetic material is inserted into a host genome.

After that, the genetic engineering process is finished.

Genetic engineering is often used by scientists to improve their understanding of how genetics actually work and how they affect our talents and our decisions.

From these findings, scientists can provide insights for medical purposes and thus increase the probability of curing serious diseases in the future.

There are many important areas in the field of medicine in which genetic manipulation could contribute to better treatment of diseases.

This also includes the invention of more effective drugs with fewer side effects.

Moreover, model animals can be genetically modified in the hope to get new insights on how these modifications would work on humans.

For this purpose, using mice in order to examine the effects of genetic manipulation on obesity, cancer, heart diseases and other serious conditions is common practice in nowadays scientific work.

Genetic engineering is also used in the field of agriculture in order to increase yields and also make plants more resistant to pests.

Moreover, even genetic experiments on livestock have been performed in the past.

Apart from the use for consumption, plants have also been genetically modified for medical purposes.

By changing the gene structure of plants, scientists want to examine if they could produce new drugs that can cure diseases more effectively.

Genetic manipulation is also a field of interest for industrial purposes.

Since through genetic engineering processes, all kinds of properties of animals and plants can be modified, this also comes down to a potential increase in revenue for firms if they are able to optimize the gene structure for their purposes.

An example of this is the use of genetically modified bacteria for making biofuels.

The rules and regulations for genetic engineering vary significantly across different countries.

However, there is some consensus on the level of danger genetic modification poses to humanity.

For example, the majority of scientists claim that there is no greater risk to human health from genetically modified crops compared to conventional food.

However, before making this genetically modified food available for public consumption, it has to be tested extensively in order to exclude any possibility of danger.

Moreover, some groups like Greenpeace or the World Wildlife Fund claim that genetically modified food should be tested more rigorously before releasing it for public consumption.

There are some severe diseases that we will likely never be able to fight if we do not use genetic engineering.

From only small manipulations of genes, it is expected that we can fight a significant number of deadly diseases.

Moreover, even for unborn babies, there could be genetic diseases detected.

The most prominent example of this kind of genetic disease is Down syndrome.

If our scientists get quite advanced, it is likely that we would be able to cure all genetic diseases, even that of unborn children.

Abortions because of the diagnosis of genetic diseases would no longer be necessary since we could ensure the babies health through genetic manipulation.

Since we can fight many diseases with genetic engineering, the overall life expectancy of people is likely to increase since the dangers of death due to these diseases decreases.

Moreover, if we are able to further improve our knowledge regarding genetic modification, diseases could be treated more effectively.

Especially in poor countries where some diseases can cause the death of many people, also the development of genetically modified plants for medical use could be a great measure in order to mitigate the issue.

We could also fight diseases which usually cause death for old people and thus prolong their lives.

Moreover, we can increase their life quality since old people do not have to suffer from these diseases anymore.

Thus, genetic engineering may lead to an increase in average life expectancy.

With the help of genetic manipulation, we could increase the variety of foods and drinks for our daily consumption.

Moreover, we could further improve the crop yields since we could create sorts of plants that are resistant to all kinds of pests.

Thus, we could supply enough food to all people worldwide and fight famine in an effective way.

Additionally, with the help of genetic engineering, it may be possible to create more nutritious food.

This would be especially beneficial in countries where people suffer from vitamin deficiencies.

If we are able to increase the level of these vitamins in crops or other foods, we could help people to overcome their vitamin deficiency.

If we are able to modify the genetics in a way that they naturally become resistant against pests, we will no longer have to use harmful chemical pesticides.

Thus, genetic engineering may also lead to a reduction in the use of pesticides.

With the help of genetic engineering, we may also be able to create certain medical foods which may also replace some of the common injections.

Medical foods may also help to prevent certain diseases.

Therefore, genetic engineering could also lead to an improvement in medical standards.

Through genetic engineering, it would be possible to create plant species that need less water than the plant species currently used in agriculture.

By replacing the natural species with genetically modified ones, farmers could save plenty of water.

This would be especially useful in regions where water shortage is a serious problem.

Water shortage will be a quite big issue in the future due to global warming.

If the average temperature increases, water scarcity is likely to also increase.

Thus, with the help of genetic modification, water can be saved and the problem of water shortages may be mitigated to a certain extent.

We may also be able to increase the speed of growth of plants and animals.

By doing so, we could produce more food in a given period of time.

This may quite important since our world population is growing and therefore the demand for food is increasing.

Through genetic modification, we may also be able to strengthen specific characteristics of plants.

This may include that plants are better able to adapt to the global warming problem or that they may become more resistant to changes in their natural conditions.

Many followers of religions are strictly against genetic engineering since they think playing god should not be a task performed by humans.

There are also ethical concerns if genetic manipulation should become a valid instrument for changing the course of our lives.

There is also the argument that diseases are a natural phenomenon and that they have a role in nature since they persisted over a quite long time horizon of evolution.

Moreover, there are many scientists who believe that the creation of designer babies could not be in the interest of humanity.

If perfected, parents could choose the eye color, hair color or even the sex of the baby.

This could lead to an optimization contest in our society which could also have vastly negative effects if pushed too far.

Genetic manipulation can also cause genetic problems if we do not handle it in a proper way.

Since science is still at an early stage in the understanding of genetics, manipulations of genes may even do more harm than good at our current state of genetic understanding.

Errors could even lead to the development of new diseases or to miscarriages.

Genetic engineering also poses a risk to human health.

For example, genetically modified food may lead to long-term health issues.

There is just not enough reliable data yet on how harmful genetic engineering really is in the long term.

Thus, it may pose serious health effects, some of them currently even unknown to scientists.

Genetic engineering may also lead to the development of allergies against certain food items.

Since the DNA-structure is altered in the genetic modification process, food that has former been uncritical for people could now cause allergic reactions.

Genetic engineering is also used to modify plants.

Specifically, some plant species have been developed which include their own pesticide which can protect them from animals and insects.

In this way, scientists hope to be able to increase crop yields.

However, this altering of genetic code in plants can lead to a resistance of certain insects to the pesticide.

This may pose big problems to the agricultural system since if insects or other pests become resistant against toxins, they are harder to fight.

Thus, in the short run, altering genetic material in plants may have its advantages.

However, in the long run, there may be severe issues when it comes to resistance of pest strains.

Some researchers are afraid that genetic engineering may also lead to resistance against antibiotics for humans.

This may lead to serious problems since the treatment of diseases with antibiotics will not be effective anymore.

Genetic engineering would also lead to a reduction in genetic diversity.

Since the process of gene manipulation would be quite expensive, only rich people would be able to afford it.

Thus, this would likely lead to human behavior which favors being rich over all other things in order to be able to afford genetic manipulation.

As a consequence, the variety of human behavior would be reduced.

Since genetically modified plants often contain own pesticides, they can be quite harmful to animals that are consuming these kinds of plants.

Animals can suffer severe diseases from these pesticides and even die.

This problem is especially severe for butterflies and other insects which usually rely on certain plants in their near surroundings.

See more here:
Genetic Engineering: 20 Pros & Cons You Have To Know - E&C

Experts from the UK and Singapore have suceeded in engineering common baker's yeast so that a primary ingredient for the treatment ofdementiacanbe produced.

(Photo : Marta Dzedyshko / Pexels)

By making some changes in the genome of yeast, researchers from Imperial College London and National University of Singapore (NUS) succeeded in changing the fungi into bio-factories so that achemical compoundknown as D-lysergic acid (DLA) can beproduced, as per Phys.org.

Alkaloid DLA is used in the treatment of dementia and Parkinson's disease, as well as migraines and other neurological diseases. The annual production of the chemical is estimated to be between 10 and 15 metric tons to meet the global demand for such medicines.

As of now, the only way to get DLA is through ergot extracts, which are derived from parasitic fungi that infect crops like wheat and rye with illness.

Industrial agriculture, which is a major source of carbon emissions, makes it impossible to grow ergot fungus for medical purposes. Yeast might be used to produce DLA in a proof-of-concept study published in Nature Communications, according to the study's authors.

Also Read:Researchers Create First-Ever 'Designer Chromosome' in Yeast [Video]

For thousands of years, yeasts have been utilized to manufacture ethanol and flavor-enhancing chemicals in alcoholic beverages like beer, wine, and even bread.

Researchers have also investigated microorganisms, and baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) was one of the first cellular organisms to have its genome sequenced, making it a perfect model for genetic engineering to produce a variety of chemicals.

Imperial and NUS worked together on the initiative for two years, sending Ph.D. students to each other's campuses to collaborate on the strategy.

For the first time, researchers have successfully created a yeast cell capable of manufacturing DLA from the genome of baker's yeast by inserting a number of different DLA genes from ergot fungus.

(Photo : Mark Evans/Getty Images)

To generate DLA, these modified fungal factories adapted the same fermentation process that is used to make beer and bread, feeding on sugar and producing slightly under 2mg of DLA in a 1L reactor, according to Imperial College London.

In spite of the small volumes produced in this study, researchers say the method might be used to create tons of the substance each year if ramped up to industrial levels.

Co-principal Investigator and Professor Paul Freemont of Imperial College London's Department of Infectious Diseases stated that "yeast has been a key part of human civilization for thousands of years, helping us to make bread and brew beer.

But our relationship with this familiar microbe is evolving. Through this exciting collaboration we have been able to harness fungal cells to act as miniature factories to produce the raw compounds for medicines."

Freemont said this is an instance of how something that may seem small and less important has the capability of changing human lives by providing the drugs that can allow humans to age better and also curb the impact of industrial drug production.

Related Article:Yeast Drug: Biotechnologists Are Turning Yeasts into Micro Medicine Source

For more news, updates about yeast cells and similar topics don't forget to follow Nature World News!

More:
Scientists Engineered Baker's Yeast to Produce Treatment Drugs for Dementia - Nature World News

A century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision that legal scholars generally consider to be among the worst in its history. In the landmark case, Buck v. Bell, the court affirmed that states had the right to forcibly sterilize feebleminded and socially inadequate people to prevent them from having children. The decision bolstered Americas burgeoning eugenics movement, which proclaimed to improve humanity through selective breeding. In ruling against Carrie Buck, a young woman residing in a Virginia state mental institution, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., famously wrote three generations of imbeciles are enough.

That phrase is echoed in the title of Georgia State legal historian Paul Lombardos 2008 book, Three Generations, No Imbeciles, the first fully documented account of the Buck case. The work revealed how Buck was misrepresented in court and detailed how the decision influenced public attitudes and the law.

Most people think that eugenics is something from the distant past, but it has come back into the public conversation in a big way in the last 30 years, says Lombardo, Regents Professor and Bobby Lee Cook Professor of Law. Were still wrestling with questions about how we might manipulate heredity and how those impulses might mirror what the eugenics movement was driven by.

This month, Three Generations, No Imbeciles is being rereleased with a new afterword that identifies the role theBuckstory plays abortion laws. We spoke with Lombardo about why this nearly 100-year-old case continues to resonate today.

Many people today have a limited understanding of the eugenics movement. Can you talk about its legal significance?

Im a legal historian, and my focus has been trying to excavate and explicate the laws that were passed that relied on eugenic ideology. There are the sterilization laws, like the one highlighted in Buck v. Bell. There are the so-called racial integrity laws, which prohibited interracial marriage. There were also immigration laws. In 1924, same year that Virginia statute allowing sterilization was enacted, there was a national law that prohibited immigration by large groups of people from Eastern and Southern Europe. The eugenics movement generated a number of laws that impacted not only people with disabilities but also other groups.

You say that in the past 30 years, eugenics has moved back into the public conversation. Why?

In the 1990s, two major events prompted this conversation to reemerge. One was the commencement of the Human Genome Project, which aimed to map the complete set of human genes. By the late 1990s, this project was beginning to reach its milestones and raising a lot of questions about the ethics of genetic testing and genetic engineering. The second event was the 50th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust and the Nuremburg trials. The Nazis embrace of eugenics through every measure from sterilization to death camps has drawn a great deal of historical attention. Conversations today about how we treat people based on things like disabilities, race, gender or sexual orientation are all tied to eugenics and how it played out in both the U.S. and countries like Nazi Germany.

The book includes new discussion of how Buck relates to reproductive rights. Can you talk about those connections?

The debate over abortion and birth control and who is fit to be a parent has been a century-long discussion in this country. In the 1800s, America passed laws forbidding people with epilepsy to marry. There were laws passed saying you cant have children if you have a disability.

Although sterilization laws were later used dramatically against women, they were initially focused primarily on men who were involved in same-sex relationships and charged with crimes against nature. The chief complaint was essentially, dont let those people have children because theyll turn out just like them. The same argument was made to justify compulsory sterilization of incarcerated people, a practice that continues to this day.

These laws raise two fundamental questions: Who gets to decide whether you become a parent? And who gets to decide what is done or not done to your body? The question of whether the government can or should control your body and its reproductive functions is one of the main questions raised by eugenics history, and its one were still struggling with.

You have criticized Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for his claim that the founders of the eugenics movement in America were really trying to justify the use of abortion. Is there merit to that argument?

Some people believe that the eugenics movement leaders were all closeted abortionists, but history shows that is false. Advocacy for abortion by the birth control movement and Margaret Sanger, who was a known supporter of eugenics, did not begin early in the 20th century. While many people in the eugenics movement were in favor of birth control, there were also many against it, and almost no one leading the movement between 1900 and roughly the beginning of World War II endorsed abortion. In fact, you could characterize them as pro-life because they used a lot of the same language used by the pro-life movement today.

What about the implications for laws regarding genetic testing or genetic manipulation?

We will continue to see these questions raised as new technologies emerge, whether its prenatal genetic testing or CRISPR gene editing. There will continue to be, and there should be, conversations about the potential benefits and drawbacks, such as how the use of technologies could lead to a devaluing of certain people.

As a society, we still exhibit dramatic prejudice towards people with disabilities. Thats clearly been on display during the pandemic. In the eugenics movement, some people would say those who were ill, old or had medical vulnerabilities were better off dead, and we still hear echoes of that argument. However, its important to understand that not every scientific advancement has a direct line to eugenics.

That brings up another issue, which is vaccine mandates and arguments over individual liberty versus government action to pursue the common good.

What is the balance between notions of physical autonomy and notions of common good? That has come up again and again during the pandemic. Interestingly, there has been a great deal of language borrowed by the anti-vaccine movement from the pro-choice movement around the notion of my body, my choice.

However, legally you must determine whether there is a difference between forcible vaccination and making it a condition of, say, employment or getting on an airplane. The metaphors that we use, publicly and politically, need to be evaluated based on those distinctions. If the hurricane is raging and you want to have a parade down Main Street, your legal right to free assembly might disappear in that emergency. Our legal reaction would likely be different if basic rights were curtailed every time it threatened to rain.

Whats the current state of the eugenics movement? Has it truly ended?

If youre talking about a well-organized and well-funded public campaign that reflected flawed notions of heredity branded as eugenics, then the answer is yes. But the laws passed by the eugenics movement were designed by opportunistic supporters who capitalized on ancient prejudices. Bigotry against people because of their race, disability, poverty or gender has always been with us, and it continues to be with us. And thats why these issues still loom large in our national discourse.

Many famous Americans were known eugenicists. How should we consider them and this Supreme Court case today?

No one in the country escaped the reach of these ideas, and when we point the historical finger, we should remember that there are an infinite number of targets. People have mixed motives, some of which are laudable while others are condemnable. Many U.S. Presidents signed laws that were aligned with the eugenics movement or endorsed the movement. Teddy Roosevelt was one of the biggest proponents of eugenics. The public health movement was initially infused with eugenic thinking.

We can even look back at the Supreme Court opinion in Buck with a quantum of charity. The Court can certainly be faulted for the illogic and cruelty of its decisions, but we cant expect it to focus on evidence not in the record it receives. The Justices had to make a decision based only on what they knew, while Ive made a career out of demonstrating what they didnt know in some cases.

The lesson of history is that we cant escape the fact that our knowledge and understanding is limited and comes to us through blinders based on our biases and experiences. Thats why we should have some measure of humility particularly when were deciding how other peoples lives should work or who gets to become a parent.

Portrait by Meg Buscema

Read the original:
Wrestling with the Legacy of Eugenics - Georgia State University News

As the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated, new mutations in viral genetic sequences can impact significantly on viral transmissibility and damage to the host. This potential has long been a concern for HIV-1. A research team headed by scientists at University of Oxfords Big Data Institute has now discovered a new, highly virulent HIV strain that has been circulating in the Netherlands for the last few decades. According to their newly reported study, a cluster of more than 100 individuals infected with the VB (virulent subtype B) variant showed exceptionally high viral loads, rapid CD4 T cell decline, and increased infectivity.

The study results suggest that after starting treatment, individuals infected with VB variant show similar immune system recovery and survival compared with individuals with other (non-VB) HIV variants. However, the researchers stressed that because the VB variant causes a more rapid decline in immune system strength, it will be critical to diagnose individuals early and start treatment as soon as possible. And while the findings show that the HIV lineage likely arose de novo around the turn of the millennium, extensive changes in its genome make it hard to discern the mechanisms that underlie elevated virulence.

Lead author Chris Wymant, PhD, from the University of Oxfords Big Data Institute and Nuffield Department of Medicine, said, Before this study, the genetics of the HIV virus were known to be relevant for virulence, implying that the evolution of a new variant could change its impact on health. Discovery of the VB variant demonstrated this, providing a rare example of the risk posed by viral virulence evolution.

Wymant and colleagues reported their findings in Science, in a paper titled A highly virulent variant of HIV-1 circulating inthe Netherlands.

The risk posed by viruses evolving to greater virulence has been extensively studied in theoretical work, yet, as the authors acknowledged, there have been just a few population-level examples. One example of note, they pointed out in their new paper, is the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, which demonstrates increased transmissibility, as well as a reported increase in probability of death. However, outside of recent studies on SARS-CoV-2 variants, an understanding of the evolution of virulence in viruses beyond theoretical analyses is lacking.

RNA viruses have long been a particular concern, the investigators continued, as error-prone replication results in the greatest known rate of mutationand thus high potential for adaptation. For many years there have been concerns that such mutations may arise in HIV-1. Continued monitoring of HIV virulence is important for global health: 38 million people currently live with the virus, and it has caused an estimated 33 million deaths, the authors stated, citing data from UNAIDS.

The newly characterized VB variant of HIV-1 was first identified by the team in 17 HIV-1-positive individuals from the BEEHIVE ((Bridging the Epidemiology and Evolution of HIV in Europe) project, an ongoing study which collects samples from across Europe and Uganda. These individuals demonstrated highly elevated viral loads. And since 15 of the 17 people were part of the ATHENA study in the Netherlands, the researchers then analysed data from a cohort of over 6,700 HIV-positive individuals in the ATHENA study. They identified an additional 92 individuals with the VB variant, all from Netherlands, bringing the total number of people infected with the VB subtype to 109.

The teams analyses of the data indicated that individuals with the VB variant had a viral load of between 3.5 times and 5.5 times higher than individuals with a non-VB variant. When replicating the BEEHIVE test with the ATHENA data, we again observed a large rise in viral load in individuals with this viral variant In addition, the rate of CD4 cell decline, which represents a hallmark of immune system damage by HIV, occurred twice as fast in individuals with the VB variant, placing them at risk of developing AIDS much more rapidly. Individuals with the VB variant also showed an increased risk of transmitting the virus to others.

Reassuringly, after starting treatment, individuals with the VB variant did show similar immune system recovery and survival to those with other HIV variants. However, the team estimated that, without treatment, males diagnosed with the VB variant at the age of 30-39 years would progress to advanced HIVCD4 cell counts below 350 cells per cubic millimetre with long-term clinical consequenceswithin only 9 months from the time of diagnosis, compared with 36 months for individuals diagnosed with non-VB variants. Advanced HIV is reached even more quickly in older age groups, and there is considerable variation between individuals around these expected values, the scientists noted. Many individuals could therefore progress to advanced HIV by the time they are diagnosed, with a poorer prognosis expected thereafter in spite of treatment.

And, in practice, there is still considerable variation in the delay between initial infection, to the start of therapy, which makes the VB variant a particular concern even in the high-awareness and highly monitored context of the Dutch HIV-1 epidemic, the investigators stated. In contexts with less awareness and monitoring, in which diagnosis often occurs later in infection, the probability of reaching advanced HIV before diagnosis would be even greater.

The VB variant is characterized by many mutations spread throughout the genome, meaning that a single genetic cause cannot be identified at this stage. By analysing the patterns of genetic variation among the samples, the researchers estimate that the VB variant first arose during the late 1980s and 1990s in the Netherlands. Genetic sequence analysis suggests that this variant arose in the 1990s from de novo mutation, not recombination, with increased transmissibility and an unfamiliar molecular mechanism of virulence. It spread more quickly than other HIV variants during the 2000s, but its spread has been declining since around 2010.

The research team believes that the VB variant arose in spite of widespread treatment in the Netherlands, not because of it, since effective treatment can suppress transmission. The individuals identified with the VB variant showed typical characteristics for people living with HIV in the Netherlands, including age, sex, and suspected mode of transmission. This indicates that the increased transmissibility of the VB variant is due to a property of the virus itself, rather than a characteristic of people with the virus. The increased virulence is a property of the virus rather than a confounding property of individuals in this transmission cluster, the team stated.

Further research to understand the mechanism that causes increased transmissibility of the VB variant and faster damage to the immune system could reveal new targets for next-generation antiretroviral drugs.Senior study author Christophe Fraser, PhD, from the University of Oxfords Big Data Institute and Nuffield Department of Medicine, commented, Our findings emphasise the importance of World Health Organization guidance that individuals at risk of acquiring HIV have access to regular testing to allow early diagnosis, followed by immediate treatment. This limits the amount of time HIV can damage an individuals immune system and jeopardise their health. It also ensures that HIV is suppressed as quickly as possible, which prevents transmission to other individuals.

Excerpt from:
Highly Virulent HIV-1 Variant That Causes Rapid T Cell Decline Discovered in the Netherlands - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

According to a Unicef statement, the actions of this collaboration are aimed at guaranteeing human security in times of pandemic, by supporting the health system, the vaccination campaign and health education.

The initiative is currently going through the process of purchasing equipment and supplies worth more than two million dollars, to contribute to strengthening the technical capacities of health institutions and two science centers belonging to the BioCubaFarma business group, linked to the development of anti-Covid-19 immunogens.

The support will benefit 253 polyclinics in the provinces of Pinar del Ro, Havana, Matanzas, Camagey, Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantnamo and Isla de la Juventud Special Municipality.

It will also strengthen the institutional capacities of 14 hospitals in Havana linked to maternal and child care, as well as the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology and the Finlay Institute of Vaccines.

It is estimated that it will benefit a total population of 6.6 million people, including more than one million 271 thousand children.

The resources in the process of acquisition consist of equipment to strengthen the cold chain, supplies for vaccination, personal protection equipment and means to guarantee adequate hygiene conditions.

Accessories for oxygen therapy, high-performance ultrasound equipment for pediatric and gynecological hospitals, an ambulance equipped for life support, among others, will also be obtained.

The agreement will be implemented with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, the Ministry of Public Health, Provincial Directorates of Health, BioCubaFarma and the United Nations Population Fund.

Regarding the important donation, the UNICEF Representative in Cuba, Alejandra Trossero, expressed that this joint effort of collaboration between the government, people of Japan and her entity will strengthen the actions carried out by Cuba to face the pandemic and ensure the well-being of boys, girls, adolescents and their families.

Said project, presented and approved by the Government of Japan, is aligned with the National Response Plan of the Government of Cuba for the control and containment of Covid-19 and the Unicef Emergency Response Plan for the health sector.

ef/ode/cdg

Link:
UNICEF and Japan will support Cuba's response to Covid-19 - Prensa Latina

Denver has some enthralling events lined up this week. Kick it off by getting sciency at an SCFD Free Day and end it by diving into light art a Lumonics Guided Tour. Wherever the week leads you, make sure to take a look at this roundup of events happening in Denver.

Photo Courtesy of Denver Museum of Nature & Science on Facebook

When:February 7, 9 a.m. 5 p.m.

Where:Denver Museum of Nature and Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., Denver

Cost:Free, get tickets here

The Lowdown:The Denver Museum of Nature and Science hosts an SCFD Free Day. You can have the chance to explore GUITAR: The Instrument That Rocked the World, Discovery Zone and more throughout the day without paying museum admission.

Photo Courtesy of Stranahans Colorado Whiskey on Facebook

When: February 7

Where: Online

Cost: Varying prices, order here

The Lowdown: Stranahans Whiskey presents a Vault Auction. The auction raises funds for Colorado Marshall fires with rare bottles variants such as Snowflakes, Mountain Angel 10-year old bottles and more. The auction ends at midnight on Monday.

Photo by Kori Hazel.

When:February 8, 12:30 p.m.

Where:Tattered Cover Colfax, 2526 E. Colfax Ave., Denver

Cost:Free admission

The Lowdown: Tattered Cover teams up with Active Minds for Active Minds: Genetic Engineering. You can learn more about genetic engineering, how it is used in current technology and the potential risks and benefits that may come from it.

Photo Courtesy of Stem Ciders RiNo Taproom on Facebook

When: February 8, 3 9 p.m.

Where: Stem Ciders RiNo Taproom, 2811 Walnut St. #150, Denver

Cost: $30 $32, get tickets here

The Lowdown: Sip on a flight of four brightly flavored ciders complemented with four savory cheesy delights during Ciders & Sides. Stem Ciders teams up Truffle Cheese Shop for the delectable pairing in the taproom for a relaxed afternoon.

Photo Courtesy of Eventbrite

When: February 8, 6 p.m.

Where: Online

Cost: Free, register here

The Lowdown: Colorado Public Radio continues its Turn The Page With Colorado Matters series with a look at the new novel All That Is Secret. The novel, written by Colorado author Patricia Raybon, dives into Denver as it is ruled by the Ku Klux Klan.

Photo Courtesy of Denver Museum of Nature & Science on Facebook

When:February 9, 7 8 p.m.

Where:Online

Cost:Free, registerhere

The Lowdown: Denver Museum of Nature & Science partners International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management and the Denver American Indian Commission to hosts Indigenous Film:Hawaiian Steel Guitar: An Evening with Alan Akaka.The short film dives deeper into the life of Joseph Kekuku and the creation of the Hawaiin Steel Guitar.

Stencil by unknown artist on Mutiny Information Cafe

When:February 9, 7:30 9:30 p.m.

Where:Mutiny Information Cafe, 2 S. Broadway, Denver

Cost:$5 donation at entry

The Lowdown:Mutiny Information Cafe combines poetry and punk together for the perfect combination during Punketry. You can listen to performances of spoken word from poets such as Kenny White, Ira Liss and Maggie Saunders throughout the evening.

Photo Courtesy of Copper Kettle Brewing Company on Facebook

When: February 9, 2 9 p.m.

Where: Copper Kettle Brewing Company, 1338 S. Valentia St. Ste 100, Denver

Cost: Free admission

The Lowdown: Imbibe in a creamy brew during a Cafe Con Leche Stout Firkin Release.Copper Kettle Brewing Company presents the milk stout that is brewed with local coffee. You can also grab bites from the food truck Grill Rescue.

Photo Courtesy of Great Divide Brewing Co. on Facebook

When: February 10, 4:30 7 p.m.

Where: Great Divide Brewing Event Space, 3403 Brighton Blvd., Denver

Cost: $20 $25, get tickets here

The Lowdown: Get stocked up for your sweetheart (or yourself) at a Valentines Market. Great Divide Brewing presents a market filled with local vendors offering gifts, just in time for the day of love.

Photo Courtesy of 54thirty on Facebook

When:February 10, 6 9 p.m.

Where:54thirty, 1475 California St., Denver

Cost:Free admission

The Lowdown:Jam it out throughout the evening with beats from DJ Manos during Elevated Beats. 54thirty hosts the rocking event for you to take in the Denver skyline on the rooftop for a chill winter night.

Vestige 74 by Angela Faris Belt. Courtesy of Michael Warren Contemporary on Facebook

When: February 10, 5 8 p.m.

Where: Michael Warren Contemporary, 760 Santa Fe Dr., Denver

Cost: Free admission

The Lowdown: Michael Warren Contemporary presents an opening reception for artist Angela Faris Belt. The exhibition features photographs taken by Faris Belt of Bristlecone Pine trees throughout the gallery.

Photo Courtesy of Side Stories on Facebook

When:February 11 20

Where:Exterior walls from 28th St. to Walnut St. and 33rd St. to Larimer St., Denver

Cost:Free admission

The Lowdown:Experience the artistry of Side Stories on the walls of RiNo. Five Colorado artists works are projected on blank walls showing stories about the surrounding neighborhoods. Each digital work spans only a few minutes long and will stay up until February 20.

Photo Courtesy of Hops & Pie on Facebook

When: February 11, 11:30 a.m.

Where: Hops & Pie, 3920 Tennyson St., Denver

Cost: Free admission

The Lowdown: Hops & Pie hosts a Casey Brewing and Blending Tap Takeover. You can delight in pours such as Helles, a Talus IPA, an Apricot Fruit Stand and Leaner throughout the day.

Photo Courtesy of Halcyon, a hotel in Cherry Creek on Facebook

When: February 11, 3 6 p.m.

Where:Halcyon, a hotel in Cherry Creek, 245 Columbine St., Denver

Cost:Free admission

The Lowdown:Embrace a winter evening to rock out to some sweet tunes at Music in the Clouds. Halcyon hosts the musical event with a performance from local artist Jonah Wisneski on the rooftop of the hotel with a view of the city.

Photo Courtesy of Copper Kettle Brewing Company on Facebook

When: February 11, 12 10 p.m.

Where:Copper Kettle Brewing Company, 1338 S. Valentia St., Suite 100, Denver

Cost:Free admission

The Lowdown:Copper Kettle Brewing Company releases its Snowed In Cherry 2022 brew this Friday. The oatmeal stout is made with tart cherries and aged in bourbon barrels to honor Valentines Day. You can imbibe in the chocolate cherry stout on tap or take one home in a 19-ounce can.

Photo Courtesy of Cupids Undie Run on Facebook

When: February 12, 12 4 p.m.

Where: Stoneys Bar and Grill, 1111 Lincoln St., Denver

Cost:$50, register here

The Lowdown:Get a sweat on with the annual Cupids Undie Run. You can slip on your sneakers for a mile-ish run around Denver in support of finding a cure for neurofibromatosis (NF). Make sure to don on a pair of cute undies or a costume to run in and raise some funds for research.

Photo Courtesy of Fiction Beer Company on Facebook

When: February 12 13

Where: Fiction Beer Company, 7101 E. Colfax Ave., Denver

Cost: $5 $10 at entry

The Lowdown: Fiction Beer Company teams up with baker Elise from Lucky Break Bakeshop for an Almost Valentines Day Stout & Cake Pop Pairing. You can satisfy your cravings with a pairing of a Stout aged on cherry and chocolate with a cherry-flavored vanilla cake coated in dark chocolate for an extra sweet day.

Photo Courtesy of Denver Beer Co on Facebook

When:February 12, 11 a.m. 11 p.m.

Where:All Denver Beer Co Locations

Cost:$25, get tickets here

The Lowdown:Denver Beer Co. hosts a Valentines Day Beer and Chocolate Pairing. You can delight in five handcrafted chocolates complemented with five Denver Beer Co. brews for a tasty afternoon.

Photo Courtesy of Colorado Tour Co. on Facebook

When:February 12, 3 4 p.m.

Where:Colorado State Capitol, 200 E. Colfax Ave., Denver

Cost:$15 $25, register here

The Lowdown:Colorado Tour Co. hosts a Denver Capitol Hill History Walking Tour. You can learn more about Denvers fascinating history, see some of the citys oldest buildings, learn more about landmarks and more through the tour.

When: February 12, 4 11:59 p.m.

Where:The Pig & The Sprout, 1900 Chestnut Pl., Denver

Cost:$20 $25, get ticketshere

The Lowdown:Put on your best onesie for the 5th Annual Onesie Bar Crawl. The event features a bar crawl with drink specials at each of the eight participating locations such as The Pig & The Sprout, Wynkoop Brewing Company and Jagged Mountain Craft Brewery. You can imbibe on drinks, win prizes and more.

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25 Things To Do in and Around Denver This Week - 303 Magazine