Biotech

Biotech colaterale (42)
Biotech generale (472)
Biotech tendinte (1)

Synopsis: Biotech:

"It's an interesting way that Bluetooth can interact with the biotech industry.##Other personal health sensors that use Bluetooth include the Cardiopad,

The innovation is a flexible piezoelectric layer sandwiched between biocompatible plastic. Rogers says the whole system is about as stiff as the plastic used to make food wrappers.

professor of electrical and computer engineering and a professor of bioengineering. ethane is emitted by natural sources, such as wetlands,

'but without resorting to permanent genetic modification of the entire plant. The foreign genes that are introduced transiently are inherited not by subsequent generations of the plant.

Previously, the timescale required before results were known for just a single protein meant researchers naturally played safe and tended to produce'biosimilars'

was recognised with the naming of Professor Lomonossoff as Innovator of the Year 2012 by the Biotechnology and Biological sciences Research Council (BBSRC), U s

with the first completion of the sequencing of the genome for one species of the bacterium, Streptomyces coelicolor.

unravelling the secrets of the genome revealed a new mystery. It was known that the bacterium produced four different antibiotics

but the genome sequence revealed the potential for around 20. The known antibiotics represented only 20%of the possible total.

'hitherto lying undetected within the genome.''We could see the genes were there, but there was no product,

whether this genetic information was just redundant, or whether it could be used to trigger the production of new antibiotic compounds.'

'Meanwhile, the genomes of other streptomycete species had been sequenced and all had shown the same pattern, with between 12 and 15'cryptic pathways'.'

An equally important part of the project concerned the genetic engineering of a species of streptomycete which could be used as a kind of'all-purpose'production facility,

but also for public health budgets and for the European biotechnology industry n

#FLEXPAKRENEW#Green materials for flexible packaging Over 16 million tonnes of flexible packaging are used each year across Europe.

Applications for this kind of materials mix can be found in diverse domains such as the pharmaceutical industry, the food and processing industry, energy production or systems biology.

and analyze them in sophisticated labs. Now a team of biologists has created a new tool that could provide a quick cheap way to perform sophisticated lab analyses

and diagnostics in the field and may also offer a way to speed science in the lab. The tool called a paper gene circuit takes biological reactions out of cells and puts them onto a piece of paper.

##This could really be a game-changer for a lot of applications including diagnostics##say James Collins who is a professor of biomedical engineering and medicine at Boston University and a core faculty member at Harvard s Wyss Institute.##

Over the past 15 years biologists have created hundreds of these gene circuits picking and choosing useful bits of biology

and putting them together in new ways. Pardee s circuits use a device called a##toehold switch##created by coauthor Alexander Green also a postdoctoral fellow at Boston and Pardee s colleague at the Wyss Institute

Because biological systems are particularly good at sensing changes in the environmentâ##our cells constantly monitor blood sugar

But would something that worked for a chemical reaction work for biology too?####That was our first question:

can we even get gene expression in paper?####says Pardee. Using a standard laser printer stocked with special wax-based inks he printed patterns of small dots onto uncoated filter paper.

and also for faster science in the lab.##In biology you spend a lot of time tool building.

and cost-effective way for arsenic removal says Bin Gao associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering at University of Florida.

associate professor of chemical and biological engineering at the New york University School of engineering. ee known that phosphotriesterases had the power to detoxify these nerve agents,

But when they encounter biological tissue, they either reflect off the body harmlessly or get absorbed by the skin as heat.

or biological tissue. For instance, when you put your ear on a railroad track, you can hear the vibration of the wheels long before the train itself

People in a given geographical area are more likely to have similar genetics. When they also have genetic traits typically found in other, distant regions,

The discovery of a certain genotype might indicate the potential for a genetic disease and suggest that diagnostic testing be done.

there is evidence that specific genotypes respond differently to medicationsaking this information potentially useful when selecting the most effective therapy and appropriate dosage.

The investigators are currently designing a study to correlate pharmacokineticshe time course of drug metabolismith genotype.

and biological engineering at University of Florida. As reported in the journal Water Research Gao ground wood chips that were heated then in nitrogen gas but not burned.

In the new study biogeochemists at Rice conducted side-by-side tests of the water-holding ability of three soil types#sand clay and topsoil#both with and without added biochar.

professor of electrical and computer engineering and a professor of bioengineering. ethane is emitted by natural sources, such as wetlands,

The design was inspired by natural biological motors that have evolved to perform specific tasks critical to the function of cells says Jong Hyun Choi a Purdue University assistant professor of mechanical engineering.

Whereas biological motors are made of protein researchers are trying to create synthetic motors based on DNA the genetic materials in cells that consist of a sequence of four chemical bases:

The sensors make use of microfluidic technologyâ##developed by Abraham Stroock associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineeringâ##that places a tiny cavity inside the chip.

and developed the ability to react with oxide minerals rather than breathe oxygen as we do to convert organic nutrients into biological fuel.

and convert it into biological fuel their excess electrons flow into the carbon filaments and across to the positive electrode

A 21-member team organized by the American Academy of Microbiology established a set of recommendations on how advances in microbiology can be harnessed to improve agriculture.

When crops are optimized with the right genetics and colonized by the right microbes both organisms can flourish.

With DNATRAX the bacteria is replaced by particles of non-biological DNA that can be collected with simple forensic swabs

Then simple polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology can identify the code and reveal the origin of the product in about an hour right down to

Of particular interest will be synthetic biology, which allows efficiently reprogramming unicellular life to make fuels, byproducts accessible from organic chemistry and smart devices.

Livestock biometrics: Collars with GPS, RFID and biometrics can automatically identify and relay vital information about the livestock in real time.

Scientifically viable in 2017; mainstream and financially viable in 2020. Crop sensors: Instead of prescribing field fertilization before application,

The creation of entirely new strains of food animals and plants in order to better address biological and physiological needs.

Synthetic biology: Synthetic biology is about programming biology using standardized parts as one programs computers using standardized libraries today.

Includes the broad redefinition and expansion of biotechnology, with the ultimate goals of being able to design,

build and remediate engineered biological systems that process information, manipulate chemicals, fabricate materials and structures,

produce energy, provide food, and maintain and enhance human health and our environment. Scientifically viable in 2013;

The synthetic shell contains no genetic material and so it cannot infect the animals. But it will spur the immune system to produce antibodies that would protect them from the real virus. In 2001,

says co-author David Stuart, a structural biologist at the University of Oxford, UK, who is working with the World health organization

It costs less than US$1, 500 per person to have the important parts of his clients genomes sequenced.

and identify mutations that might be causing the undiagnosed diseases that afflict his clients families.

So Jalas, the centre s director of genetics resources and services, has outsourced parts of the analysis. He uploads his clients sequencing data to cloud-computing software platforms

Jalas and the way he works represent a new and mostly untapped market for a new crop of genetics interpretation and analysis firms,

which will be touting for customers at a meeting of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics in Phoenix, Arizona, on 19-23 march.

"It s a huge unmet need, says David Ferreiro, a biotechnology analyst with investment bank Oppenheimer & Company in New york,

which provides genetic analysis software on its cloud-based platform and allows users to upload and run their own algorithms.

Seven Bridges Genomics, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, aims to be accessible to people with no expertise in bioinformatics,

and provides access to free tools for designing custom-made analysis pipelines. Ingenuity Systems in Redwood City, California, allows users to upload a list of mutations in a person s genome,

and finds those most likely to cause disease. Personalis, down the road in Menlo Park, offers sequencing services and interpretation for clinicians and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Last week, the company won a $1. 53-million contract with the US Department of veterans affairs to look for genetic variants in samples from as many as one million military veterans

when bioinformaticians started up a flurry of companies, most of which were unsuccessful because the path from a genetic-disease marker to a profitable drug has not been straight#forward.

and clinical geneticists may be uneasy about uploading data to the cloud.""It s your licence and your lab that go on the line

says Elizabeth Worthey, director of genomic informatics at the Human and Molecular genetics Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

and is optimized to run genome-analysis software. Knome of Cambridge Massachusetts, announced last year that it plans to sell $125, 000 genome-analysis machines for use in customers labs (see Nature 490,157;

2012). ) It seems unlikely that any single analysis company will rule the market; the range of customers who need to interpret sequence data is growing,

) Craig Smith, a deep-sea biologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, will lead an initial assessment of seafloor life for Lockheed s project, gathering baseline data for the potential harvest zone

#A new way to model cancer Sequencing the genomes of tumor cells has revealed thousands of mutations associated with cancer.

One way to discover the role of these mutations is breed to a strain of mice that carry the genetic flaw

They have shown that a gene-editing system called CRISPR can introduce cancer-causing mutations into the livers of adult mice enabling scientists to screen these mutations much more quickly.

They are now working on ways to deliver the necessary CRISPR components to other organs allowing them to investigate mutations found in other types of cancer.

Tyler Jacks director of MIT s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and the David H. Koch Professor of Biology is the paper s senior author.

Researchers have copied this bacterial system to create gene-editing complexes that include a DNA-cutting enzyme called Cas9 bound to a short RNA guide strand that is programmed to bind to a specific genome sequence telling Cas9 where to make its Cut in some cases the researchers simply snip out

Previous studies have shown that genetically engineered mice with mutations in both of those genes will develop cancer within a few months.

which requires introducing mutations into embryonic stem cells can take more than a year and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

if additional mutations occur later on. To create this model the researchers had to cut out the normal version of the gene

Using CRISPR to generate tumors should allow scientists to more rapidly study how different genetic mutations interact to produce cancers as well as the effects of potential drugs on tumors with a specific genetic profile.

While this is an effective way to get genetic material to the liver it would not work for other organs of interest.

The company which aims to leverage biotechnology as a way to solve environmental issues is also modifying their system to generate value from wastewater in agricultural and military fields,

We are leveraging biotechnology to provide the highest return on investment for managing water. To that end, Cambrian is working on other projects that leverage exoelectrogenic microbes to treat wastewater.

Meeting at MIT in 2006 over a shared fondness for biotech, Silver, then a research scientist in MIT Space Systems Lab,

and Buck, a biological engineering graduate student, won a grant from the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts program to create a life-support system that could treat waste

is to leverage biotechnology to advance a sustainable ndustrial ecology, where the waste of industry is recycled to create energy

Strano and the paper lead author, postdoc and plant biologist Juan Pablo Giraldo, envision turning plants into self-powered, photonic devices such as detectors for explosives or chemical weapons.

Giraldo says. his is a marvelous demonstration of how nanotechnology can be coupled with synthetic biology to modify

a professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University who was involved not in the research. he authors nicely show that self-assembling nanoparticles can be used to enhance the photosynthetic capacity of plants,

as well as serve as plant-based biosensors and stress reducers. By adapting the sensors to different targets,

Giraldo says. t an opportunity for people from plant biology and the chemical engineering nanotechnology community to work together in an area that has a large potential.

#Patent awarded for genetics-based nanotechnology against mosquitoes insect pests Kansas State university researchers have developed a patented method of keeping mosquitoes and other insect pests at bay.

The patent covers microscopic genetics-based technology that can help safely kill mosquitos and other insect pests.

Xin Zhang research associate in the Division of Biology; and Jianzhen Zhang visiting scientist from Shanxi University in China developed the technology:

or RNAI to destroy the genetic code of an insect in a specific DNA sequence. The technology is expected to have great potential for safe and effective control of insect pests Zhu said.

MESSENGER RNA carries important genetic information. In the studies on mosquito larvae researchers designed dsrna to target the mrna encoding the enzymes that help mosquitoes produce chitin the main component in the hard exoskeleton of insects crustaceans and arachnids.

a field that uses biology to develop new tools for science, technology and medicine. The new study, published in print today in the journal Nano Letters,

demonstrates how stable'lipid membranes'the thin'skin'that surrounds all biological cells can be applied to synthetic surfaces.

Importantly, the new technique can use these lipid membranes to'draw'akin to using them like a biological ink with a resolution of 6 nanometres (6 billionths of a meter),

and promises the ability to position functional biological molecules such as those involved in taste, smell,

and other sensory roles with high precision, to create novel hybrid bioelectronic devices, "said Professor Steve Evans,

"explained Professor Evans. Aside from biological applications, this area of research could revolutionise renewable energy production. Working in collaboration with researchers at the University of Sheffield,

the researchers will be able to arbitrarily swap out the biological units and replace them with synthetic components to create a new generation of solar cells.

"This is part of the emerging field of synthetic biology, whereby engineering principles are being applied to biological parts

whether it is for energy capture, or to create artificial noses for the early detection of disease

The researchers also needed a platform on which biological components, like br, could survive and connect with the titanium dioxide catalyst:

merged with biology, can create new sources of clean energy. Her team's discovery may provide future consumers a biologically-inspired alternative to gasoline."

#Team develops ultra sensitive biosensor from molybdenite semiconductor Move over graphene. An atomically thin two-dimensional ultrasensitive semiconductor material for biosensing developed by researchers at UC Santa barbara promises to push the boundaries of biosensing technology in many fields from health care to environmental protection to forensic industries.

Based on molybdenum disulfide or molybdenite (Mos2) the biosensor materialsed commonly as a dry lubricanturpasses graphene's already high sensitivity offers better scalability

and low-cost biosensors that can eventually allow single-molecule detectionhe holy grail of diagnostics and bioengineering research said Samir Mitragotri co-author and professor of chemical engineering and director of the Center for Bioengineering at UCSB.

Detection and diagnostics are a key area of bioengineering research at UCSB and this study represents an excellent example of UCSB's multifaceted competencies in this exciting field.

The key according to UCSB professor of electrical and computer engineering Kaustav Banerjee who led this research is Mos2's band gap the characteristic of a material that determines its electrical conductivity.

While graphene has attracted wide interest as a biosensor due to its two-dimensional nature that allows excellent electrostatic control of the transistor channel by the gate

and high surface-to-volume ratio the sensitivity of a graphene field-effect transistor (FET) biosensor is restricted fundamentally by the zero band gap of graphene that results in increased leakage current leading to reduced sensitivity explained Banerjee

and the current in the channel is modulated by the binding between embedded receptor molecules and the charged target biomolecules to

Monolayer or few-layer Mos2 have a key advantage over graphene for designing an FET biosensor:

and increases the abruptness of the turn-on behavior of the FETS thereby increasing the sensitivity of the biosensor said Banerjee.

Moreover the channel length of Mos2 FET biosensor can be scaled down to the dimensions similar to those of small biomolecules such as DNA

which can lead to high sensitivity even for detection of single quanta of these biomolecular species she added.

The Mos2 biosensors demonstrated by the UCSB team have provided already ultrasensitive and specific protein sensing with a sensitivity of 196 even at 100 femtomolar (a billionth of a millionth of a mole) concentrations.

Biosensors based on conventional FETS have been gaining momentum as a viable technology for the medical forensic

Such biosensors allow for scalability and label-free detection of biomoleculesemoving the step and expense of labeling target molecules with florescent dye.

and low-cost ultrasensitive biosensors continued Kis who is connected not to the project. Explore further: New rapid synthesis developed for bilayer graphene and high-performance transistors More information:

and behave like smart, soft biological material, and integrate it with cells and cellular networks at the whole-tissue level.

Lieber has been working to dramatically shrink cyborg science to a level that's thousands of times smaller and more flexible than other bioelectronic research efforts.

ultraflexible electronics into the brain and allow them to become fully integrated with the existing biological web of neurons.

#MEMS nanoinjector for genetic modification of cells The ability to transfer a gene or DNA sequence from one animal into the genome of another plays a critical role in a wide range of medical researchncluding cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and diabetes.

But the traditional method of transferring genetic material into a new cell, called"microinjection,"has a serious downside.

It involves using a small glass pipette to pump a solution containing DNA into the nucleus of an egg cell,

which in turn reduces the cost to create a transgenic animal,"according to Jensen. One of the team's most significant findings is that it's possible to use the electrical forces to get DNA into the nucleus of the cellithout having to carefully aim the lance into the pronucleus (the cellular structure containing the cell's DNA."

would be attractive for a variety of transgenic technologies, "said Jensen.""We believe nanoinjection may open new fields of discovery in these animals."

"We expect the lance array may enable gene therapy using a culture of a patient's own cells,

It's unlikely that this clone could develop into a human say the scientists a team of biologists from the U s. and Thailand.

Mitalipov is a biologist who studies cells and development at the Oregon Health and Science University.

and transplanted them into eggs that had their own genetic material removed. They then grew the eggs for a few days harvested the daughter cells that appeared

So is a biological system with the future potential to develop into a person itself an actual person or not?

Study of embryonic stem cells will further our understanding of developmental biology which will lead to a better understanding of embryogenesis potentially leading to currently unavailable treatments for debilitating congenital disorders

By tweaking the genomes of these viruses, known as bacteriophages, researchers hope to customize them to target any type of pathogenic bacteria.

MIT biological engineers have devised a new mix-and-match system to genetically engineer viruses that target specific bacteria.

an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science and biological engineering. hese bacteriophages are designed in a way that relatively modular.

Also, each family of bacteriophages can have a different genome organization and life cycle, making it difficult to engineer them

the researchers combed through databases of phage genomes looking for sequences that appear to code for the key tail fiber section, known as gp17.

they had to create a new system for performing the genetic engineering. Existing techniques for editing viral genomes are fairly laborious

so the researchers came up with an efficient approach in which they insert the phage genome into a yeast cell,

where it exists as an rtificial chromosomeseparate from the yeast cell own genome. During this process the researchers can easily swap genes in

and out of the phage genome. nce we had that method, it allowed us very easily to identify the genes that code for the tails

and engineer them or swap them in and out from other phages, Lu says. ou can use the same engineering strategy over and over,

a microbiologist at the Institut pasteur in Paris. hages tend to infect only a very limited number of bacterial strains,

what synthetic biology approaches will bring to medicine in the near future. targeted strikein this study, the researchers engineered phages that can target pathogenic Yersinia and Klebsiella bacteria,

MIT is negotiating an exclusive license agreement with Lyndra, an early-stage biotechnology company developing novel oral drug-delivery systems,

the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Biomedical engineering. anoparticles are large enough to keep from going through the skin surface,

Yang Deng, a postdoctoral associate in biomedical engineering, and Yale medical student Asiri Ediriwickrema were co-first authors of the paper.

who is in the Department of Biomedical engineering; and Julia Lewis, from the Department of Dermatology.

These findings could one day lead to super-dense low-power circuits as well as ultra-sensitive biosensors and gas sensors, the investigators added.

and ultra-sensitive and low-power biosensors and gas sensors to enhance the Internet of things. However, Banerjee cautions that TFETS are designed not for speed

#Nanoporous Gold Sponge Detects Pathogens Faster This novel technique enables sensitive DNA detection in compound biological samples e g.,

assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Davis and the paperssenior author. hat happens is the debris in biological samples,

It almost like a natural sieve. arly identification of disease biomarkers and pathogenic microbes is possible with the swift and sensitive detection of nucleic acids.

Going forward, the team anticipates that their research will be useful in the progress of mini point-of-care diagnostic systems for clinical and agricultural applications. he applications of the sensor are quite broad ranging from detection of plant pathogens to disease biomarkers,

#Nanoporous Gold Sponge Detects Pathogens Faster This novel technique enables sensitive DNA detection in compound biological samples e g.,

assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Davis and the paperssenior author. hat happens is the debris in biological samples,

It almost like a natural sieve. arly identification of disease biomarkers and pathogenic microbes is possible with the swift and sensitive detection of nucleic acids.

Going forward, the team anticipates that their research will be useful in the progress of mini point-of-care diagnostic systems for clinical and agricultural applications. he applications of the sensor are quite broad ranging from detection of plant pathogens to disease biomarkers,

such as disposable cutlery, to natural biopolymers like DNA and proteins-fundamental to human life. Using insecticides is one of the few ways farmers currently have to treat their groves for greening, also known as Huanglongbing or HLB.

Researchers at Johns hopkins university School of medicine, Johns hopkins university Department of Chemical and Biomolecular engineering and Federal University of Rio de janeiro in Brazil conducted a proof-of-concept study that found DNA-loaded nanoparticles could successfully pass through the hard-to-breach mucus barrier

a biomedical engineer and faculty member at the Center for Nanomedicine at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins. Researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering meanwhile,

stopped brain cancer in rats by delivering gene therapy through nanoparticles. The nanoparticles deliver genes for an enzyme that converts a prodrug called ganciclovir into a glioma cell killer.

As in cystic fibrosis, a current delivery method of gene therapy relies on using a virus, which can pose significant safety risks.

#Making life more resistant to stress A recent paper in Current Biology suggests that plants can be engineered against climate change, even drought.

When you consider that the human genome codes for over 600 different forms of just the E3 ligases alone,

The bioplastic PLA is derived from renewable resources, including the sugar in maize and sugarcane. Fermentation turns the sugar into lactic acid,

According to co-author Professor Bert Sels of hape-selective zeolite catalysis for bioplastics productionthe production process for PLA is expensive because of the intermediary steps."

and biotechnology can join forces.""Professor Sels, is of KU Leuven Faculty of Bioscience Engineering (Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis),

and Dr Dusselier, KU Leuven Faculty of Bioscience Engineering (Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis) and California Institute of technology, Source:

Sciencetitle:""Shape-selective zeolite catalysis for bioplastics production"Author (s: Michiel Dusselier, Pieter Van Woude, Annelies Dewaele, Pierre Jacobs,

and Berts Sels. Published: July 3, 2015: DOI: 10.1126/science. aaa7169

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