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Category Archives: Transhuman News

Study Asserts Climate Change Could Make South Asia Uninhabitable in Our Lifetime – Futurism

Posted: August 11, 2017 at 5:40 pm

In Brief New research shows how, by the year 2100, many regions in South Asia could become so hot that humans could no longer survive there. Climate Change

The consequences of climate change are not only real and imminent, but increasingly catastrophic. Currently, climate change is has been attributed to dangerously increasing temperatures, sea levels rising, the extinction of a variety of species, and much more. Without fierce opposition, the effects of climate change will only become more and more destructive. Natural disasters, mass flooding, food shortages and other crises are all possible (some already happening, in fact) if current trends continue. One part of the world may even become uninhabitable in our lifetime.

Elfatih Eltahir, a professor at MIT, recently published new research in the journal Science Advances that shows how, by the end of the century, areas in South Asia could be too hot for humans to survive there. In a Skype interview from Khartoum, Sudan with CBC News, Eltahir said, The risk of the impacts of climate change in that region could be quite severe.

Eltahir and his colleagues analyzed this projected situation under two conditions: a business-as-usual model and a model in which we increase our efforts to mitigate emissions.The team concluded that the business-as-usual model was not only most likely, but would yield unlivable conditions by the year 2100.

The effects of the projected heat waves will not fall over sparse landscapes that would be easily escapable. They will wash over the densely populated, agricultural areas of South Asia, directly threatening the lives of countless inhabitants who because many of the people living there live in poverty will be essentially trapped in the deadly conditions.

Climate change has already taken lives, and isnt slowing down. This deadly heat wave scenario would only be a piece of the puzzle in the year 2100. Where will the people of the agricultural regions of South Asia go if the rest of the planet is also facing the catastrophic effects of global warming? (That is, of course, if they are able to leave at all in future socioeconomic conditions.) The only way is forward, and the only way forward includes our best efforts against climate change.

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Study Asserts Climate Change Could Make South Asia Uninhabitable in Our Lifetime - Futurism

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Cliff-top Scarborough residents say theatre demolition could destroy their homes – ITV News

Posted: at 5:40 pm

Cliff-top home owners in Scarborough say their homes could fall down - if plans to demolish a theatre go ahead. Roger Pickford says his home - along with up to 100 others could be at risk, if the Futurist theatre is knocked down.

The Borough Council's plans for how to tackle demolishing it go on public display this week. It says it's aware the cliff above it could collapse, and that it's looking at spending around 4 million on preventative work.

The Futurist closed in 2014, after being deemed unsustainable as a theatrical venue.

In its heyday, the Futurist drew in thousands of visitors for its summer seasons. Roger Pickering lives directly above the theatre and is part of a campaign group against the plan.

''They were talking about the risks to the demolition, which included what they term a catastrophic cliff collapse, which would impact on all residents, and all businesses in and around the Futurist theatre.''

Scarborough Council says that it's set aside 4 million for work to stabilise the cliff, and that if any unforeseen costs came up it might have to reconsider the demolition. A few weeks ago the campaign group's bid for a judicial review failed.

Diana Tasker says it would cost less than 4 million to refurbish the 1920s buidling - which once played host to Ken Dodd and the Beatles.

''It just does not make economic sense. Why do something that people don't want - and spend a lot of money on it?''

The council argues that peoples' tastes have changed and summer entertainment that the Futurist used to host is no longer sustainable.

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Cliff-top Scarborough residents say theatre demolition could destroy their homes - ITV News

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Research to advance disease therapies, understand cosmic rays among cargo headed to space station – Phys.Org

Posted: August 10, 2017 at 5:48 am

August 9, 2017 by Kristine Rainey NASA Astronaut Jack Fischer works within the Japanese Experiment Module on CASIS PCG 6. CASIS PCG 7 will utilize the orbiting laboratory's microgravity environment to grow larger versions of Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2), implicated in Parkinson's disease. Credit: NASA

The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft is targeted for launch August 14 from Kennedy Space Center for its twelfth commercial resupply (CRS-12) mission to the International Space Station.

The flight will deliver investigations and instruments that study cosmic rays, protein crystal growth, stem cell-mediated recellularization and a nanosateliite technology demonstration. The vehicle will also deliver crew supplies and equipment to crew members living aboard the station.

Here are some highlights of research that will be delivered:

Investigation studies cosmic rays

Cosmic rays reach Earth from far outside the solar system with energies well beyond what man-made accelerators can achieve. The Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM) instrument, attached to the Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility, measures the charges of cosmic rays ranging from hydrogen to iron nuclei. The data collected from the CREAM instrument will be used to address fundamental science questions such as:

Tested in several long duration balloon flights, the CREAM instrument holds the longest known exposure record for a single balloon-borne experiment at approximately 160 days of exposure. CREAM's three-year mission will help the scientific community build a stronger understanding of the fundamental structure of the universe.

Microgravity-grown protein crystals aid in understanding of Parkinson's disease

The microgravity environment of the space station allows protein crystals to grow larger and in more perfect shapes than earth-grown crystals, allowing them to be better analyzed on Earth. Developed by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, Anatrace and Com-Pac International, the Crystallization of Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) under Microgravity Conditions (CASIS PCG 7) investigation will use the orbiting laboratory's microgravity environment to grow larger versions of this important protein, implicated in Parkinson's disease.

Defining the exact shape and morphology of LRRK2 would help scientists to better understand the pathology of Parkinson's and aid in the development of therapies against this target.

Telescope-hosting nanosatellite tests new concept

The Kestrel Eye (NanoRacks-KE IIM) investigation is a microsatellite carrying an optical imaging system payload. This investigation validates the concept of using microsatellites in low-Earth orbit to support critical operations, such as providing lower-cost Earth imagery in time-sensitive situations such as tracking severe weather and detecting natural disasters.

Sponsored by the space station U.S. National Laboratory, the overall mission goal for the investigation is to demonstrate that small satellites are viable platforms for providing critical path support to operations and hosting advanced payloads.

Growth of lung tissue in space could provide information about disease pathology

The Effect of Microgravity on Stem Cell Mediated Recellularization (Lung Tissue) uses the microgravity environment of space to test strategies for growing new lung tissue. Using bioengineering techniques, the Lung Tissue investigation cultures different types of lung cells in controlled conditions aboard the space station. The cells are grown in a specialized framework that supplies them with critical growth factors so that scientists can observe how gravity affects growth and specialization as cells become new lung tissue.

Tissue mimic models such as this also have the potential to be used for assessing drug or chemical toxicity by biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and could allow for rapid testing of new chemicals and compounds, considerably lowering the overall costs for research and development of new drugs. The ultimate goal of this investigation is to produce bioengineered human lung tissue that can be used as a predictive model of human responses allowing for the study of lung development, lung physiology or disease pathology.

These investigations and others launching aboard CRS-12 will join many other investigations currently happening aboard the space station. Follow @ISS_Research for more information about the science happening on station.

Explore further: Crystals grown aboard space station provide radiation detecting technology

Research into crystal growth in microgravity was one of the earliest investigations conducted aboard the International Space Station and is continued to this day. The unique microgravity environment of space provides an ideal ...

A wide variety of research relies on growing cells in culture on Earth, but handling these cells is challenging. With better techniques, scientists hope to reduce loss of cells from culture media, create cultures in specific ...

Models of human disease are beneficial for medical research, but have limitations in predicting the way a drug will behave within the human body using data from non-human models because of inherent differences between species. ...

Growing significant numbers of human stem cells in a short time could lead to new treatments for stroke and other diseases. Scientists are sending stem cells to the International Space Station to test whether these cells ...

Crew members aboard the International Space Station will begin conducting research this week to improve the way we grow crystals on Earth. The information gained from the experiments could speed up the process for drug development, ...

SpaceX is scheduled to launch its Dragon spacecraft for its eleventh commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station June 1 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center's historic pad 39A. Dragon will lift into orbit atop ...

New evidence from ancient lunar rocks suggests that an active dynamo once churned within the molten metallic core of the moon, generating a magnetic field that lasted at least 1 billion years longer than previously thought. ...

A new study by an international team of astronomers reveals that four Earth-sized planets orbit the nearest sun-like star, tau Ceti, which is about 12 light years away and visible to the naked eye. These planets have masses ...

As the hullabaloo surrounding the Aug. 21 total eclipse of the sun swells by the day, a University of Colorado Boulder faculty member says a petroglyph in New Mexico's Chaco Canyon may represent a total eclipse that occurred ...

After conducting a cosmic inventory of sorts to calculate and categorize stellar-remnant black holes, astronomers from the University of California, Irvine have concluded that there are probably tens of millions of the enigmatic, ...

Studies of molecular clouds have revealed that star formation usually occurs in a two-step process. First, supersonic flows compress the clouds into dense filaments light-years long, after which gravity collapses the densest ...

A group of astronomers led by Javier Lorenzo of the University of Alicante, Spain, has discovered that the binary star system HD 64315 is more complex than previously thought. The new study reveals that HD 64315 contains ...

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Research to advance disease therapies, understand cosmic rays among cargo headed to space station - Phys.Org

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Parkinson’s Experiment to Be Aboard Next Flight to International Space Station – Parkinson’s News Today

Posted: at 5:48 am

The United States is just four days away from sending a SpaceXrocket to theInternational Space Stationwhose cargo will include a Parkinsons diseaseexperiment.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials said the experiment will involve growingleucine-rich repeat kinase 2protein crystals in the near-zero-gravity conditions of space.

Scientists hope the LRRK2 crystals will be larger and more regular in space, allowing them to see the proteins structure for the first time. They have been unable to obtain an image of the protein on Earth that is high-resolution enough to display its structure. Until they know what the structure is, they will be unable to design a Parkinsons therapy around the protein.

The Dragon spacecraft will carry hardware, supplies for the space stations crew, and scientific research material. It will be SpaceXs 12th mission to the orbiting laboratory.

Funding for the Parkinsons experimentis coming from theMichael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinsons Researchand theCenter for the Advancement of Science in Space.

Marco Baptista, the Fox foundations director of Research and Grants, and Dr. Sebastian Mathea of the University of Oxford discussed the experiment during amedia teleconferenceabout the launch on Aug. 8.

Only about 10 percent of Parkinsons cases stem from genetic mutations. Of those,LRRK2 mutations are the most common.

The percentage of LRRK2-linked Parkinsons cases is much higher in someethnic groups, however. They account for 40 percent of cases amongNorth African Arab Berbers, for example, and 15 to 20 percent of cases amongAshkenazi Jews.

Parkinsons researchers hopelarger, better-formed protein crystals with fewer defects can yield the high-resolution views of LRRK2 they need.

A detailed view of the shape and form of LRRK2s crystalline structure could be an important step toward understanding and accelerating development of LRRK2 inhibitor therapies that can prevent, slow, or stop the progression of Parkinsons.

The unique environment of the International Space Station untethers research from restrictions imposed by gravity, Gregory H. Johnson, executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, said in a press release. The organization is glad to partner with The Michael J. Fox Foundation to explore the structure of this important piece of the Parkinsons puzzle, he said.

Launch is scheduled for Aug. 13 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Other scientists who participated in the teleconference included:

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Parkinson's Experiment to Be Aboard Next Flight to International Space Station - Parkinson's News Today

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Bridgeport high school sending experiment to International Space Station – CT Post

Posted: at 5:48 am

Photo: Contributed / Contributed

From left to right, Fairchild Wheeler studentsKiana Laude, Raysa Leguizamon, Uchenna Oguagha, Kiana Laude, and Jucar Lopes.

Fairchild Wheeler Aerospace students get their experiment ready for the space shuttle

Standing, teacher Luke Fatsy sitting, from left; Uchenna Oguagha Kiana Laude, Raysa Leguizamon, and Jucar Lopes, all of Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School

The International Space Station (ISS).

Bridgeport high school sending experiment to International Space Station

BRIDGEPORT If all goes as planned a mission to the International Space Station with 21 student experiments on board, including one from Fairchild Wheeler will finally take off on Sunday.

Delayed four times already, the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program (SSEP) Mission 11 is set to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The Bridgeport experiment comes from four students at the Aerospace/Hydrospace Engineering and Physical Sciences School at the Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet Campus in Bridgeport.

The team included Jucar Lopes of Milford, Uchenna Oguagha of Bridgeport, Kiana Laude of Trumbull and Raysa Leguizamon of Bridgeport.

Entitled Microgravity's Effect on Immune System Response of Model Species: An Interaction between Daphnia magna and Pasteuria ramosa, the experiment looks at the effects of microgravity on the human immune system.

The experiment substitutes water fleas for humans and looks at how well they can fight off a foreign invader in this case a bacteria called Pasteuria romosa.

On earth, water fleas can handle that bacteria pretty well. In space, against freeze dried samples of the bacteria? Time will tell.

Once the experiment is completed by astronauts on the space station, the water fleas will be returned to Earth to measure the protein levels in their blood.

The Fairchild experiment was selected from among 1,959 student team proposals, engaging 9,870 grade 5-16 students in microgravity experiment design. Fairchilds is one of two experiments from Connecticut. The other comes from East Hartford.

Others originated in California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and two from Canada.

Before it was sent to SSEP, there was an internal competition among Fairchild seniors all working on capstone research projects exploring solutions to real world problems. Three were submitted for consideration.

Fairchild Wheelers participation in the SSEP was funded in part by the Connecticut Space Grant Consortium. Community partners include the University of Bridgeport and the Discovery Museum and Planetarium.

It is expected the mission will last five weeks.

Because of the launch delays, a backup team of students met on campus in July to pack up and ship the experiment to Florida, said Jay Lipp, principal of the Aerospace school.

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Comparing Reactions of different Groups to Nuclear Thermal Rocket enabled space colonization – Next Big Future

Posted: at 5:48 am

Nextbigfuture wrote about the designs for an improved nuclear thermal rocket by John Bucknell. John has worked as a senior engineer on the Spacex Raptor rocket. John provides high quality qualified work to his rocket designs and to his proposed space habitat.

Nextbigfuture comments had some technical observations about Project Timberwind and a comment from John himself that his design improves on flaws in the last major nuclear thermal rocket experiments. There were also comments and discussion about Star Trek and communism and ONeill space stations.

Reddit futurology had two comments. One positive comment by the submitter and a negative comment complaining that the factual title was hype.Instapundit has mainly positive commentary with acknowledgement that nuclear thermal rockets that accepts the technically feasible and proven nature of the technology. There were technical comments about the Von Braun wheel and the radius and rotation rates for the simulated gravity.

The Instapundit audience bemoans the wasted government spending and the comments related to this article also complained about NASA as a jobs program and not trying to achieve real space development.

The top article on Reddit Futurology on the same day with over 14000 upvotes and nearly 3000 comments was about a United Nations group discussing universal basic income.

This youtube video deeply researched and analyzed 2001 a Space Odyssey. Fred Ordway explained how Kubrick and Clarke expected continued development of the Nerva nuclear thermal rocket to achieve a manned Mars mission by 1985-1987. They then expect more advanced nuclear thermal, nuclear gaseous core or a nuclear Orion to be used for the Jupiter mission in 2001. Kubrick had NASA advisors for the technical aspects of the film.

Filming began on 2001 in 1965 and the film was released in 1968. An child of 3 at the start of filming 2001 would be retiring at age 65 today.

We have known what the technology would be that could enable exploration and colonization of the solar system for 60 years and it would only take about 5 years of a focused program to bring it about at any point in the last 50 years. During that time the NASA budget has been nearly $20 billion per year in inflation adjusted dollars and the US Military and soy agency space budgets have been nearly and inflation adjusted $40 billion per year. $3.6 trillion inflation adjusted dollars have been spent on space.

Until Spacex and other than Apollo we have become accepting and expecting very little to be accomplished in space. Even with Spacex showing that ten times more can be accomplished from the few percent of budgets actually spent on rocket development and space missions, there is still the sense that little can and should be done in space.

It is as if Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile of Spain and their descendants accepted 60-80 years of annual ship voyages around the Mediterranean instead of a vigorous colonization and development of North America despite funding at a level that could easily colonize the Americas.

Many people today hope for new undeveloped technology breakthroughs to superconductors, fusion and metallic hydrogen to some how make things so easy that the bureaucracy and waste would not piss it away and still accomplish nothing.

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Comparing Reactions of different Groups to Nuclear Thermal Rocket enabled space colonization - Next Big Future

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When genetic engineering is the environmentally friendly choice – GreenBiz

Posted: at 5:47 am

This article originally ran on Ensia.

Which is more disruptive to a plant: genetic engineering or conventional breeding?

It often surprises people to learn that GE commonly causes less disruption to plants than conventional techniques of breeding. But equally profound is the realization that the latest GE techniques, coupled with a rapidly expanding ability to analyze massive amounts of genetic material, allow us to make super-modest changes in crop plant genes that will enable farmers to produce more food with fewer adverse environmental impacts. Such super-modest changes are possible with CRISPR-based genome editing, a powerful set of new genetic tools that is leading a revolution in biology.

My interest in GE crops stems from my desire to provide more effective and sustainable plant disease control for farmers worldwide. Diseases often destroy 10 to 15 percent of potential crop production, resulting in global losses of billions of dollars annually. The risk of disease-related losses provides an incentive to farmers to use disease-control products such as pesticides.

One of my strongest areas of expertise is in the use of pesticides for disease control. Pesticides certainly can be useful in farming systems worldwide, but they have significant downsides from a sustainability perspective. Used improperly, they can contaminate foods. They can pose a risk to farm workers. And they must be manufactured, shipped and applied all processes with a measurable environmental footprint. Therefore, I am always seeking to reduce pesticide use by offering farmers more sustainable approaches to disease management.

It often surprises people to learn that GE commonly causes less disruption to plants than conventional techniques of breeding.

What follows are examples of how minimal GE changes can be applied to make farming more environmentally friendly by protecting crops from disease. They represent just a small sampling of the broad landscape of opportunities for enhancing food security and agricultural sustainability that innovations in molecular biology offer today.

Genetically altering crops the way these examples demonstrate creates no cause for concern for plants or people. Mutations occur naturally every time a plant makes a seed; in fact, they are the very foundation of evolution. All of the food we eat has all kinds of mutations, and eating plants with mutations does not cause mutations in us.

A striking example of how a tiny genetic change can make a big difference to plant health is the strategy of "knocking out" a plant gene that microorganisms can benefit from. Invading microorganisms sometimes hijack certain plant molecules to help themselves infect the plant. A gene that produces such a plant molecule is known as a susceptibility gene.

We can use CRISPR-based genome editing to create a "targeted mutation" in a susceptibility gene. A change of as little as a single nucleotide in the plants genetic material the smallest genetic change possible can confer disease resistance in a way that is absolutely indistinguishable from natural mutations that can happen spontaneously. Yet if the target gene and mutation site are carefully selected, a one-nucleotide mutation may be enough to achieve an important outcome.

A substantial body of research shows proof-of-concept that a knockout of a susceptibility gene can increase resistance in plants to a wide variety of disease-causing microorganisms. An example that caught my attention pertained to powdery mildew of wheat, because fungicides (pesticides that control fungi) are commonly used against this disease. While this particular genetic knockout is not yet commercialized, I personally would rather eat wheat products from varieties that control disease through genetics than from crops treated with fungicides.

Plant viruses are often difficult to control in susceptible crop varieties. Conventional breeding can help make plants resistant to viruses, but sometimes it is not successful.

Early approaches to engineering virus resistance in plants involved inserting a gene from the virus into the plants genetic material. For example, plant-infecting viruses are surrounded by a protective layer of protein, called the "coat protein." The gene for the coat protein of a virus called papaya ring spot virus was inserted into papaya. Through a process called RNAi, this empowers the plant to inactivate the virus when it invades. GE papaya has been a spectacular success, in large part saving the Hawaiian papaya industry.

Mutations occur naturally every time a plant makes a seed; in fact, they are the very foundation of evolution.

Through time, researchers discovered that even just a very small fragment from one viral gene can stimulate RNAi-based resistance if precisely placed within a specific location in the plants DNA. Even better, they found we can "stack" resistance genes engineered with extremely modest changes in order to create a plant highly resistant to multiple viruses. This is important because, in the field, crops are often exposed to infection by several viruses.

Does eating this tiny bit of a viral gene sequence concern me? Absolutely not, for many reasons, including:

Microorganisms often can overcome plants biochemical defenses by producing molecules called effectors that interfere with those defenses. Plants respond by evolving proteins to recognize and disable these effector molecules. These recognition proteins are called "R" proteins ("R" standing for "resistance"). Their job is to recognize the invading effector molecule and trigger additional defenses. A third interesting approach, then, to help plants resist an invading microorganism is to engineer an R protein so that it recognizes effector molecules other than the one it evolved to detect. We can then use CRISPR to supply a plant with the very small amount of DNA needed to empower it to make this protein.

This approach, like susceptibility knockouts, is quite feasible, based on published research. Commercial implementation will require some willing private- or public-sector entity to do the development work and to face the very substantial and costly challenges of the regulatory process.

The three examples here show that extremely modest engineered changes in plant genetics can result in very important benefits. All three examples involve engineered changes that trigger the natural defenses of the plant. No novel defense mechanisms were introduced in these research projects, a fact that may appeal to some consumers. The wise use of the advanced GE methods illustrated here, as well as others described elsewhere, has the potential to increase the sustainability of our food production systems, particularly given the well-established safety of GE crops and their products for consumption.

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When genetic engineering is the environmentally friendly choice - GreenBiz

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Global: Engineering the Future of Our Food – STRATFOR

Posted: at 5:47 am

Biotechnology company, AquaBounty Technologies, sold 4.5 metric tons of genetically modified salmon Aug. 4 on the open Canadian market. The seminal transaction occurred after Canadian authorities approved the fish for human consumption in 2016. The sale marks a long-awaited victory for the company that has spent the better part of three decades working to bring their fast-growing salmon to dinner tables.

The modifications, which incorporate genes from two additional species of fish (the Chinook salmon and ocean pout), enable the salmon to grow in about half the time as non-engineered species. AquaBounty already has plans to expand its Panamanian production to facilities in Prince Edward Island, Canada. Additionally, the company is awaiting approval to begin production at recently acquired facilities in Indiana. Proponents see this type of engineering as a solution to growing uncertainty over supply in the market. Traditional salmon producing areas, however, have voiced objections to growing competition in a market.

Those objections have stalled the sale of the AquaBounty product in the United States, despite approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) six months before the Canadian government. Specifically, debate surrounding labeling requirements (heavily backed by Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski) have delayed the sale of genetically modified salmon. But this is just the beginning. The journey from tank to table is important for more than just the salmon industry. Livestock producers of a number of different species also are waiting in anticipation for how this will play out. Genetic engineering trials for pigs, cattle and goats are underway. How fast policy catches up to technological developments will in part dictate the rate of adoption of biotechnology throughout the agricultural sector (in the United States and globally). This case, and other early endeavors, have the ability to set the precedent for others to follow, especially as genetic engineering techniques improve and become cheaper.

As we see genetic engineering techniques progress and knowledge spread about the purpose of specific genes, policy surrounding the sale of manipulated organisms will become crucial to the sector. In January, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration opened up a commenting period (that closed in June) on expanding the scope of its "Guidance for Industry #187." In non-legal speak, that is the directive on requirements for genetically modified or engineered labeling. In addition to the recombinant DNA technology that was prevalent in the later part of the 20th century (and what AquaBounty used to develop the salmon in question), the new language would include improved methods, including the much-touted CRISPR.

Meanwhile, the continued development of biotechnology remains a key strategy for both the United States and China, and both countries will likely remain undeterred from this approach moving forward. External drivers, demographics, changing dietary patterns and climate change are going to force producers to do more with less. Biotechnology (gene editing and the increased knowledge of genomic purpose) allow for better control of beneficial traits, whether it is a faster growing fish or pigs that emit less phosphorus. As its relevance grows, we will also see an increased emphasis on biotechnology in trade negotiations, especially as policies and protocols seek to better address emerging technologies.

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Global: Engineering the Future of Our Food - STRATFOR

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It’s Time to Stop Asking Whether Human Genetic Engineering Should Happen and Start Planning to Manage it Safely – HuffPost

Posted: at 5:47 am

The DNA of early human embryos carrying a sequence leading to hypertrophic cardiomyopathya potentially deadly heart defecthas been edited to ensure they would carry a healthy DNA sequence if brought to term. The Nature paper announcing this has reenergized a terrific national and international debate over whether permanent changes in DNA that can be passed from one generation to another should be made. Bioethicists are asking, Should we genetically engineer children? while some potential parents are almost certainly asking, When will this technique be available?

The Should questions bioethicists are asking are probably not relevant. The only question whose answer ultimately matters is: Can techniques like CRISP-R be used to genetically engineer children safely? Because a variety of forces guarantee that if they can be, they will be.

The key questions reliable practitioners must answer are: Can we prove it works? Then: Can it be used safely?. If yes on these questions, then we will see: Who is marketing this technique to potential parents? Finally, we will learn: Where was it done, who did it, and who paid for its use?

We are closer than ever before to using CRISP-R to replace dangerous DNA sequences with those that wont keep a baby from being healthy. Fortunately, this Nature paper leaves many questions Unanswered because the embryos were not allowed to come to term.

Most importantly, we still dont know Could the embryos have developed into viable babies? Just as in 2015 when researchers at Sun Yat-Sen University in China didnt implant engineered embryos into a womans womb, the scientists who published in Nature recently didnt feel ready (and didnt have permission) to try this potentially enormous step. As experiments proceed, this question will, at some point, be answered.

It will be answered because there is an enormous, proven market for techniques that can be used to ensure that a baby will be born without DNA sequences that can lead to genetically-mediated conditions; many of which are devastating as we have been tragically reminded of late.

Under the best circumstances, in-vitro fertilization leads to a live birth less than half of the time. As a result, whoever tries to see if an embryo that has had targeted DNA repaired using CRISP-R will doubtless prepare a lot of embryos for implanting in quite a few women. When those women are asked to carry these embryos to term we will not know about it. We will probably not find out if none of the embryos come to term successfully.

We *will* know about this procedure if even one baby comes to term and is born with the targeted genetic sequence corrected as intended. Until now, (and maybe even with our new knowledge), any baby brought to term after CRISP-R was used to edit and replace unhealthy DNA would have almost certainly had other DNA damaged in the editing process. This near-certainty and other concerns have held people back from trying to genetically engineer an embryo that they would then bring to term. They could not, until recently, have confidence that only the sequence being targeted has been affected. With this new Nature report, this, at least, is changing.

The results of these newly reported experiments are many steps closer to usability than the Chinese experiments reported in 2015. This is the nature of scientific experimentation, particularly when there is demand for the capability or knowledge being developed.

People try something. It either works or it doesnt. Sometimes when it doesnt work, we learn enough to adjust and try again. If it does work, it often doesnt function exactly the way we expected. Either way, people keep trying until either the technique is perfected or it ultimately proves to be unusable.

This Nature paper is an example of trying something and doing a better job than the first attempt. It does not represent a provably safe and reliable technique . Yet. If market driven research works as it often does, people will work hard to publish data (hopefully from reliable experimental work) suggesting they have a safe and effective technique. Doing so will let them tell some desperate set of wealthy prospective parents: We should be able to use this technique with an acceptable chance of giving you a healthy baby.

Princetons Lee Silver predicted parents desire for gene editing in his Remaking Eden, a book published in 1997. He argued this because people fear sickness or disability and feel strong personal, economic and social pressures to have healthy, beautiful children who should become healthy attractive adults.

People already spend a great deal on molecular techniques like pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). PGD is regularly used to reduce couples risk of having babies with known (or potential), chromosomal abnormalities and/or single gene mutations that can lead to thousands of DNA-mediated conditions.

As I showed in my Genetics dissertation published from Yale in 2004, different countries respond differently to controversial science like this. Similarly, different individuals responses are equally diverse. One poll indicates nearly half of Americans would use gene editing technology to prevent possible DNA-mediated conditions in their children. Policy makers who object to the technology therefore have a problem: if they succeed in blocking it somewhere, research and real world experience indicate other governments may well permit its use. If this happens, these techniques will be available to anyone wealthy and desperate enough to find providers with the marketingand hopefully scientificskill needed to sell people on trying them.

This gene editing controversy is a reminder that we are losing the capacity to effectively ask, Should we? As our knowledge of science grows, becomes more globalized, and is increasingly easy to acquire for people with different morals, needs and wants, we must soon be ready to ask, Can we? and ultimately, Will someone? Their answers will give us the best chance to ensure any babies that may come from any technique described as genetic engineering are born healthy, happy, and able to thrive.

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It's Time to Stop Asking Whether Human Genetic Engineering Should Happen and Start Planning to Manage it Safely - HuffPost

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Team Manipal discovers a new mitochondrial genetic disease – QS WOW News (press release) (registration)

Posted: at 5:47 am

India The department of medical genetics at Kasturba Medical College, Manipal (a constituent college of Manipal University), led by Dr Girish Katta, has discovered a new genetic disease called multiple mitochondrial dysfunction syndrome. Defects in ISCA1 gene are the likely cause of the disease in four children from two families in the region.

The team comprising clinical geneticist Dr Anju Shukla studied two families with a severe neurological disease in infancy. All four affected children died early in childhood. DNA from the first family was analysed by exome sequencing. The bioinformatics analysis then identified a similarly affected family from the in-house database of exomes. All the four children showed a severe white matter disease of brain.

The iron-sulfur (Fe-S) cluster (ISC) biogenesis pathway is indispensable for many fundamental biological processes, and pathogenic variations in genes encoding several components of the Fe-S biogenesis machinery, such as NFU1, BOLA3, IBA57 and ISCA2, are already implicated in causing four types of multiple mitochondrial dysfunctions syndromes (MMDS). The two unrelated families, with two affected children each with early onset neurological deterioration, seizures, extensive white matter abnormalities, cortical migrational abnormalities, lactic acidosis and early demise were investigated. Exome sequencing identified a homozygous c.259G>A [p.(Glu87Lys)] variant in ISCA1 gene. This was due to a founder effect. The phenotype observed in all affected subjects with the ISCA1 pathogenic variant is similar to that previously described in all four types of multiple mitochondrial dysfunctions syndrome (MMDS).

The findings suggest association of a pathogenic variant in ISCA1 with another new type MMDS, added Dr Vinod Bhat, vice chancellor of Manipal University. The research work was funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA.

The work is now published online in the highly reputed Journal of Human Genetics, published by Nature Publishing Group. A new bone disease short rib thoracic dysplasia type 16, which was identified by the same team, has already been catalogued in Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) following discovery of similar disease from United States of America.

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Team Manipal discovers a new mitochondrial genetic disease - QS WOW News (press release) (registration)

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