Category Archives: Transhuman News

Questions that Will Affect the Rest of Your Life: What the Genome Tells Us (2000)
The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up human DNA, and of identifying and...

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Questions that Will Affect the Rest of Your Life: What the Genome Tells Us (2000) - Video

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Newswise Life science researchers at Virginia Tech have accelerated a game-changing technology that's being used to study one of the planet's most lethal disease-carrying animals.

Writing in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers revealed an improved way to study genes in mosquitoes using a genome-editing method known as CRISPR-Cas9, which exploded onto the life science scene in 2012.

Editing the genome of an organism allows scientists to study it by deleting certain genes to observe how the organism is affected, or even to add new genes. The new technique makes the editing process more efficient and may accelerate efforts to develop novel mosquito-control or disease-prevention strategies.

"We've cut the human capital it takes to evaluate genes in disease-carrying mosquitoes by a factor of 10," said Zach N. Adelman, an associate professor of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a member of the Fralin Life Science Institute. "Not a lot of research groups have the resources to spend four months working with up to 5,000 mosquito embryos to investigate a gene that may ultimately have no bearing on their work. Now they can potentially do the same investigation in a week."

Mosquitoes transmit pathogens that cause malaria, dengue fever, and other high-impact diseases. In 2013, Malaria killed an estimated 584,000 people, most of them young children, according to the World Health Organization. Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and a philanthropist who supports social and health causes, has called the mosquito the world's deadliest animal.

"The mosquito is incredibly important as far as transmission of disease," said Kevin M. Myles, an associate professor of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a member of the Fralin Life Science Institute. "With this model, any scientist asking a question about a mosquito phenotype can now find its genetic cause. That's important for basic research into mosquito biology and applied research to control disease-vector mosquitoes."

The scientific community has long rallied to fight mosquito-borne diseases.

"I am excited by the paper," said Laura C. Harrington, a professor and the chairwoman of entomology at Cornell University, who was not involved in the research. "We are desperately in need of faster and more efficient ways to transform mosquitoes. This single hurdle is holding the entire field back from making the discoveries that will lead to novel and effective approaches to mosquito and, consequently, disease control."

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Virginia Tech Scientists Streamline Genome-Editing Tool to Thwart 'Deadliest' Animal

PBR Staff Writer Published 16 March 2015

German drug discovery firm Evotec and US-based biotechnology company Second Genome have entered into a partnership for small molecule-based discovery and development activities to treat microbiome-mediated diseases.

The deal, which triggers an undisclosed upfront payment, includes the discovery and optimisation of new compounds as well as licence agreements for already existing assets developed by Evotec.

Under the deal, Second Genome's approach to identify and modulate microbiome-mediated pathways will be further improved by the use and results of Evotec's integrated drug discovery platform.

Both the firms will jointly work to screen microbiome-mediated targets of interest identified by the Second Genome microbiome discovery platform with Evotec's technology platform, chemical libraries and other pre-clinical capabilities.

Evotec chief scientific officer Dr Cord Dohrmann said: "We are pleased to contribute to Second Genome's unique approach to treat microbiome-mediated diseases in the body with a particular emphasis on the gut.

"The enrichment and maturation of Second Genome's project portfolio through our contributions will enhance the Company's clinical pipeline in the near future."

As part of the collaboration, Evotec is also eligible for pre-clinical, clinical, regulatory milestones and royalty payments related to commercialisation.

Second Genome chief business officer Mohan Iyer said: "The partnership with Evotec allows us efficiently to translate our unique microbiome discovery platform efficiently into tangible drug molecules for clinical development.

"Our enriched pipeline offers new treatment approaches for patients across a wide range of diseases with an initial focus on inflammatory conditions. We look forward to a sustained partnership with Evotec."

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Evotec, Second Genome to discover new treatment for microbiome-mediated diseases

Life science researchers at Virginia Tech have accelerated a game-changing technology that's being used to study one of the planet's most lethal disease-carrying animals.

Writing in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers revealed an improved way to study genes in mosquitoes using a genome-editing method known as CRISPR-Cas9, which exploded onto the life science scene in 2012.

Editing the genome of an organism allows scientists to study it by deleting certain genes to observe how the organism is affected, or even to add new genes. The new technique makes the editing process more efficient and may accelerate efforts to develop novel mosquito-control or disease-prevention strategies.

"We've cut the human capital it takes to evaluate genes in disease-carrying mosquitoes by a factor of 10," said Zach N. Adelman, an associate professor of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a member of the Fralin Life Science Institute. "Not a lot of research groups have the resources to spend four months working with up to 5,000 mosquito embryos to investigate a gene that may ultimately have no bearing on their work. Now they can potentially do the same investigation in a week."

Mosquitoes transmit pathogens that cause malaria, dengue fever, and other high-impact diseases. In 2013, Malaria killed an estimated 584,000 people, most of them young children, according to the World Health Organization. Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and a philanthropist who supports social and health causes, has called the mosquito the world's deadliest animal.

"The mosquito is incredibly important as far as transmission of disease," said Kevin M. Myles, an associate professor of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a member of the Fralin Life Science Institute. "With this model, any scientist asking a question about a mosquito phenotype can now find its genetic cause. That's important for basic research into mosquito biology and applied research to control disease-vector mosquitoes."

The scientific community has long rallied to fight mosquito-borne diseases.

"I am excited by the paper," said Laura C. Harrington, professor and chair of entomology at Cornell University, who was not involved in the research. "We are desperately in need of faster and more efficient ways to transform mosquitoes. This single hurdle is holding the entire field back from making the discoveries that will lead to novel and effective approaches to mosquito and, consequently, disease control."

When CRISPR arrived in 2012, it drastically reduced the time it took for researchers to rewrite an organism's DNA.

Medical and life scientists quickly saw the technique's potential to edit disease-causing genes in people or, in the case of mosquito research, strategically modify the genome of an animal known to carry parasites and viruses that cause malaria, dengue fever, and other high-impact diseases.

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Life scientists streamline cutting-edge technique to edit mosquito genome