All posts tagged: gene

Scientists Gene Hack Bacteria That Breaks Down Plastic Waste

Scientists Gene Hack Bacteria That Breaks Down Plastic Waste

The bacteria “could be optimized and exploited to help get rid of plastics in the environment.” Bottom Feeders We may have a way of literally eating away at our planet’s pollution crisis. As part of a new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, researchers have shed additional light on a possibly game-changing bacteria that grows on common polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics, confirming that it can break down and eat the polymers that make up the waste. Scientists have long been interested in the plastic-decomposing abilities of the bacteria, Comamonas testosteroni. But this is the first time that the mechanisms behind that process have been fully documented, according to study senior author Ludmilla Aristilde. “The machinery in environmental microbes is still a largely untapped potential for uncovering sustainable solutions we can exploit,” Aristilde, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University in Illinois, told The Washington Post. Enzyme or Reason To observe its plastic-devouring ability, the researchers isolated a bacterium sample, grew it on shards of PET plastics, and then …

Gene testing ‘could speed up SEND support’

Gene testing ‘could speed up SEND support’

DNA tests on children could be used to “pre-diagnose” SEND conditions and help to “streamline” support for those youngsters at most risk, government-commissioned research has said.  The findings came in a report, released last week and commissioned by the Conservative government, examining the implications of future genomics technologies on the education sector.  Ipsos MORI researchers suggested genetic screening – tests designed to identify those most likely to develop genetic disorders – “could function within current systems for SEND and alternative provision”. “It is possible that genomics could be used as a form of pre-diagnosis or assessment of risk for developing SEND, which could potentially improve systems of diagnosis, support and early intervention,” the report explained.  “Understanding the potential risk of developing certain SEND conditions earlier could also mean developing an education, health and care plan [EHCP] sooner for young people.” Early intervention potential The researchers also said it was “possible that future genomic screening could develop to the point where a child could be assessed for increased risk of developing autism from birth”. Most youngsters …

Deaf baby hears for the first time after U.K. gene therapy trial

Deaf baby hears for the first time after U.K. gene therapy trial

LONDON — A baby girl born with profound genetic deafness can now hear unaided after receiving a “groundbreaking” gene therapy trial, Britain’s National Health Service said Thursday. Opal Sandy, an 18-month-old from Oxfordshire, England, is the first patient treated in a global gene therapy trial that is showing “mind-blowing” results, Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge said in a statement. Opal is “the first British patient in the world and the youngest child to receive this type of treatment,” the hospital said. Source link

Young Patient Dies After Receiving Pfizer Gene Therapy

Young Patient Dies After Receiving Pfizer Gene Therapy

Image by Gary Hershorn via Getty / Futurism Tragedy has struck during an important Pfizer medical trial, when a young boy suffered a fatal sudden cardiac arrest after receiving experimental gene therapy — a death that’s sent scientists and parents scrambling to find out how this happened, Reuters reports. The young boy was suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a progressive muscle weakness disorder, and was enrolled in a multi-year clinical trial by Pfizer called Phase 2 DAYLIGHT. The doctors behind the experiment were aiming to track the effectiveness of a particular type of gene therapy called fordadistrogene movaparvovec, in which a harmless virus carries a normal, functional version of the dystrophin gene into muscles. DMD patients often have a mutated, dysfunctional version of the dystrophin gene, which makes the protein dystrophin — crucial for keeping muscles together in the human body. DMD impacts one out of 3,500 newborns, Reuters reports, and is mostly a recessive trait linked to the X chromosome, though about 30 percent are from spontaneous mutations. The Pfizer trial itself was …

UK toddler has hearing restored in world first gene therapy trial | Medical research

UK toddler has hearing restored in world first gene therapy trial | Medical research

A British toddler has had her hearing restored after becoming the first person in the world to take part in a pioneering gene therapy trial, in a development that doctors say marks a new era in treating deafness. Opal Sandy was born unable to hear anything due to auditory neuropathy, a condition that disrupts nerve impulses travelling from the inner ear to the brain and can be caused by a faulty gene. But after receiving an infusion containing a working copy of the gene during groundbreaking surgery that took just 16 minutes, the 18-month-old can hear almost perfectly and enjoys playing with toy drums. Her parents were left “gobsmacked” when they realised she could hear for the first time after the treatment. “I couldn’t really believe it,” Opal’s mother, Jo Sandy, said. “It was … bonkers.” The girl, from Oxfordshire, was treated at Addenbrooke’s hospital, part of Cambridge university hospitals NHS foundation trust, which is running the Chord trial. More deaf children from the UK, Spain and the US are being recruited to the trial …

British girl’s hearing restored in pioneering gene therapy trial | Science & Tech News

British girl’s hearing restored in pioneering gene therapy trial | Science & Tech News

A British girl has had her hearing restored after becoming the first person worldwide to take part in a pioneering new gene therapy trial. Opal Sandy was born totally deaf due to auditory neuropathy, which disrupts nerve impulses from the inner ear to the brain. But the 18-month-old’s hearing is now almost normal – and could improve further – after having the one-time treatment. Opal was treated at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and the head of the trial, Professor Manohar Bance, said results were “better than I hoped or expected” and he hopes medics might be able to cure others with this type of deafness. “We have results from (Opal) which are very spectacular – so close to normal hearing restoration. So we do hope it could be a potential cure,” he said. Image: Opal (second left) with her parents and sister Nora, who has the same condition. Pic: PA Auditory neuropathy can be caused by a fault in the OTOF gene, which makes a protein called otoferlin and enables cells in the ear to …

Pfizer Stock Hit After Boy Dies Of Cardiac Arrest During Gene Therapy Trial

Pfizer Stock Hit After Boy Dies Of Cardiac Arrest During Gene Therapy Trial

Stock in Pfizer dropped on Tuesday after a young boy receiving experimental gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy died during the trial. According to STAT News, Pfizer has yet to determine exactly what happened or how the boy died Pfizer has confirmed that the boy suffered cardiac arrest, and is pausing crossing over patients in its randomized phase 3 trial of the treatment in older boys, according to the report. The company will, for now, stop dosing patients who initially received a placebo with the gene therapy after a year. Pfizer is expected to announce data from the study in the upcoming weeks. Of note, in 1999 Jesse Gelsinger was the first person publicly identified as having died during a clinical trial for gene therapy – which caused the FDA to shutter human genetic research at Penn’s Institute for Gene Therapy. Shares in the pharmaceutical giant took an immediate hit on the news. Developing… Loading… Source link

Behind Enemy Lines: My Deep Dive Into the Grammar Gene Debate

Behind Enemy Lines: My Deep Dive Into the Grammar Gene Debate

Emergentist vs. Nativist Views Consider the Role of Genetic and Evolutionary Forces on Linguistic Development Source: Image generated by OpenAI’s DALL·E At the end of the twentieth century, a battle over the soul of our cognitive abilities erupted. One camp argued very strongly that our ability to learn language was driven by an innate capacity for language. This genetic predisposition to language had gained such support that it made it to the NBC Nightly News, where Tom Brokaw declared that researchers had discovered “the gene for grammar.” The idea that language is part of an innate language acquisition device was brought to prominence by Noam Chomsky. In a nutshell, Chomsky saw a very complicated language system, a baby born with very little language, and a sudden appearance of a very complex system at a young age. The grammar gene idea came about due to a freak discovery by a group of researchers headed by Myrna Gopnik, a famous Canadian developmental psychologist. Fate would have it that I would meet many of her students by chance …

How turning off one gene causes mice to grow 6 legs

How turning off one gene causes mice to grow 6 legs

In an attempt to study the spine, scientists in Portugal accidentally created a mouse embryo with an extra pair of hind legs, where its genitals should be — and the strange turn of events could improve our understanding of human embryo development, metastatic cancer, and more.  What’s new? There’s a lot we still don’t understand about what goes on in the womb — how a single cell becomes an entirely new organism. In an attempt to clear up some of this mystery, scientists at the Gulbenkian Science Institute in Portugal decided to study the gene Tgfbr1, which codes for a protein already known to play a role in embryo development.  “[We were] very surprised.” Moisés Mallo For their study, published in Nature Communications, the team inactivated the Tgfbr1 gene in mouse embryos that were halfway through development. They expected that this might have some effect on the rodents’ spines. What they weren’t expecting was for one of their embryos to grow an extra pair of hind limbs where its external genitalia should have been. “[We were] very surprised,” lead researcher Moisés Mallo told Newsweek. But… how? Prior to this, …

Generative A.I. Arrives in the Gene Editing World of CRISPR

Generative A.I. Arrives in the Gene Editing World of CRISPR

Generative A.I. technologies can write poetry and computer programs or create images of teddy bears and videos of cartoon characters that look like something from a Hollywood movie. Now, new A.I. technology is generating blueprints for microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit your DNA, pointing to a future when scientists can battle illness and diseases with even greater precision and speed than they can today. Described in a research paper published on Monday by a Berkeley, Calif., startup called Profluent, the technology is based on the same methods that drive ChatGPT, the online chatbot that launched the A.I. boom after its release in 2022. The company is expected to present the paper next month at the annual meeting of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. Much as ChatGPT learns to generate language by analyzing Wikipedia articles, books and chat logs, Profluent’s technology creates new gene editors after analyzing enormous amounts of biological data, including microscopic mechanisms that scientists already use to edit human DNA. These gene editors are based on Nobel Prize-winning methods …