Category Archives: Transhuman News

It might not be exactly like the last meeting between these rivals, a 52-7 Georgia victory over Georgia Tech in 2019 at Bobby Dodd Stadium. But everything about this week shapes up to be something in that zip code.

As the story of the season shifts to Atlanta for another game in a week, Georgia enters this week looking for some motivation as a 35-point betting favorite in a game many believe will be akin to a FCS nooner.

What separates the Georgia team apart from other contenders, and especially past Georgia teams, is it has a kind of internal motivation that is difficult to tabulate, but Kirby Smart knows its in the locker room. Call it championship DNA.

Thats why he will likely face the same kinds of questions he did last week on Monday, and give the same kind of answers. Hes not worried because Smart is confident in Georgias leadership, and those players will pick out something to shoot for, a target so to speak. Last week, it was to honor the seniors as Senior Day ceremonies have become complicated in the past 2 seasons. Smarts message of working in preparation during the week continues to resonate with his players.

Last week against Charleston Southern, the message was simple: Build a big enough lead so that the walk-ons, who had never seen the field, could get a chance to go live in Sanford Stadium.

That message now moves to Tech, which Smart is 4-1 against in his tenure. He admitted Saturday that strong leadership takes a lot of pressure off him to repeat the message and the motivation. Strong teams have leaders who speak up and others who listen.

The motivation this week will be the opportunity for a large chunk of the Georgia roster to play closer to home in the recruiting hotbed of metro Atlanta, and against some high school teammates with high school coaches, family and friends watching.

Leadership is something that acts like a long-term investment, perhaps a retirement account, on the season, as a successful program makes contributions to it in the offseason thanks to the culture and foundation of the program. How much quality time the coaching staff spends with each player to explain whats important, how to manage distractions, how to rally together, and most importantly for Georgia in this case, how to constantly improve despite outclassing most of its opponents. The dividends and disbursements are handed out in the postseason.

That brings us to Georgia Tech, which this week enters a daunting task trying to end an awful streak of bad defense.

The Yellow Jackets are 1-6 over this stretch with their only win against Duke on Oct. 9. The Blue Devils are winless in ACC play.

Georgia Tech is 9-24 during Geoff Collins tenure and hes never won more than 3 games in a season, a far cry from his Temple days when he was 15-10 in 2 seasons.

Smart also invoked the writing a book analogy and creating a chapter for each leg of the season. His underrated motivation tactic is creating a carrot each week for the players to shoot for, no matter the opponent. Last week it was play for the anonymous walk-on, this week itll be to boost the rivalry, and play for the guys who grew up in the shadow of Atlanta. It will help the morale on the team, and offer some camaraderie.

Smart admitted that a common trait he preaches about this team is evident in the DNA of other championship teams: leadership and composure.

What I love about this team is that, since the start, they have responded to every challenge. Theres never been, Man, I dont know if we really want to practice today coach, Smart said. Thank you for what youve done so far in terms of leading, but now is when it matters the most.

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Georgia football: Dawgs have found the secret sauce in championship DNA - Saturday Down South

Agreement will allow researchers to streamline development of novel mRNA therapeutics and vaccines

San Diego, CA, Nov. 22, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Codex DNA, Inc. (Nasdaq: DNAY), a pioneer in automated benchtop synthetic biology systems, and RNAimmune, a leading biotech company with expertise in messenger RNA (mRNA) design and delivery technologies, today announced the initiation of work under a collaboration to optimize the development and validation of Codex DNAs future mRNA synthesis kits.

Over the past two years, mRNA has emerged as a promising platform for the development of vaccines and therapeutics. However, robust and reliable production of mRNA remains challenging, resulting in significantly increased timelines during the critical phases of discovery and development that call for rapid iterations of construct designs for optimization. Codex DNA addresses these challenges by empowering researchers with an automated solution for their mRNA synthesis needs. Automated synthesis of mRNA from a digital sequence input reduces the build process by weeks and shrinks the iterative cycle time.

RNAimmune has expertise in mRNA technology and has proprietary design, delivery, and self-amplifying platforms focused on infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, rare disorders, and immuno-oncology. As part of this collaboration, RNAimmune scientists will use their proprietary technology to rapidly evaluate and validate Codex DNAs emerging solutions for automated synthesis and delivery of mRNA molecules with increasing complexity and functionality.

Our partnership with Codex DNA can enhance their highly automated solutions for mRNA production, said Dong Shen, MD, PhD, Founder, and President of RNAimmune. Together, we can incorporate our proprietary carrier molecules into Codex DNAs mRNA synthesis kits to improve automated production toward truly transfection-ready mRNA with enhanced uptake and expression.

With our agreement with RNAimmune, our customers may be able to develop life-saving mRNA-based treatments and vaccines much faster and more easily than before, said Todd R. Nelson, PhD, CEO of Codex DNA. We look forward to working with the RNAimmune team to validate our highly functional mRNA synthesis kits and potentially integrate RNAimmunes proprietary mRNA delivery solutions into our automated workflows.

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About RNAimmune, Inc.

RNAimmune is a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the discovery and development of messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines. The Company leverages mRNA as a data carrier to instruct the human body to produce its own proteins capable of fighting a wide range of diseases. RNAimmune is a spin-off venture from Sirnaomics, Inc. and has received a global exclusive right to the proprietary Polypeptide Lipid Nanoparticle (PLNP) technology for mRNA delivery from Sirnaomics. The Company has also developed a proprietary A.I. algorithm (ALEPVA) for antigen prediction and vaccine design. By integrating multiple established platform technologies, RNAimmune is aiming to develop a comprehensive mRNA drug discovery and development platform, from which the Company will enrich its therapeutic and vaccine product pipeline addressing tremendous unmet needs in treatments of viral infections, cancer, and rare diseases. To learn more about RNAimmune, please visit the company website: http://www.rnaimmune.com.

About Codex DNA

Codex DNA is empowering scientists with the ability to create novel, synthetic biology-enabled solutions for many of humanitys greatest challenges. As inventors of the industry-standard Gibson Assembly method and the first commercial automated benchtop DNA and mRNA synthesis system, Codex DNA is enabling rapid, accurate, and reproducible writing of DNA and mRNA for numerous downstream markets. The companys award-winning BioXp system consolidates, automates, and optimizes the entire synthesis, cloning, and amplification workflow. As a result, it delivers a virtually error-free synthesis of DNA/RNA at scale within days and hours instead of weeks or months. Scientists around the world are using the technology in their own laboratories to accelerate the design-build-test paradigm for a novel, high-value products for precision medicine, biologics drug discovery, vaccine and therapeutic development, genome editing, and cell and gene therapy. Codex DNA is a public company based in San Diego. For more information, visit codexdna.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Such forward-looking statements are based on Codex DNAs beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to it on the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements may involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause Codex DNAs actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These statements include but are not limited to statements regarding Codex DNAs ability to successfully integrate the RNAimmunes capabilities with mRNA design and delivery into its products. These and other risks are described more fully in Codex DNAs filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other documents that Codex DNA subsequently files with the SEC from time to time. Except to the extent required by law, Codex DNA undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

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Codex DNA and RNAimmune Announce Collaboration to Optimize Development of Future mRNA Synthesis and Delivery Kits - Yahoo Finance

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Here's a roundup of top stories from the world of politics, business, sports, and entertainment, which grabbed the spotlight and trended the most on various social media platforms on November 23 (Tuesday)

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DNA: Top News of the Day | November 23, 2021 - DNA India

Government said it has not attained international accreditation for DNA testing services at the Forensic ScienceCentre.

Senator and Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries Clarence Rambharat, speaking on behalf of National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds, in response to questions for oral answer presented by Senator Jayanti Lutchmedial, said the DNA testing lab at the Forensic Science Centre in St James has not yet obtained international accreditation.

The DNA testing lab at the Trinidad and Tobago Forensic ScienceCentre has not obtained international accreditation, however, preliminarydocuments such as the terms of reference and requests for quotations have been drafted.

Notwithstanding, through the use external services, the evidence provided by the Forensic Sciences Centre has always been accepted without any legal challenge.

In response to questions as to the total monies spent by government on DNA testing at private labs from 2020-2021, Rambharat said no money was spent on private services.

The Forensic ScienceCentre and the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) did not expend any monies on private labs during the financial year 2020-21.

When asked whether any government owed any monies to private labs, Rambharat said he didnt have the information to hand.

In 2018, Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said DNA legislation would be brought before Parliament, along with plans to operationalise the DNA database.

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Government: No international accreditation for DNA testing lab | Loop Trinidad & Tobago - Loop News Trinidad and Tobago

Stress affects up to 90% of people, and we know it harms our mental and physical well-being.

Stress can impact the activity and function of our genes. It does this via epigenetic changes, which turn on and off certain genes, though it doesnt change the DNA code.

But why do some people respond worse to stress, while others seem to cope under pressure?

Previous research has identified having strong social support and a sense of belonging are robust indicators of physical and mental health.

Social support means having a network you can turn to in times of need. This can come from natural sources such as family, friends, partners, pets, co-workers and community groups. Or from formal sources such as mental health specialists.

My new study, published today in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, shows for the first time that these positive effects are also observed on human genes.

Having supportive social structures buffers and even reverses some of the harmful effects of stress on our genes and health, via the process of epigenetics.

The findings suggest the DNA we are born with is not necessarily our destiny.

Read more: How chronic stress changes the brain and what you can do to reverse the damage

Our genes and our environment contribute to our health.

We inherit our DNA code from our parents, and this doesnt change during our life. Genetics is the study of how the DNA code acts as a risk or protective factor for a particular trait or disease.

Epigenetics is an additional layer of instructions on top of DNA that determines how they affect the body. This layer can chemically modify the DNA, without changing DNA code.

The term epigenetics is derived from the Greek word epi which means over, on top of.

Read more: Explainer: what is epigenetics?

This extra layer of information lies on top of the genes and surrounding DNA. It acts like a switch, turning genes on or off, which can also impact our health.

Epigenetic changes occur throughout our lives due to different environmental factors such as stress, exercise, diet, alcohol, and drugs.

For instance, chronic stress can impact our genes via epigenetic changes that in turn can increase the rate of mental health disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety.

New technologies now allow researchers to collect a biological sample from a person (such as blood or saliva) and measure epigenetics to better understand how our genes respond to different environments.

Measuring epigenetics at different times allows us to gain insight into which genes are altered because of a particular environment.

Read more: Extreme stress in childhood is toxic to your DNA

My study investigated both positive and negative factors that drive a persons response to stress and how this changes the epigenetic profiles of genes.

Certain groups of people are more likely to face stress as a part of their routine work, such as emergency responders, medical workers and police officers.

So, my research team and I recruited 40 Australian first year paramedical students at two points in time before and after exposure to a potentially stressful event. The students provided saliva samples for DNA and filled out questionnaires detailing their lifestyle and health at both points in time.

We investigated epigenetic changes before and after exposure to stress, to better understand:

We found stress influenced epigenetics and this in turn led to increased rates of distress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms among participants.

However, students who reported high levels of perceived social support showed lesser levels of stress-related health outcomes.

Students with a strong sense of belonging to a group, organisation, or community dealt much better with stress and had reduced negative health outcomes following exposure to stress.

Both these groups of students showed fewer epigenetic changes in genes that were altered as a result of stress.

The COVID pandemic has created heavy psychological and emotional burdens for people due to uncertainty, altered routines and financial pressures.

In Australia, the rates of anxiety, depression and suicide have soared since the start of the pandemic. One in five Australians have reported high levels of psychological distress.

The pandemic has also made us more isolated, and our relationships more remote, having a profound impact on social connections and belonging.

My study highlights how family and community support, and a sense of belonging, influence our genes and act as a protective factor against the effects of stress.

In such unprecedented and stressful times, its vital we build and maintain strong social structures that contribute to good physical and mental well-being.

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Stress is a health hazard. But a supportive circle of friends can help undo the damaging effects on your DNA - The Conversation AU

New DNA evidence has given hope the 1980 murder of six-year-old Alicia OReilly may finally be solved. Video / Mike Scott

Police and scientists re-investigating the rape and murder of a young girl more than 40 years ago have made a dramatic DNA discovery which they hope will finally crack the baffling cold case.

Alicia O'Reilly, 6, was found dead in her bed in the Auckland suburb of Avondale in August 1980, while her sister Juliet, 8, slept just metres away in the same room.

The horrendous crime shocked the country and hundreds of suspects were questioned in the homicide investigation, with every home and business in the neighbouring suburbs visited by police officers.

Alicia's killer was never found.

The startling new DNA discovery has ruled out the original prime suspect but reinvigorated the investigation 41 years later.

Police are confident they'll now be able to finally solve the case and are now screening hundreds of other potential suspects in search of a DNA match.

While forensic science was rudimentary in the 1980s, and the idea of matching DNA samples was akin to science fiction, detectives working on the case decades later believed that important evidence - hair and semen left by the killer - had been inexplicably destroyed during the original investigation.

Yet in a stunning twist last year, some of the crucial swabs were discovered in an unmarked envelope in the bottom of a cardboard box in police archives.

More samples were unearthed in storage rooms of the Auckland DHB pathology department; glass slides preserving samples from the post-mortem examination of Alicia in August 1980.

The long-lost evidence was tested by scientists at ESR, the Crown research institute, who were able to extract a full DNA profile for analysis.

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"That was a high-five moment for us, as a team," said Detective Senior Sergeant Ngahiraka Latimer, the officer-in-charge of the investigation.

However, no DNA match has been found. This is despite the genetic code being compared to hundreds of thousands of profiles, collected from criminals or crime scenes, held in databanks in New Zealand and Australia.

DNA has been routinely collected from serious criminals since the mid-1990s. So the lack of a hit suggests that either Alicia's killer did not commit another offence, which police consider to be unlikely given the sexual nature of her death, or died before his DNA could be collected.

Another possibility is he no longer lives in New Zealand or Australia.

Despite not having immediate success with a DNA match, detectives working on the case believe they are closer than ever to identifying Alicia's killer.

This is because, prior to the discovery of the DNA profile, any person nominated as a suspect could only be eliminated from the inquiry by old-fashioned detective work to confirm their whereabouts on the night Alicia was killed.

In the 1980s, there were no digital footprints - smartphone GPS, credit card or Eftpos transactions, social media posts and security cameras - to track someone's movements.

Someone's alibi often relied solely on the word of a family member, friend or colleague and the memory of well-intentioned witnesses can be notoriously mistaken within a few days, let alone decades.

Now armed with the killer's DNA profile, a suspect can be ruled out - or the culprit identified at last - with nothing more than swabbing the inside of someone's mouth.

The police and ESR are working their way through a list of 800 suspects, with more than 140 "persons of interest" ruled out so far after giving voluntary DNA samples.

One of those eliminated was the prime suspect favoured by the original inquiry team, a 23-year-old man who lived near Alicia's home on Canal Rd. He had suffered permanent brain damage in an accident and as a result, had the mental age of an 8-year-boy.

When questioned by police in the 1980s, the young man denied any involvement but described a vivid dream in which he saw a small boy enter the house, then kill and rape Alicia.

For more than 40 years, his family carried the weight that he might have been involved in her death.

DSS Latimer says the DNA profile means the suspect has been conclusively ruled out, in news the police shared with the family in an emotional meeting.

She appealed for anyone with any information to contact the police.

"People might have thought at the time that the police had the offender, so they didn't come forward, but we don't have any suspects in mind," said Latimer.

"So we really need the public's help to share any information, however small it may be, it can still be relevant to us. The smallest piece of information can lead to the biggest breakthrough and we really want to solve this for Alicia's parents, Nancye and Barry."

Nancye O'Reilly, 68, told the Herald she was shocked when the police told her that the crime scene evidence believed to be destroyed was, in fact, discovered in storage.

Shock turned to elation, said Nancye, before she tried to keep her expectations in check."That's what I've had to do over the years. Not get too elated, or too upset about things," said Nancye, who now lives in Whakatane.

"But getting a full DNA profile is a major breakthrough."

While she questioned how such samples could be listed as destroyed in police records, then found decades later, Nancye believed there was a silver lining in the evidence being lost for so long.

If the samples had been tested for DNA back in the early 2000s when the science was in its infancy, Nancye says a full profile may not have been possible for ESR to obtain, or the evidence destroyed in the process.

"My philosophy in life is what will be, will be. And this wasn't meant to happen until now. You have to look at the positive side of it."

While excited by the possibility of finally learning who killed her daughter, Nancye says the discovery of the DNA profile has also "thrown her backwards".

"It's a very strange, surreal feeling of having one foot in 1980 and one foot in 2021 ... I'm waiting, waiting, waiting," says Nancye.

"Does it bring back the pain? Yes, it does. Does it bring back hope? Yes, it does."

If the police do find Alicia's killer more than 40 years on, Nancye says her need for revenge is now gone.

She's gone through the anger stage of the grieving process, and has forgiven the man who killed her daughter. For her own sake, not his.

She doesn't want a criminal trial, just a name to put to the "faceless monster" who has given her so many sleepless nights.

"When I was young, I was able to curb my emotions. Now I'm nearing 70, I find it very very hard. You just think, how many years have I got left? Can we please have an answer before I pass?"

A veteran detective on the case since the first day of the investigation has never given up trying.

As a rookie in the CIB, Stu Allsopp-Smith was on his hands and knees scouring the long grass outside the O'Reilly home for evidence in August 1980.

His police career progressed through working on countless murders and drug investigations, to the rank of detective inspector, although the disturbing death of Alicia O'Reilly remained burned into his mind.

His persistence behind the scenes led to the discovery of the killer's hair samples in 2019, thought to have been consumed by the blood-type testing process in Australia back in 1980.

In fact, not all the hairs had been tested, and unbeknown to the police, the spare samples had been returned to the ESR.

At Allsopp-Smith's urging, staff at the ESR searched its archives and found the long-lost hairs.

ESR scientists were unable to obtain a DNA profile from the hairs, but the discovery was enough to convince the police hierarchy to commit significant resources to solve the cold case.

A new team of detectives, led by DSS Latimer, was established to re-investigate the murder with a fresh set of eyes.

The first task was to rifle through the investigation file, 16 cardboard boxes, and manually scan thousands of pages of documents into a digital format which is easier to search.

Latimer grabbed the first box. At the bottom was an unmarked brown A5-sized envelope, which when Latimer opened, had two swabs inside plastic tubes marked "Alicia O'Reilly".

"That was another high-five moment," says Latimer.

The swabs were sent to the ESR laboratory in Mt Albert where scientists were able to extract a partial DNA profile. The genetic code was put through New Zealand's DNA databanks, both for convicted offenders and DNA found at crime scenes, but without a match.

The swabs had been recorded as "destroyed" in the police evidence logbook, a surprising decision which had been confirmed verbally by the officer-in-charge of the case in the 1980s.

This prompted another question - what else still exists?

While Allsopp-Smith had previously asked the pathology department at Auckland District Health Board to search their archives, without success, Latimer repeated the request.

This time, the pathologists found something. Extra swab samples had been taken during Alicia's post-mortem examination, which had been wiped onto a glass slide to transfer material, which was preserved under a glass coverslip.

ESR scientists soaked the slides, which had been fixed together, in a corrosive solution for four days to gently prise off the coverslip. This time, a full DNA profile was extracted. Again, there was no hit on the DNA database.

But ESR was also able to perform another DNA test to analyse the Y chromosome, which is passed down through the male side of the family.

If a nominated suspect is dead, or perhaps refuses to give a voluntary DNA sample, the police can approach male relatives for a reference sample to compare to the killer's profile. This could eliminate the suspect from the inquiry, or confirm a match for the police to investigate further.

Anna Lemalu is one of the forensic scientists at ESR who analysed the DNA profile of Alicia O'Reilly's killer. She then compared the results to more than 200,000 profiles held on the New Zealand databanks, as well as in excess of 100 voluntary samples.

Working on a cold case more than 40 years old was "out of the ordinary", said Lemalu, especially when ESR did not know how the samples were stored over that time.

However, she said DNA can last a "very long time" in the right environment and in this case ESR went beyond the standard tests, in order to obtain the full profile.

"This was great lab work, I'm very confident in the quality of the result," said Lemalu, despite the age of the sample.

If a suspect's DNA did match the profile of Alicia's murderer, Lemalu said that it is possible that the likelihood of finding the DNA left at the crime scene could be more than 100,000 million times greater if it had come from the suspect, rather than from another person selected at random from the general New Zealand population.

While the DNA profile has yet to hit a match, Lemalu said the police investigation now has the "best possible" result to compare to those of potential suspects. And, hopefully, solve a terrible tragedy.

"It's why we do what we do," said Lemalu. "We would love to be able to provide that information and help the police in their investigation."

The same thought drives Latimer, as it did for the now-retired Stu Allsopp-Smith before her.

"The thing that struck me most is that Alicia was home that evening, asleep in her bed. Other people were in the house, her sister Juliet was asleep in the bed next to her. Someone has entered that house and murdered and raped her," said Latimer.

"I can't even imagine, actually, what Alicia's parents went through ... they're amazing people, and I'm hopeful we can provide some resolution."

Anyone with information for the police can call 105 and quote either Operation Sturbridge or the case file number 800816/3613.

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DNA breakthrough: New hope in 1980 murder of 6-year-old Alicia O'Reilly - New Zealand Herald