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Category Archives: Transhuman News

How to live to 100 – Business Times

Posted: May 24, 2020 at 3:40 pm

FROM 1960 till 2020, there has been a 28-fold increase in the number of centenarians. The path to longevity is strewn with false promises of expensive elixirs, exotic supplements, and stem cell rejuvenation. Human longevity is a complex interplay between the genes, the environment and lifestyle.

Genes and longevity

The study of human longevity genes is a developing science. Scientists estimate that between 15 and 30 per cent of the variation in human life span is determined by genes, but it is not clearly understood which genes are relevant, and how they contribute to longevity. In 2015, Ancestry, a genealogy and genetics company, partnered Calico, a Google spinoff, to study data from more than 54 million families and their family trees representing six billion ancestors, and were able to tease out a set of pedigrees that included over 400 million people. These individuals were connected to one another by either a parent-child or a spouse-spouse relationship.

In 2018, they published their results in Genetics, a journal of the Genetics Society of America. The study found that the lifespan of spouses were more similar and better correlated than in siblings of opposite gender. The study concluded that life span heritability is likely 7 per cent or less, and hence the contribution of genes to longevity is even lower.

Although genes seem to have only a small influence on lifespan, they appear to play a larger role in centenarians. Hence, there are a few genetic factors that do give you a headstart in the journey to longevity.

Being a first-degree relative of a centenarian makes it more likely for you to remain healthy longer and to live to an older age than your peers. First-degree relatives are less likely at age 70 years to have the age-related diseases that are common among older adults.

Women generally live longer than men , and the number of female centenarians is more than fourfold higher than that of male centenarians. It is thought that this is due to a combination of social and biological factors. Studies on mammals and Korean eunuchs has shown that the removal of testosterone at a young age was correlated with an increase in lifespan.

Genetic studies show that centenarians have a lower genetic risk of having heart disease, stroke , high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Alzheimer's disease and decreased bone mineral density. A study on Chinese centenarians published in 2013 showed that 55 per cent have normal systolic blood pressure, 82 per cent had normal diastolic blood pressure and less than 20 per cent were on long term medication. Hence, centenarians appear to have genes that reduce that risk of age-related chronic illnesses.

Biological clock

Epigenetics is the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself. One of the major mechanisms in which epigenetics manifest itself is by the process of DNA methylation, which involves the chemical modification of the DNA, thereby modifying the gene function and expression.

Through this process, certain genes can be silenced or activated and potentially impact age-related diseases such as cancer, osteoarthritis, and neurodegeneration. The biological or epigenetic clock in centenarians show a decrease in DNA methylation age, indicating that they are biologically younger than their chronological age. There is also data to suggest that although circadian rhythms deteriorate during ageing, they seem to be well preserved in centenarians, including preserved sleep quality.

Environment and longevity

Environmental factors have a large impact on longevity. Better living environment, clean food, clean water, good sanitation, reduction of infectious diseases, and access to better healthcare have resulted in significant improvement in human longevity.

Using Italy as an example of the impact of a better living environment, the average life expectancy went up from 29 years in 1861 to 84 years in 2020. The number of centenarians in Italy increased from 165 in 1951 to more than 15,000 in 2011, and the incidence of deaths occurring in those less than 60 years of age, decreased from 74 per cent in 1872 to less than 10 per cent in 2011 .

The continuous increase in lifespan in recent decades is mainly due to the advances in medical science. It is estimated that medical advances have allowed an increase in lifespan of five years in the last two decades and additional two years in the last decade.

When comparing two countries at different stages of development in 1950, the average life expectancy increase of 11 years from 68 years in 1950 to 79 years in 2020 in the USA, which was more developed in 1950, was much less remarkable than the increase of 3114 years in average life expectancy from 43 years in 1950 to 77 years in 2020 in China, which was less developed in 1950. The significant improvement in the living environment in China has contributed to the narrowing in the average life expectancy between those living in the US and China.

Lifestyle and longevity

In addition to environmental factors, lifestyle factors have an important impact on longevity. A study of more than 300,000 individuals over 7.5 years showed that individuals with social relationships have more than 50 per cent greater probability of survival compared with those with few and poor social interactions.

A study on centenarians in Utah in the US between 2008 and 2015 suggested that sleep, life satisfaction and social attachment were significant predictors of days lived. There is an extricable linkage between lifestyle and socioeconomic status. The term socioeconomic status as used in longevity studies encompass all the factors that can impact longevity including wealth, geography, education, occupation, ethnicity, cultural environment, neighbourhood environment, quality of healthcare and quality of diet. It is well established that the socioeconomic status of an individual will have a major impact on health and longevity.

A study on more than 120, 000 individuals by researchers from Harvard, published in the Circulation journal in April 2018, identified five low-risk lifestyle factors for increased life expectancy. They were: no smoking, non obese ( body mass index of 18.5 to 24.9 kg/m2), exercise (at least 30 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity, including brisk walking), low-risk alcohol consumption (5 to 15 gm/day for women and 5 to 30 gm/day for men), and a high score for healthy diet.

In this study, the projected life expectancy at age 50 years was on average 14.0 years longer among female Americans with five low-risk factors compared with those with zero low-risk factors; for men, the difference was 12.2 years.

These findings are consistent with a study on Chinese centenarians in which less than 20 per cent were smokers and less than 40 per cent drank alcohol. Hence, in general, most centenarians do not smoke, do not drink alcohol or are low-risk alcohol drinkers, are sociable, friendly, cope well with stress, are satisfied with life, have healthy diets and sleep well.

In summary, the main drivers of longevity in the first eight decades of life are the socioeconomic environment and lifestyle choices. Beyond the eighties, the inheritance of genes that defer age-related chronic diseases and a younger biological clock will help to propel these individuals beyond a hundred years.

This series is produced on alternate Saturdays in collaboration with Singapore Medical Specialists Centre

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How Ancient Fossil DNA Reveals the Secrets of Our Human Origins – Ancient Origins

Posted: at 3:40 pm

When the human genome was first discovered, it revealed some amazing genetic secrets modern humans are way more complicated than we originally thought. During a long evolution, humankind picked up pieces of genetic material from other hominids. We may be the sole survivors of the Homo genus, but in our journey, weve carried genetic fragments from our long-extinct ancestors.

Just as interbreeding sometimes takes place between different animal species, the same thing happened in ancient times. Thanks to fossil DNA, geneticists now know that different lineages of our ancestors interbred with one another, creating new genetic lines and ensuring the modern human race is genetically diverse.

Research carried out on Neanderthal bones shows that people of non-African descent have 2% of Neanderthal DNA in their genome. Other research found that people from Australia and Papua New Guinea have Denisovan DNA in their genome.

New techniques have confirmed that the ancestors of modern humans mated with Neanderthals, thus allowing their genetic material to become a part of our modern genome. Indeed, researchers believe there is a lot of shared genetic material that has not yet been discovered.

Much of the genetic mixing and matching arose because of human migration patterns. As different humanoid groups migrated, they naturally intermingled and mated. Modern humans our ancestors are known to have evolved in Africa once the Neanderthals and Denisovans died out.

Fossil DNA of our prehistoric ancestors is revealing new secrets. Pictured: digital illustration DNA structure. ( k_e_n / Adobe stock)

Some scientists have posited that modern humans did not evolve from one population in Africa rather, they evolved from several interconnected populations migrating from the continent. As each group traveled farther afield, they mingled and interbred, allowing their genetic material to mix.

Smaller population groups were naturally absorbed into the larger Neanderthal population, who later interbred with our modern human ancestors.

All of this history is slowly coming to light as DNA analysis techniques improve and more ancient bone fragments and fossils are unearthed. Not surprisingly, this has led to an increased interest in our genetic origins.

Whereas our ancestors had no way of knowing their genetic origins, we can use DNA testing to discover more about our ancestors and genetic lineage. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people complete these tests and join a growing database of genetic information that has allowed people to develop their knowledge of their family history and even reconnect with long-lost family members.

Though there are many different genetic testing companies, they all work in very similar ways.

The best DNA kit will be delivered securely to your home, contain everything you need with detailed instructions, including return packaging, and should give you results in three to four weeks.

This is an area where some of the genetic testing companies differ. Some companies use a swab that will take a sample of DNA from inside your cheek. Other companies use a spit sample or a scrape of skin cells.

You should choose a method you are comfortable with, and this will help you refine your options. Ancestry DNA and 23andMe, for example, require you to fill a small tube with spit, which can be more difficult than it sounds, and then add a stabilization fluid and seal the sample. This can be awkward for some people, and more complicated than a simple cheek swab. Most companies recommend you dont drink, eat or smoke for up to an hour before taking a sample, to get a better sample.

The most important part of providing a sample is to register your sample with your chosen company online before you send it. This registration process will often include a special code, or even a printable barcode, to add to your sample that will help them track it while testing and ensure you get the correct results.

Representation of scientist inspecting fossil DNA samples. kkolosov / Adobe stock

After sending your sample, its a waiting game. Sometimes you can get your information sent to you quite quickly, depending on the number of samples the company is processing when it arrives.

The results of home genetic testing often give people one of two reactions. You may find nothing surprising in your DNA results, and it only confirms much that you already know about your genetics and your family history. For some people, however, the results you get can be life-changing, and shocking.

Home DNA testing has revealed many long-kept family secrets , as well as solving mysteries. There is a chance that your results will lead to more questions than answers.

If you are left with confusing or shocking results, by adding more DNA data you can help get a clearer picture. Ask close relatives like siblings and cousins to take tests too and add their genetic information to your family database. This can help you get a clearer picture of your family history if your results arent what you expected.

Top image: Thanks to fossil DNA, geneticists now know that different lineages of our ancestors interbred with one another, creating new genetic lines and ensuring the modern human race is genetically diverse. Pictured: Representation of our prehistoric ancestors. Source: Kovalenko I / Adobe stock

By Katya Smith

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How Ancient Fossil DNA Reveals the Secrets of Our Human Origins - Ancient Origins

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Covid-19 versus genomics and other advanced technologies – E&T Magazine

Posted: at 3:40 pm

Genome sequencing, big data and artificial intelligence are helping doctors to better understand, treat and hopefully beat Covid-19.

The global scientific response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, which so far has killed over 328,000 people worldwide, is unprecedented. On 10 January 2020, nine days after the first cases of suspected Covid-19 were identified, the first genome sequence of the virus was shared publicly. Since then, tens of thousands of samples have been sequenced.

Genomics, which is concerned with the genetic material of an organism, is one of the most promising areas of research for Covid-19. By unlocking the virus genetic code and that of the most severely affected hosts the patients experts hope to better inform public health decisions and find effective treatments.

Working to this end is the 20m UK government-funded Cog UK research consortium, which consolidates the resources of the highly regarded Sanger Institute, the NHS and leading universities. The alliance has already sequenced over 16,000 viral samples from patients with confirmed cases of Covid-19.

Detailed analysis of sequenced viral samples of Covid-19 can identify small changes in the virus as it passes through the population which can then be used to track its spread.

As a virus replicates itself in different hosts, it accumulates small typos in its code called mutations. While the vast majority of mutations are not functional, by identifying them in different viral samples we can track and trace the infections spread locally and from one to another, explains Emma Hodcroft, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Basel in Switzerland.

If two samples have the same typos, it means they probably come from a parent virus that also has these typos, and so can be identified as more closely related or from the same infection chain, she adds.

Hodcroft is currently working on Nextstrain, a SARS-CoV-2 open-source project that provides a continually updated view of publicly available genome-sequencing data, alongside analytic and visualisation tools. From across the globe, nearly 20,000 sequences have been uploaded to the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), including some from Cog-UK. Researchers at Nextstrain are using this data to create a family tree of the virus spread.

From the first few sequences, we could identify similarities and confidently say these viruses had emerged very recently, within the past couple of months, in China. The genetics then led us to cases in other countries directly related to those Chinese samples, explains Hodcroft.

Because of the fast sharing of data, we are providing a real-time look at the pandemic, in a way previously not possible. I really hope this will transform how we can track other diseases in the future, she adds.

This underlying approach of using the genome of a pathogen to understand how it spreads, called genomic epidemiology, was pioneered during the AIDSepidemic in the 1990s and has expanded to other pathogens such as influenza. The falling cost of the sequencing technology has made it increasingly more accessible.

Dr Lauren Cowley, prize fellow of bioinformatics at the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bath, used this tracing method in 2015 to track the spread of Ebola in Guinea. Using portable sequencing technology by Oxford Nanopore Technologies, called MinION, Cowley and her colleagues could determine the relatedness of samples from patients.

Roughly every two weeks the Ebola virus changes something in its genome, therefore if two samples had exactly the same sequence, then we would know they were likely part of the same transmission chain, explains Cowley.

This helped epidemiologists track whether a transmission chain was contained or whether more people were at risk and if there were contacts of the patients that needed to be monitored for symptom development.

Similarly, in its first public update at the end of March, Cog-UK said it had identified 12 viral lineages in the initial 260 viral genomes it sequenced, suggesting independent introductions ofCovid-19 to the UK coming from areas with large epidemics and high travel volumes, notably Italy and other parts of Europe.

Hodcroft says this technology will become particularly useful for informing public health decisions towards the end of the pandemic.

If we can determine new cases in a city are from local transmission, it tells us current measures are not working because the virus is spreading locally again. However, if it shows new cases are imported, then we know we need to be careful about people travelling from other areas. This is important when trying to understand how much to loosen restrictions on the public or to find weaknesses in your strategy, she explains.

Its hoped the research ongoing at the Cog UK consortium, which Hodcroft says is "above and beyond what any other country is doing", along with anti-body testing just approved by Public Health England, will help the government better understand infection among the UK population, down to individual transmission chains.

A characteristic of coronavirus that has healthcare professionals puzzled is why certain people are more adversely affected than others. While this could be explained by many factors, theres a hypothesis that mutations in a persons genetics could affect how they react to the disease and their chances of surviving it.

Everybody has a human genome in every single cell, and by and large, the code is the same, apart from some sporadic mutations. These change parts of the genome; some are incredibly rare and others very common.

We don't know how much of the variation in Covid-19 outcomes are driven by common genetic effects, some of which may be acting through frequently seen comorbidities (like diabetes or cardiovascular disease); or by rarer mutations, which predispose people to poor outcomes possibly related to different immune responses or uncontrolled inflammatory events, explains Professor Nicholas Timpson, a Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at Bristol University and a Wellcome Trust Investigator.

Timpson works on the University of Bristols Children of the '90s study, which has been collecting "everything from toenails and teeth" from a cohort ofchildren since birth. Timpson and his colleagues are now surveying participants about how they have been affected by Covid-19 and hope to use this information to assist ongoing medical research into the disease.

For example, weve been measuring respiratory health in participants for decades, so were in a very special position because we can bring retrospective data forward into the analysis; past healthcare trajectory could be extremely important in understanding who gets better from Covid-19 and who is badly affected, he says.

Similarly, consumer genetics testing and analysis company 23andMe has enrolled more than half a million of its customers onto a study to find potential genetic associations related to severity of coronavirus symptoms. The company will be studying de-identified, aggregate genetic information alongside answers to survey questions on experience with Covid-19 symptoms to get a fuller picture of potential correlations.

Identifying these genetic markers could help target the development of specific treatments and vaccines for coronavirus. Timpson, however, says this can be difficult because, unlike rare and specific changes in genomes, there may be a common variation that affects a significant chunk of the population, but its actual impact, though very real, is very small.

However, technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning can help speed-up this analysis, especially when working with sequenced genomes, which produce huge amounts of data.

Measuring the entire genome and working in a data-driven way, rather than generating hypotheses about which genes would be involved in which diseases, can be more efficient, says Timpson.

Swiss health-tech company SOPHiA GENETICS, which developed an AI-based platform that precisely analyses raw genome data to help clinicians better diagnose patients, is working in this way with its partner Paragon Genomics to help researchers make genetic discoveries related to Covid-19 outcomes.

The company wants to create a multi-modal approach to predict outcomes and tailor therapeutic approaches.

Using the genome of the virus and the host, combined with data about how the patient was treated and what happened to them, the SOPHiA platform could identify patterns by looking for a combination of data points to predict a patients clinical outcome and recommend treatments based on previous results of other patients with similar signatures, explains Dr Philippe Menu, chief medical officer atSOPHiAGENETICS.

The platform is already trained to do this for lung cancer patients using analysis of CT scans, known as radiomics, and other clinical data. For coronavirus, it could be used to triage patients better. The vision is to develop an optimised predictive score across genomics, radiomics and clinical data, that help doctors predict the most likely Covid-19 disease evolution at time of diagnosis and tailor therapeutic interventions accordingly, says Menu.

The platform is currently going through a validation phase for sequencing the whole viral genome. Once there is enough data, it will start looking for variations across viral samples. To pursue the multimodal analysis, Menu says the company is in discussions with different centres.

Similarly, in only a matter of weeks, AI-based drug-discovery company BenevolentAI used its machine-learning platform to identify a potential drug to treat some Covid-19 patients.

Using a biomedical Knowledge Graph it had curated over the past five years, researchers assessed potential treatments that could specifically inhibit the cellular processes the virus uses to infect human cells and reduce inflammatory damage. The predictive tools identified an existing rheumatoid arthritis pill, baricitinib, as a potential treatment. The drug is now being trialled by Eli Lilly.

In April, NHSX, the technology arm of the NHS, announced it was establishing a centralised UK repository of chest X-ray, CT and MRI images for use by AI applications to improve the understanding of Covid-19 and support treatment of the disease.

Zegami, an Oxford University spin-out, has developed a new machine-learning radiomics model on its AI platform that hopes to use these images to help radiologists more quickly identify coronavirus cases and provide better treatment outcomes by learning from past successes.

Doug Lawrence, a data scientist at Zegami who has been training the platform, says it has already shown 70-75 per cent proficiency in identifying coronavirus cases apart from images of viral and bacterial pneumonia, as well as images of healthy lungs, using a limited dataset of 226 Covid-19 infected lung images.

A tool that can filter people into a high or lower risk bracket, even at only 70 per cent accuracy, is still very useful in saving radiologists time, he says.

The longer-term ambition of the company, however, is to receive anonymous information about the treatment plan and outcome for each patient image.

If we had data about people in intensive care or who were treated with specific antibiotics, the platform could predict potential outcomes and recommend treatments based on this data, says Stephen Taylor, co-founder of Zegami and chief scientific officer. Its about binding the metadata with the image to give doctors more confidence in treatment and diagnosis.

But Taylor says the nature of the platform means it could be easily used to explore a range of hypothesis.

There's a whole bunch of characteristics you can measure, I think this provides a simple and easy-to-use interface from which its possible to investigate different parameters without doing lots of coding putting this tool in the hands of non-data scientists is very powerful because they can come up with interesting hypotheses and then test them, says Taylor.

Zegami has applied to NHSX for chest X-ray images, which it is hoping to receive soon.

While a vaccine for the novel coronavirus is still in development, there is hope that the throng of ongoing research can help with the management and treatment of the virus in the interim. In fact, there is a clear race to make discoveries and provide healthcare professionals with new tools. It will be interesting to see whois successful first.

One thing is certain though: the rapid rate of research, cross-border collaboration and fast deployment of technologies are among the few positives to emerge from the coronavirus crisis.

Health study

If you were born in or around Bristol in 1991 or 1992, then you could have been part ofChildren of the 90s health study.

It doesn't matter if you stopped taking part years ago, your data is important and you can re-join the study at any time.

To find out if you were involved in the study please text your full name and date of birth to 07772 909090 or visit childrenofthe90s.ac.uk

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The impact of the coronavirus on the Genetic Engineering Market Solid Analyzed Segmentation, Demand, Recent Share Estimation and Growth Prospects by…

Posted: at 3:34 pm

Genetic Engineering Market 2018: Global Industry Insights by Global Players, Regional Segmentation, Growth, Applications, Major Drivers, Value and Foreseen till 2024

The report provides both quantitative and qualitative information of global Genetic Engineering market for period of 2018 to 2025. As per the analysis provided in the report, the global market of Genetic Engineering is estimated to growth at a CAGR of _% during the forecast period 2018 to 2025 and is expected to rise to USD _ million/billion by the end of year 2025. In the year 2016, the global Genetic Engineering market was valued at USD _ million/billion.

This research report based on Genetic Engineering market and available with Market Study Report includes latest and upcoming industry trends in addition to the global spectrum of the Genetic Engineering market that includes numerous regions. Likewise, the report also expands on intricate details pertaining to contributions by key players, demand and supply analysis as well as market share growth of the Genetic Engineering industry.

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The report on the Genetic Engineering market provides a birds eye view of the current proceeding within the Genetic Engineering market. Further, the report also takes into account the impact of the novel COVID-19 pandemic on the Genetic Engineering market and offers a clear assessment of the projected market fluctuations during the forecast period. The different factors that are likely to impact the overall dynamics of the Genetic Engineering market over the forecast period (2019-2029) including the current trends, growth opportunities, restraining factors, and more are discussed in detail in the market study.

Leading manufacturers of Genetic Engineering Market:

The key players covered in this studyThermo Fisher Scientific Inc.GenScriptAmgen Inc.Genentech, Inc.Merck KGaAHorizon Discovery Group plcSangamo Therapeutics, Inc.Transposagen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.OriGene Technologies, Inc.

Market segment by Type, the product can be split intoArtificial SelectionCloningGene SplicingOthersMarket segment by Application, split intoAgricultureBt- CottonGolden RiceOthersMedical IndustryRecombinant ProteinsRecombinant AntibodiesOthersForensic Science

Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaCentral & South America

The study objectives of this report are:To analyze global Genetic Engineering status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players.To present the Genetic Engineering development in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India and Central & South America.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies.To define, describe and forecast the market by type, market and key regions.

In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Genetic Engineering are as follows:History Year: 2015-2019Base Year: 2019Estimated Year: 2020Forecast Year 2020 to 2026For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2019 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered.

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One of the World’s Most Powerful Scientists Believes in Miracles – Scientific American

Posted: at 3:34 pm

When I talk to my students aboutthe tempestuous relationship between science and religion, I like to bring up the case of Francis Collins. Early in his career, Collins was a successful gene-hunter, who helped identify genes associated with cystic fibrosis and other disorders. He went on to become one of the worlds most powerful scientists. Since 2009, he has directed the National Institutes of Health, which this year has a budget of over $40 billion. Before that he oversaw the Human Genome Project, one of historys biggest research projects. Collins was an atheist until 1978, when he underwent a conversion experience while hiking in the mountains and became a devout Christian. In his 2006 bestselling bookThe Language of God, Collins declares that he sees no incompatibility between science and religion. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome, he wrote. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. Collins just won the$1.3 million Templeton Prize, created in 1972 to promote reconciliation of science and spirituality. (See my posts on the Templeton Foundationhereandhere). This news gives me an excuse to post an interview I carried out with Collins forNational Geographicin 2006, a time whenRichard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and others were vigorously attacking religion. Below is an edited transcript of my conversation with Collins, which took place in Washington, D.C. I liked Collins, whom I found to be surprisingly unassuming for a man of such high stature. But I was disturbed by our final exchanges, in which he revealed a fatalistic outlook on humanitys future. Collins, it seems, haslots of faith in God but not much in humanity. John Horgan

Horgan:How does it feel to be at the white-hot center of the current debate between science and religion?

Collins:This increasing polarization between extremists on both ends of the atheism and belief spectrum has been heartbreaking to me. If my suggestion that there is a harmonious middle ground puts me at the white-hot center of debate--Hooray! Its maybe a bit overdue.

Horgan:The danger in trying to appeal to people on both sides of a polarized debate is--

Collins:Bombs thrown at you from both directions!

Horgan:Has that happened?

Collins[sighs]: The majority have responded in very encouraging ways. But some of my scientific colleagues argue that its totally inappropriate for a scientist to write about religion, and we already have too much faith in public life in this country. And then I get someverystrongly worded messages from fundamentalists who feel that I have compromised the literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and call me a false prophet. Im diluting the truth and doing damage to the faith.

Horgan:Why do you think the debate has become so polarized?

Collins:It starts with an extreme articulation of a viewpoint on one side of the issue and that then results in a response that is also a little bit too extreme, and the whole thing escalates. Every action demands an equal and opposite reaction. This is one of Newtons laws playing out in an unfortunate public scenario.

Horgan:I must admit that Ive become more concerned lately about the harmful effects of religion because of religious terrorism like 9/11 and the growing power of the religious right in the United States.

Collins:What faith hasnotbeen used by demagogues as a club over somebodys head? Whether it was the Inquisition or the Crusades on the one hand or the World Trade Center on the other? But we shouldnt judge the pure truths of faith by the way they are applied any more than we should judge the pure truth of love by an abusive marriage. We as children of God have been given by God this knowledge of right and wrong, this Moral Law, which I see as a particularly compelling signpost to His existence. But we also have this thing called free will which we exercise all the time to break that law. We shouldnt blame faith for the ways people distort it and misuse it.

Horgan:Isnt the problem when religions say,Thisis the only way to truth? Isnt that what turns religious faith from something beautiful into something intolerant and hateful?

Collins:There is a sad truth there. I think we Christians have been way too ready to define ourselves as members of an exclusive club. I found truth, I found joy, I found peace in that particular conclusion, but I am not in any way suggesting that that is the conclusion everybody else should find. To have anyone say, My truth is purer than yours, that is both inconsistent with what I see in the person of Christ andincrediblyoff-putting. And quick to start arguments and fights and even wars! Look at the story of the Good Samaritan, which is a parable from Jesus himself. Jews would have considered the Samaritan to be a heretic, and yet clearly Christs message is:Thatis the person who did right and was justified in Gods eyes.

Horgan:How can you, as a scientist who looks for natural explanations of things and demands evidence, also believe in miracles, like the resurrection?

Collins:My first struggle was to believe in God. Not a pantheist God who is entirely enclosed within nature, or a Deist God who started the whole thing and then just lost interest, but a supernatural God who is interested in what is happening in our world and might at times choose to intervene. My second struggle was to believe that Christ was divine as He claimed to be. As soon as I got there, the idea that He might rise from the dead became a non-problem. I dont have a problem with the concept that miracles might occasionally occur at moments ofgreatsignificance where there is a message being transmitted to us by God Almighty. But as a scientist I set my standards for miracles very high. And I dont think we should try to convince agnostics or atheists about the reality of faith with claims about miracles that they can easily poke holes in.

Horgan:The problem I have with miracles is not just that they violate what science tells us about how the world works. They also make God seem too capricious. For example, many people believe that if they pray hard enough God will intercede to heal them or a loved one. But does that mean that all those who dont get better arent worthy?

Collins:In my own experience as a physician, I have not seen a miraculous healing, and I dont expect to see one. Also, prayer for me is not a way to manipulate God into doing what we want Him to do. Prayer for me is much more a sense of trying to get into fellowship with God. Im trying to figure out what I should be doing rather than telling Almighty God whatHeshould be doing. Look at the Lords Prayer. It says, Thywill be done. It wasnt, Our Father who are in Heaven, please get me a parking space.

Horgan:Many people have a hard time believing in God because of the problem of evil. If God loves us, why is life filled with so much suffering?

Collins:That isthemost fundamental question that all seekers have to wrestle with. First of all, if our ultimate goal is to grow, learn, discover things about ourselves and things about God, then unfortunately a life of ease is probably not the way to get there. I know I have learned very little about myself or God when everything is going well. Also, a lot of the pain and suffering in the world we cannot lay at Gods feet. God gave us free will, and we may choose to exercise it in ways that end up hurting other people.

Horgan:The physicist Steven Weinberg, who is an atheist, has written about this topic. He asks why six million Jews, including his relatives, had to die in the Holocaust so that the Nazis could exercise their free will.

Collins:If God had to intervene miraculously every time one of us chose to do something evil, it would be a very strange, chaotic, unpredictable world. Free will leads to people doing terrible things to each other. Innocent people die as a result. You cant blame anyone except the evildoers for that. So thats not Gods fault. The harder question is when suffering seems to have come about through no human ill action. A child with cancer, a natural disaster, a tornado or tsunami. Why would God not prevent those things from happening?

Horgan:Some theologians, such as Charles Hartshorne, have suggested that maybe God isnt fully in control of His creation. The poet Annie Dillard expresses this idea in her phrase God the semi-competent.

Collins:Thats delightful--and probably blasphemous! An alternative is the notion of God being outside of nature and of time and having a perspective of our blink-of-an-eye existence that goes both far back and far forward. In some admittedly metaphysical way, that allows me to say that the meaning of suffering may not always be apparent to me. There can be reasons for terrible things happening that I cannot know.

Horgan:I think youre an agnostic.

Collins:No!

Horgan:You say that, to a certain extent, Gods ways are inscrutable. That sounds like agnosticism.

Collins:Im agnostic about Gods ways. Im not agnostic about God Himself. Thomas Huxley defined agnosticism as not knowing whether God exists or not. Im a believer! I have doubts. As I quote Paul Tillich: Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Its a part of faith. But my fundamental stance is that God is real, God is true.

Horgan:Im an agnostic, and I was bothered when in your book you called agnosticism a copout. Agnosticism doesnt mean youre lazy or dont care. It means you arent satisfied with any answers for what after all are ultimate mysteries.

Collins:That was a putdown that should not apply to earnest agnostics who have considered the evidence and still dont find an answer. I was reacting to the agnosticism I see in the scientific community, which has not been arrived at by a careful examination of the evidence. I went through a phase when I was a casual agnostic, and I am perhaps too quick to assume that others have no more depth than I did.

Horgan:Free will is a very important concept to me, as it is to you. Its the basis for our morality and search for meaning. Dont you worry that science in general and genetics in particularand your work as head of the Genome Project--are undermining belief in free will?

Collins:Youre talking about genetic determinism, which implies that we are helpless marionettes being controlled by strings made of double helices. That is so far away from what we know scientifically! Heredity does have an influence not only over medical risks but also over certain behaviors and personality traits. But look at identical twins, who have exactly the same DNA but often dont behave alike or think alike. They show the importance of learning and experience--and free will. I think we all, whether we are religious or not, recognize that free will is a reality. There are some fringe elements that say, No, its all an illusion, were just pawns in some computer model. But I dont think that carries you very far.

Horgan:What do you think of Darwinian explanations of altruism, or what you callagape, totally selfless love and compassion for someone not directly related to you?

Collins:Its been a little of a just-so story so far. Many would argue that altruism has been supported by evolution because it helps the group survive. But some people sacrifically give of themselves to those who are outside their group and with whom they have absolutely nothing in common. Like Mother Teresa, Oscar Schindler, many others. That is the nobility of humankind in its purist form. That doesnt seem like it can be explained by a Darwinian model, but Im not hanging my faith on this.

Horgan:If only selflessness were more common.

Collins:Well, there you get free will again. It gets in the way.

Horgan:What do you think about the field of neurotheology, which attempts to identify the neural basis of religious experiences?

Collins:I think its fascinating but not particularly surprising. We humans are flesh and blood. So it wouldnt trouble me--if I were to have some mystical experience myself--to discover that my temporal lobe was lit up. Id say, Wow! Thats okay! That doesnt mean that this doesnt have genuine spiritual significance. Those who come at this issue with the presumption that there is nothing outside the natural world will look at this data and say, Ya see? Whereas those who come with the presumption that we are spiritual creatures will go, Cool! There is a natural correlate to this mystical experience! How about that! I think our spiritual nature is truly God-given, and may not be completely limited by natural descriptors.

Horgan:What if this research leads to drugs or devices for artificially inducing religious experiences? Would you consider those experiences to be authentic? You probably heard about the recent report from Johns Hopkins that the psychedelic drug psilocybin triggered spiritual experiences.

Collins:Yes. If you are talking about the ingestion of an exogenous psychoactive substance or some kind of brain-stimulating contraption, that would smack of not being an authentic, justifiable, trust-worthy experience. So that would be a boundary I would want to establish between the authentic and the counterfeit.

Horgan:Some scientists have predicted that genetic engineering may give us superhuman intelligence and greatly extended life spans, and possibly even immortality. We might even engineer our brains so that we dont fear pain or grief anymore. These are possible long-term consequences of the Human Genome Project and other lines of research. If these things happen, what do you think would be the consequences for religious traditions?

Collins:That outcome would trouble me. But were so far away from that reality that its hard to spend a lot of time worrying about it when you consider all the truly benevolent things we could do in the near term. If you get too hung up on the hypotheticals of what night happen in the next several hundred years, then you become paralyzed and you fail to live up to the opportunities to reach out and help people now. That seems to be the most unethical stance we could take.

Horgan:Im really asking, Does religion requires suffering? Could we reduce suffering to the point where we just wont need religion?

Collins:In spite of the fact that we have achieved all of these wonderful medical advances and made it possible to live longer and eradicate diseases, we will probably still figure out ways to argue with each other and sometimes to kill each other, out of our self-righteousness and our determination that we have to be on top. So the death rate will continue to be one per person by one means or another. We may understand a lot about biology, we may understand a lot about how to prevent illness, and we may understand the life span. But I dont think we will figure out how to stop humans from doing bad things to each other. That will always be our greatest and most distressing experience here on this planet, and that will make us long the most, perhaps, for something more.

Emerging from stealth, Octant is bringing the tools of synthetic biology to large scale drug discovery – TechCrunch

Posted: at 3:34 pm

Octant, a company backed by Andreessen Horowitz just now unveiling itself publicly to the world, is using the tools of synthetic biology to buck the latest trends in drug discovery.

As the pharmaceuticals industry turns its attention to precision medicine the search for ever more tailored treatments for specific diseases using genetic engineering Octant is using the same technologies to engage in drug discovery and diagnostics on a mass scale.

The companys technology genetically engineers DNA to act as an identifier for the most common drug receptors inside the human genome. Basically, its creating QR codes that can flag and identify how different protein receptors in cells respond to chemicals. These are the biological sensors which help control everything from immune responses to the senses of sight and smell, the firing of neurons; even the release of hormones and communications between cells in the body are regulated.

Our discovery platform was designed to map and measure the interconnected relationships between chemicals, multiple drug receptor pathways and diseases, enabling us to engineer multi-targeted drugs in a more rational way, across a wide spectrum of targets, said Sri Kosuri, Octants co-founder and chief executive officer, in a statement.

Octants work is based on a technology first developed at the University of California Los Angeles by Kosuri and a team of researchers, which slashed the cost of making genetic sequences to $2 per gene from $50 to $100 per gene.

Our method gives any lab that wants the power to build its own DNA sequences, Kosuri said in a 2018 statement. This is the first time that, without a million dollars, an average lab can make 10,000 genes from scratch.

Joining Kosuri in launching Octant is Ramsey Homsany, a longtime friend of Kosuris, and a former executive at Google and Dropbox . Homsany happened to have a background in molecular biology from school, and when Kosuri would talk about the implications of the technology he developed, the two men knew they needed to for a company.

We use these new tools to know which bar code is going with which construct or genetic variant or pathway that were working with [and] all of that fits into a single well, said Kosuri. What you can do on top of that is small molecule screening we can do that with thousands of different wells at a time. So we can build these maps between chemicals and targets and pathways that are essential to drug development.

Before coming to UCLA, Kosuri had a long history with companies developing products based on synthetic biology on both the coasts. Through some initial work that hed done in the early days of the biofuel boom in 2007, Kosuri was connected with Flagship Ventures, and the imminent Harvard-based synthetic biologist George Church . He also served as a scientific advisor to Gen9, a company acquired by the multi-billion dollar synthetic biology powerhouse, Ginkgo Bioworks.

Some of the most valuable drugs in history work on complex sets of drug targets, which is why Octants focus on polypharmacology is so compelling, said Jason Kelly, the co-founder and CEO of Gingko Bioworks, and a member of the Octant board, in a statement. Octant is engineering a lot of luck and cost out of the drug discovery equation with its novel platform and unique big data biology insights, which will drive the companys internal development programs as well as potential partnerships.

The new technology arrives at a unique moment in the industry where pharmaceutical companies are moving to target treatments for diseases that are tied to specific mutations, rather than look at treatments for more common disease problems, said Homsany.

People are dropping common disease problems, he said. The biggest players are dropping these cases and it seems like that just didnt make sense to us. So we thought about how would a company take these new technologies and apply them in a way that could solve some of this.

One reason for the industrys turn away from the big diseases that affect large swaths of the population is that new therapies are emerging to treat these conditions which dont rely on drugs. While they wouldnt get into specifics, Octant co-founders are pursuing treatments for what Kosuri said were conditions in the metabolic space and in the neuropsychiatric space.

Helping them pursue those targets, since Octant is very much a drug development company, is $30 million in financing from investors led by Andreessen Horowitz .

Drug discovery remains a process of trial and error. Using its deep expertise in synthetic biology, the Octant team has engineered human cells that provide real-time, precise and complete readouts of the complex interactions and effects that drug molecules have within living cells, said Jorge Conde, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and member of the Octant board of directors. By querying biology at this unprecedented scale, Octant has the potential to systematically create exhaustive maps of drug targets and corresponding, novel treatments for our most intractable diseases.

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Emerging from stealth, Octant is bringing the tools of synthetic biology to large scale drug discovery - TechCrunch

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COVID-19 Vaccines: A Reason to Hope We’re Flying Blind No More – The Wire

Posted: at 3:34 pm

A scanning electron microscope image showing SARS-CoV-2 (orange), the virus that causes COVID-19, isolated from a patient in the US, emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. Photo and caption: NIAID-RML.

COVID-19 continues to be an immense global challenge, with over 5.2 million confirmed cases and over 338,000 deaths.

In this gloom, science offers hope. Never before have scientists come together to do so much in so little time. Important research that stayed behind paywalls earlier is now openly accessible; over 5,000 articles on preprint servers and over 30,000 viral genome sequences are freely available.

Vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus are also being developed at pandemic speed with 10 candidates in clinical testing and another 114 in pre-clinical development. But the basic understanding of whether a vaccine would work, what might be the correlates of protection, and how would one measure those, has been lacking. This was addressed recently.

Most vaccines in development aim to produce antibodies that would disable the virus from entering target cells. These are produced by B cells. Another arm of immunity utilises T-cells that thwart infection in two ways the helper T-cells help B-cells produce antibodies, and the killer T-cells seek out and destroy virus-infected cells. But a small fraction of virus-specific B, helper-T and killer-T cells also develop into memory cells, which respond very quickly to future infections by the same pathogen.

The success of most COVID-19 vaccines under development rests on whether they can produce neutralising antibodies. How does one measure these antibodies? How long do these take to develop, and how long do they last?

Researchers from Emory University in Atlanta, USA provide answers to some of these questions in a preprint paper posted on the medRxiv server on May 8. Using molecular biology and biochemical tools they obtained purified receptor binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein, which contacts the ACE2 receptors on target cells to facilitate virus entry (see illustration). Antibodies to RBD are expected to neutralise the virus.

The RBD protein was used to develop blood tests to look for anti-RBD antibodies in COVID-19 patients and assess their ability to neutralise the virus in 44 patients. The study showed that RBD-specific and virus-neutralising antibodies correlated nicely and developed very early after SARS-CoV-2 infection. When validated with 231 hospitalised COVID-19 patients, the RBD-specific antibody test was highly sensitive and specific, and found to be a good surrogate for measuring neutralising antibodies.

These findings have important implications for our understanding of protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2, the use of immune plasma as a therapy, and the development of much-needed vaccines, said Mehul S. Suthar, co-lead author of the study, in an Emory University press release. This study provides a snapshot of the immune response as it is happening, not after the battle is over, he added.

Two recent papers looked at T-cells to SARS-CoV-2. In a paper published May 14, researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, California, designed peptides (small fragments) corresponding to various SARS-CoV-2 proteins and exposed blood cells from COVID-19 patients to these snippets. Their results showed that all patients carried helper T-cells and over 70% also carried killer T-cells, suggesting that the immune system was seeing the virus and mounting a response. These results agreed well with a study from Charit University Hospital, Berlin, posted on medRxiv on April 22.

These and many other T-cell studies are assisted by the Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource and the IEDB website, which is the bread and butter of T-cell epitope mapping.

But the real surprise came when blood cells from people who had no SARS-CoV-2 infection were exposed to these peptides. About a third in the Berlin study and about half in the La Jolla study carried the memory T-cells. These are likely to be from past exposure to one of four other human coronaviruses that are endemic and are estimated to cause 20-30% of common cold annually.

These are comprehensive studies characterising the T-cell response to COVID-19 virus, says Rafi Ahmed, a leading immunologist and director of the Vaccine Centre at Emory University, Atlanta. This information will be useful in designing vaccines that induce T cell immunity against COVID-19, adds Ahmed, who is also a fellow of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Most vaccines under development aim to produce an immune response against the viral spike protein, but the La Jolla study showed the presence of T cells that recognise several other viral proteins. As Ahmed suggests, these studies inform vaccine design by recommending the inclusion of other proteins as well. The whole virus attenuated and killed vaccines may therefore offer better and longer lasting protection compared to single protein vaccines.

Though T-cells are often overlooked and neutralising antibodies are typically considered a correlate to protection, it is well established that poor T cells result in poor memory B-cells and thus long-lived antibodies something all vaccine manufactures and proponents of herd immunity are looking for, says Anmol Chandele, group leader of the ICGEB-Emory Vaccine Programme at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi.

The blood test developed at Emory University also helps inform vaccine development. Scientists could test the blood of vaccine study participants for the RBD-specific antibodies as a measure of neutralising antibodies, and use it predict vaccine efficacy. The infusion of blood plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients has been proposed as a potential therapy for critical patients. This blood test would also be useful in assessing the therapeutic value of convalescent plasma before infusion.

The Emory University researchers are now using the blood test to assess neutralising antibodies in people who get mild disease or remain asymptomatic. This would inform if such people are at a risk of re-infection. In a pandemic situation, it may also be better placed to offer immunity passports.

Commenting on the Emory study, of which he is an author, Ahmed says, This study makes the important observation that COVID-19 patients rapidly generate neutralising antibodies against the virus. This is a very hopeful sign for protective immunity against re-infection in the recovered patients. This, he says has important implications for public health and for COVID-19 vaccines.

The La Jolla T-cell study links well with the Emory antibody study, where the key result is that RBD-binding antibody titres beautifully correlate to neutralising antibody titres in an individual, adds Chandele, who was not part of either study.

These studies offer hope that vaccine developers will no longer fly blind.

Dr Shahid Jameel is a former Group Leader of Virology at ICGEB, New Dehi, India. He is currently CEO, DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance.

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Humans will be able to replace their bodies within 50 years claims transhumanist writer – Express.co.uk

Posted: at 3:34 pm

Transhumanists believe humans can and should use technology to artificially augment their capabilities.Natasha Vita-More is Executive Director of Humanity+, formerly the World Transhumanist Association, and is one of the co-authors of the 1998 Transhumanist Declaration.

Speaking toExpress.co.ukshe said: We certainly do need to upgrade our biology and Ive been speaking about this for 30-something years.

The fact that our biology is vulnerable. We exist on a daily basis with an incredible vulnerable vehicle, our bodies, that anything could go wrong at any time.

As far as genetic engineering goes weve seen great work done with certain diseases like Tay-Sachs and sickle-cell anemia, certain cancers, certain diseases that handicap us.

Other gene therapies are in the works and there still needs to be far more work in this area and I think most of us will be undergoing gene therapy as soon as it comes online as needed.

Say 50 years from now I think well be looking at alternative bodies and we can see that really growing in the field of prosthetics.

Transhumanists think human lifespans can be radically extended, with many believing ageing can be reversed and death from disease abolished.

Ms Vita-More argued future humans will look to backup the content of their brains as an insurance policy against death or injury.

She asserted: It is essential our memories be stored some place.

Currently our memories are stored in our brain but thats vulnerable. We have hackers all the time in our brains and those are called viruses and disease.

Disease is constantly hacking our neurons so in order to protect that we need to have copies of it, we need to back it up and you see certain industry leaders like Google looking at how to back up the brain.

I see uploading as a necessary technology for not only backing up the brain but as a means for us to go into different environments.

Were currently in this physical/material world, this biosphere, there are other worlds yet to be explored just as were looking at space exploration.

READ MORE:Oxford academic claims future humans could live for thousands of years

Another area is virtual reality, augmented reality, all these other systems even in games to go into games and participate as yourself taking on an avatar or maybe something else.

Asked about those who might object, on religious or moral grounds, to radical life extension Ms Vita-More expressed confidence their arguments would be overcome.

She commented: I think its largely religious but I think it is also innate.

I think the narrative is engrained in culturalization, it seems to be endemic across cultures.

Given that plus the largest percentage of people on our planet are religious that puts a damper on it too. However it doesnt prevent it.

It could be interesting if we see religious doctrines changing a little bit to include life extension and changing as weve seen with divorce.

If you believe an afterlife it doesnt have to happen at exactly a certain time. Maybe instead of 90 as a lifespan maybe 300 if you want to go that route.

So well see a realisation that religions have to keep up with the state of society and their members within that.

Ms Vita-More is also an advisor to the Singularity University and co-editor and contributing author to The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future.

Asked what most excites her about the future she replied: I would like to totally reengineer my body, its not available yet but Id like to have a whole new body thats smoothly integrated not only with narrow artificial intelligence (AI) but with artificial general intelligence and Id like to have a metabrain where Id have AI working with me like a best friend or cohort.

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Humans will be able to replace their bodies within 50 years claims transhumanist writer - Express.co.uk

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Menu of solutions, no silver bullet, to feed the world – FeedStrategy.com

Posted: at 3:34 pm

There is no silver bullet to the ability to feed a global population of more than 9 billion people by 2050. There is a menu of solutions across many sectors of the food economy, according to Jack Bobo, CEO of food consultancy firm Futurity, who spoke May 21 during Alltechs ONE Virtual Experience.

When it comes to sustainability, the ideas of local sustainability vs. global sustainability are often very different from each other, Bobo said.

When we think about local sustainability, thats really how most consumers think about sustainability, because theyre thinking about farmers using less fertilizer and less insecticide and producing things in a way that doesnt have runoff into the local environment, he said. They want to have less of an impact of agriculture on the land.

But, he pointed out, methods such as organic agriculture result in 20-30% less food for a given amount of land.

Imagine for a moment that the entire world were organic: What would that mean? he asked. Well, the main thing it would mean is that we just wouldnt have any forest anymore, because we would need 20% to 30% more land in order to produce the food we have. And 40% of all the land on earth is already used for agriculture. So that would have a devastating impact.

For this reason, the concept of global sustainability is the opposite of local sustainability.

Its about prioritizing intensive agriculture in one place in order to protect the environment somewhere else, he said. That could mean more intensive livestock production through contained animal feeding where you see the environmental impact locally of that intensive agricultural production. But what you dont see is that you dont need to have more animals going out into in Brazil, where they have to cut down forests in order to make way for expanded livestock production. So, you dont see the land protected; you only see the local impact. This comparison between local and global sustainability is part of the different story that were telling.

But, Bobo said we need local and global sustainability; neither one is right or wrong.

Its really about choices and consequences, he said. But there are consequences to the choices we make.

Those choices the menu of solutions will be different across various regions or sectors, and they will all work together to create a better food production system to feed the world.

Rather than thinking about sustainability as farming is the problem, I like to think that Im just happy that consumers and conservationists are now joining farmers on this journey of sustainability, because we could use their help, he said. And instead of framing it as agriculture is the problem to be solved, we need to help them to understand that agriculture is the solution to the problem.

Some of the solutions Bobo discussed include:

Shifting diets: For many, if we would all just become vegan or vegetarian, we wouldnt have any problems, he said.

But, while there is a need for a healthier diet in the developed world, in low-income regions, people eat more protein as their income increases.

So, even if we do shift diets in the United States and Europe and places like that, people are going to be shifting their diets in a way that increases the impact of agriculture in most places around the world, he said.

Food waste: One-third of all the food produced is lost to food waste, Bobo said. The good news is that people are much more focused on this issue than they were 20 years ago. But, in the developed world, that waste is post-consumer whereas in the developing world, the waste happens along the supply chain.

Addressing food waste is hard, because food waste is not one problem. Food waste is a thousand problems, he said. Food waste doesnt just occur in the field. It doesnt just occur in storage. It doesnt just occur during distribution. It occurs at all of these different points along the supply chain.

Cover crops: While organic farmers have advocated for cover crops for decades, big data has shown a return on investment that has larger farmers also adopting this low-tech solution.

Cover crops are adding some nutrients theyre reducing soil erosion, he said.

Gene editing and genetic engineering: These are more high-tech solutions to increasing crop production and lowering environmental impact. Plants can be genetically engineered to be resistant to insect damage or be more tolerant to drought, for example.

There are all sorts of solutions to the problems of agriculture. And they occur, whether its organic, high tech, or otherwise, he said.

Alternative proteins: Whether its companies that create alternative proteins through fermentation, cellular technology or plant-based products, they are all competing for market share instead of working together toward a solution.

When we think about trying to feed the world in 2050, the market opportunity is $1 trillion dollars just in the protein space, he said. Who really believes that plant-based meat is going to become a trillion-dollar industry in just 30 years? And even if, somehow, they did become a trillion-dollar industry, so what? We wouldnt lose a single cow, we wouldnt lose any cattle. Wed still be producing all of that food in the same way that we did, and hopefully, in a much, much more environmentally friendly way.

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Menu of solutions, no silver bullet, to feed the world - FeedStrategy.com

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Emerging courses: How to become a healthcare engineer – The Indian Express

Posted: at 3:34 pm

New Delhi | Updated: May 22, 2020 3:16:36 pm

Written by Dr R L Raina

With the Indian government keen on promoting India as a medical tourist destination for patients seeking affordable treatment, there is going to be a demand for healthcare professionals. To meet this demand, a new course on healthcare engineering has emerged for students. It is a multi-disciplinary specialty that focuses on advancing this sector through engineering approaches involving both healthcare and engineering professionals.

In this course, candidates will not only need to know their subject, but also possess entrepreneurial skills, along with business and technology acumen. Researchers work with clinicians, collaborators and patients to identify and solve problems that are relevant today. They use scientific, engineering methodology to create solutions to complex health care problems and improve quality of life.

As a healthcare engineer, one needs to have the knowledge of engineering principles that will enable him/her to come up with solutions for healthcare. At times, it is also concerned with the development and design of a medical product. Some of the major skills that an aspirant requires:

Analytical skills Good eye for design Vast knowledge about various diseases Attention to detailing Communication

To pursue a Bachelors degree in healthcare engineering, a candidate must have cleared class 12 exams, with science subjects like biology, mathematics, physics, and chemistry. The course curriculum will be around the application of engineering tools in the healthcare industry and developing new cutting edge equipment to protect people from illness and injury, and property from damage.

Read |Colleges offering AI-powered exams from home: All you need to know about proctoring

Engineers are always in demand in healthcare. It is a misconception that only people who have studied biomedical and clinical engineering can become healthcare engineers. Even students pursuing chemical, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, industrial, information, materials, mechanical, software and systems engineering can pursue this field.

Biomechanics: It is the study of the structure, function and motion of the mechanical aspects of biological systems by using the methods of mechanics.

Medical devices: Under this, a student should have knowledge about devices that benefit patients by helping healthcare providers diagnose and treat patients and helping them overcome sickness or disease, improving their quality of life.

Genetic engineering: It is the knowledge of a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including the transfer of genes within and across species boundaries to produce improved or novel organisms.

Read |IIT-Gandhinagar launches PG courses, direct admission for students affected by coronavirus

Health Informatics: This is the study of a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including the transfer of genes within and across species boundaries to produce improved or novel organisms.

Emergency Management: According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), emergency is a state in which normal procedures are interrupted, and immediate measures need to be taken to prevent that state from turning into a disaster. Thus, emergency management is crucial to avoid the disruption transforming into a disaster, which is even harder to recover from.

If you are interested in public health challenges, this is the perfect time to pursue a career in healthcare engineering. It is in high demand as they have a crucial role to play in terms of designing and validating models in the context of public health, predictive modelling, epidemiological studies, machine learning and data visualisation. These skills are already some of the most sought after across a wide variety of sectors, and healthcare has also caught up during the current crisis.

Healthcare engineering covers the following two major fields:

Engineering for Healthcare Intervention: This comes into play when there are chances of any treatment, preventive care, or test that a person could take or undergo to improve health or to help with a particular health problem.

Read | How will colleges function post lockdown

Engineering for Healthcare Systems: Engineering involved in the complete network of organisations, agencies, facilities, information systems, management systems, financing mechanisms, logistics, and all trained personnel engaged in delivering healthcare within a geographical area.

Universities offering this course

Since it is a relatively new course in India, none of the Indian universities offer this course yet, but some international universities do, such as Texas Tech University, Cambridge University, and John Hopkins University.

The author is vice-chancellor, JK Lakshmipat University

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Category Archives: Transhuman News

How to live to 100 – Business Times

How Ancient Fossil DNA Reveals the Secrets of Our Human Origins – Ancient Origins

Covid-19 versus genomics and other advanced technologies – E&T Magazine

The impact of the coronavirus on the Genetic Engineering Market Solid Analyzed Segmentation, Demand, Recent Share Estimation and Growth Prospects by…

One of the World’s Most Powerful Scientists Believes in Miracles – Scientific American

Emerging from stealth, Octant is bringing the tools of synthetic biology to large scale drug discovery – TechCrunch

COVID-19 Vaccines: A Reason to Hope We’re Flying Blind No More – The Wire

Humans will be able to replace their bodies within 50 years claims transhumanist writer – Express.co.uk

Menu of solutions, no silver bullet, to feed the world – FeedStrategy.com

Emerging courses: How to become a healthcare engineer – The Indian Express

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