Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

BUFFALO, N.Y., June 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 22nd Century Group, Inc. (NYSE American: XXII), a leading plant-based biotechnology company focused on tobacco harm reduction, reduced nicotine tobacco, and hemp/cannabis research, is pleased to announce that it will be added to the Russell 2000, Russell 3000, and Russell Global Indexes at the conclusion of the Russell US Indexes annual reconstitution, effective at the opening of the U.S. equity markets on June 28, 2021.

It is an honor to join the Russell 2000 Index this year, a meaningful milestone that we believe acknowledges our Companys strong growth and progress on stated initiatives, and reflects the markets confidence in our new leadership team, innovative strategies, and diligent financial execution, said James A. Mish, chief executive officer of 22nd Century Group. Over the past year, we have taken important strides that have had a significant favorable impact on the value of our Company and our stature and influence in the tobacco and plant science industries. We have built an accomplished, highest caliber leadership team with proven success in high-growth, highly regulated, consumer-facing industries. We have unveiled new strategies leveraging our core strengths in plant science, including positioning our Company as the potential linchpin technology provider in the upstream segment of the cannabinoid value chain as that industry evolves toward mass production. Further, we have taken decisive actions in optimizing our operating structure, while carefully managing our capital resources and securing ample financial runway for the future.

We have strong winds at our backs as we move ahead with strategic initiatives for our three exciting franchises tobacco, hemp/cannabis, and a third plant-based franchise. Our combined market opportunity is more than $1.3 trillion across these three markets, with well-established growth opportunities layered in from now through the next several years. We believe our timely inclusion in the Russell 2000 Index will raise visibility and public awareness of 22nd Century as an attractive investment in tobacco harm reduction and market-leading hemp/cannabis research.

FTSE Russell determines membership for its Russell indexes primarily by objective, market-capitalization rankings and style attributes. Approximately $9 trillion in assets are benchmarked against Russells US indexes. Russell indexes are part of FTSE Russell, a leading global index provider.

For more information on the Russell indexes reconstitution, go to the Russell Reconstitution section on the FTSE Russell website.

About 22nd Century Group, Inc.

22nd Century Group, Inc. (NYSE American: XXII) is a leading plant biotechnology company focused on technologies that alter the level of nicotine in tobacco plants and the level of cannabinoids in hemp/cannabis plants through genetic engineering, gene-editing, and modern plant breeding. 22nd Centurys primary mission in tobacco is to reduce the harm caused by smoking through the Companys proprietary reduced nicotine content tobacco cigarettes containing 95% less nicotine than conventional cigarettes. The Companys primary mission in hemp/cannabis is to develop and commercialize proprietary hemp/cannabis plants with valuable cannabinoid profiles and desirable agronomic traits.

Learn more atxxiicentury.com, on Twitter@_xxiicentury, and onLinkedIn.

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FTSE Russell index expertise and products are used extensively by institutional and retail investors globally. Approximately $16 trillion is currently benchmarked to FTSE Russell indexes. For over 30 years, leading asset owners, asset managers, ETF providers and investment banks have chosen FTSE Russell indexes to benchmark their investment performance and create investment funds, ETFs, structured products and index-based derivatives. FTSE Russell indexes also provide clients with tools for asset allocation, investment strategy analysis and risk management.

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Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking StatementsExcept for historical information, all of the statements, expectations, and assumptions contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements typically contain terms such as anticipate, believe, consider, continue, could, estimate, expect, explore, foresee, goal, guidance, intend, likely, may, plan, potential, predict, preliminary, probable, project, promising, seek, should, will, would, and similar expressions. Actual results might differ materially from those explicit or implicit in forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are set forth in Risk Factors in the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on March 11, 2021. All information provided in this release is as of the date hereof, and the Company assumes no obligation to and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Investor Relations & Media Contact:

Mei KuoDirector, Communications & Investor Relations22nd Century Group, Inc.(716) 300-1221mkuo@xxiicentury.com

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Reduced Nicotine Tobacco and Cannabinoid Innovator 22nd - GlobeNewswire

Written By Jody Carpenter and last updated by Cameron Lowe

Genetic Engineering and Genetically Modified Organisms, most commonly known as GMOs, are controversial topics among their critics and supporters, but what are they really? Well, as the name indicates, it is the act of engineering the genetic material of something to reach a desirable outcome. (USDA Glossary) Broad definition? Yes. So in relative terms everything is genetically engineered, because genes naturally change with their environment. But what most people are concerned about is if manipulating genes in the lab is creating something different altogether. In reality, what is being changed is the expression of something minuscule such as a protein or an enzyme.

So why is it necessary to engineer the genetic material of an organism? Genetic engineering (GE) is normally used for situations when a slight genetic change can produce a given advantage. For example, genetic engineering is used in medical research to help combat disease. This is accomplished by manipulating certain characteristics in the host organisms genetic material to make it more resistant disease, or by manipulating the genetic material of the disease to weaken its effects. This gives that organism a better overall advantage in combating the disease.

Information about genetic engineering can often be found on food labels. It is important to note that not every product in the grocery store is genetically engineered. According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), there are only eleven GE products, but only eight of those are commercially available. They include: alfalfa, apple (Artic trademark), canola, corn, cotton, papaya, pineapple (Rose trademark), Potato (Innate trademark), soybean, squash, and sugarbeet. The apple, pineapple and potato varieties are not yet commercially available, as they are still in the testing phase. Most GE crops are not for direct human consumption, but rather are used for animal feed, seed oils, and fuel production.

If safety is your concern with these products, be assured that they are heavily tested by both the manufacturer and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for many safety parameters. Genetically engineered crops are categorized as Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) by many science and health organizations around the world, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. The results of studies and testing have indicated that these products are safe. Products also go through additional testing prior to being commercially released.

There are many articles available on this topic, but keep in mind when searching that some may or may not have research to back up their claims. If you have further questions regarding this topic your local Cooperative Extension Office is always available to help, please contact us at 252-232-2261.

NC State University and N.C. A&T State University commit themselves to positive action to secure equal opportunity regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, political beliefs, family and marital status, sex, age, veteran status, sexual identity, genetic information or disability. NC State, N.C. A&T, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and local governments cooperating.

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Genetic Engineering: What Is It Really? | North Carolina ...

Weve all heard the conspiracy theories about COVID-19. Now a whole new set is emerging around COVID vaccines and spreading as virulently as the pandemic they are meant to control.

Though the public health community tends to resort to reassurances about some of the more reasonable concerns yes, the vaccines have been developed incredibly quickly and short-term side effects can occur this post aims to do something different.

Were going right to the heart of the matter. So no, COVID-19 vaccines arent delivery vehicles for government microchips. They arent tainted by material from aborted fetuses. And they wont turn us into GMOs though some of them do use genetic engineering, and all of them use genetics more broadly.

We think this is way cool something to celebrate, not shy away from. So, were doing the deep reveal on exactly how genetics and biotechnology have been a central component of the vaccine effort. Because we know the conspiracists dont care about evidence, anyway.

First up: mRNA. It wont reprogram your brain. But it does reprogram some of your cells, in a manner of speaking. And thats not a defect its intentional.

To get your head around this you need to understand what mRNA is for. Basically, its a single-stranded nucleic acid molecule that carries a genetic sequence from the DNA in the cells nucleus into the protein factories called ribosomes that sit outside the nucleus in the cellular cytoplasm.

Thats what the m in mRNA stands for: messenger. Messenger RNA just carries instructions for the assembly of proteins from the DNA template to the ribosomes. (Proteins do almost everything that matters in the body.) Thats it.

This is useful for vaccines because scientists can easily reconstruct specific genetic sequences that encode for proteins that are unique to the invading virus. In the COVID case, this is the familiar spike protein that enables the coronavirus to enter human cells.

What mRNA vaccines do is prompt a few of your cells near the injection site to produce the spike protein. This then primes your immune system to build the antibodies and T-cells that will fight off the real coronavirus infection when it comes.

Its not hugely different from how traditional vaccines work. But instead of injecting a weakened live or killed virus, the mRNA approach trains your immune system directly with a single protein.

Contrary to assertions made by opponents, it wont turn you or anyone else into a GMO. mRNA stays in the cytoplasm, where the ribosomes are. It does not enter the nucleus and cannot interact with your DNA or cause any changes to the genome. No Frankencure here, either.

A variant of the mRNA approach is to go one step back in the process and construct a vaccine platform out of DNA instead. This DNA template constructed by scientists to encode for the coronavirus spike protein gets into cells where it is read into mRNA and well the rest is the same.

You might ask whether this DNA can genetically engineer your cells. Once again, the answer is no. DNA is injected in little circular pieces called plasmids not to be confused with plastics and while these do enter the nucleus, the new DNA does not integrate into your cellular genome. Got it?

This one really is genetically engineered. But what does that actually mean?

The Oxford vaccine uses what is called a viral vector approach. The scientific team took an adenovirus a type of pathogen that causes a common cold and spliced in the same spike protein genetic sequence from the coronavirus.

The adenovirus simply serves as the vehicle to get the genetic sequence into your cells. Thats why its called a viral vector after all. Viruses have been designed by billions of years of evolution precisely to figure out ways to sneak into host cells.

Note that genetic engineering is an essential part of the development process. Firstly, vector viruses are stripped of any genes that might harm you and actually cause disease. Genes that cause replication are also removed, so the virus is harmless and cannot replicate.

Then the coronavirus spike protein genes are added a classic use of recombinant DNA. So yes, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine does actually mean a genetically engineered virus is injected into your body.

And thats a good thing. In the past, for example with the polio vaccine, live viruses in the vaccine can sometimes mutate and revert to being pathogenic, causing vaccine-derived polio. You can see its far better to use a GM virus that cannot cause any such harm!

As we have reported before at the Alliance for Science, the anti-GMO and anti-vaccine movements substantially overlap. These groups tend to share an ideology that is suspicious of modern science and fetishsize natural approaches instead. Whatever natural means.

Note that these groups are not always marginalized to the fringe where they belong. In Europe, anti-GMO regulations have stymied any substantial use of crop biotechnology for nearly two decades, hindering efforts to to make agriculture more sustainable.

And back in July, the European Parliament actually had to suspend the EUs anti-GMO rules in order to allow the unimpeded development of COVID vaccines. Very embarrassing for Brussels!

Will the anti-GMO and anti-vaxxer movements use their usual scaremongering tactics to drum up fear, increase vaccine hesitancy and thereby prolong the hell of the COVID-19 pandemic? That remains to be seen. If they do succeed, then tragically many more people will die and our economies will continue to suffer. Its up to all of us the grassroots pro-science movement to stop them.

Image: Coronavirus and DNA strands. Medical 3D illustration by peterschreiber.media/Shutterstock.

Originally posted here:
Yes, some COVID vaccines use genetic engineering. Get over ...

Across the Florida Keys this week, newly hatched mosquitoes are swarming from damp flowerpots, waterlogged spare tires, trash cans and drainage ditches. In six neighborhoods, however, a change is buzzing in the air. Scientists have genetically modified thousands of these mosquitoes and, for the first time in the U.S., set them free to breed.

These genetically engineered insects, known by their model number as OX5034, are a laboratory offshoot of the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits dengue, Zika and other infectious ills. After a decade of public debate and regulatory delays, these insects are being released by a U.K. biotechnology company called Oxitec.

Using genetic-engineering techniques, the company altered the male mosquitoes to pass down a gene that makes females need a dash of the antibiotic tetracycline to survive. Without it, females that spread the disease die as larvae. Altered males, which dont bite, seek out wild females to mate and spread the lethal trait to future generations. Gradually, more females die. The swarms dwindle and disappear, with no need for chemical insecticides.

The Florida Keys field trial is a key step toward federal product approval for the altered insects from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which granted the company an experimental use permit for the test. This is a big deal, says molecular biologist Anthony James at the University of California, Irvine, who develops bioengineered mosquitoes but is not involved in the project.

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Genetically Altered Mosquitoes Target Deadly Dengue Fever and Zika - The Wall Street Journal

By Jeremy Schwartz, CFA, Global Head of Research;Kara Marciscano, CFA, Associate, Research

If the 19th century was the century of chemistry and the 20th the century of physics, the 21st will be the century of biology. Jamie Metzl

Revolutionary advances across multiple fields including computer science, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, automation, chemistry, biology and engineering are creating previously unimaginable new opportunities to reengineer biological systems in ways that will revolutionize health care, agriculture, manufacturing, energy production, consumer services and data storage.

The revolution in our ability to read, understand, write and hack DNA, the genetic code of all life, will touch most aspects of how we live.

All organisms have their own genome, a complete set of DNA that contains instructions to develop and direct the activities of life.

Researchers can sequence DNA (determine the order and information carried in DNA) more rapidly and cost-effectively than ever before, which is driving transformations in health care and many other sectors of our global economy.

The development of Modernas COVID-19 vaccine is just one poignant exampleit took the company only two days to design the sequence for its mRNA vaccine!1

We believe the biology revolution is creating a historic investment opportunity equivalent to the industrial and internet revolutions, and theWisdomTree BioRevolution Fund (WDNA)may be uniquely positioned to capture the companies at the intersection of science, technology and engineering.

WDNA seeks to track the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of theWisdomTree BioRevolution Index (WTDNA), which provides targeted exposure to companies that we believe lead the transformations and advancements in genetics and biotechnology.

To construct the WisdomTree BioRevolution Index, we leverage data from leading technology futurist2Dr. Jamie Metzl as a third-party consultant. Recognized as a thought leader on the biology revolution, Dr. Metzl authored Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity, and he serves as a member of the World Health Organizations expert committee on human genome editing.

Considering proprietary data from Dr. Metzl, WTDNA identifies the key sectors and industry verticals that are expected to be most significantly transformed by advances in biological science and technology, as well as the companies that WisdomTree believes are most representative of this wave of innovation.

The technologies underpinning the biology revolution are connected and reinforce advancements across interdisciplinary fields. We have identified four key BioRevolution sectors, each including multiple subsectors of impact.

Human Health The genetics and biotechnology revolutions are most often associated with health care because many of the most high-profile preliminary applications are health care related. The quantity and quality of these applications will increase significantly as our health care systems transition from generalized medicine based on population averages to personalized, or precision, health care based on each persons individual biology. When the amount of data collected on the human genome reaches critical mass, our system will transition to a predictive and preventive health care system that will help us live healthier and longer lives.

Although health care is the most mature market to date, we expect other sectors to catch up.

Agriculture & Food Technologies will supercharge the selective breeding process to accomplish in months or a few years what previously might have taken centuries or millennia. Pest resistance, yield and variety can be enhanced significantly for staple crops, which can also be engineered to significantly increase photosynthesis to slow climate change. Domesticated animals can be engineered to increase disease resistance, productivity and product quality through marker-assisted selective breeding targeting specific desired outcomes.

Materials Chemicals & Energy The sourcing of industrial inputs for manufacturing is another area ripe for transformation. As the human population grows toward an estimated 10 billion people by mid-century, current resource extraction models will not be sustainable. The tools of the genetics and biotechnology revolutions, however, are making it possible to create materials at scale by manipulating genetic code rather than extracting them from nature. Instead of making plastic from petroleum and fragrances from flowers, for example, we can produce both through the genetic engineering of yeast and other microbes.

Biological Machines & Interfaces Connection and communication between the biology of humans and computers, including the use of DNA for computing and storage, is increasing the potential to extract, store and process data from individuals.

WTDNA currently holds approximately 80% of its weight within the Human Health sector. Over time, we expect the maturation of Agriculture & Food as well as Materials, Chemicals & Energy to drive their increased representation in WTDNA.

Although the general direction and accelerating pace of this revolution are nearly certain, the time horizons for how each specific application will play out will vary. Our approach targets dynamic companies deploying revolutionary technologies both in and outside of health care, and it invests in a wide range of 115 companies across the BioRevolution impact spectrum to reduce single-stock concentration risk.

We believe the diverse portfolio of companies captured in WDNA is the best way for investors to gain exposure to the biology revolution that we expect to fundamentally transform our world and lives over the coming years.

Originally published by WisdomTree, 6/3/21

1As of 5/25/21, WTDNA held 0.6% of its weight in Moderna.2An individual who studies or predicts the future based on current trends in technology

Important Risks Related to this Article

There are risks associated with investing, including possible loss of principal. The Fund invests in BioRevolution companies, which are companies significantly transformed by advancements in genetics and biotechnology. BioRevolution companies face intense competition and potentially rapid product obsolescence. These companies may be adversely affected by the loss or impairment of intellectual property rights and other proprietary information or changes in government regulations or policies. Additionally, BioRevolution companies may be subject to risks associated with genetic analysis. The Fund invests in the securities included in, or representative of, its Index regardless of their investment merit, and the Fund does not attempt to outperform its Index or take defensive positions in declining markets. The composition of the Index is governed by an Index Committee, and the Index may not perform as intended. Please read the Funds prospectus for specific details regarding the Funds risk profile.

U.S. investors only: Clickhereto obtain a WisdomTree ETF prospectus which contains investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other information; read and consider carefully before investing.

There are risks involved with investing, including possible loss of principal. Foreign investing involves currency, political and economic risk. Funds focusing on a single country, sector and/or funds that emphasize investments in smaller companies may experience greater price volatility. Investments in emerging markets, currency, fixed income and alternative investments include additional risks. Please see prospectus for discussion of risks.

Past performance is not indicative of future results. This material contains the opinions of the author, which are subject to change, and should not to be considered or interpreted as a recommendation to participate in any particular trading strategy, or deemed to be an offer or sale of any investment product and it should not be relied on as such. There is no guarantee that any strategies discussed will work under all market conditions. This material represents an assessment of the market environment at a specific time and is not intended to be a forecast of future events or a guarantee of future results. This material should not be relied upon as research or investment advice regarding any security in particular. The user of this information assumes the entire risk of any use made of the information provided herein. Neither WisdomTree nor its affiliates, nor Foreside Fund Services, LLC, or its affiliates provide tax or legal advice. Investors seeking tax or legal advice should consult their tax or legal advisor. Unless expressly stated otherwise the opinions, interpretations or findings expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of WisdomTree or any of its affiliates.

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Gaining Exposure to the BioRevolution Megatrend - ETF Trends

Scientists have developed a synthetic strain of Escherichia coli that can construct artificial polymers from building blocks that are not found in nature, by following instructions that the researchers encoded in their genes. The scientists, led by a team at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology, engineered the genetic code of the E. coli strain to include several nonstandard amino acids, and found that this synthetic genome made the bacteria entirely resistant to infection by viruses.

The work is some of the first to design proteins that incorporate multiple non-canonical amino acids. The team suggests that their work, and achievement could lead to the development of new polymers such as proteins and plastics, and drugs including antibiotics, as well as making it easier to manufacture drugs reliably using bacteria.

The newly reported achievement builds on previous ground-breaking work by researchers who, in 2019, developed a new techniques to create the biggest ever synthetic genomeconstructing the entire E. coli genome from scratch. Commenting on the latest developments, study lead, Jason Chin, PhD, from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, said, These bacteria may be turned into renewable and programmable factories that produce a wide range of new molecules with novel properties, which could have benefits for biotechnology and medicine, including making new drugs, such as new antibiotics.

The investigators report on their latest development in Science, in a paper titled, Sense codon reassignment enables viral resistance and encoded polymer synthesis.

The genetic code instructs a cell how to make proteins, which are constructed by joining together strings of natural (canonical) amino acid building blocks. The genetic code in DNA is made up of four bases, represented by the letters: A, T, C and G. When a peptide or protein is being constructed, the four letters in DNA are read in groups of three letters, or codonsfor example TCG. Each codon tells the cell to add a specific amino acid to the peptide chain, which it does via molecules called transfer RNA (tRNA). Each codon is recognized by a specific tRNA, which then adds the corresponding amino acid. For example, the tRNA that recognizes the codon TCG, brings the amino acid serine.

With four letters in groups of three, there are 64 possible combinations of letters, but there are only 20 different canonical amino acids that cells commonly use. So, several different codons can be synonymousthey all code for the same amino acid for example, TCG, TCA, AGC and AGT all code for serine. There are also codons which tell a cell when to stop making a protein, such as TAG and TAA.

Its thought that removing certain codons and the transfer RNAs that read them from the genome and replacing them with noncanonical amino acids (ncAAs) may enable the creation of synthetic cells with properties not found in natural biology, including powerful viral resistances and enhanced biosynthesis of novel proteins. However, these hypotheses have not been experimentally tested, the authors wrote. And to date, the approach has been largely restricted to the incorporation of a single ncAA into a polypeptide chain. As the team noted, limitations preclude the synthesis of noncanonical heteropolymer sequences composed entirely of noncanonical monomers.

In 2019, the team at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology created the first entire genome synthesized from scratch for the commonly studied bacteria, E. coli. They also took the opportunity to simplify its genome. In this engineered strain the scientists replaced some of the codons with their synonyms. So, they removed every instance of TCG and TCA and replaced them with the synonyms AGC and AGT. They also removed every instance of the stop codon TAG and replaced it with its synonym TAA. This meant that the modified bacteria no longer had the codons TCG, TCA and TAG in their genome, but they could still make normal proteins and live and grow.

The MRC scientists goal was to utilize their new technology to create the first cell that can assemble polymers entirely from building blocks that are not found in nature. For the newly reported studies, the scientists further modified the bacteria to remove the tRNA molecules that recognize the codons TCG and TCA. This means that, even if there are TCG or TCA codons in the genetic code, the cell no longer has the molecule that can read those codons.

This is fatal for any virus that tries to infect the cell, because viruses replicate by injecting their genome into a cell and hijacking the cells machinery. Virus genomes still contain lots of the TCG, TCA and TAG codons, but the modified bacteria are missing the tRNAs to read these codons. So when the machinery in the modified bacteria tries to read the virus genome, it fails every time it reaches a TCG, TCA or TAG codon.

When the researchers infected their bacteria with a cocktail of viruses, they confirmed that while unmodified, control bacteria were killed by these pathogens, the modified bacteria were resistant to infection and survived.

Many drugsfor example, protein drugs, such as insulin, and polysaccharide and protein subunit vaccinesare manufactured by growing bacteria that contain instructions to produce the drug. So making bacteria that are resistant to viruses could make manufacturing certain types of drugs more reliable and cheaper. Chin explained, If a virus gets into the vats of bacteria used to manufacture certain drugs then it can destroy the whole batch. Our modified bacterial cells could overcome this problem by being completely resistant to viruses. Because viruses use the full genetic code, the modified bacteria wont be able to read the viral genes. The team further wrote, We have synthetically uncoupled our strain from the ability to read the canonical code, and this advance provides a potential basis for bioproduction without the catastrophic risks associated with viral contamination and lysis.

By creating bacteria with synthetic genomes that do not use certain codons, the researchers also effectively freed up those codons to be used for other purposes, such as coding for synthetic building blocks (monomers). We reassigned these codons to enable the efficient synthesis of proteins containing three distinct noncanonical amino acids, the authors explained. For the studies detailed in Science, the team engineered the bacteria to produce tRNAs coupled with artificial monomers, which recognized the newly available codons (TCG and TAG).

They inserted genetic sequences with strings of TCG and TAG codons into the bacterias DNA. These were read by the altered tRNAs, which assembled chains of synthetic monomers in the sequence defined by the sequence of codons in the DNA. The cells were programmed to string together monomers in different orders by changing the order of TCG and TAG codons in the genetic sequence. Polymers composed of different monomers were also made by changing which monomers were coupled to the tRNAs. We incorporated three distinct ncAAs into ubiquitin, in response to TCG, TCA, and TAG, the team explained. We demonstrated the generality of our approach by synthesizing seven distinct versions of ubiquitin, each of which incorporated three distinct ncAAs.

Using their approach the scientists were able to create polymers made of up to eight monomers strung together. They joined the ends of these polymers together to make macrocyclesa type of molecule that forms the basis of some drugs, such as certain antibiotics and cancer drugs.

Chin said, This system allows us to write a gene that encodes the instructions to make polymers out of monomers that dont occur in nature. Wed like to use these bacteria to discover and build long synthetic polymers that fold up into structures and may form new classes of materials and medicines. We will also investigate applications of this technology to develop novel polymers, such as biodegradable plastics, which could contribute to a circular bioeconomy.

The synthetic monomers were linked together by the same chemical bonds that join together amino acids in proteins, but the researchers are in addition investigating how to expand the range of linkages that can be used in the new polymers. In their paper, they concluded, Future work will expand the principles we have exemplified herein to further compress and reassign the genetic code. We anticipate that, in combination with ongoing advances in engineering the translational machinery of cells, this work will enable the programmable and encoded cellular synthesis of an expanded set of noncanonical heteropolymers with emergent, and potentially useful, properties.

Commenting in an accompanying Perspective in the same issue of Science, D. Jewel, and A. Chatterjee, from Boston College in Chestnut Hill, acknowledged, The ability to generate designer proteins using multiple non-natural building blocks will unlock countless applications, from the development of new classes of biotherapeutics to biomaterials with innovative properties.

Megan Dowie, PhD, head of molecular and cellular medicine at the MRC, which funded the study, said, Dr. Chins pioneering work into genetic code expansion is a really exciting example of the value of our long-term commitment to discovery science. Research like this, in synthetic and engineering biology, clearly has huge potential for major impact in biopharma and other industrial settings.

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Synthetic E. Coli Reprogrammed to Make Polymers from Artificial Monomers, and Resist Viral Infections - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

In the second part of our whats exciting the experts series, Medical News Today spoke with another group of cancer experts. We asked them what recent advances have given them the most hope. Here, we provide a sneak peek at the fascinating forefront of cancer research in 2021.

Cancer is not a single disease but a collection of diseases. It is complex and does not readily give up its secrets. Despite the challenges cancer poses, scientists and clinicians continue to hone the way in which they diagnose and treat it.

Modern medicine means that diagnosis rates for many cancers are up, as are survival rates. However, with an estimated 19.3 million new cases of cancer worldwide in 2020, there is still much work to be done.

MNT recently contacted a number of medical experts and researchers and asked them to speak about the aspects of cancer research that they find most exciting. Their answers are fascinating and demonstrate the incredible variety of approaches that scientists are using to understand and combat cancer.

We will start todays journey into cutting edge oncology with a surprising guest: magnetically responsive bacteria.

Due to the difficulty of targeting systemically delivered therapeutics for cancer, interest has grown in exploiting biological agents to enhance tumor accumulation, explained Prof. Simone Schrle-Finke, Ph.D., from ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

In other words, getting cancer drugs to the right place is not as straightforward as one might hope. Prof. Schrle-Finke is among the researchers who are now enlisting the help of specialized bacteria.

She told MNT how scientists have known for a century that certain bacteria can colonize tumors and trigger regression. She explained that today, thanks to modern genetic engineering techniques, attenuated bacteria are available that can have a therapeutic effect exactly where this is necessary.

These therapeutic effects include secretion of toxins, competition for nutrients, and modulation of immune responses.

However, despite the promise of bacterial cancer therapy, there are still challenges to meet. Delivering the doses to the right place and getting them into the tumor remain foremost among challenges hampering clinical translation only about 1% of a systemically injected dose reaches the tumor, explained Prof. Schrle-Finke.

To address these challenges, her team at ETH Zurich is using magnetically responsive bacteria.

These so-called magnetotactic bacteria naturally orient themselves like compass needles to Earths magnetic field.

Although this ability evolved for navigation, scientists are keen to find out whether magnetic steering or pulling could allow them to repurpose it for cancer delivery.

In a recent study, Prof. Schrle-Finke and her colleagues used rotating magnetic fields to override the bacterias natural propulsion. As the authors of the study explain, they used swarms of magnetotactic bacteria to create a directable living ferrofluid.

These magnetotactic bacteria have a high demand for iron, so once they reach the tumor, as Prof. Schrle-Finke told MNT, they can metabolically influence cancer cells through starvation from this vital nutrient. We have shown in in vitro models that an increasing number of bacteria induce an upregulation of iron-scavenging receptors and death in cancer cells.

By uniting engineering principles and synthetic biology, we aim to provide a new framework for bacterial cancer therapy that addresses a major remaining hurdle by improving the efficiency of bacterial delivery using safe and scalable magnetic stimuli to these promising living therapeutic platforms.

Prof. Simone Schrle-Finke, Ph.D.

Personalized medicine is transforming the landscape of medicine and how healthcare providers can offer and plan personalized care for each of their patients, believes Dr. Santosh Kesari, Ph.D., director of neuro-oncology at Providence Saint Johns Health Center in Santa Monica, CA.

Dr. Kesari is also chair of the Department of Translational Neurosciences at Saint Johns Cancer Institute and regional medical director for the Research Clinical Institute of Providence Southern California.

Describing personalized medicine, Dr. Kesari said, It is an approach for disease prevention and treatment that takes into account biological, genetic, behavioral, environmental, and social risk factors that are unique to every individual.

He continued, Personalized medicine is rooted in early detection and prevention; integrating data from genomics and other advanced technologies; digital health monitoring; and incorporating the latest medical innovations for optimizing outcomes.

This is becoming very apparent in oncology, where genetic testing for tumor mutations and predispositions is increasingly being utilized and showing more value in using targeted drugs more wisely and improving outcomes.

Dr. Santosh Kesari, Ph.D.

Some personalized cancer approaches are already in use, such as EGFR, HER2, and NTRK inhibitors and the super personalized CAR-T cells.

According to Dr. Kesari, the future of personalization is bright, and progress has only accelerated in the past 5 years.

Continuing with the personalization theme, Dr. Robert Dallmann from Warwick Medical School at Warwick University in the United Kingdom talked with us about chronotherapy:

Propelled by the 2017 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology [going] to three circadian biologists for uncovering the molecular mechanism of circadian biological clocks, cancer chronotherapy is gaining critical momentum to enter mainstream oncology especially in the context of personalized medicine.

Dr. Dallmann explained that many key physiological processes in the cells of our body are modulated in a daily fashion by the circadian clock. These cellular clocks are disrupted in some tumors but not in others.

Interestingly, a functional clock in the tumor predicts the survival time of patients, which has been shown for brain as well as breast tumors.

Therefore, he explained, if scientists could determine the clock status in solid tumors, it would allow doctors to more easily determine whether a patient is at high or low risk. It might also help guide therapy.

There is great potential in optimizing treatment plans with existing drugs by taking into account the interaction with the circadian system of the patient, continued Dr. Dallmann.

More recently, the circadian clock mechanism itself has been proposed as a novel treatment target in glioblastoma. The authors of the glioblastoma study concluded that pharmacologic targeting of circadian networks specifically disrupted cancer stem cell growth and self-renewal.

However, whether this might be generalized to many solid tumors or even other chronic diseases remains to be elucidated, said Dr. Dallmann.

In summary, he told MNT, circadian clocks have long been recognized to modulate chronic disease on many levels. The increased mechanistic understanding has the potential to improve diagnosis and existing treatments of cancer, as well as develop a new class of clock-targeting treatments.

Dr. Chung-Han Lee is a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He is also a member of the Kidney Cancer Associations Medical Steering Committee. He talked us through recent advances in the treatment of kidney cancer.

The development and subsequent regulatory approval of combination immunotherapy for patients with metastatic kidney cancer have led to transformative change in the lives of many patients and are the hallmark of how greater scientific understanding has impacted cancer care, Dr. Lee told MNT.

Prior to 2005, treatment for metastatic kidney cancer was very limited, with most patients passing away in less than 1 year despite undergoing treatment. According to Dr. Lee, the development of antiangiogenic drugs that inhibit the growth of new blood vessels was among the first breakthroughs to improve the outcomes for patients.

However, even with antiangiogenic drugs, most patients ultimately developed resistance to treatment, and 18 months was considered a long-term response. Next came immunotherapies.

Prior to the development of antiangiogenic medications, it was known that kidney cancer could be treated by activating the immune system to better recognize the disease. However, the tools to activate the immune system were often very nonspecific. Therefore, responses to these early immunotherapies were rare, and the side effects related to treatment were not only burdensome but also could be life threatening.

With recent advances in immunotherapy, we have demonstrated that more targeted immunotherapies that activate specific immune checkpoints are not only possible but can have substantially increased activity against disease.

Two emerging treatment approaches have now become the new standard of care for kidney cancer: dual immunotherapies (such as ipilimumab/nivolumab) or combinations of antiangiogenic targeted therapies with immunotherapies (such as axitinib/pembrolizumab).

In patients treated with ipilimumab and nivolumab, over 50% remain alive at 4 years, and with some [combined antiangiogenic and immunotherapy approaches], nearly 50% of patients remain on their initial therapy at 2 years.

Despite these advances, Dr. Lee is far from complacent, telling us that there remains considerable work to be done. [] Unfortunately, in 2021, for most patients, kidney cancer remains fatal. Even for those who have outstanding responses to treatment, most still require ongoing systemic therapy.

With the rapid improvements in treatments, the development of correlative biomarkers, and the improved biologic understanding of the disease, we have only started to entertain the possibility of curative, time-limited therapy.

Building on the sacrifices of patients and caregivers and the hard work of clinicians, research staff, and scientists, a cure may, one day, be a reality for our patients, he concluded.

Our study from late 2020 has shown that the antidepressant sertraline helps to inhibit the growth of cancer cells in mice, Prof. Kim De Keersmaecker from KU LEUVEN in Belgium told MNT.

Other studies had already indicated that the commonly used antidepressant has anticancer activity, but there was no explanation for the cause of this. Weve been able to demonstrate that sertraline inhibits the production of serine and glycine, causing decreased growth of cancer cells.

Cancer cells and healthy cells are often reliant on the amino acids serine and glycine, which they extract from their environment. However, certain cancer cells produce serine and glycine within the cell. They can become addicted to this production.

This internal production of serine and glycine requires certain enzymes, and these enzymes have become targets for cancer researchers. Preventing them from functioning can starve the cancer cells.

Previous studies have identified inhibitors of serine/glycine synthesis enzymes, but none have reached the clinical trial stage. As the authors of a KU LEUVEN study note, because sertraline is a clinically used drug that can safely be used in humans, it might make a good candidate.

Prof. De Keersmaecker explained that when used with other therapeutics, the drug strongly inhibited the growth of cancer cells in the mice.

The authors of the study concluded: Collectively, this work provides a novel and cost efficient treatment option for the rapidly growing list of serine/glycine synthesis-addicted cancers.

Christy Maksoudian from the NanoHealth & Optical Imaging Group team at KE LEUVEN is excited about the promise of nanotechnology for the treatment of cancer. She told MNT that because of the unique properties that emerge at such a small scale, nanoparticles can be designed in a multitude of ways to exhibit specific behaviors in organisms.

Currently, she explained, many available nanoformulations in the clinic are composed of organic materials because of their biocompatibility and safety. In this context, organic refers to compounds that include carbon.

However, she explains that inorganic nanomaterials, which do not contain carbon, also hold promise for cancer treatment because they possess further functionalities.

For instance, some magnetic nanoparticles, such as those of superparamagnetic iron oxide, can be magnetically guided toward the tumor, while gold nanoparticles generate heat upon exposure to near-infrared light and can, therefore, be used for photothermal therapy (via tumor tissue ablation).

In short, it is possible to introduce gold nanoparticles to the bloodstream of people with cancer. From there, these nanoparticles accumulate in tumors because tumors have particularly leaky blood vessels. Once that region is exposed to near-infrared light, the gold nanoparticles heat up and, consequently, kill cancer cells.

Because of the potential of such broad range of nanomaterial designs, there are always novel cancer therapies being developed.

Christy Maksoudian

I am excited to take part in this movement with my work on copper oxide nanoparticles. Maksoudian and her colleagues use copper oxide nanoparticles doped with 6% iron.

Maksoudian told MNT that these nanoparticles exploit intrinsic metabolic differences between cancer cells and healthy cells to induce high levels of toxicity in cancer cells while only causing reversible damage in healthy tissue.

The fact that such cancer-selective properties can arise due to minor modifications of the nanoparticles at the nanoscale is truly extraordinary and reaffirms the significant role that nanomedicine can play in expanding the treatment landscape for oncology.

Cancer is complex, so approaches to its treatment must match that complexity. As the summaries above demonstrate, scientists are not short on ingenuity, and the battle against cancer continues at pace.

Read the first part of our series on cancer researchers and their exciting work here.

Go here to see the original:
Cancer research: New advances and innovations - Medical News Today

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Episode 44

In Sub-Saharan Africa, malaria is a leading cause of death for children under five and with an estimated 220 million cases worldwide every year, malaria remains a public health crisis.

For some, genetically modified mosquitoes could be a game-changing tool in the fight against malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases. But others say that genetic engineering threatens the delicate circle of life.

The World Health Organization has just released an updated version of its Guidance framework for testing of genetically modified mosquitoes. Our reporter Michael Kaloki finds out what genetically modified mosquitoes are, why guidance has been developed around this research, and what it all means for Africa.

Send us your questions from anywhere in the world text or voice message via WhatsApp to +254799042513.

Africa Science Focus, with Selly Amutabi.

This programme was funded by the European Journalism Centre, through the European Development Journalism Grants programme, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Excerpt from:
Genetically modified mosquitoes and Africa - SciDev.Net

UC San Diego scientists have modified the genome of fruit flies using CRISPR-based technologies to create eight reproductively isolated species. In the future, this technique can be adapted to other organisms including plants, insects and vertebrates to provide new biocontrol opportunities. Credit: Akbari lab, UC San Diego

Researchers create novel CRISPR-based fly species as a new method of controlling gene drive spread.

CRISPR-based technologies offer enormous potential to benefit human health and safety, from disease eradication to fortified food supplies. As one example, CRISPR-based gene drives, which are engineered to spread specific traits through targeted populations, are being developed to stop the transmission of devastating diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.

But many scientists and ethicists have raised concerns over the unchecked spread of gene drives. Once deployed in the wild, how can scientists prevent gene drives from uncontrollably spreading across populations like wildfire?

Now, scientists at the University of California San Diego and their colleagues have developed a gene drive with a built-in genetic barrier that is designed to keep the drive under control. Led by molecular geneticist Omar Akbaris lab, the researchers engineered synthetic fly species that, upon release in sufficient numbers, act as gene drives that can spread locally and be reversed if desired.

The scientists describe their SPECIES (Synthetic Postzygotic barriers Exploiting CRISPR-based Incompatibilities for Engineering Species) development as a proof-of-concept innovation that could be portable to other species such as insect disease vectors. Spreading gene drives that limit pests that feast on valuable food crops is another example of a potential SPECIES application.

Gene drives can potentially spread beyond intended borders and be hard to control. SPECIES offers a way to control populations in a very safe and reversible manner, said Akbari, a UC San Diego Division of Biological Sciences associate professor and senior author of the paper, which is published in the journalNature Communications.

The idea behind the creation of SPECIES is reflective of the formation of new species in nature. As members of a single species separate over time, due to, for example, a new land formation, earthquake separation or other geological event, a new species eventually can evolve from the physical disconnection. If the new species eventually returns to mate with the original species, they could produce unviable offspring due to biological changes following the separation through a natural phenomenon known as reproductive isolation.

Working in the fly species Drosophila melanogaster, UC San Diego researchers and their colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, UC Berkeley and the Innovative Genomics Institute used CRISPR genetic-editing technologies to develop flies encoding SPECIES systems that are reproductively incompatible with wild versions of D. melanogaster.

Even though speciation happens consistently in nature, creating a new artificial species is actually a pretty big bioengineering challenge, said Anna Buchman, the lead author of the paper. The beauty of the SPECIES approach is that it simplifies the process, giving us a defined set of tools we need in any organism to elegantly bring about speciation.

Conceptually, when SPECIES are deployed in the wild in sufficient numbers, they can controllably drive through a population and replace all of their wild counterparts as they spread. Using malaria as an example, SPECIES mosquitoes could be developed with a genetic element that makes them incapable of transmitting malaria.

You can spread an anti-malaria SPECIES into a target population in a confinable and controllable way, said Akbari. Since SPECIES are incompatible with wild-type mosquitoes, their populations can be controlled and reversed by limiting their threshold population below 50 percent. This gives you the ability to confine and reverse its spread if desired.

As the SPECIES barrier completes its role in temporarily replacing wildtype populations, their numbers can be reduced with the reintroduction of wild type populations.

This essentially allows us to harness all of the power of gene driveslike disease elimination or crop protectionwithout the high risk of uncontrollable spread, said Akbari.

Reference: Engineered reproductively isolated species drive reversible population replacement by Anna Buchman, Isaiah Shriner, Ting Yang, Junru Liu, Igor Antoshechkin, John M. Marshall, Michael W. Perry and Omar S. Akbari, 2 June 2021, Nature Communications.DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23531-z

Coauthors of the paper include Anna Buchman, Isaiah Shriner (former UC San Diego undergraduate student), Ting Yang, Junru Liu (current Biological Sciences PhD student), Igor Antoshechkin, John Marshall, Michael Perry and Omar Akbari.

Funding: UC San Diego, DARPA Safe Genes Program

Read the rest here:
Researchers Engineered a New Synthetic Fly Species Here's Why - SciTechDaily

Scientists investigate the evolution of Mimivirus, one of the worlds largest viruses, through how they replicate DNA. Credit: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay shed light on the origins of Mimivirus and other giant viruses, helping us better understand a group of unique biological forms that shaped life on Earth. In their latest study published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, the researchers show that giant viruses may have come from a complex single-cell ancestor, keeping DNA replication machinery but shedding genes that code for other vital processes like metabolism.

2003 was a big year for virologists. The first giant virus was discovered in this year, which shook the virology scene, revising what was thought to be an established understanding of this elusive group and expanding the virus world from simple, small agents to forms that are as complex as some bacteria. Because of their link to disease and the difficulties in defining themthey are biological entities but do not fit comfortably in the existing tree of life viruses incite the curiosity of many people.

Scientists have long been interested in how viruses evolved, especially when it comes to giant viruses that can produce new viruses with very little help from the hostin contrast to most small viruses, which utilize the hosts machinery to replicate.

Even though giant viruses are not what most people would think of when it comes to viruses, they are actually very common in oceans and other water bodies. They infect single-celled aquatic organisms and have major effects on the latters population. In fact, Dr. Kiran Kondabagil, molecular virologist at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, suggests, Because these single-celled organisms greatly influence the carbon turnover in the ocean, the viruses have an important role in our worlds ecology. So, it is just as important to study them and their evolution, as it is to study the disease-causing viruses.

Scientists investigate the evolution of Mimivirus, one of the worlds largest viruses, through how they replicate DNA. Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay shed light on the origins of Mimivirus and other giant viruses, helping us better understand a group of unique biological forms that shaped life on earth. Credit: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

In a recent study, the findings of which have been published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, Dr. Kondabagil and co-researcher Dr. Supriya Patil performed a series of analyses on major genes and proteins involved in the DNA replication machinery of Mimivirus, the first group of giant viruses to be identified. They aimed to determine which of two major suggestions regarding Mimivirus evolutionthe reduction and the virus-first hypotheses were more supported by their results. The reduction hypothesis suggests that the giant viruses emerged from unicellular organisms and shed genes over time; the virus-first hypothesis suggests that they were around before single-celled organisms and gained genes, instead.

Dr. Kondabagil and Dr. Patil created phylogenetic trees with replication proteins and found that those from Mimivirus were more closely related to eukaryotes than to bacteria or small viruses. Additionally, they used a technique called multidimensional scaling to determine how similar the Mimiviral proteins are. A greater similarity would indicate that the proteins coevolved, which means that they are linked together in a larger protein complex with coordinated function. And indeed, their findings showed greater similarity. Finally, the researchers showed that genes related to DNA replication are similar to and fall under purifying selection, which is natural selection that removes harmful gene variants, constraining the genes and preventing their sequences from varying. Such a phenomenon typically occurs when the genes are involved in essential functions (like DNA replication) in an organism.

Taken together, these results imply that Mimiviral DNA replication machinery is ancient and evolved over a long period of time. This narrows us down to the reduction hypothesis, which suggests that the DNA replication machinery already existed in a unicellular ancestor, and the giant viruses were formed after getting rid of other structures in the ancestor, leaving only replication-related parts of the genome.

Our findings are very exciting because they inform how life on earth has evolved, Dr. Kondabagil says. Because these giant viruses probably predate the diversification of the unicellular ancestor into bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes, they should have had major influence on the subsequent evolutionary trajectory of eukaryotes, which are their hosts.

In terms of applications beyond this contribution to basic scientific knowledge, Dr. Kondabagil feels that their work could lay the groundwork for translational research into technology like genetic engineering and nanotechnology. He says, An increased understanding of the mechanisms by which viruses copy themselves and self-assemble means we could potentially modify these viruses to replicate genes we want or create nanobots based on how the viruses function. The possibilities are far-reaching!

Reference: Coevolutionary and Phylogenetic Analysis of Mimiviral Replication Machinery Suggest the Cellular Origin of Mimiviruses by Supriya Patil and Kiran Kondabagil, 11 February 2021, Molecular Biology and Evolution.DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msab003

Original post:
Scientists Use DNA To Trace the Origins of Giant Viruses - SciTechDaily