StemCell Therapy

Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market Research Report by Technology (Antisense, Crispr, Talen, and Zfn), by Application (Cell Line Engineering, Diagnostic Applications, Drug Discovery & Development, and Genetic Engineering) - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19

New York, Sept. 18, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market Research Report by Technology, by Application - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05953106/?utm_source=GNW

The Global Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market is expected to grow from USD 4,901.67 Million in 2019 to USD 14,012.67 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19.13%.

Market Segmentation & Coverage:This research report categorizes the Genome Editing/Genome Engineering to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets:

Based on Technology, the Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market studied across Antisense, Crispr, Talen, and Zfn.

Based on Application, the Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market studied across Cell Line Engineering, Diagnostic Applications, Drug Discovery & Development, and Genetic Engineering. The Genetic Engineering further studied across Animal Genetic Engineering and Plant Genetic Engineering.

Based on Geography, the Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region surveyed across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region surveyed across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region surveyed across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom.

Company Usability Profiles:The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market including Creative Biogene, Crispr Therapeutics, Editas Medicine, Epigenie, Eurofins Scientific SE, Genscript Biotech, Horizon Discovery Group PLC, Integrated DNA Technologies, Inc., Intellia Therapeutics, Inc., Lonza Group AG, Merck & Co., Inc., New England Biolabs, OriGene Technologies, Inc., Oxford Genetics Ltd., Precision Biosciences, Sangamo Therapeutics, Synthego Corporation, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Transposagen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., and Vigene Bioscience Inc..

FPNV Positioning Matrix:The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape.

Competitive Strategic Window:The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth.

Cumulative Impact of COVID-19:COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market.

The report provides insights on the following pointers:1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments

The report answers questions such as:1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market?2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market during the forecast period?3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market?4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market?5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market?6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market?Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05953106/?utm_source=GNW

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Genome Editing/Genome Engineering Market Research Report by Technology, by Application - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19 -...

Early in the morning of August 31st, 2020, as Salisha Odum owner/operator of Salishas Delicious Organic Produce, readied her daughter for online school, they both responded immediately to the sound of a plane flying close, at low altitude, to their house and fields.

The plane flew back and forth several times over the course of an hour, and by the third pass, Salisha said the unknown chemicals settled on the land.

Thats when I smelled the chemicals. And then I kind of got sick and dizzy and you know, wasnt feeling good at that time either we were out taking videos because what had happened in the past we wanted to get some footage if we could, Odum said.

Salishas photo records show a plane she traced back to Frey Spray LLC.

The Ally contacted Frey Spray owner Jerry Frey. He denied the allegation.

We werent flying over her house and we werent spraying over her house. Her field was a long ways away and no one else complained next door, Frey said in a phone interview.

Frey Spray LLC

Jerry Frey and Frey Spray are busy, with upwards of seven farm contracts a day, covering 600 acres on average, flying every day during the growing season.

They also spray 11,000 acres for the Churchill County Mosquito, Vector, and Noxious Weed Abatement District. The yearly contract for combatting mosquitos nears $100,000 annually.

Jerry is on the frontline of combatting vector-borne illness like malaria, dengue fever, and West Nile virus. If Zika virus were to arrive in Nevada, Jerry would probably be among the first to know.

Records obtained through the Nevada Department of Agriculture show that the Frey plane was spraying two pesticides on August 31: Fastac CS Insecticide and Yuma 4E Insecticide. Fastac CS is a class 3A insecticide, meaning in part that it is a pyrethroid.

As well as the effects suffered by Salisha, in more recent studies (by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry), this class of insecticides are shown to be possibly carcinogenic at higher levels of exposure. And the Yuma 4E in the class 1B, comes with warnings on its label:

Harmful If Absorbed Through Skin. Causes Moderate Eye Irritation Do not apply this product in a way that will contact workers or other persons, either directly or through drift. Only protected handlers may be in the area during application.

Frey Spray works as far afield as Battle Mountain, Minden/Gardnerville, Yerrington, Winnemucca, and Lovelock.

I asked Jerry Frey about sprays he was using on that day Salishas Delicious Organic Produce farm was allegedly sprayed: Yeahthat would take a long time to do (to describe) We use a horrible variety of that we go with whatever the EPA approves and calls for.

How many agents does Frey use?

Probably close to 100. We try to keep it confined to just a few and thats about as few as we can get; we could enlarge it and go to 200.

We asked if Jerry had any concerns about working so closely with all of these chemicals.

Theyve eliminated a lot of the caustic chemicals we just have to spray more often now, because they just left very weak products on the market. So everyone just has to spray more often. There never used to be this much spraying . . . So its just a matter of who controls the lawmaking, how far they can think ahead.

Jerry addresses permethrins (pesticides naturally derived from chrysanthemums) and pyrethroids (the chemically derived pesticides used in industrial agriculture).

Before Christ they discovered that certain extract other chrysanthemum plants killed worms real good, killed a lot of bugs real good. So of course were in the day and age we are now we reverse engineer it and we manufacture it by the gallon, thousands of gallons and a little bit does a lot.

And if youre sitting on your kitchen table in the gallon jug of this falls over and starts glugging out It could run onto a baby, a brand new born baby and not harm it at all. The salt shaker full of salt is more toxic than what is in that jug when we lean on those products a lot. Theyre called pyrethroids. And permethrins. The pyrethroids are the reverse-engineered. Weve been doing it for years Its just been a wonderful product. And they took a lot of nasty products off the marketthe press made them sound more nasty than they were but we dont care. So [the press has] a job to do. Alarms to ring anyway.

Salishas Delicious Organic Produce and the Challenges faced by Organic Farmers

Churchill County is a leading agricultural region in the state and home to 672 farms and ranches. Nearly $200 million in agricultural products are sold a year. Sixty-three percent of the farms are smaller than 49 acres.

Salisha is/was one of two certified organic farmers in the county at the time of press and is literally surrounded by industrial operations that hulk in size compared to the scale of her organic farm.

According to the USDA, 4 percent of all food sales in the nation are organic.

To achieve United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic certification, farmers must pass regular tests through the course of three years, showing their soil has no herbicide or pesticide residues. Farmers seeking organic certification have to keep their farms, records and practices open to examining inspectors throughout the entire course of the three-year process.

Organic crop and production practices are based on: soil building through composting; use of organic non-genetically modified seeds; crop rotation to keep soil biomes healthy and diverse (as well as to help mitigate pests); pest management relying on the PAMS (prevention, avoidance, monitoring, and suppression) strategy, which is achieved through natural means only, except for a small list of USDA-approved synthetic pesticides.

According to the USDA, organic production is achieved through a combination of practices which promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity [while] avoiding use of synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, irradiation, and genetic engineering.

All of this with the aim to sustain and regenerate the very systems that raise nutritious wholesome food.

Conventional farming, also known as industrial agriculture, became more popular and widely practiced after WWII, largely in efforts to drive food yields and production up.

Synthetic chemical insecticides and pesticides are permitted and regulated through the Environmental Protection Agencys guidelines. Genetically modified organisms, irradiation, and the use of sewage sludge are permissible in the practices of conventional farming.

Monocropping is also part of the industrial system, allowing for huge yields and productions of produce for human consumption, as well as fodder crops for animal feed. Many of the animals to which the fodder is fed are confined in large-scale farming operations (also known as CAFOs: confined animal farming operations), where they are living in unnaturally dense containment.

The animals are fed grain diets heavily supplemented by hormones for quick fattening and medications to stave off infections, sicknesses and diseases wrought by living in such unnatural proximity.

To treat industrial-scale fields, heavy and specialized machinery like giant tractor systems, airplanes, and helicopters are used to enable large-scale operations.

These practices were introduced with the goal to feed the world and eradicate hunger.

On June 16, 2016, Salisha said Frey Spray wrongly treated her property with glyphosate, an active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup. Salisha sued Frey; and the parties settled out of court.

Weve had problems with [Salisha] before and had to go to court. And we never were proven to be wrong there, said Jerry Frey about the glyphosate incident.

Salisha recalls the preliminary court hearing.

Judge Stockard advised the Freys that they were not going to win in court, because we had forensic evidence . . . [positive tests for glyphosate] from the Nevada Department of Agriculture, and so they decided that they would go ahead and settle out of court and thats what we did.

It was only in late 2019 that Salisha was recertified USDA organic, after enduring that three-year period of glyphosate residues diminishing enough in her soils to regain the organic stamp.

Spraying these pesticides on a certified organic farm is a catastrophic event. Testing is underway at Salishas farm, but if these chemicals are present, she would lose her certification.

If Salisha were a conventional farmer, she would have to wait 30-60 days after insecticidal spraying for human consumption of these crops.

As an organic farmer, these same crops have to rest for at least 120 days for the current round of insecticide residue to diminish enough into the soil. To be organically saleable, the USDA must test the soil.

All of this disruption happened with only a couple weeks remaining at Salishas primary farmers market in Reno.

Salishas other main outlet, the Fallon Food Hub, now has a serious shortage of organic vegetables.

Planning for Next Season

As Salisha thinks ahead to her next growing season, she awaits the latest round of test results to decide her next course of action regarding the alleged spray-over of her farms, which could mean possible litigation.

Now are the days of big harvest. Many crops are coming in, and lots of sales will be made. Meanwhile, Salishas turned the water off. She has chalked-up the rest of 2020 as a loss.

A lot of work I put in is pretty much wasted Its my preference not to buy food at the store if I dont have to, because if I can go out there and know whats in the product and its got my work in there too, you know, its even better I agree with my customers that my food tastes the best. I truly believe that thats what got me into this in the first place, is wanting to have good food.

All Im really worried about is being an organic farmer and feeding people good food. I mean, thats what I do in life, you know.

Salishas Delicious Organic Produce in Churchill County is a microcosm of organic farming in the United States. Clouds of prohibited chemical agents surround organic farms. Salisha says one farmers gold is another farmers poison.

I mean, if you look at the list of the toxicity on this stuff, its utterly crazy that anybody would even think about putting it on food this is a problem that I know that the United States is facing and its probably not just my farm whos has to go through things like this. And so Im hoping that maybe we can just bring awareness to whats actually going on, and maybe also bring awareness to [the sprayers] as to the effects that it has on people

Once youve been actually exposed to these chemicals, then you can honestly say, I know this is not good for me.

This stuff is poison. And I dont understand why today we call things that are poison, not poison. Back when I was a kid, we put a skull and crossbones on poison. You dont see that anymore. And to me, thats a scary thing.

Anthony Postman writes about agriculture, sustainability and the environment for the Ally. Support his work.

Originally posted here:
Alleged Pesticide Spraying of organic farm in Fallon highlights the differences between organic and conventional agriculture - The Sierra Nevada Ally

Organoids, which originate from stem cells, are a tool with great potential for modeling tissue and disease biology. The idea is to build miniature tissues and organs that accurately resemble and behave like their real counterparts. But there have been limitations to their development. A new study has taken organoids a step further by inducing intestinal stem cells to form tube-shaped epithelia with an accessible lumen and a similar spatial arrangement of crypt- and villus-like domains to that in vivo. These mini-intestines also retain key physiological hallmarks of the intestine and have a notable capacity to regenerate.

The work is published in Nature in the paper titled, Homeostatic mini-intestines through scaffold-guided organoid morphogenesis.

Organoids could complement animal testing by providing healthy or diseased human tissues, expediting the lengthy journey from lab to clinical trial. Beyond that, organoid technology may hold promise, in the long-term, to replace damaged tissues or even organs in the future. For example, by taking stem cells from a patient and growing them into a new liver, heart, kidney, or lung.

So far, established methods of making organoids come with considerable drawbacks: stem cells develop uncontrollably into circular and closed tissues that have a short lifespan, as well as non-physiological size and shape, all of which result in overall anatomical and/or physiological inconsistency with real-life organs.

Now, scientists from the group led by Matthias Ltolf, PhD, professor at EPFLs Institute of Bioengineering, have found a way to guide stem cells to form an intestinal organoid that looks and functions just like real tissue. The method exploits the ability of stem cells to grow and organize themselves along a tube-shaped scaffold that mimics the surface of the native tissue, placed inside a microfluidic chip.

The researchers used a laser to sculpt the gut-shaped scaffold within a hydrogel, a soft mix of crosslinked proteins found in the guts extracellular matrix supporting the cells in the native tissue. Aside from being the substrate on which the stem cells could grow, the hydrogel thus also provides the form or geometry that would build the final intestinal tissue.

Once seeded in the gut-like scaffold, within hours, the stem cells spread across the scaffold, forming a continuous layer of cells with its characteristic crypt structures and villus-like domains. Then came a surprising result: the scientists found that the stem cells arranged themselves in order to form a functional tiny gut.

It looks like the geometry of the hydrogel scaffold, with its crypt-shaped cavities, directly influences the behavior of the stem cells so that they are maintained in the cavities and differentiate in the areas outside, just like in the native tissue, said Ltolf. The stem cells didnt just adapt to the shape of the scaffold, they produced all the key differentiated cell types found in the real gut, with some rare and specialized cell types normally not found in organoids.

Intestinal tissues are known for the highest cell turnover rates in the body, resulting in a massive amount of shed dead cells accumulating in the lumen of the classical organoids that grow as closed spheres and require weekly breaking down into small fragments to maintain them in culture. The introduction of a microfluidic system allowed us to efficiently perfuse these mini-guts and establish a long-lived homeostatic organoid system in which cell birth and death are balanced, said Mike Nikolaev, a graduate student and the first author of the paper.

The researchers demonstrated that these miniature intestines share many functional features with their in vivo counterparts. For example, they can regenerate after massive tissue damage and they can be used to model inflammatory processes or host-microbe interactions in a way not previously possible with any other tissue model grown in the laboratory.

In addition, this approach is broadly applicable for the growth of miniature tissues from stem cells derived from other organs such as the lung, liver, or pancreas, and from biopsies of human patients. Our work, explained Ltolf, shows that tissue engineering can be used to control organoid development and build next-gen organoids with high physiological relevance, opening up exciting perspectives for disease modeling, drug discovery, diagnostics, and regenerative medicine.

Go here to see the original:
Intestinal Organoid Built That Looks and Functions Like Real Tissue - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

On Sept. 15, Dr. Frances Arnold, a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering at California Institute of Technology, gave the fall John R. and Donna S. Hall Engineering Lecture to over 700 participants over Zoom.

The lecture covered the concept of directed evolution, for which Arnold was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Directed evolution uses lab technologies that create mutations in a pre-selected gene. These genes are then used to manufacture the mutated enzymes, which are then tested for function. Enzymes that help facilitate the reaction are selected and the process continues until the scientist is satisfied with the results.

The Hustler spoke with Dr. Frances Arnold on a Sept. 15 Zoom call about how she overcomes roadblocks, what inspires her and her advice to students.

Vanderbilt Hustler: What is a concept that still amazes you to this day?

Dr. Frances Arnold: Evolution, I think its amazing that such a simple engineering process can solve such complex problems. Were just at the beginning of this whole idea that you can reprogram the biological world, and use evolution to do it. Its mind-boggling. Youre lucky youre young. Youre going to see such incredible advances, such amazing things that you can do with biology.

When you face a roadblock in a project, what is the first thing you do?

It depends how big the roadblock is. If its an important problem, and Ive got to get over it, I find other ways to solve the same problems. Just as often I say, its not really worth getting over that roadblock, lets turn right and see whats over there.

Especially for engineers, this is one of the treasures of being an engineer. Were trying to make things that nobody has made before. Were trying to understand where we can go with, say, reprogramming the biological world. So, if you cant do one thing, there are 500,000 other things that you can do, so I think its important to adapt to roadblocks.

Could you talk about what motivated you to go into chemical engineering? You got your undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering at Princeton; what guided you after you had that strong foundation?

When I was a mechanical engineer, I wanted to engineer the most complicated things on the planet, and to me, that was an airplane or rocket ship. I took this job in Brazil and was looking at ethanol fuels and engineering something like biofuels. I realized that human engineering complexity is the tiniest fraction of the complexity of the biological world and not nearly as elegant. I love how a bird flies. There are very different solutions to the same problem, but the biological solutions are so amazing.

So, I decided to go into chemical engineering as a graduate student, mainly to try to do biofuels research, but of course, that was the end of that. Reagan was the new president. Cars were getting long again, and no one cared about energy efficiency. But it was the beginning of the DNA revolution, so I said, there is a whole new world of biological engineering that Im going to be part of. Chemical engineering was a great way to combine chemistry, biology and engineering.

At that time, was chemical engineering fairly separated from the biological sciences?

Chemical engineering has a long history of dealing with biological processes, but they werent doing it using genetic engineering, they were doing it at the process design level ethanol plants and agriculture and food science and things like that. But what happened starting in the later [19]70s and early [19]80s is that these new techniques of recombinant DNA technology started to become available.

I and other people realized that you could solve engineering problems at the level of the catalyst. If you could design a better catalyst, you could solve all sorts of process problems. We took the long history of chemical engineering and grew this new protein engineering out of it.

What do you see as the future of the enzymes you are making?

I dream of the day that all the synthetic chemists will be replaced by bacteria. (laughs) It makes me popular in the chemistry circles. Think about it, if you could just genetically encode all these transformations, you could take renewable resources to anything you want.

You worked at the forefront of the variety of disciplines, chemistry, biology, engineering as well as agriculture. Is there anything you are more interested in learning more about?

Im learning more about everything everyday. I take on new jobs, Im on the board of directors of Alphabet [Google parent company], so Im learning about antitrust suits. The world is a fascinating place. Theres lots of science, but theres lots of other interesting and important things to learn about. Im always listening to seminars and getting ideas, it never stops.

Beyond science, in college, what were some of the things that formulated the perspectives you have today?

That was my problem. I became a mechanical engineer because that had the fewest number of requirements. Then I could take Russian, Italian, French, economics and development. At Princeton, its a very liberal arts school, but also a good engineering school. I was able to learn a lot of different things and explore different ideas.

I think thats very important as a young person because you never know where your inspiration will come from. I also took a lot of time off. I lived in Spain, Italy, Brazil. You never know when something is going to be useful to you later on.

One problem with the educational system is that it is more eye-closing than eye-opening.

How are you able to go beyond calculations and keep an open mind in the sciences and engineering?

All I have to do is remember all the people who told me that what I was doing was a total waste of time. One group said it was impossible; another it wasnt worth doing anyway. These were top scientists, and they really thought they knew. So, I think we all should be humble in thinking what is worth doing and thinking we know the answers because all sorts of crazy surprises come up.

[Students] go and think everything is known. Will there be room for me? Will I be able to make fundamental advances? I felt that same way when I was an undergrad and yet there is so much that is unknown. There is so much gold out there to discover and uncover if you dont close your eyes to it. One problem with the educational system is that it is more eye-closing than eye-opening.

One problem with the educational system is that it is more eye-closing than eye-opening.

What has been your favorite class to teach?

I love teaching my biomolecular engineering class. I have a debate with a rational designer, another faculty member at Caltech, who rationally designs complex molecules and I am the evolutionist. We just throw tomatoes at each other across the room, and students love it. They see the debate in real-time and then they have to make a decision of who is right and who is wrong. Are they both right? When do I use one method versus the other? Thats a fun one.

Do you look more to biology or chemistry when facing a problem?

It really depends. If we are looking for new chemistry to do a chemical reaction that a human has invented, you start with chemistry. What is the mechanism? Is there a protein that looks remotely like this? So, you are inspired by the chemistry. On the other hand, if you want to understand how evolution works, there is no chemistry in that. It is much more in the biology side.

I run a big research group now and almost all the problems are brought in by students and postdocs. My job is to be an editor of ideas rather than the generator of ideas. They are all going to have their own training and way of looking at it and I try not to close their eyes.

At what point did you become interested in preserving the environment?

I was already interested in alternative energy coming out of college. That was part of the environmental problem, but it was more about stability and sustainability. How can we become independent from the Middle East? So, it was also political. As my career has gone on, I see the tremendous destruction that we are doing to the planet. It just becomes worse and worse, so I have become much more interested in trying to limit environmental degradation.

How are you able to carry out such wide-ranging projects?

They are not my ideas. The insect pheromone (Provivi) was my former students who said, I want to take these methods I learned at Caltech and use them on a really important problem. So, that came out of that. That is the wonderful thing about having a technology that is simple to use. Directed evolution is really simple and fundamentally powerful.

All sorts of people will use it for really interesting things, and then I can take at least some tiny amount of credit. Evolution is everything in the biological world. It is not surprising that it has many applications in biotechnology.

How did you get interested in teaching and what inspires you to continue teaching?

I wanted to have no boss. That was the driving force to get me into academics. I have had lots of jobs over my lifetime, and the one thing I really didnt like was having a boss. I went into academics so that I could do what I was interested in. It is a lot of responsibility because you have to do something interesting, otherwise you get booted out.

I wanted to plot my own course. I probably wouldnt have chosen to teach, but I really like working with grad students. I like working with a team and I learned how to do that over the course of my career, so that teaching became more enjoyable as I got better at it.

Do you have advice for undergrad students pursuing engineering or chemistry?

Id like them to know that the horizon is wide open. The field is wide open. There is so much more to do and discover. It is a great way to use your creativity to solve big problemsto do something good for the planet.

See the article here:
Q&A: Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Dr. Frances Arnold speaks to The Hustler about her inspiration and advice to students - The Vanderbilt Hustler

How seriously does one take Dr Li-Meng Yan? And how seriously does one take the paper Unusual Features of the Sars-CoV2 Genome Suggesting Sophisticated Laboratory Modification Rather Than Natural Evolution and Delineation of its Probable Synthetic Route, published by her and co-authors, under the aegis of the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation, New York, on September 14? As the title suggests, the paper claims the coronavirus was man-made, in a laboratory.

The paper was uploaded on open-source research repository Zenodo, run by CERN, and was reported by Hindustan Times on Wednesday (bit.ly/33uFyy4). It wasnt as widely reported as Dr Yans comments in Loose Women, a segment of a TV show hosted by a UK TV channel, on which she pretty much said the same thing, albeit without any of the scientific arguments -- unsubstantiated ones -- presented in the paper.

Heres what that paper claimed:

One, ZC45, a bat virus, or a closely related variant or mutant, bears a striking similarity with Sars-CoV2, as shown by genome sequencing, with a 94%-100% similarity of key viral proteins.

The spike protein of Sars-CoV2 is essentially a trimer (essentially three parts) each of which has an S1 and S2 part with a furin cleavage site at the boundary between the two. Other research has already established that the human cellular enzyme furin cleaves, or breaks, the S1 and S2 unit at the cleavage site, and that the S1 unit then attaches to the ACE receptor, another protein found on the surface of most human cells. This binding then facilitates the entry of the viral protein into human cells. The virus ability to bind with the receptor, and the presence of the cleavage site that responds to a cannon human enzyme, are the reasons Covid-19 is as infective as it is.

Click here for complete coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic

Both the furin cleavage site, and the binding ability of the spike protein with the ACE2 receptor arent natural, the paper argued.

In their preface to this scientific hypothesis, the authors also claim that the process of creating such a virus in a laboratory could take only six months. They ask for further research and investigation into the origin of the virus. Even if their hypothesis is subsequently proven erroneous, this is a recommendation that no can argue with the origin of the virus needs to be investigated, not so much to assign blame (although there will be some that too), but to prepare for the next virus and the next pandemic.

Dr Yan, currently in the US, where she fled to in late April, is a virologist who used to work at the University of Hong Kong School of Public Health, and who has for long claimed that China knew of the virus and the fact that human-to-human transmission of the infection was happening, long before it let on. Her claims on the virus being man-made are more recent.

Interestingly, a March paper in Nature titled The Proximal Origin of Sars-Cov2, authored by Kristian G Andersen of Californias Scripps Research Institute, argued, again picking on the same two distinctive features of Sars-CoV2, that the virus was natural. The viral protein showed a high affinity to bind with the receptor, they said, but this interaction wasnt ideal or optimal. In plain English this meant that if anyone had set out to engineer the virus, they would have picked the ideal binding relation, not just another optimal one. The paper also said that there were other coronaviruses that had similar cleavage sites and that this wasnt unique to Sars-CoV2.

However, the two papers differ in one significant aspect. The one published in Nature said the genetic data irrefutably show that Sars-CoV2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone. Dr Yans said (again, without substantiation that) a genomic sequence analysis reveals that ZC45, or a closely related bat coronavirus, should be the backbone used for the creation of Sars-CoV2.

Also read|Over 5,000 Indians died in West, East Asian countries amid Covid-19 pandemic: Govt informs Parliament

Dr Yans claims are also being seen through a political lens, with scientists in the US pointing out that the two non-profits that published the paper were linked to Steve Bannon, former Trump adviser and former executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News, casting aspersions on the studys findings.

Clearly, only further research and investigation can shed light on the origin of the virus which has thus far infected 29,927,685 and killed 942,564 around the world. India ended Wednesday with 5,115,846 cases and 83,230 deaths.

But as Vivek Wadhwa, a columnist for this paper, a top technology thinker, and distinguished fellow at Harvard Law Schools Labor and Worklife Program, said in a recent article in Foreign Policy: If genetic engineering wasnt behind this pandemic, it could very well unleash the next one. Thats because, genetic engineering with all its potential for good and bad has become democratised, Wadhwa wrote.

Thanks to a technological revolution in genetic engineering, all the tools needed to create a virus have become so cheap, simple, and readily available that any rogue scientist or college-age biohacker can use them.

Original post:
Covid-19: What you need to know today - Hindustan Times

Its early days, says the Good Food Institute (GFI), but microbial fermentation is rapidly emerging as the third pillar in the alternative protein industry [alongside cell-cultured and plant-based]," attracting $435m in investment capital in 2020 alone.

Right now, producing protein whether from peas and soybeans or cows and chickens is resource-intensive and time-consuming, requiring large amounts of land, energy and water, says the GFI, which has just released a 72-page reporton fermentation in the alternative protein industry, arguing that itspotential is still largely untapped.

Put another way, it takes years to grow animals, and months or years to grow plants, while microbes can double their biomass in a matter of hours, as Natures Fynd CEO Thomas Jonas recently observed: Microbes are pretty damn efficient. They make great protein and they do it really fast.

Many microorganisms also offer innately high protein content (over 50% by dry weight) coupled with extraordinarily fast and self-sufficient growth, requiring only simple and inexpensive nutrient feedstocks, noted the GFI.

Fermentation-based products can also be manufactured from a distributed network of local production facilities using a fraction of the land, water, and inputs required to raise and feed animals with the added appeal of consistent quality, a lack of price volatility, and security of supply (plus it does not require killing animals on an industrial scale).

While many food ingredients, from enzymes (chymosin, a coagulating enzyme used in cheese production) to sweeteners (Reb M), vitamins (B12, Riboflavin), and colors (beta carotene) have been made via microbial fermentation for years, investment in a new wave of fermentation players focused on the alternative protein industry has exploded over the past two years.

Approaches vary, with some startups using synthetic biology (so-called precision fermentation) to write DNA sequences that can be inserted into microorganisms to instruct them to produce substances currently produced by mammals, from whey and casein proteins (Perfect Day), egg white (Clara Foods), and collagen (Geltor) to proteins found in human breast milk (Triton Algae Innovations).

Other are deploying precision fermentation to produce components that are found in plants, but can be produced more efficiently via fermentation. For example, Impossible Foods uses a genetically engineered yeast strain to produce its flagship meaty-tasting and red-colored ingredient leghemoglobin - heme - which is found in nodules attached to the roots of nitrogen-fixing plants such as soy.

A third group of companies (using so-called biomass fermentation) such as Natures Fynd,Meati Foods, Brewed Foods (Plentify), Air Proteinand Noblegen are growing naturally occurring organisms from protists and bacteria to extremophiles that are inherently high in protein.

Globally, fermentation companies devoted to alternative proteins received more than $274m in venture capital funding in 2019 and $435m in the first seven months of 2020 from investors such as Bill Gates-backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Temasek and Horizons Ventures to major CPG and ingredients players such as Kellogg, ADM, Danone, Kraft Heinz, Mars and Tyson.

By mid-2020, 44 fermentation companies focused on alternative proteins had formed around the globe, while several of the worlds largest food and life science companies, including DuPont, Novozymes, and DSM, have also been developing fermentation-derived product lines and solutions tailored to the alternative protein industry, said GFI.

But they're still just scratching the surface, argued report authors Dr Liz Specht and Nate Crosser.

While fermentation has a rich history of use in food, as the modern era has demonstrated, its innovative potential is still largely untapped.

The vast biological diversity of microbial species, coupled with virtually limitless biological synthesis capabilities, translates to immense opportunity for novel alternative protein solutions to emerge from fermentation-based approaches.

Fermentation is a key means of producing animal-origin-free growth factors for cell-cultured meat production, with firms such as ORF Genetics, Richcore, and Peprotech now working in this space.

While some of the strain development work to identify and optimize microbes with potential in this segment uses tools such as gene editing and genetic engineering, noted the GFI, vast progress is also possiblethrough simple adaptation and breeding strategies powered by advanced genomic insights.

The urgency of the moment calls for bold research to explore novel hosts that could significantly outperform the incumbents.

More work is also needed to identify more cost effective or sustainable feedstocks (for the microbes) via converting waste products or agro-industrial byproducts into high-quality protein biomass, says the GFI, noting that the extremophile microorganism developed by Natures Fynd, for example, exhibits wide metabolic flexibility and therefore suitability to diverse feedstocks.

The organism used byAir Protein,meanwhile, uses components found in the air - notably carbon dioxide as feedstock.

This is just the beginning: The opportunity landscape for technology development is completely untapped in this area. Many alternative protein products of the future will harness the plethora of protein production methods now available, with the option of leveraging combinations of proteins derived from plants, animal cell culture, and microbial fermentation.

Dr. Liz Specht, associate director of science and technology, The Good Food Institute

But what about price?

According to the GFI, there is reason to believe that fermentation can achieve price parity with most products through a combination of approaches including increasing scale, improving volumetric productivity (better yields), and prolonging continuous bioprocessing (the longer a process runs continuously at its peak in steady-state growth, the more efficient the overall run will be because the cells are continuously harvested from their maximum productivity).

Fermentation is not just valuable in its own right, offering competitive prices, unparalleled functionality and scalability, and validated mechanisms for establishing and ensuring safety; it stands to revolutionize the entire alternative protein industry, with spillover applications in both plant-based products and cultivated meat.

In 2019, fermentation companies raised over 3.5 times more capital than all cell-cultured meat companies combined.

One aspect of the technology that is less explored in the report is consumer perception, which is less of an issue for companies using microbes to produce ingredients consumers already recognize such as whey or collagen, but could present novel challenges for companies making new-to-the-world ingredients, as Lever VC managing partner Nick Cooney told FoodNavigator-USA in a recent interview.

Consumer acceptance is definitely something we think about in the alternative proteins space when were evaluating companies, and I do think there will be an increased challenge for companies producing novel proteins.

Clearly, bacteria-sourced protein is not something youd find in Grandmas kitchen cupboard, Brewed Foods co-founder Dr Jonathan Gordon, told Food Navigator-USA.

But its not some kind of sci-fi fantasy either, he stressed:The notion of consuming bacteria has become very well established thanks to probiotics, although in our case, the bacteria are not live, but are fully deactivated, so theyre entirely dead, and non spore-forming.

KarunaRawal, CMO at Natures Fynd, added: What we found was that consumers just want to know what it is [the protein source], they dont like it when companies cloud things in[euphemistic]language, and we dont want to confuse anyone.

But Id say were in a different time to when Quorn[a soil micro-organism described on pack as mycoprotein]came to market and since then, the notion of good bacteria, and fermented products have become very mainstream and the landscape has changed.

The GFI breaks the market down into three segments:

Perfect Day,a startup producing milk proteins via microbial fermentation (minus the cows), recently expanded its Series C round from a previously-announced $140m, up to $300m through a new tranche led by CPP Investments and bolstered by long-time supporters Temasek and Horizons Ventures.

The cash injection -bringing its cumulative funding to over $360m -was announced as Berkeley, Calif.-based Perfect Day revealed a series of incremental improvements in recent months enabling it to increase the efficiency of its production process, substantially reducing costs two years ahead of expectations.

While Perfect Day is a b2b company, it recently moved into the b2c space via spinoff The Urgent Company, which is focused on consumer brands, beginning with animal-free ice cream Brave Robot.

Plentify a novel protein sourced from a strain of bacteria that naturally produces high levels of protein is more efficient to produce than plant-based proteins, and compared to animal husbandry, is ludicrously efficient,"claims Brewed Foods co-founder Dr Jonathan Gordon.

The obvious advantage here is the incredible compactness of production. You can basically use waste products to fuel the process. We can produce tons of protein in an incredibly small footprintconsistently and efficiently.

"Protein production is also the primary purpose of the process[whereas most plants harvested for protein also contain large quantities of starch, oil or other components that producers need to find a market for, both for economic and sustainability reasons].

Air Protein(which utilizes single-cell organisms called hydrogenotrophs first studied by NASA in the 1960s),is using components found in the air - notably carbon dioxide - as a low-cost feedstock.

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Microbes, the third pillar in the alternative protein industry: 'The rationale is simple: Fermentation is just more efficient' - FoodNavigator-USA.com

The Boston Cannabis Board yesterday approved a proposal by the city's first medicinal-marijuana dispensary, on Milk Street, to add recreational pot to its offerings and approved a number of proposed pot shops from East Boston to Roslindale.

The votes by the board do not mean the shops can now open - they still need to win approval from the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, which can prove a lengthy process.

However, Patriot Care, which won city approval for its medical dispensary at 21 Milk St. after promising it would not seek to add "adult use" products, will get an expedited review for its shop because it already has approval to sell medical marijuana.

In its vote yesterday, the city board set several conditions on its approval, including that the new shop sell recreational pot only on an appointment basis for its first six months and that it would have to return to that model if, starting in the seventh month, lines start forming outside. Also, the shop can't sell "pre-rolled cannabis products," has to set a minimum order of $35, and has to include educational information about marijuana in each products.

Also yesterday, the board approved:

The board rejected a proposal by Dragon Vapors, LLC for a pot shop at 354-358 Chestnut Hill Ave. in Brighton and deferred until October a vote on a proposal by New Dia LLC for a pot shop that would share space in the building housing the Cask and Flagon across from Fenway Park.

The board approved a proposal by Beacon Compassion, Inc. for a medical dispensary at 1524 VFW Parkway in West Roxbury - it would go in the basement of the building that already houses a liquor store and a sex-toys shop.

Excerpt from:
Recreational pot wins nod in Downtown Crossing and across the city - Universal Hub

The Reverse-Flash spent his life trying to destroy the Flash, and his efforts have made the speedster the most despicable villain in the DC Universe.

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Flash #761, by Joshua Williamson, Howard Porter, Hi-Fi and Steve Wands, on sale now.

Lex Luthor, Sinestro, and the Joker are thought of as some of the best villains in comic books. An often overlooked supervillain, Eobard Thawne's Reverse-Flash has proven time and again that he's not only a formidable nemesis of the Flash but thathehas the powers to affect and alter the entire DCU. The level of cruelty and downright brutality the Reverse-Flash displays makes him one of the greatestvillains.

Reverse-Flashwas created byJohn BroomeandCarmine Infantino and first appeared in The Flash #139 in 1963.Thawne comes from the 25th Century in which all mistakes have been eradicated and technology has allowed humans to achieve perfection. Through genetic engineering, Thawne's birth was guided to control everything from his I.Q. to the color of his eyes and hair. After studying the Speed Force and becoming obsessed with Barry Allen, Thawne decides that he'll dowhatever it takes to become like Barry Allen.

Related: The Flash: Reverse-Flash's Secret Superpower Is Absolutely Devious

When Thawne's parentsgave him a little brother to help with his socialization, Thawne goesback in time toerase his baby brother from existence and then kills his parents when they try and interfere with his research. When he's jilted by a love interest who has a fiance, Thawne not onlykills the fiance but erases him from the timeline altogether. When she still won't go out with him, he goes back in time to when she was a little girl and shakes her so violentlythat she becomes brain damaged and is institutionalized. Now his younger self will never have the opportunity to meet her.

Thawne is avillain that if you wrong him, he'll kill you, your best friend, your family, and erase any trace of you from existence. During the "Flashpoint" storyline, Thawne is the only person to know that Barry Allen completely messed up the timeline. Barry went back in time to prevent Thawnefrom killing his mother, thereby creating a new timeline. Thawne helpsBarry realize what he did not because Thawne wants to see everything go back to normal. Thawne wants Barry to have to make the choice of either leaving the timeline screwed up or letting Reverse-Flash kill his mother. Thawne is able to mentally torture people on a level that is seldom seen in comic books.

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The Flash Shows Why the Reverse-Flash Is DC's Greatest Nemesis - CBR - Comic Book Resources

Some of the developers behind The Witcher 3, Dying Light, Dead Island, and Cyberpunk 2077 have come together to start up a new studio. Called Starward Industries, its first outing is a sci-fi game with atompunk aesthetics that is inspired by the works of Stanisaw Lem, a prominent novelist who worked within the same genre.Its called The Invincible, and its set in a world wheretechnology has advanced to the point of seamless space exploration, but equipment remains analogue as the digital revolution has not taken place, nor has The Cold War ended. The games been in the works since 2018, and the devs hope to have it out next year.

We got the chance to chat to project leader and CD Projekt Red vet Marek Markuszewsk ahead of the upcoming PC games reveal. So, first things first, what is it about Lem that the studio likes, and what is it about his work that Markuszewsk thinks translates to a videogame?

The most fascinating and inspiring thing about Lems writing is the extent of the boldness of the provided visionary, he tells us. His stories are multi-layered as if written with the intent to be adapted as interactive entertainment. Not everything is trivial, though. We have specifically chosen a novel with quite a deft theme, indeed a straightforward story related to space exploration, yet reaching to the phase which at present is still not easy to be fully pictured.

While Lem was particularly active between 19462005, Markuszewsk reckons the words he wrote still have plenty of meaning and relevance today. Lem has developed several visions of how humanity and societies may be evolving far into the future when space travel and meeting other species will be the norm, he says. Whilst were just beginning space exploration, many prophecies regarding tech innovations indeed came to life, such as the internet, ebook readers, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, micro-robotics et cetera.

Maybe not always named or working exactly as Lem imagined, but serving precisely the described purposes, rooted in science and psychology. Theres a strong feeling that with the recent trend which includes implants, chips and mental interfaces, were stepping into transhumanism the theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical constraints. Lems works are great to reflect on what challenges such developments may bring.

The themes of the game certainly seem bold and interesting, then, but what will The Invincible feel like from moment-to-moment when youre playing it? Markuszewsk says that the atmosphere draws comparisons to Alien: Isolation, whereas communicating through radio comms will put you in mind of Firewatch.

The gameplay is quite diverse, including exploration, navigation, face to face discussions with NPCs, operating various equipment which is all analogue, solving clues, interacting with robots, piloting drones, crunching data, even driving vehicles, Markuszewsk explains to us. A large part of interaction will include radio comms, sometimes dense, even tense at times, often intimate, closely related to the unfolding events in that way The Invincible can remind of Firewatch.

On the other hand, in terms of gameplay and atmosphere, the closest game I can think of is Alien: Isolation. Among tens of games which weve researched while working on The Invincibles concept, these two titles combined perhaps represent the best of what our game is going to offer.

More? Here are the best space games on PC

Markuszewsk hopes to release The Invincible in the second half of 2021, but thats conditional on several factors. Due to the current state of the world with COVID-19 and beyond, its hard to offer a more narrow timeframe. You can wishlist it on Steam if this one sounds like your kind of thing.

Read more from the original source:
Former Witcher 3 devs are launching a sci-fi novel-inspired game - PCGamesN

News reporting at its best should be nuanced. There are rarely black hats and white hats when it comes to understanding the issues of the day, unless you are 60 Minutes which revels in journalism casting. Life is usually shades of graycomplex. When reporters address controversial topics, its not enough to just get the various elements right; the headline and the editorial thrust should responsibly reflect the multi-dimensionality of a topic; otherwise a story can muddy the understanding of a complex issue and ultimately undermine both science and the publics trust in journalism.

Such is the case for a recent article reporting on a study of Monarch butterfly population declines by an advocacy group, written for Cornell Universitys Alliance for Science, a solid, reputable source of unbiased scientific information.

Why are Monarchs in decline? Its a hotly-debated issue, with many studies with competing conclusions. Anti-biotechnology activist groups have singled out the herbicide glyphosate as a major driver of the decline, so the issue is embedded in a wider, inflamed debate over the controversial weedkiller. Which makes it all the more important that any new science on this issue should be contextualized.

The GLP has addressed this controversy extensively, including providing a dispassionate, science-based analysis in our GMO FAQ resource. We interviewed and sourced a range of scientists on all sides of the issue. Here are two competing quotes, the first from a distinguished, independent scientist discussing the evidence in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; the second from an activist scientist, representative of activist critics, who happens to be affiliated with an organization known for its endorsements of homeopathy and Chinese medicine addressing the controversy:

Here is what the GLP presented to the public in its GMO FAQ as the science consensus on this issuewhich is accurate today:

There is intense scrutiny over the role that GMO crops (and, by extension, herbicides glyphosate and dicamba) often paired with them play in the health of the Monarch butterfly.

Butterfly population declines are often primarily blamed by activists and some scientists on farmers using herbicides to destroy milkweed a poisonous weed that severely damages crops but is a critical food source for butterfly caterpillars growing near their GMO crops. The issue is complex with researchers differing on the causes of the decline.

The insect is facing problems that appear to be more complex than a single culprit. Research suggests the Monarch faces numerous threats, most of them unrelated to the use of herbicides, including climate change and degradation of their overwintering habitat in Mexico.A review of 116 years of data published in 2019 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that agricultural practices, including the use of herbicides, are responsible for less than 20 percent of the monarch decline, blaming most of the declines on deaths during annual migrations to and from Mexico. A2020 study using data compiled by the conservation group Monarch Watch challenges that conclusion, blaming the loss of milkweed on a variety of complex factors,including loss of breeding grounds for weeds due to urbanization and suburbanization, and weed control efforts by organic and conventional farmers.

Thats the science consensus. Which makes it all the more baffling and disappointing when the Cornell Alliance for Science recently posted an article on its well-regarded site with its exaggerated and inflammatory headline and editorial thrust.The articles author, Denmark-based journalist Justin Cremer, opens the articlealready tainted by its headlinewith an exaggerated sentence that contradicts the central conclusion of the study it is reporting.

A new study suggests that extensive agricultural use of glyphosate herbicide is to blame for the decades-long decline in North Americas monarch butterfly population.

Cremer subsequently writes that the study results bolster the milkweed limitation hypothesis. This theory points to the widespread use of glyphosate as the main cause of the population decline.

Heres the problem: This headline and statements contradict the actual study as even Cremer himself acknowledges in an otherwise solidly-reported piece. Also, Cremer does not alert the reader to the source of the data for the study: a Monarch butterfly advocacy group, Monarch Watch. Its standard to inform the reader of potential conflicts of interest.

Milkweed is used exclusively by Monarchs for egg laying on their multi-generational migration from Mexico to Canada and back. As Cremer later points out, the actual study, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, and headed by University of Kansas emeritus professor (and Monarch expert) Orley Taylor and Iowa State University butterfly authority John Pleasants, is not focused on the glyphosate issue in the main. Its intent, the authors clearly state, is to analyze a popular hypothesis that the severe (more than 90 percent) Monarch population decline over the past few decades is due to losses during the butterflys southern migration.

The study supports an alternative hypothesisthat milkweed supply declines are a driving force, among many other issues, for the decline of these beautiful creatures.And whats behind the milkweed decline? Its not glyphosate directly as the headline asserts; rather, itsland use changes (more on that below).

The worlds most-used weedkiller has long been a popular target of genetic engineering opponents because its used with herbicide-tolerant Roundup Ready (glyphosate) corn and soybean, which now comprise more than 90 percent of all such crops grown in the United States. Previously, these groups blamed the GMO plants themselves for milkweed and Monarch declines. Conservation group Environmental Action summed up the activist case in a recent petition urging individual states to ban glyphosate:

WE NEED TO BAN ROUNDUP TO SAVE MONARCHS.If we want to save the monarch migration, one of natures greatest phenomena, we need to stop the habitat destruction thats been causing their numbers to plummet.A great step that your state can take? Ban Roundup, the weed killer whose active ingredient, glyphosate, decimates the milkweed plant monarchs rely on to survive.

More recently, activist groups have called for home-improvement retailers Lowes and Home Depot to stop selling Roundup (and its generic equivalents) because of its alleged impact on butterflies. Not long after the paper and Alliance for Science story were published, groups like Friends of the Earth and CommonDreams called for a sales ban.

In their pleas, the groups also cited the World Health Organizations (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) 2015 monograph, which linked glyphosate to certain cancers (a conclusion refuted by every regulatory agency in the world, including the WHO itself), and promoted organic farming methods (which do not exclude pesticides and also target milkweed removal).

There were media groups that contextualized the story, making the Alliance for Science report stand out even more. ScienceDaily handled it well, focusing on what the study was actually about: a refutation of the migratory hypothesis.

Science News concluded: These findings support the conclusion reached by a team of experts that sustaining the monarch migration will require the restoration of over a billion milkweed stems in the Upper Midwest in the coming years.

Even the progressive online magazine DownToEarth handled the headline and the story with appropriate nuance, writing, The findings led researchers to conclude that a billion milkweed stems needed to be restored in the Upper Midwest in the coming years to sustain Monarch migration. It did not single out one weed removal system or product.

This is where things get complicated, and where the author of the Cornell Alliance repot did not do his homework.Taylor told the Genetic Literacy Project that once glyphosate became popular, years before the introduction of GM corn and soy in the mid-1990s, it did almost eliminate milkweed from farmland. But, he added, that effect ended around 2006. Taylor, his co-author Pleasants and others were more concerned in 2000 about the use of GM crops bred to express Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) Cry toxin, which kills caterpillars, although recent research indicates these insect-resistant plants probably dont pose a risk to butterflies.

In fact, research has shown recent resurgences of Monarch butterflies, though their populations still remain significantly lower than their peak, as the Genetic Literacy Project explains in its FAQ on Monarchs and pesticides:

According to the independent Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network, the population in 2018 reached the highest levels of the past 25 years, and the fourth highest level since 1993. The number of butterflies heading south to Mexico may reach as many as 250 million over the 2018-19 winter. At its peak in the 1990s, the population reached an estimated 900 million.

Since 2006, corn and soy production have surged, partly due to overall demand but largely because of the 2007 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), signed by President George W. Bush, that encouraged the use of corn-based ethanol in gasoline. The RFS subsequently boosted corn production and, according to Taylor, led to 24 million acres of marginal land being converted to corn cropmore than three quarters of this land was grassland that probably once had milkweed. So, politics is the main driver of the rise in the use of milkweed-killing weedkillers. If glyphosate was banned tomorrow, other weedkillers that are more harmful would replace it and butterflies would be no better off.

In other words, the decline is complex. Even a prominent researcher at Monarch Watch, the source of the data, challenged the simplistic glyphosate theory; according to Cremer, Anurag Agrawal, who was not one of the studys researchers, cautioned Cremer that the situation is more complex than the study suggests and said Monarchs are experiencing stress from multiple sources. But that caution is contradicted by the headline opening line and much of the reporting in Cremers piece.

The real issue, as weird as it may sound, is how do we restore weeds, for thats where Monarchs flourish. Weedy areas are targeted by all farmers, organic and conventional. Monarchs fair no better in organic farms, where they are removed through carbon-belching machinery by hand rather than by using glyphosate or dicamba. The main driver in the reduction of weedy areas, as this study and others conclude, is not the use of glyphosate but urbanization and suburbanization, and the removal of wild areas for housing and industrial uses.

Commenting on the Alliance for Science article Taylor noted:

The text shows there is a failure to understand that long-term trends in populations are based on long-term trends. The trend here is loss of habitat and not mortality during migration or at other times in the annual cycle.

Andrew Kniss, weed scientist at the University of Wyoming, tweeted shortly after the Alliance for Science article posted. Echoing Taylor, he observed that this was an issue of milkweed habitat losses because of land use, not herbicides.

Glyphosate is better than most herbicides, he wroteand that includes weed control chemicals used by organic farmers. If farmers did not use glyphosate, they would just substitute something elsealmost certainly more toxic and ecologically compromisingand the problem would persist.Knisss perspective that this issue is far more complex than the simplistic glyphosate is harmful chants dovetails with the conclusions of a 2016Cornell University study:

In the face of scientific dogma that faults the population decline of monarch butterflies on a lack of milkweed, herbicides and genetically modified crops, a new Cornell University study casts wider blame: sparse autumnal nectar sources, weather and habitat fragmentation.

In other words, this problem is rooted in the removal of weedy plots and not a glyphosate or even a herbicide issue per se. Both organic farmers and conventional farmers need to remove milkweeds; the method of removal should not be the issue.The CAS article served to legitimize out-of-context attacks on a safe and effective herbicide. Intended or not, it implied that farming systems that rely primarily on synthetic weedkillers are more likely to endanger the Monarch than farming systems using natural chemicals or machines to control weeds. Does anyone really believe that if glyphosate or dicamba or a mechanical tiller was not available, farmers would allow weeds, including milkweed, to inundate their farms?

So, what kind of everyday kindness could improve the fate of the Monarch butterfly?

Monarch Watch and other groups have spent years advocating for accelerated planting of milkweed, especially along the migratory corridors through the US and the Canadian Midwest. If farmers cant do it (or wont, because milkweed is a weed and farming is a precarious business) on their farms, addressing areas could work: public areas, highway medians, federal lands, parks, homes and schools. Taylors paper called specifically for replanting 1.4 million stems of milkweed to return to levels seen 40-50 years ago; where they are replanted is a separate issue.

At Monarch Watch, we now have over 30,000 registered sites with at least twice that number that have been created but not registered, Taylor said. There are plenty of opportunities to provide habitats for monarchs and pollinators in lots of marginal areas around farms and even in suburban and urban environments.

Andrew Porterfield is a Contributing Correspondent to the Genetic Literacy Project. He is a writer and editor, and has worked with numerous academic institutions, companies and non-profits in the life sciences.BIO. Follow him on Twitter@AMPorterfield

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Roundup glyphosate weedkiller responsible for the decline in Monarch butterflies? Media and advocacy groups badly misreport study - Genetic Literacy...

New research report on Bio Vanillin market, which is a detailed analysis of this business space inclusive of the trends, competitive landscape, and the market size. Encompassing one or more parameters among product analysis, application potential, and the regional growth landscape, Bio Vanillin market also includes an in-depth study of the industry's competitive scenario.

Increasing consumer preference towards natural ingredients in food &beverage and personal care formulations will drive global bio vanillin market demand. Natural ingredients have been steadily gaining acceptance with consumers, especially across evolved markets, along with regulatory support for labeling standards. Bio vanillin has been developed as an alternative to the synthetic ingredient, which accounts for over 95% of present global demand.

Food &beverages dominated the application landscape, worth over USD 8 million in 2015. Appeal of new flavors in the industry and strong demand for confectionery and bakery products along with persistent development are key stimulating factors.

Request Sample Copy of this Report @ https://www.theresearchprocess.com/request-sample/6278

Bio Vanillin Market size is expected to surpass USD 19 million by 2023; according to a new research report

Request Sample Copy of this Report @ https://www.theresearchprocess.com/request-sample/6278

Biotechnology is also an important route in terms of addressing food waste and natural feedstock issues, permitting low value compound conversions to products of significant commercial interest. However, commercial success of the product will hinge on competitive bio vanillin market price trend.

Synthetic biology vanillin process is likely to lead the biomass removal required for good agricultural soil. Synthetic organisms may also harm the ecology on their escape either intentionally or unintentionally into the environment from a lab which is likely to be a threat for industry growth.

The product is at its initial development stage, while industry participants claim a natural product, there is some ambiguity regarding this classifications, as a few groups have claimed these products are artificial owing to its production from genetic engineering. Naturally derived vanillin from the pod remains in demand, however, a very high price and limited cultivation is unable to meet global demand.

Key insights from the report include:

Major Highlights from Table of contents are listed below for quick lookup into Bio Vanillin Market report

Chapter 1. Methodology and Scope

Chapter 2. Executive Summary

Chapter 3. Bio Vanillin Industry Insights

Chapter 4. Company Profiles

Request Customization on This Report @ https://www.theresearchprocess.com/request-for-customization/6278

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Bio Vanillin Market Key Growth Factors, development trends, key manufacturers and competitive forecast 2023 - The Research Process

Concepts arent magic but they do focus the mind.

Consider, for example, the new economy: new, high-growth industries that are on the cutting edge of technology (Investopedia). In the 1990s, putting all the changes we were going through together in one phrase helped many people redirect job or career searches and stay in the game.

Here are three new concepts that might help us understand the job market today:

In an internet-dependent culture, attention is a form of currency (money). Your attention is valuable and many people are competing for it. Thats a big change from yesteryear:

For most of human history, access to information was limited. Centuries ago many people could not read and education was a luxury. Today we have access to information on a massive scale. Facts, literature, and art are available (often for free) to anyone with an internet connection.

We are presented with a wealth of information, but we have the same amount of mental processing power as we have always had. The number of minutes has also stayed exactly the same in every day. Today attention, not information, is the limiting factor.

Peoples attention mattered just as much in the past as today but there werent such easy ways of getting it. In the attention economy, specific strategies will probably help us stand out in the right ways when planning or safeguarding a career.

When we are seeking a job we are marketing ourselves, so heres a tip on the importance of niche marketing:

Personalization: Content has been getting increasingly niche over the past 510 years, and this will likely continue. There are marketing blogs, then there are blogs that focus on B2B marketing; Instagram marketing; marketing for artists, pool businesses, bed and breakfasts, and pretty much anything else. Plan on this trend to continue. Theres less and less appetite for generic content, but people will always want specific, personal advice tailored just for them.

Its true. When seeking a new job or career, generalities dont work as well as they used to. We need to focus on how we can meet specific needs. Just for example, in the health care industry for seniors, memory care has become a much bigger concern in recent years. So, a job applicant who can say I have the relevant qualifications to work in a home that provides care for elderly persons might not fare as well as one who can add to that, I have taken three specialist courses in memory care for persons with age-related cognitive issues.

That extra qualification gets attention. But, of course, it means that we need to spot trends and make time to update our education along the way.

A dark store is a warehouse full of groceries where staff called pickers select the goods that have been ordered by an online customer. (The Guardian, January 7, 2014).

It could look like a normal store but all the customers are employees. COVID-19 likely helped that retail style along. Amazon-owned Whole Foods, among others, is joining the trend:

With longer aisles, no salad bar, and missing those checkout candy displays, the store will be used to pack up online orders, which have skyrocketed during the pandemic. Amazon, which owns Whole Foods, says its grocery sales tripled, year over year, for the second quarter of 2020.

But this is not just a pandemic-related reaction. Though six of its stores were temporarily converted to handle only online orders, this new dedicated online-only store had been in the works for more than a year, according to company officials. And its not alone. More retailers are accommodating the shift of shopping from in-store to online by turning their physical locations into so-called dark storesminiature warehouse-like spaces where online orders can be packed for pickup or delivery. Retail experts say this is just the start of a major trend.

If customers are not visiting the physical stores, internet-based media will become much more important in reaching them. A career in retail at any level should include awareness of the new ways in which customers are being reached and served.

The first three industrial revolutions are reckoned to be steam power, electricity, and computing. The fourth is really a function of the internet.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is a way of describing the blurring of boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. Its a fusion of advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, genetic engineering, quantum computing, and other technologies.

The attention economy and dark stores are two aspects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution because they both depend on internet-based communication.

To adapt to this technology revolution, we must understand what is happening around us and determine where we fit in. What needs are we are best able to meet? The good news is that the current changes favor individuals with a good idea:

todays machinery the internet- and software-based tools that our knowledge economy businesses are built upon has alleviated the absolute requirement for employees to work together in the same place at the same time. Venture capital has been a leading driver of this trend, turbo-charging the development of the communications, collaboration, and project management tools that have made productive remote-working a reality.

In fact, before Covid-19, the primary barrier to home working was usually organizational reticence or indecision. The pandemic has forced our working practices to catch up to the technology, provoking a decades worth of organizational change overnight as our corporate world has been turned upside down.

Today, there are many new opportunities to make a difference and the challenge is to identify them in the tsunami of the internet.

You may also find worthwhile:

Robot-proofing your career, Peter Thiels way. Jay Richards and Larry L. Linenschmidt continue their discussion of what has changedand what wont changewhen AI disrupts the workplace

Post-Covid: Five ways your job could change. This is a good time to be a creative thinker and innovator.

and

Five possibly unexpected ways the post-Covid office will change. Well all know more about remote working than we ever thought we would.

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Three New Concepts That Can Help You Plan Your Career - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

More than 1 million Americans are diagnosed with a chronic brain disorder each year, yet effective treatments for most complex brain disorders are inadequate or even nonexistent.

A major new research effort at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT aims to change how we treat brain disorders by developing innovative molecular tools that precisely target dysfunctional genetic, molecular, and circuit pathways.

The K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics in Neuroscience was established at MIT through a $28 million gift from philanthropist Lisa Yang and MIT alumnus Hock Tan 75. Yang is a former investment banker who has devoted much of her time to advocacy for individuals with disabilities and autism spectrum disorders. Tan is president and CEO of Broadcom, a global technology infrastructure company.This latest gift brings Yang and Tans total philanthropy to MIT to more than $72 million.

In the best MIT spirit, Lisa and Hock have always focused their generosity on insights that lead to real impact," says MIT President L. Rafael Reif. Scientifically, we stand at a moment when the tools and insights to make progress against major brain disorders are finally within reach. By accelerating the development of promising treatments, the new center opens the door to a hopeful new future for all those who suffer from these disorders and those who love them. I am deeply grateful to Lisa and Hock for making MIT the home of this pivotal research.

Engineering with precision

Research at the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics in Neuroscience will initially focus on three major lines of investigation: genetic engineering using CRISPR tools, delivery of genetic and molecular cargo across the blood-brain barrier, and the translation of basic research into the clinical setting. The center will serve as a hub for researchers with backgrounds ranging from biological engineering and genetics to computer science and medicine.

Developing the next generation of molecular therapeutics demands collaboration among researchers with diverse backgrounds, says Robert Desimone, McGovern Institute director and the Doris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience at MIT. I am confident that the multidisciplinary expertise convened by this center will revolutionize how we improve our health and fight disease in the coming decade. Although our initial focus will be on the brain and its relationship to the body, many of the new therapies could have other health applications.

There are an estimated 19,000 to 22,000 genes in the human genome and a third of those genes are active in the brain the highest proportion of genes expressed in any part of the body. Variations in genetic code have been linked to many complex brain disorders, including depression, Parkinsons, and autism. Emerging genetic technologies, such as the CRISPR gene editing platform pioneered by McGovern Investigator Feng Zhang, hold great potential in both targeting and fixing these errant genes. But the safe and effective delivery of this genetic cargo to the brain remains a challenge.

Researchers within the new Yang-Tan Center will improve and fine-tune CRISPR gene therapies and develop innovative ways of delivering gene therapy cargo into the brain and other organs. In addition, the center will leverage newly developed single-cell analysis technologies that are revealing cellular targets for modulating brain functions with unprecedented precision, opening the door for noninvasive neuromodulation as well as the development of medicines. The center will also focus on developing novel engineering approaches to delivering small molecules and proteins from the bloodstream into the brain. Desimone will direct the center and some of the initial research initiatives will be led by associate professor of materials science and engineering Polina Anikeeva; Ed Boyden, the Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at MIT; Guoping Feng, the James W. (1963) and Patricia T. Poitras Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT; and Feng Zhang, James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT.

Building a research hub

My goal in creating this center is to cement the Cambridge and Boston region as the global epicenter of next-generation therapeutics research. The novel ideas I have seen undertaken at MITs McGovern Institute and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard leave no doubt in my mind that major therapeutic breakthroughs for mental illness, neurodegenerative disease, autism, and epilepsy are just around the corner, says Yang.

Center funding will also be earmarked to create the Y. Eva Tan Fellows program, named for Tan and Yangs daughter Eva, which will support fellowships for young neuroscientists and engineers eager to design revolutionary treatments for human diseases.

We want to build a strong pipeline for tomorrows scientists and neuroengineers, explains Hock Tan. We depend on the next generation of bright young minds to help improve the lives of people suffering from chronic illnesses, and I can think of no better place to provide the very best education and training than MIT.

The molecular therapeutics center is the second research center established by Yang and Tan at MIT. In 2017, they launched the Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research, and, two years later, they created a sister center at Harvard Medical School, with the unique strengths of each institution converging toward a shared goal: understanding the basic biology of autism and how genetic and environmental influences converge to give rise to the condition, then translating those insights into novel treatment approaches.

All tools developed at the molecular therapeutics center will be shared globally with academic and clinical researchers with the goal of bringing one or more novel molecular tools to human clinical trials by 2025.

We are hopeful that our centers, located in the heart of the Cambridge-Boston biotech ecosystem, will spur further innovation and fuel critical new insights to our understanding of health and disease, says Yang.

See more here:
New molecular therapeutics center established at MIT's McGovern Institute - MIT News

What, he wonders, if the highly educated harden into a hereditary aristocracy? And what if this occurs under a flag of fairness, during a time when B.A.s and higher degrees are ever more closely tied to income and prestige? Lets set aside the case of rich parents who bribe corrupt officials or donate huge sums to get their child into a good college. Lets focus instead, Sandel writes, on the inequity that creeps in without breaking any rules. At Princeton and Yale, for example, more students come from families in the top 1 percent of income than from the bottom 60 percent. Two-thirds of students in all the Ivy League schools come from families in the top 20 percent. This is very largely because of the head start woven into upper-income life itself: engaging dinner conversation, better schools, private tutors, foreign travel.

Sandel is not about guilt-tripping anxious parents of front-row kids; theyre suffering too, he says. But the credentialed have come to imagine themselves as smarter, wiser, more tolerant and therefore more deserving of recognition and respect than the noncredentialed. One reason for this, he suggests, lies in our American rhetoric of rising. Both rich and poor parents tell their kids, if you try hard enough, you can achieve your goals. For the upper strata, things may work out, but for the downwardly mobile blue collar and poor, theres a Catch-22. If they fail to reach their goals which a torpid economy almost guarantees they blame themselves. If only I could have gotten that degree, they say. Even the poorly educated, Sandel notes, look down on the poorly educated.

Donald Trump has reached out to this group with open arms I love the poorly educated. He has harvested their demoralization, their grief and their shame, most certainly if they are white. But, Sandel notes, two-thirds of all American adults lack four-year degrees. And in the wake of automation, in real wages, the white man without a B.A. earns less now than he did in 1979. The dignity of his labor has steeply declined. And since 1965, high-school-educated men in the very prime of life 25 to 54 have been slipping out of the labor force, from 98 percent in 1965 to 85 percent in 2015. Of all Americans whose highest degree is a high school diploma, in 2017 only 68 percent worked. And with rising deaths of despair, many are giving up on life itself. So you who are highly educated, Sandel concludes, should understand that youre contributing to a resentment fueling the toxic politics you deplore. Respect the vast diversity of talents and contributions others make to this nation. Empathize with the undeserved shame of the less educated. Eat a little humble pie.

But we are left with an important issue Sandel does not address: the targeting by the right wing of colleges themselves. This isnt new: Running parallel to the rise of the meritocracy in America has been a suspicion of the egghead who cant skin a rabbit, build a house or change a tire. As the historian Richard Hofstadter observed in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, and Tocqueville before him, many Americans have valued not simply the cultivated intelligence of heroes in a culture of merit but also the creative genius of the common man in a culture of survival.

Today this has taken a shockingly partisan turn. For the first time in recent history, the less education you have, the more you lean right and distrust higher education itself. In a 2019 Pew survey, 59 percent of Republicans (and Republican-leaning independents) agree that colleges have a negative effect on the way things are going in the country these days, whereas only 18 percent of Democrats (and those leaning left) agree.

Continue reading here:
Whats Wrong With the Meritocracy - The New York Times

A joint report by several NGOs caused a stir on September 7th by claiming that [gene editing] was now detectable by means of a laboratory test. This refutes the claim of genetic engineering proponents that plants produced using [gene editing] are indistinguishable from conventionally grown plants.

Among others, Greenpeace . funded a study conducted by researchers from Iowa who said they have developed a detection method that can be used to identify point mutations.

The Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL), as the licensing authority, took a closer look at this study. The BVL came to a significantly different conclusion than the anti-genetic engineering NGOs.

The herbicide tolerance trait in Cibus oilseed rape [used in the study] was the result of a point mutation. The BVL made it clear: These mutations can have very different origins: New breeding methods, such as genome editing, as well as classic breeding methods and random biological processes are all possible sources of such genetic changes.

According to the information available, the BVL comes to the conclusion that the point mutation considered in the article did not result from genome editing processes, the agency said.

In a more detailed analysis . the BVL stated that the named detection method is suitable for identifying this specific point mutation, but not whether it actually came about in one of the rapeseed lines through genome editing, BVL added in its statement.

This story was published in German and has been translated and edited for clarity.

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Can gene-edited crops be 'detected'? Claims by Greenpeace and anti-biotech activists dismissed by safety officials, scientists - Genetic Literacy...

A former Idaho State University medical laboratory science student. | Courtesy Idaho State University

POCATELLO Medical laboratory scientists play an important role in helping keep the health care system running, but they dont often get credit for what they do because they work behind the scenes.

Idaho State Universitys Medical Laboratory Science Program Director Rachel Hulse explained that medical lab scientists are sometimes referred to as the doctors doctor. This is because they assist primary care providers in disease diagnosis.

Between 70% and 80% of all medical decisions that primary health care providers make are based on scientists lab findings.

Every tube of blood thats drawn, every body tissue, every urine or other kind of body fluid that might come out of the body, were the ones who are running the tests and the analyses on those to try to figure out whats going on, Hulse said.

Hulse says 100% of ISU graduates in the program are employed in the field or in a closely related field immediately after earning their degree.

ISUs medical laboratory science program is the only accredited program in the state of Idaho that offers both a bachelors and a masters degree, according to Hulse.

We actually have a huge workforce shortage, similar to what you hear about in nursing, Hulse explained. The number of graduates (nationally) cant fill the number of jobs that we have, and thats exacerbated now, by COVID, because theres an increased need for testing capacity.

It can be difficult for doctors to differentiate between a cold, flu or COVID-19 without doing laboratory diagnostic testing, she said. But even if the pandemic wasnt happening right now, testing is something that never goes away because people get sick and some have chronic health issues.

Before the onset of the pandemic, the profession was projected to grow between 10% and 16% within the next decade.

That is way above the national average for job growth, she said.

An article published on Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News also noted that the job outlook for medical lab scientists over the next few years is growing much faster than average.

Courtesy Idaho State University

While the occupation is something Hulse doesnt believe is recognized enough, especially for being a massively critical part of the healthcare team, she feels COVID-19 has exposed the profession a little more, and the virus has helped students realize how essential and fulfilling the job is.

I think its so important to recognize the other pieces of the healthcare team that are so critical, not only in healthcare in general but in a pandemic setting, Hulse added. Its important to have an understanding of what those teams are and the options that (students) have.

The ISU medical laboratory science program can be taken online. Students in Alaska, rural parts of Idaho and other areas of the country have participated in the program.

The application for the program will open in October and is due at the end of February. Students who are admitted will start the program at the beginning of the following fall semester.

More information on the program can be found here.

Former students in Idaho State Universitys medical laboratory science program. | Courtesy Idaho State University

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The growing demand for medical lab scientists and the 'important role' they play during COVID-19 - East Idaho News

Conspiracy theories about COVID-19 have been spreading since the early days of the outbreak. But how do we know whether a biological entity is artificially made or has occurred naturally? Marc Baiget Francesch explores the capabilities of current scientific approaches in terms of virus engineering and how this applies to the present pandemic.

OVER THE LAST few months, numerous theories relating to the origin of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 have invaded the internet. Sometimes, these theories can give rise to more interesting discussions than what is originally intended by the authors. For example, the theory that the new coronavirus has been purposely made as a biological weapon would mean that SARS-CoV-2 is a synthetic organism, which simultaneously implies that scientists can create synthetic viruses. How much truth is there in that implication? How far can current technologies go in terms of artificial microorganisms design? To answer these questions, we first need to understand the current state of synthetic biology as a field and acknowledge its limitations.

While making a new virus from scratch is not technically impossible, it would require a level of knowledge that is implausible to imagine in any scientific institution at present

Synthetic biology greatly relies on predictive models and computer simulated structures. Computer programmes use the information collected by years of research in molecular biology, which is stored in huge libraries of microorganisms, molecules and domains, to explore their potential when modified or combined in silico that is, on a computer. The idea of these programmes is to form combinations that, presumably, do not exist in nature in order to analyse potential structures for multiple uses. However, despite in silico models providing valuable information and saving time and money on in vitro experimentation, they are far from perfect.

Professor JA Davies, from the University of Edinburgh, published a paper in the open access journal Life that analysed the current flaws of the engineering approach in synthetic biology. While he recognises that this approach, based on the design-build-test dogma, is interesting and that relying on standard pre-existing parts simplifies the overall design of synthetic structures, it lacks biological understanding.1

In biology, every component from a microorganism has a metabolic cost, ie, the more components you add to a cell, the less energy the cell can direct to each part. Therefore, the fewer parts used for a function, the better. In genetic engineering this is a crucial consideration, since adding new genes normally supposes that pre-existing genes are deleted in order for the organism to be viable. In addition, the interactions between two different pre-existing parts might affect its original function. Hence, as Professor Davies argues, using a novel part, designed for a specific function, might prove easier than trying to reproduce the same function with two pre-existing ones. Ultimately, evolution is based on constant changes of previous structures induced by a huge number of factors and not on the combination of unchanging structures. So, while synthetic biology can cover a lot of unexplored possibilities, it is still far from being an almighty tool or competing with natural evolution.

This brings us to the next question: how capable are current scientific approaches in terms of virus engineering? Researchers can recreate an existing virus from scratch, and this is what many research teams have been attempting since the coronavirus started to spread in order to understand the virus better.2 However, creating a new one is another story. It is possible to create new viruses from original ones; though, there are some restrictions. As aforementioned, synthetic biology relies on the use of pre-existing parts, which means we would need to use different parts of existing viruses and assemble them in order to produce a new virus. Dr Robert F Garry, a microbiologist specialising in virology, commented in Business Insider that there is no consensus on what exactly makes a virus pathogenic.3 Therefore, while making a new virus from scratch is not technically impossible, it would require a level of knowledge that is implausible to imagine in any scientific institution at present. Nevertheless, our current knowledge of molecular science allows us to identify potentially man-made structures or microorganisms.4 This is possible because they are based on pre-existent parts; an engineered virus would have identifiable segments of DNA that belong to other viruses whose sequences are stored in libraries. This means that we should be able to identify if a new virus was artificially designed or is a product of natural evolution.

To study the case of the novel coronavirus, we need to have access to its genetic sequence. This has been a major advancement in epidemiology, as for previous pandemics researchers had to wait from months to years in order to study the microorganism responsible for the outbreak, whereas the structure of SARS-CoV-2 was available within weeks. By analysing its genetic structure, scientists have realised that the backbone of the virus is, indeed, a new one.5 However, this does not mean that the virus was not artificially made; we just know that the backbone was not copied from another virus.

What about prompting an existent virus to mutate? It could be that biotechnologists induced mutations to a known virus in order to produce a novel one, like what we see in nature. However, when scientists evaluated the structure of SARS-CoV-2 and compared it to other viral structures, the closest relative they found was SARS-CoV RaTG13, which showed a 96 percent similarity to the novel coronavirus.6 Although 96 percent may seem a lot, considering the size of SARS-CoV-2, which is close to 30,000 nucleotides long, this four percent difference is quite significant around 1,200 nucleotides.7

Studying evolution and natural processes is key for synthetic biology to expand and become an even more powerful tool

Nevertheless, there may still be some resistance to debunking certain theories. One might argue that, while using known parts of similar viruses, targeted mutations could have been applied to give the virus the ability to attach to human cells which is essentially what makes this virus able to infect humans. One of the most curious facts about the coronavirus is that the receptor binding domain the part that makes SARS-CoV-2 able to attach to human cells was simulated in silico once the sequence of the virus was made available. This sequence showed poor efficiency on the simulations, meaning that nature has found a mechanism that we had not been able to predict.3 If we put together all the facts and reflect on the fact that 75 percent of the new emerging diseases are from zoonotic origin, it appears the theories around SARS-CoV-2 being a man-made virus are quite unrealistic, to say the least.8

Something I have found interesting since the search of the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 started, is that we have confirmed that synthetic biology still has a long way to go. We still need to understand a lot about nature to get a bigger picture of how things work and to grasp all the possibilities that molecular biology has to offer. Studying the evolution of viruses not only benefits the epidemiologists, but also the synthetic biologists, who gain insights into how molecular interactions work. This newfound knowledge can be used to improve current models and propose frameworks for the creation of new molecules. Therefore, one can conclude that studying evolution and natural processes is key for synthetic biology to expand and become an even more powerful tool.

Marc Baiget Francesch is an MSc in Pharmaceutical Engineering and currently works as an Assistant Editor for the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. He also writes articles and innovation grants as a freelancer.

Excerpt from:
The limits of synthetic biology through the origins of SARS-CoV-2 - Drug Target Review

Terrorists could genetically modify diseases to attack their enemies, and the consequences would be far more devastating than an outbreak of natural origin, scientists believe. If terrorists were able to obtain the biotechnology which allowed them to genetically modify a pathogen or virus, the consequences could be deadly for humanity and it could be the root of the next major pandemic.

The world has struggled to cope with a virus outbreak of natural origins in the coronavirus pandemic, with almost one million dead.

However, if a new virus were to be engineered, it would be completely foreign to scientists who would ultimately struggle to be able to contain and find a cure.

Vivek Wadhwa from Harvard Law Schoool, said advancements in gene-editing technology such as CRISPR are making it easier to create bioweapons.

Much in the same way as vaccines are created by identifying the antigen which triggers the immune response which are then isolated and then injected it into humans a similar process could happen by identifying the lethal traits in viruses to make them even more harmful.

Mr Wadwha wrote in an essay for Foreign Policy: "With COVID-19 bringing Western economies to their knees, all the worlds dictators now know that pathogens can be as destructive as nuclear missiles.

"Whats even more worrying is that it no longer takes a sprawling government lab to engineer a virus.

"Thanks to a technological revolution in genetic engineering, all the tools needed to create a virus have become so cheap, simple, and readily available that any rogue scientist or college-age biohacker can use them, creating an even greater threat.

It is now too late to stop the global spread of these technologies the genie is out of the bottle.

READ MORE:Coronavirus conspiracy theory: Claims of bioweapons and the apocalypse

"We must treat the coronavirus pandemic as a full dress rehearsal of what is to come unfortunately, that includes not only viruses that erupt from nature, but also those that will be deliberately engineered by humans.

Mr Wadhwa is not the only expert concerned about the potential rise of bioterrorism.

Bryan Walsh, author of the book End Times which details the existential threats humanity faces, told Express.co.uk: When I look into the near future, the thing that worries me the most is the threat of a bioengineered pandemic created out the lab using some of these new tools for genetic editing.

"That is particularly dangerous because diseases and pandemics are a threat already but what could be created in a lab on purpose say by terrorists would be much worse than anything created by nature."

DON'T MISSBill Gates: Terrorists could kill TENS OF MILLIONS with BIOWEAPONSNext biological weapon FOUND? Insect ARMY being harnessed in the USWas this coronavirus PATIENT ZERO? Vicious bat attack at Chinese lab

Other scientists, however, are more optimistic about the benefits of CRISPR and other gene-editing tools.

Helen ONeill, a molecular geneticist at University College London, believes disease could one day be irradiated through genetic modification.

She said: There are endless capacities when it comes to gene editing.

We can take your blood cells, we fix them and reinsert them back in to you.

"Soon every baby will have every letter of its genome read on the day it is born so we can tailor medication for them.

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Bio-weapon warning: Next pandemic could be genetically engineered, experts warn - Daily Express

GAITHERSBURG, Md., Sept. 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Novavax, Inc. (Nasdaq: NVAX), a late-stage biotechnology company developing next-generation vaccines for serious infectious diseases, today announced an amendment to its existing agreement with Serum Institute of India Private Limited (SIIPL) under which SIIPL will also manufacture the antigen component of NVXCoV2373, Novavax COVID19 vaccine candidate. With this agreement, Novavax increases its manufacturing capacity of NVX-CoV2373 to over two billion doses annually, when all planned capacity has been brought online by mid-2021. NVXCoV2373 is a stable, prefusion protein made using Novavax recombinant protein nanoparticle technology and includes Novavax proprietary MatrixM adjuvant.

Todays agreement with Serum Institute enhances Novavax commitment to equitable global delivery of our COVID-19 vaccine. With this arrangement, we have now put in place a global supply chain that includes the recently acquired Praha Vaccines and partnerships with leading biologics manufacturers, enabling production on three continents, said Stanley C. Erck, President and Chief Executive Officer of Novavax. We continue to work with extraordinary urgency to develop our vaccine, now in Phase 2 clinical trials, and for which we anticipate starting Phase 3 efficacy trials around the world in the coming weeks.

The agreement with SIIPL augments a global supply chain that will deliver over two billion doses of NVX-CoV2373 annually as of 2021.

The antigen component of NVX-CoV2373 is being manufactured at Novavax CZ in Bohumil, Czech Republic (formerly Praha Vaccines), as well as at the following partnered manufacturing sites:

Novavax Matrix-M adjuvant is now being manufactured at Novavax AB in Uppsala, Sweden and the following partnered manufacturing sites:

Signing of the manufacturing agreement with Novavax for NVX-CoV2373 is another great milestone for both companies, which will further strengthen our existing relationship. SIIPL expertise to scale-up and manufacture NVX-CoV2373 will help ensure the supply of this most-needed vaccine, said Adar Poonawalla, Chief Executive Officer of Serum Institute of India.

About NVX-CoV2373

NVXCoV2373 is a vaccine candidate engineered from the genetic sequence of SARSCoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease. NVXCoV2373 was created using Novavax recombinant nanoparticle technology to generate antigen derived from the coronavirus spike (S) protein and contains Novavax patented saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant to enhance the immune response and stimulate high levels of neutralizing antibodies. In preclinical trials, NVXCoV2373 demonstrated indication of antibodies that block binding of spike protein to receptors targeted by the virus, a critical aspect for effective vaccine protection. In its Phase 1 portion of the Phase 1/2 clinical trial, NVXCoV2373 was generally well-tolerated and elicited robust antibody responses numerically superior to that seen in human convalescent sera. Phase 2 clinical trials began in August 2020. Novavax has secured $2 billion in funding for its global coronavirus vaccine program, including up to $388 million in funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

About Matrix-M

Novavax patented saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant has demonstrated a potent and well-tolerated effect by stimulating the entry of antigen-presenting cells into the injection site and enhancing antigen presentation in local lymph nodes, boosting immune response.

About Novavax

Novavax, Inc. (Nasdaq:NVAX) is a late-stage biotechnology company that promotes improved health globally through the discovery, development, and commercialization of innovative vaccines to prevent serious infectious diseases. Novavax is undergoing clinical trials for NVX-CoV2373, its vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. NanoFlu, its quadrivalent influenza nanoparticle vaccine, met all primary objectives in its pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial in older adults. Both vaccine candidates incorporate Novavax proprietary saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant in order to enhance the immune response and stimulate high levels of neutralizing antibodies. Novavax is a leading innovator of recombinant vaccines; its proprietary recombinant technology platform combines the power and speed of genetic engineering to efficiently produce highly immunogenic nanoparticles in order to address urgent global health needs.

For more information, visit http://www.novavax.com and connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About Serum Institute of India

Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. was founded in 1966 by Dr. Cyrus Poonawalla with a mission of manufacturing life-saving immuno-biologics. Serum is the world's largest vaccine manufacturer by number of doses produced and sold globally (more than 1.3 billion doses). It is estimated that about 65% of the children in the world receive at least one vaccine manufactured by Serum Institute. Vaccines manufactured by Serum are accredited by the World Health Organization, Geneva and are being used in approximately 170 countries across the globe.

Serum is ranked as India's No. 1 biotechnology company, manufacturing highly specialized lifesaving biologics like vaccines using cutting edge genetic and cell-based technologies, antisera and other medical specialties.

The philanthropic philosophy of Serum continues with its work on newer vaccines and biologicals.

Learn more about Serum Institute of India at https://www.seruminstitute.com/.

About CEPI

CEPI is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organizations, launched at Davos in 2017, to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics. CEPI has moved with great urgency and in coordination with WHO in response to the emergence of COVID-19. CEPI has initiated 9 partnerships to develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus. The programs will leverage rapid response platforms already supported by CEPI as well as new partnerships. The aim is to advance COVID-19 vaccine candidates into clinical testing as quickly as possible.

Before the emergence of COVID-19 CEPI's priority diseases included Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, Nipah virus, Rift Valley Fever and Chikungunya virus. CEPI also invested in platform technologies that can be used for rapid vaccine and immunoprophylactic development against unknown pathogens (Disease X).

Novavax Forward-Looking Statements

Statements herein relating to the future of Novavax and the ongoing development of its vaccine and adjuvant products are forward-looking statements. Novavax cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include those identified under the heading Risk Factors in the Novavax Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, and Quarterly Report on Form 8-K for the period ended June 30, 2020, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). We caution investors not to place considerable reliance on forward-looking statements contained in this press release. You are encouraged to read our filings with the SEC, available at sec.gov, for a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements in this press release speak only as of the date of this document, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any of the statements. Our business is subject to substantial risks and uncertainties, including those referenced above. Investors, potential investors, and others should give careful consideration to these risks and uncertainties.

Contacts:

Novavax

InvestorsSilvia Taylor and Erika Trahanir@novavax.com240-268-2022

MediaBrandzone/KOGS CommunicationEdna Kaplankaplan@kogspr.com617-974-8659

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Novavax Announces COVID-19 Vaccine Manufacturing Agreement with Serum Institute of India, Increasing Novavax' Global Production Capacity to Over 2...

[Researchers] have identified five immune response markers that, collectively, were able to distinguish between those COVID-19 patients who convalesced from the infection, and those who didnt survive the disease. The researchers used a systems serology technique to generate a detailed profile of SARS-Co-2-specific humoralantibody generatingresponses in hospitalized patients, which they validated in a second patient cohort. The findings indicated that individuals who survived COVID-19 infection and those who died exhibited antibody responses that were primarily directed against different SARS-CoV-2 proteins.

By looking at the overall profile of the immune response, we can begin to truly understand how the immune system responds to COVID-19 and then use that knowledge to prevent the worst outcomes of this disease, [said researcher Galit Alter.]

Its still not clear why some individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 recover from infection and others die, the authors noted. While the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2, even during the asymptomatic phase of this infection, is alarming, more harrowing is our inability to predict disease trajectories among symptomatic individuals. And without any therapeutics or vaccines as countermeasures, there is an urgent need to start mapping how immunity to the virus starts to develop. This knowledge will not only help to guide patient care, but could help to direct the development of future immune-based strategies against the disorder.

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Death by COVID: 5 immune response markers that predict whether an infected person is likely to survive - Genetic Literacy Project