CRISPR & Genetic Engineering News and Discussions

[firestar464]

Yet scientists could not be fully confident placing this variant into an embryo, since the benefits or downsides might differ depending on what other genetic factors are already present, especially other Alzheimer’s risk genes. And it would be difficult to run a study to see what happens. In the case of APP, it would take 70 years for the final evidence to emerge. By that time, the scientists involved would all be dead.

The problem is that we simply don't know enough just yet.

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

EurekaAlert on that

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1056991

[firestar464]

Montana man gets 6 months in prison for cloning giant sheep and breeding it

https://apnews.com/article/giant-sheep- ... 9c44b70b2a

[Vakanai]

Montana man gets 6 months in prison for cloning giant sheep and breeding it

https://apnews.com/article/giant-sheep- ... 9c44b70b2a

I won't lie, I originally read that as "breeding with it."

[weatheriscool]

Montana man gets 6 months in prison for cloning giant sheep and breeding it

https://apnews.com/article/giant-sheep- ... 9c44b70b2a

This right here is why progress is so fucking slow! We'd have a real chance at anti-aging of some sort within the next 30-40 years if we loosen up! As in designer babies that favor longer life spans based on genetics at a minimum.

I doubt 90% of organ transplants of the 40's, 50's and 60's would have ever been allowed in this environment.

[firestar464]

Yet scientists could not be fully confident placing this variant into an embryo, since the benefits or downsides might differ depending on what other genetic factors are already present, especially other Alzheimer’s risk genes. And it would be difficult to run a study to see what happens. In the case of APP, it would take 70 years for the final evidence to emerge. By that time, the scientists involved would all be dead.

The problem is that we simply don't know enough just yet.

This again. The testing needs to be rigorous. Hopefully since we've worked out what genes are promising, we should see some clinical trials sooner than is being advertised.

[weatheriscool]

Structure of a eukaryotic CRISPR-Cas homolog, Fanzor2, shows promise for gene editing
https://phys.org/news/2024-10-eukaryoti ... nzor2.html
by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have revealed how Fanzor2's divergence from bacterial ancestors may make it a useful tool for future genomic engineering endeavors.

A revolution in biomedicine is currently underway, driven by the application of genome engineering tools such as the prokaryotic CRISPR-Cas9. New genome editing systems continue to be identified in different organisms, adding to the potential toolbox for various therapeutic applications.

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital studied the evolutionary journey of Fanzors, eukaryotic genome-editing proteins.

Using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), the researchers provided insights into the structural divergence of Fanzor2 from other RNA-guided nucleases, proposing a framework for future protein engineering endeavors. The findings were published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

[Time_Traveller]

Scientists claim breakthrough to bring back Tasmanian Devil from extinction

Thursday 17 October 2024 04:04, UK

The Tasmanian tiger, a wolf-like marsupial that once stalked the forests of Tasmania, could be brought back from extinction after a team of US and Australian researchers claimed a series of scientific breakthroughs.

Also known as the thylacine, the labrador-sized beast was Australia’s only native apex predator.

The last one died in a Hobart zoo in 1936 after the rest had been hunted to extinction in a bid to protect Tasmania’s growing livestock industry.

However, its recent demise makes it an ideal candidate for “de-extinction”, according to Colossal Biosciences, the Dallas-based company behind the effort.

Colossal has previously announced plans to use the latest advances in gene editing and reproductive biology to bring woolly mammoths and even the dodo back from the dead.

https://news.sky.com/story/scientists-c ... n-13234815

This would definitely be in the history books, if it is successful and I have posted it here knowing posts about Mammoths were posted here too.

[Powers]

Ship of Theseus.

[weatheriscool]

This is great news! I hope we figure out how to enhance iq using this knowledge soon. our society is in serious trouble seeing who half this coutnry is voting for(Trump).

[Vakanai]

This is great news! I hope we figure out how to enhance iq using this knowledge soon. our society is in serious trouble seeing who half this coutnry is voting for(Trump).

Last I heard the interactions between genes were still so complicated we couldn't predict intelligence based on genetics. Unless I missed some breakthrough there, this sounds very much like a scam where they "predict" IQ just be searching for a few genes known to be related to intelligence, but might not actually lead to anything more than a person of average intelligence due to gene expression and gene interaction.

[firestar464]

A quick Google search shows many such claims being made by various companies over the past few years

[Vakanai]

A quick Google search shows many such claims being made by various companies over the past few years

I'm sure - but I don't trust companies in this space. Are scientists discussing this as being ready?

[firestar464]

Yeah, my point is that companies aren't trustworthy. Honestly I haven't seen much attention from independent scientists

[weatheriscool]

CRISPR-Cas10 can flood virally infected bacteria with toxic molecules, researchers discover
https://phys.org/news/2024-10-crispr-ca ... teria.html
by Katherine Fenz, Rockefeller University

CRISPR-Cas9 has long been likened to a kind of genetic scissors, thanks to its ability to snip out any desired section of DNA with elegant precision.

But it turns out that CRISPR systems have more than one strategy in their toolkit. A mechanism originally discovered in bacteria, where it has operated as an adaptive immune system for eons, CRISPR is naturally deployed by certain singled-cell organisms to protect themselves against viruses (called phages) and other foreign genetic fragments.

Now, researchers at Rockefeller's Laboratory of Bacteriology—headed by Luciano Marraffini, and at the MSKCC's Structural Biology Laboratory headed by Dinshaw Patel—have discovered how one CRISPR system battles invaders with not only genetic scissors, but also acts as a sort of molecular fumigator.

In a recent publication in Cell, the scientists found that this system, called CRISPR-Cas10, floods a virally infected bacterium with toxic molecules, and thus prevents the virus from spreading through the rest of the bacterial population.

[Time_Traveller]

How a breakthrough gene-editing tool will help the world cope with climate change

November 2, 2024



Jennifer Doudna, one of the inventors of the breakthrough gene-editing tool CRISPR, says the technology will help the world grapple with the growing risks of climate change by delivering crops and animals better suited to hotter, drier, wetter, or weirder conditions.

“The potential is huge,” says Doudna, who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry for her role in the discovery. “There is a coming revolution right now with CRISPR.”

Last month, the Innovation Genomics Institute (IGI), which Doudna founded, hosted the Climate & Agriculture Summit at the University of California, Berkeley, where speakers highlighted the role that genome editing can play in addressing the rising dangers of climate change. Doudna sat down for a brief interview with MIT Technology Review on the sidelines of the closed-door event.

She and her coauthors published their landmark paper on the technique in Science 12 years ago, demonstrating that a bacterial immune system could be programmed to locate and snip out specific sections of DNA. The earliest patients have begun receiving the first approved medical treatment created with the genomic scissors, a gene therapy for sickle-cell disease—and a growing list of foods created with CRISPR are slowly reaching grocery store shelves.

Many more CRISPR-edited plants and animals are on the way, and a number of them were altered to promote traits that could help them survive or thrive in conditions fueled by climate change, beginning to fulfill one long-standing promise of genetic engineering. That includes the offspring of two cattle that Acceligen, a Minnesota-based precision breeding business, edited to have shorter coats better suited to hotter temperatures. In 2022, the US Food and Drug Administration determined that meat and other products from those cattle “pose low risk to people, animals, the food supply, and the environment” and can be marketed for sale to American consumers.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/1 ... te-change/

[weatheriscool]

New CRISPR system for gene silencing doesn't rely on cutting DNA
https://phys.org/news/2024-11-crispr-ge ... t-dna.html
by Vilnius University

Scientists from Vilnius University's (VU) Life Sciences Center (LSC) have discovered a unique way for cells to silence specific genes without cutting DNA. This research, led by Prof. Patrick Pausch and published in the journal Nature Communications, reveals a new way to silence genes that is akin to pressing a "pause" button on certain genetic instructions within cells.

The research team, including doctoral student Rimvydė Čepaitė, Dr. Aistė Skorupskaitė, undergraduate Gintarė Žvejyte and Prof. Pausch at Vilnius University, working alongside an international team, uncovered how cells use a specific system to locate and silence unwanted DNA. This system, which could eventually enable safer gene modifications, shows promise for repairing faulty genes that cause diseases.

"Unlike the well-known CRISPR gene-editing system, often described as molecular 'scissors,' the newly studied type IV-A CRISPR system does not cut genes. Instead, it uses an RNA-guided 'effector' complex to recruit an enzyme called DinG, which moves along DNA and silences targeted genes in a more subtle manner," explains Prof. Pausch.

[weatheriscool]

Scientists discover 'toolkit' to fix DNA breaks associated with aging, cancer and motor neuron disease
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-11- ... ancer.html
by University of Sheffield

A new "toolkit" to repair damaged DNA that can lead to aging, cancer and motor neuron disease (MND) has been discovered by scientists at the Universities of Sheffield and Oxford.

Published in Nature Communications, the research shows that a protein called TEX264, together with other enzymes, is able to recognize and "eat" toxic proteins that can stick to DNA and cause it to become damaged. An accumulation of broken, damaged DNA can cause cellular aging, cancer and neurological diseases such as MND.

Until now, ways of repairing this sort of DNA damage have been poorly understood, but scientists hope to exploit this novel repair toolkit of proteins to protect us from aging, cancer and neurological disease.

The findings could also have implications for chemotherapy, which deliberately causes breaks in DNA when trying to kill cancerous cells. Scientists believe targeting the TEX264 protein may offer a new way to treat cancer.

[weatheriscool]

Researchers identify gene signature for high-risk form of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-11- ... acute.html
by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Researchers from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have discovered the underlying biology that identifies a subset of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia who have a higher risk version of the disease and are more likely to relapse despite treatment. The findings have allowed researchers to identify new potential therapeutic treatments for patients with this specific form of cancer with a high risk of recurrence.

The findings are published in the journal Nature Cancer.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) accounts for approximately 30% of all pediatric cancers and is the most common cancer in children. While most children with ALL are cured, a significant percentage of patients continue to relapse. ALL affects the immature forms of white blood cells, called lymphocytes and has two types: B-ALL and T-ALL, named for whether B-lymphocytes or T-lymphocytes are affected.

Historically, children with T-ALL fared worse than those with B-ALL. However, with modern therapy, newly diagnosed patients with B-ALL and T-ALL have similar chances of being cured. Nevertheless, while some children with B-ALL respond to therapy after relapsing, most children with T-ALL who relapse are not cured. This is due to a diverse set of causes of T-ALL, not all of which can be treated the same. Therefore, identifying subtypes of T-ALL and potential therapeutic options is critical for patients who relapse and have no other available treatment options.

I post this here because if there is a genetic link then there's away to use these tools to stop it.