Scientists have successfully edited the DNA of human embryos to erase a heritable heart condition that is known for causing sudden death in young competitive athletes, cracking open the doors to a controversial new era in medicine.

This is the first time gene editing on human embryos has been conducted in the United States. Researchers said in interviews this week that they consider their work very basic. The embryos were allowed to grow for only a few days, and there was never any intention to implant them to create a pregnancy. But they also acknowledged that they will continue to move forward with the science, with the ultimate goal of being able to "correct" disease-causing genes in embryos that will develop into babies.

News of the remarkable experiment began to circulate last week, but details became public Wednesday with a paper in the journal Nature.

The experiment is the latest example of how the laboratory tool known as CRISPR (or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), a type of "molecular scissors," is pushing the boundaries of our ability to manipulate life, and it has been received with both excitement and horror.

The most recent work is particularly sensitive because it involves changes to the germ line that is, genes that could be passed on to future generations. The United States forbids the use of federal funds for embryo research, and the Food and Drug Administration is prohibited from considering any clinical trials involving genetic modifications that can be inherited. A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in February urged caution in applying CRISPR to human germ-line editing but laid out conditions by which research should continue. The new study abides by those recommendations.

No editing, just correcting

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, one of the lead authors of the paper and a researcher at Oregon Health & Science University, said that he is conscious of the need for a larger ethical and legal discussion about genetic modification of humans but that his team's work is justified because it involves "correcting" genes rather than changing them.

"Really we didn't edit anything. Neither did we modify anything," Mitalipov said. "Our program is toward correcting mutant genes."

Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who is co-chair of the National Academies committee looking at gene editing, said that concerns about the work that have been circulating in recent days are overblown.

"What this represents is a fascinating, important and rather impressive incremental step toward learning how to edit embryos safely and precisely," she said. However, "no matter what anybody says, this is not the dawn of the era of the designer baby." She said that characteristics that some parents might desire, such as intelligence and athleticism, are influenced by multiple genes and that researchers don't understand all the components of how such characteristics are inherited, much less have the ability to redesign them.

72 percent corrected

The research involved eggs from 12 healthy female donors and sperm from a male volunteer who carries the MYBPC3 gene, which causes hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. HCM is a disease of that causes an abnormal thickening of the heart muscle but can cause no symptoms and remain undetected until it causes sudden cardiac death. There's no way to prevent or cure it, and it affects 1 in 500 people worldwide.

Around the time the sperm was injected into the eggs, researchers snipped out the gene that causes the disease. The result was far more successful than the researchers expected: As the embryo's cells began to divide and multiply, a huge number appeared to be repairing themselves by using the normal, non-mutated copy of the gene from the women's genetic material. In all, they saw that about 72 percent were corrected, a very high number. Researchers also noticed that there didn't seem to be any "off-target" changes in the DNA, which has been a major safety concern of gene-editing research.

Mitalipov said he hoped the technique could one day be applied to a wide variety of genetic diseases and that one of the team's next targets may be the BRCA gene mutation, which is associated with breast cancer.

First work involving emrbyos

The first published work involving human embryos, reported in 2015, was done in China and targeted a gene that leads to the blood disorder beta thalassemia. But those embryos were abnormal and nonviable, and there were far fewer than the number used in the U.S. study.

Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a researcher at the Salk Institute who is also a co-author on the new study, said that there are many advantages to treating an embryo rather than a child or an adult. When dealing with an embryo in its earliest stages, only a few cells are involved, while in a more mature human being there are trillions of cells in the body and potentially millions that must be corrected to eradicate traces of a disease.

Izpisua Belmonte said that even if the technology is perfected, it could deal with only a small subset of human diseases.

Utero is non viable option

"I don't want to be negative with our own discoveries, but it is important to inform the public of what this means," he said. "In my opinion the percentage of people that would benefit from this at the current way the world is is rather small." For the process to make a difference, the child would have to be born through in vitro fertilization or IVF and the parents would have to know the child has the gene for a disease to get it changed. But the vast majority of children are conceived the natural way, and this correction technology would not work in utero.

For years, some policymakers, historians and scientists have been calling for a voluntary moratorium on the modification of the DNA of human reproductive cells. The most prominent expression of concern came in the form of a 2015 letter signed by CRISPR co-inventor Jennifer Doudna, Nobel laureate David Baltimore and 16 other prominent scientists. They warned that eliminating a genetic disease could have unintended consequences - on human genetics, society and even the environment - far into the future.

Researchers who worked on the heart-condition experiment appear to have differing views on where their work is headed.

Paula Amato, a reproductive endocrinologist with Oregon Health, was excited about the idea of being able to edit out diseases before birth. She said that while pre-implantation genetic screening of embryos is now available, it isn't perfect. She talked about how one of her patients went through three cycles of in vitro fertilization but all of the eggs that were harvested had the gene mutation that causes a diseases.

With gene correction technology, Amato said, "we could have rescued some of those embryos."

But Izpisua Belmonte said he is focusing on using the findings from this study to further research into gene modifications during a pregnancy or after birth into adulthood.

"I feel that the practical thing to do is deal with the diseases people have, not with the disease they may have," he said.

Mitalipov said he hopes regulators will provide more guidance on what should or should not be allowed.

Otherwise, he said, "this technology will be shifted to unregulated areas, which shouldn't be happening."

Continued here:
Embryo editing 'corrects' genetic heart condition - The Guam Daily Post

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

Dr. Ivanka Savic points to a study on the screen of her computer at her home in Los Angeles, California, US June 30, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Lucy Nicholson

New York: While President Donald Trump has thrust transgender people back into the conflict between conservative and liberal values in the US, geneticists are quietly working on a major research effort to unlock the secrets of gender identity.

A consortium of five research institutions in Europe and the US, including Vanderbilt University Medical Center, George Washington University and Boston Childrens Hospital, is looking to the genome, a persons complete set of DNA, for clues about whether transgender people are born that way.

Two decades of brain research have provided hints of a biological origin to being transgender, but no irrefutable conclusions.

Now scientists in the consortium have embarked on what they call the largest-ever study of its kind, searching for a genetic component to explain why people assigned one gender at birth so persistently identify as the other, often from very early childhood.

Researchers have extracted DNA from the blood samples of 10,000 people, 3,000 of them transgender and the rest non-transgender, or cisgender. The project is awaiting grant funding to begin the next phase: testing about three million markers, or variations, across the genome for all of the samples.

Knowing what variations transgender people have in common, and comparing those patterns to those of cisgender people in the study, may help investigators understand what role the genome plays in everyones gender identity.

If the trait is strongly genetic, then people who identify as trans will share more of their genome, not because they are related in nuclear families but because they are more anciently related, said Lea Davis, leader of the study and an assistant professor of medicine at the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute.

The search for the biological underpinnings is taking on new relevance as the battle for transgender rights plays out in the US political arena.

One of the first acts of the new Trump administration was to revoke Obama-era guidelines directing public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms of their choice. Last week, the president announced on Twitter he intends to ban transgender people from serving in the military.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday found 68% of Americans say transgender people should be allowed to serve in the military, an even larger majority than the 58% found in a Reuters/Ipsos poll last week.

Texas lawmakers are debating a bathroom bill that would require people to use the bathroom of the sex listed on their birth certificate. North Carolina in March repealed a similar law after a national boycott cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business.

Currently, the only way to determine whether people are transgender is for them to self-identify as such. While civil rights activists contend that should be sufficient, scientists have taken their search to the lab.

That quest has made some transgender people nervous. If a cause is found it could posit a cure, potentially opening the door to so-called reparative therapies similar to those that attempt to turn gay people straight, advocates say. Others raise concerns about the rights of those who may identify as trans but lack biological proof.

Its an idea that can be wielded against us, depending on the ideology of the user, said Kale Edmiston, a transgender person and postdoctoral scholar at the University of Pittsburgh specialising in neuroimaging.

Dana Bevan, a transgender woman, psychologist and author of three books on transgender topics, acknowledged the potential manipulation of research was a concern but said, I dont believe thatsciencecan or should hold back from trying to understand whats going on.

Davis stressed that her study does not seek to produce a genetic test for being transgender, nor would it be able to. Instead, she said, she hopes the data will lead to better care for transgender people, who experience wide health disparities compared to the general population.

One-third of transgender people reported a negative healthcare experience in the previous year such as verbal harassment, refusal of treatment or the need to teach their doctors about transgender care, according to a landmark survey of nearly 28,000 people released last year by the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Some 40% have attempted suicide, almost nine times the rate for the general population.

We can use this information to help train doctors and nurses to provide better care to trans patients and to also develop amicus briefs to support equal rights legislation, said Davis, who is also director of research for Vanderbilts gender health clinic.

The Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee has one of the worlds largest DNA databanks. It also has emerged as a leader in transgender healthcare with initiatives such as the trans buddy program, which pairs every transgender patient with a volunteer to help guide them through their healthcare visits.

The study has applied for a grant from the National Institutes of Health and is exploring other financial sources to provide the $1 million needed to complete the genotyping, expected to take a year to 18 months. Analysis of the data would take about another six months and require more funding, Davis said.

The other consortium members are Vrije University in Amsterdam and the FIMABIS institute in Malaga, Spain.

Probing the brain

Until now, the bulk of research into the origins of being transgender has looked at the brain.

Neurologists have spotted clues in the brain structure and activity of transgender people that distinguish them from cisgender subjects.

A seminal 1995 study was led by Dutch neurobiologist Dick Swaab, who was also among the first scientists to discover structural differences between male and female brains. Looking at postmortem brain tissue of transgender subjects, he found that male-to-female transsexuals had clusters of cells, or nuclei, that more closely resembled those of a typical female brain, and vice versa.

Swaabs body of work on postmortem samples was based on just 12 transgender brains that he spent 25 years collecting. But it gave rise to a whole new field of inquiry that today is being explored with advanced brain scan technology on living transgender volunteers.

Among the leaders in brain scan research is Ivanka Savic, a professor of neurology with Swedens Karolinska Institute and visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Her studies suggest that transgender men have a weakened connection between the two areas of the brain that process the perception of self and ones own body. Savic said those connections seem to improve after the person receives cross-hormone treatment.

Her work has been published more than 100 times on various topics in peer-reviewed journals, but she still cannot conclude whether people are born transgender.

I think that, but I have to prove that, Savic said.

A number of other researchers, including both geneticists and neurologists, presume a biological component that is also influenced by upbringing.

But Paul McHugh, a university professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, has emerged as the leading voice challenging the born-this-way hypothesis.

He encourages psychiatric therapy for transgender people, especially children, so that they accept the gender assigned to them at birth.

McHugh has gained a following among social conservatives, while incensing LGBT advocates with comments such as calling transgender people counterfeit.

Last year he co-authored a review of the scientific literature published in The New Atlantis journal, asserting there was scant evidence to suggest sexual orientation and gender identity were biologically determined.

The article drew a rebuke from nearly 600 academics and clinicians who called it misleading.

McHugh told Reuters he was unmoved by his critics and says he doubts additional research will reveal a biological cause.

If it were obvious, he said, they would have found it long ago.

(Reuters)

What to read next:

Read this article:
Researchers Prepare to Explore the Genetics of Gender Identity, With Caution - The Wire

Recommendation and review posted by sam

The bagrada bug (Bagrada hilaris), an African native, was first found in California in 2008. By 2010, it had spread to southern New Mexico and was found in Santa Fe County in 2012. Adults and nymphs pierce leaves, stems, flowers, and seeds with their needle-like mouthparts, inject digestive enzymes, and suck plant juices. Starburst-shaped, brown lesions form on leaves and stems. Other damage includes scorched leaves, stunted growth, and forked or multiple heads on cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage. Bagrada bugs may kill seedlings.

Bagrada bugs prefer to feed on members of the Brassicaceae family, which also includes kale, mustard, and arugula; and ornamental plants such as sweet alyssum, stock, and candytuft. However, they may eat many different crops, among them corn, potatoes, tomatoes, asparagus, melons, carrots, peppers, roses, and cotton. The bugs feed on both cruciferous plants (wild mustards, shepherds purse, London rocket) and non-cruciferous weeds (lambs quarters, purple nutsedge, field bindweed). The adults are shield -shaped and 3/16- to 1/4-inch long and are black with orange markings. The first instar nymph is bright orange and the second through fifth nymphs are red with dark markings.

Bagrada bugs overwinter as adults in leaf litter or topsoil. In the spring, females lay their eggs (singly or in small batches) on the soil surface or on the leaves of host plants. Each female lays about 100 eggs in her life. The eggs hatch in four to nine days. Larvae progress through five stages. The egg-to-egg cycle depends on the temperature, generally taking 38 to 65 days. In New Mexico, two or three generations per year are possible. They become locally abundant in mid-July and may reach high densities with hundreds of bugs feeding on a single plant.

Control of the bagrada bugs is difficult. They are not easily seen until the infestation is out of control. Feeding damage is easier to spot earlier in the summer than the insects themselves; they are more active (and more easily spotted) when the temperature is above 75 degrees.

In a home garden, the bugs can be removed by hand (wear gloves they stink) and drowned in soapy water. Large numbers of bugs can be shaken onto a sheet and vacuumed. The trapped bugs should then be bagged or killed since they can survive vacuuming. Pyramid traps baited with crushed sweet alyssum can destroy bugs, particularly when numbers are high. These traps can be made from soda bottles or adapted from commercially available stink bug traps. (Chemical lures that attract other stink bugs will not work.)

Currently there are no effective biological controls in the USA. Birds find their taste to be unpleasant. The adult bugs usually escape pesticides by flying away only to return later. Until there are approved pesticides, home vegetable growers need to use manual methods or bag the plant (including the stem) to exclude the bugs.

Terry McGuire was a professor of genetics at Rutgers University for 36 years. He was also a senior fellow of the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement, helping educators connect science to civic issues. He moved to Santa Fe in 2014. He is a Master Gardener and a Master Composter.

See the article here:
About a new pest: the bagrada bug - Santa Fe New Mexican

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

It is a common misconception that heart disease only affects the elderly. This belief couldn't be more wrong - coronary artery disease does affect people in their twenties.

Young and middle-aged individuals can, and often do, suffer from heart problems - especially now that obesity, type II diabetes, hypertension and other risk factors are becoming more common at a younger age than ever before.

These risk factors significantly increase the chances of heart disease. How you live now affects your risk for cardiovascular disease later in life.

While comfort breakfasts like nasi lemak and fried noodles may seem permissible at this stage, plaque can start accumulating within the body and eventually lead to clogged arteries, causing cardiovascular complications.

What are other myths about heart disease? Dr. Derek Yong, Medical Director at Restore Heart Centre (Mount Alvernia Hospital Medical Centre) and Ms Susan Kevork, Nestle Nutrition Network Zone Lead AOA, debunk common myths.

1. Heart disease is a men's disease.

Many people mistakenly believe that heart disease is "for men" and breast cancer is "for women".

The reality is that cardiovascular disease singularly causes the most number of female deaths not only in Singapore, but also internationally. In fact, it is more fatal than all cancers combined - including breast cancer - and affects more women than men.

Although the incidence of heart attack is lower in women than men, this risk drastically increases after menopause. Women with coronary heart disease are on average about 10 years older than men at the time of diagnosis - so may feel less concerned about the condition while they're younger.

Often, women also may not recognise their symptoms as indicators of heart disease and may brush aside their symptoms, despite this being dangerous to their health and safety.

2. All cholesterol is bad.

LDL-C is known as "bad" cholesterol, because high levels of it can lead to plaque buildup in your arteries and result in heart disease and stroke. Foods that are high in saturated and trans fats can raise blood cholesterol and are commonly found in fried fast foods, pies and pastries, fries, doughnuts and fatty meats.

On the other hand, HDL cholesterol absorbs "bad" cholesterol and carries it back to the liver, which flushes it from the body. HDL is known as "good" cholesterol, given its potential to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Foods that can help raise HDL cholesterol are mono-unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats which are found in oils like olive, rice bran or sunflower oils and foods like avocado, nuts, seeds and fish.

To help reduce LDL cholesterol, eating foods with plant sterols and beta-glucans can block a percentage of the bad cholesterol from entering the bloodstream. Eating a diet high in fibre, especially soluble fibre, can also speed up the removal of cholesterol through the bowel.

Soluble fibre is found in foods such as oats, oat bran, barley bran, dried beans, lentils, fruit and vegetables.

3. If I reduce my salt intake, my sodium intake is regulated.

The average Singaporean consumes around 9g of salt per day, according to the Singapore Health Promotion Board, which far exceeds the recommended amount advised by health experts of 5g.

Even if you cut down on the amount of salt or soy sauce you add to your food, salt/sodium is hidden in condiments, canned foods, deli meats and restaurant food.

This unknowingly elevates your blood pressure, in turn increasing your risk of heart disease.

Stay aware and check nutrition labels on the supermarket foods you purchase, while continuing to make efforts to reduce your salt intake.

A 2013 study from Harvard Medical School and other institutions predicted that even gradually reducing sodium intake by four per cent per year, over 10 years, could save up to half a million lives.

4. I am doomed to suffer from heart disease if it runs in my family.

Traditionally, certain genetic markers have been associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease.

However, their overall effect on risk beyond traditional risk factors has not been established, and they have not conclusively proven to improve on the prediction of coronary heart disease risk.

At this stage, genetics are not used definitively in determining overall cardiovascular risk, so there is no large cause for alarm even if you have a family history of heart disease.

Having said that, it is important to take precautionary steps as far as possible. To reduce risk, opt for heart-healthy nutrition.

In Singapore, we often consume meals that contain excessive sodium, sugars and saturated fats, leading to increased risk of hypertension, diabetes and hypercholesterolemia - all important indicators of heart disease that can cause coronary blockages.

Choose foods that consist of wholegrains such as brown rice and oats, as well as plant sterols and beta-glucans, such as Nestle Omega Plus Milk with Oats. You can look out for food that contain these ingredients for breakfast.

Switch out meals that are high in oil for those containing leafy greens, beans, nuts, lean poultry and fish.

5. If I was in any danger of having high blood pressure or a heart attack, I would have felt the signs already.

High blood pressure is often dubbed a "silent killer" because you don't usually know you have it, which is why annual health checks are so important.

Most people recognise heart trouble through its obvious symptoms - pain in the chest, shortness of breath and bouts of cold sweat. However, a heart attack may not always manifest in the same way, and sometimes reveals no symptoms at all.

This is called a silent heart attack - affected people often do not realise that they need to seek emergency care.

6. There is no need for me to undergo any heart screenings until a problem arises.

To reduce the risk having of heart disease, it is important to take constant note of your heart health before danger strikes. Whilst the symptoms of heart disease can be managed and alleviated after proper treatment, there is no single cure for the condition.

Take steps to prevent its occurrence by adopting a heart-healthy diet and lifestyle, including exercise for at least 20-30 minutes every day.

At least annually, you should undergo a full medical checkup that includes assessment of cardiovascular risk factors such as diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia and hypertension.

A focused history and physical examination by a doctor, along with an estimate of the short- and long-term risk of heart disease, should also be included in annual heart screenings.

If you are suffering from any cardiac risk factors - diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia - seek immediate guidance on appropriate management.

It is also advisable to go for cardiac screening before embarking on a new exercise programme.

Read more here:
Top 6 myths about heart disease debunked - AsiaOne

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Floyd is a horticulturist with Texas AgriLife Extension Service. He can be reached at 498-4071 in Ector County or 686-4700 in Midland County or by email at Jeff.Floyd@ag.tamu.edu

Floyd is an Agri-Life Extension agent for Ector and Midland counties. To learn more, call the Ector County Extension office at 432-498-4072, or the Midland County Extension office at 432-686-4700, or email jeff.floyd@ag.tamu.edu.

Posted: Sunday, August 6, 2017 3:00 am

GARDENING: Grass is greener after a storm By Jeff Floyd Odessa American

What is it about thunderstorms that make the green in plants pop? The answer is nitrogen. Only a minuscule fraction of soil is made up of nitrogen while the atmosphere contains a whopping seventy-eight percent of the stuff.

Unfortunately, like the mythological Tantalus whose eternal punishment included standing in a pool of water from which he couldnt sip, plants have absolutely no access to atmospheric nitrogen; at least not in its standard dinitrogen form.

Plants only take up ionic forms of nitrogen from the soil. Plants are autotrophs, meaning they feed themselves. One way they do this is by using special cellular machines to connect nitrogen ions with other elements inside the plant body, building life-giving proteins. Nearly all metabolic processes carried out by plants require nitrogen rich proteins. Rain carries nitrogen compounds. However, energy is required to convert atmospheric nitrogen into a structure that plants can take advantage of.

Theres enough energy in a typical lightning bolt to keep your smartphone glowing for nearly seven-hundred years. Lightening is essentially static electricity with just a tad more power than a freshly laundered faux cashmere blouse. Lightening breaks up atmospheric nitrogen allowing it to hitch a ride back to earth within raindrops. Once in the soil, plants can snatch up dissolved nitrogen pretty quickly.

So its not your imagination; your lawn really is greener after a thunderstorm. However, soil microbes use nitrogen too. Depending on conditions, microbes convert nitrogen into the atmospheric gas from whence it came. This is part of the reason plants return to their normal appearance not long after things dry up.

You cant see it, smell it or taste nitrogen, but you can learn more about how plants use it by calling the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension office at 498-4071 or email jeff.floyd@ag.tamu.edu.

Posted in Gardening on Sunday, August 6, 2017 3:00 am. | Tags: Texas A&m Agrilife Extension Office, Jeff Floyd, Pecans, Pruning, Prune, Soft Landscape Materials, Landscape, Gardening, Gardener, Food, Integra, Repeat Applications, West Texas

See the article here:
GARDENING: Grass is greener after a storm - Odessa American

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Blogs | Aug. 6, 2017

Why dont doctors tell women about NFP? Often the doctors have no idea themselves.

At a localpregnancy center, the young women I talk to are constantly stunned to learn that there's a scientifically proven way to planor postpone children. When I mention that natural family planning is far better for their bodies, can even help detect various medicalconditions early on (such as endometriosis), and is effective and completely risk- and expense-free, I get a blank look. They've simply never heard of it.

Most of them are casuallyusing birth control pills or similar hormonal based contraceptives that have all sorts of health and psychological risks they know nothing about. Why didn't their doctors tell them? Often the doctors have no idea themselves.

Sadly plenty of doctors themselves prescribe birth control pills or other hormonal-based contraceptives without having read the research themselves.For the most part, that research isn't new; it's been known since the 1970s and only replicated around the world since then, with only worse reports since then. For example, a recent extensive study of Danish women found a correlation with hormonal contraceptives and depression.

One supporter of NFP is theFertilityAppreciationCollaborative toTeach theScience (www.FactsAboutFertility.org), a group of physicians and other health care professionals and educators workingto educate the medical community as well as the public onnatural or fertility awareness based methods (FABMs) of family planning.

A big reason a lot of child bearing aged women are completely unfamiliar with NFP is simply that no one is profiting from it. The birth control industry is a $6 billion a year business with a hugemarketing campaign. Television, magazine, social media ads, brightly colored posters and brochures on college campuses, health centers, even high schools and middle school's bulletin boards and health offices, and doctors offices promotethe birth control pill, patch, IUD, etc., with no mention of the risks. With no money to be made promoting NFP, it's remained low-profile.

The young women I speak to are exasperatedwhen I tell them that the World Health Organization, not exactly a bastion of conservative or Catholic thought, classifies the birth control pill as a Class A carcinogen. They feel betrayed by a medical community and pharmaceutical companies that are suppressing the full truth about the ramifications of hormonal birth control.

Dr. Marguerite Duane, a family physician and director of FACTS, said in a Relevant Radio interviewthat part of the lack of awareness is that only about 6% of medical doctors are aware of the scientific researchconfirming the effectiveness and benefits of NFP, particularly the latest research. She highlights theCenters for Disease Control website which continues to have extremely outdated information on NFP that doesn't mention the newest most compelling and most accurate reports. For example, the CDC says that NFP has a 24% failure rate which iscompletely false; based on the most up-to-date and highest quality published medical research,the effectiveness rates of Fertility Awareness Based Methods (FABMs) with correct use are between 95% and 99.5%. In fact, her organization is promoting a petition to the CDC which can be read here:http://petition.naturalwomanhood.org/cdc/script/.

The Pill is the most widely used drug given to healthy people to suppress a normal physiologic function. [Yet]it exposes women to a myriad of side effects including blood clots, bleeding irregularities, breast tenderness, mood changes, and many others, said Dr. Duane in an interview with Verily magazine. She pointed out that hormonal contraception introduces synthetic hormones, which modulates hormone production already occurring in the body. As noted in a recentJournal of the American Medical Associationarticle,External progestins, probably more than natural progesterone, increase levels of monoamine oxidase, which degrades serotonin concentrations and thus potentially produces depression and irritability.Serotonin is a major neurotransmitterinvolved in the control of pain perception, the sleep cycle, and mood. It should come as no surprise, then, that hormonal contraceptives impact aspects of the body beyondthe reproductive cycle.

Dr. Duane asksthe commonsense question, Why would we want to expose healthy women to serious or a substantial number of side effects under the guise of preventing pregnancy when there are other effective options available that pose no health risk?

Fertility Awareness-Based Methods, or FABMs, for instance, area very effective method of family planning and are comparable to most artificial methods of birth control when it comes to avoiding pregnancy,Dr. Duane says. AndFABMs arenatural, hormone-free, and free of side effects.

FABMs are notgrandmas rhythm method. Rather, they arebased on decades of solid scientific research of a womans reproductive physiology. Dr. Duane shares that FABMsallow a woman to work with her body rather than suppress her normal physiology.In fact, Dr. Duane calls FABMsthe only true methods of family planning because couples can use them to both avoid and achieve pregnancy.

Visit link:
NFP is a Low-Profile But Best-For-You Method - National Catholic Register (blog)

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Sydney couple Quinta and Greg Turton were looking forward to the arrival of their second baby, a much wanted younger sibling to their son Finlay.

They were devastated to learn their daughter Poppy had cystic fibrosis, dying from the genetic condition only 26 days after her birth.

Finlay, now 10, was healthy and the couple from Chifley in Sydney's south had no idea they were carriers of the faulty gene and had a one in four chance of passing it on to their children.

"It was a heartbreaking, horrible time," Mrs Turton said.

The couple opted to have their embryos screened for cystic fibrosis using a procedure known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and conceived a healthy baby Angus, now six.

Mrs Turton said the technology was a "huge relief" but also came at a high price as the procedure, which can add up to $6000 to an IVF cycle, is not funded by Medicare.

"The financial commitment was massive and added extra stress to what was already a very emotional time," she said.

On Friday, the federal government's leading medical advisor recommended public funding for PGD, which involves analysing embryos before implanting them into the mother.

Get the latest news and updates emailed straight to your inbox.

After a decade of lobbying from IVF groups and families, the Medical Services Advisory Committee has recommended the federal government fund the procedure that can screen for hundreds of genetic abnormalities, including cystic fibrosis, Huntington's disease and Fragile X syndrome.

Mark Bowman, medical director of fertility specialist Genea, which has lobbied for the funding, said couples who know they are carriers of gene mutations face difficult emotional and financial hurdles.

"Often these couples are already managing babies with a disability and it's not fair to ask them to play Russian roulette with a spontaneous pregnancy and then perhaps face cost and heartache," he said.

"Setting the emotional aspect aside, we believe there is a strong economic case for the funding of PGD.

"If you take a child with a serious illness such as cystic fibrosis, they are facing ongoing treatment and perhaps a lung transplant in the future. PGD is the ultimate in preventative treatment."

Ethicists have argued that PGD is a form of "reproductive discrimination"that undermines the equality of people who have that genetic condition.

Genea chief executive Tomas Stojanov has hailed the recommendation as an important step in making PGD more accessible .

"We are thrilled MSAC has listened and urge the minister of health to respond," he said. "We want to continue to work with government to deliver an outcome. We will continue to do whatever we can to correct this inequity of access."

Counties including Britain, New Zealand, France and the Netherlands all provide some public subsidy for the procedure.

A spokesman for Health Minister Greg Hunt said the government will consider the advice of MSAC.

See the original post here:
'The ultimate in preventative treatment': Push for government to fund genetic testing - The Sydney Morning Herald

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

MADISON, Wis. (AP) "It's goggles, gloves and lab coats right now," Dan Murphy, outreach coordinator for the Morgridge Institute for Research, shouted, rallying participants in Summer Science Camp at the Institutes for Discovery on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus earlier this week.

There was excitement as campers, all students from high schools in rural Wisconsin, prepared and conducted an experiment testing the effect of medication on cardiac muscle cells, or cardiomyocytes, The Capital Times (http://bit.ly/2u2dD9H ) reported.

"It's pretty cool," said Tanner Oyen, a student at Lancaster High School in Grant County in southwestern Wisconsin, about the experiment in which students counted the beats made by stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes before and after exposing them to verapamil, a calcium channel blocker.

The rural summer science camp, now in its 11th year, has brought more than 400 students from more than 70 high schools to the UW-Madison campus for a taste of what studying and maybe, someday, working in a university laboratory would be like.

Its mission is in part the Wisconsin Idea, bringing knowledge developed at UW-Madison to other parts of the state, Murphy said. It's also an opportunity for "students from rural Wisconsin to know that going to a UW System school is possible for them."

"And they see scientists not very much older than them model those aspirations," Murphy said.

Students from 10 state high schools participated in one of two science camps this month: Kickapoo Area School District in Viola; the North Crawford School District in Soldiers Grove; Iola-Scandinavia School District in Iola; Black Hawk School District in South Wayne; Chetek-Weyerhauser School District in Chetek; Lancaster High School; Phillips High School; Bruce High School; Coleman High School; and Hillsboro High School.

The students and their accompanying teachers spend four days on campus, staying in DeJope Residence Hall, and participate in a variety of educational and social activities.

On Wednesday, students heard a talk about how cardiac stem cells are developed and tested for use in medicine from Tim Kamp, a professor and researcher at the School of Medicine and Public Health. After hearing about the sometimes circuitous academic paths of graduate students who led the experiments, students got down to the business of calculating concentrations of verapamil and observing its effect on cardiomyocytes under the microscope.

Students chuckled at the idea of having the kind of equipment like the bio-safety cabinet that filtered the air around their cell samples and microscopes at their high schools.

That's one reason why the summer camp is so educational. "It's a great opportunity to get to work with new things," said Emma Peterson of Phillips High School in north central Wisconsin.

Her classmate, Kate Lochner, said the camp is giving her new appreciation for the potential of stem cell use, something she thinks will burgeon in the next few years. "I think that's going to be really helpful in all fields of research," said Lochner.

Both girls see science and UW-Madison as possibilities in their futures.

"It's a great school," said Lochner. "A lot of kids from Phillips end up going here."

A "lot" percentage-wise can mean just a few students from small schools like Phillips, with an enrollment of 228 this past year.

Aaron Destiche, a middle and high school teacher in the Coleman School District, said the camp makes going to UW-Madison to pursue a career in science "a tangible thing, not something off in the distance."

About 60 percent of Coleman graduates attend Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in nearby Green Bay, and 20 to 30 percent go on to a four-year college Destiche said. A handful of them, four or six a year, usually attend UW-Madison, he said.

Students on Wednesday noted that the beating of the cells slowed after the introduction of verapamil.

"Does the drug affect the calcium?" asked Annabelle Kolecki, a student at Coleman.

"That's a good hypothesis," replied graduate student Angelica de Lourdes, who comes from Puerto Rico.

Kolecki said the experiment energized the learning process. "It's easier when you are getting hands-on experience," she said.

"It was really cool to see actual heart cells," enthused classmate Kaily Klimek.

Both girls were excited about their week on campus. "Being here gives us the chance to try new things," Klimek said.

The summer camp is free of charge to students and teachers attending, and is supported by several grants, including an endowment established by the family of Kathleen Smith, a former trustee of both the Morgridge Institute and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

It's hoped that the experience also provides professional development for teachers who accompany their students, Murphy said. To promote experimentation back in the classroom, teachers receive funding of $25 per student they bring to camp to purchase science supplies, he said.

Hillsboro High School Deb Freitag returned this year with a new group of students after the camp was a big hit with those who attended three years ago.

"My students don't get to work with this kind of equipment or with other students who have the same capabilities and excitement over science," she remarked. The school in Vernon County in western Wisconsin has about 170 students.

"They were able to become 'nerds,' as they put it, and be comfortable about it," Freitag said.

Students in the camp create posters on what they learn that Freitag displayed in her classroom. "Seeing their names and what they did made them proud of who they are," she said, and started a buzz about science camp that had other students eager to attend.

Murphy said that camp organizers have just begun surveying students in the years after camp about what affect it had on their educational and career choices to gauge its impact scientifically.

"But we hear anecdotally from teachers that students are coming to UW-Madison because of these experiences," he said.

___

Information from: The Capital Times, http://www.madison.com/tct

Read more:
Beloit Daily News - Wisconsin News, Science camp gives rural ... - Beloit Daily News

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

As if the heat werent enough, late sunsets, dehydration and pollen allergies can all make sleeping difficult in the summer months.

Keeping ones bedroom cool and dark, showering to cool down and wash off pollen, and drinking plenty of water can help.

But people can be their own worst enemy when it comes to a good nights rest, according to Cameron Johnson, MD, a psychiatrist at Loma Linda University Health. The single biggest return on effort for better sleep, Johnson said, is to avoid all electronic screens starting an hour before bedtime.

Johnson delivered a presentation on sleep to a standing-room-only crowd at Loma Linda University Healths recent 2017 Womens Conference. Here are seven of his other top tips:

Power down. TVs, computers, smartphones, tablets and e-readers should be turned off and banished from the bedroom. The blue light waves emitted by these devices interfere with the bodys production of melatonin, a natural hormone that helps regulate circadian rhythm. To avoid this, put down your devices an hour prior to your desired sleep time.

Know when to exercise. Staying fit is one of the best things people can do for their well-being, but for the sake of a healthy sleep cycle, the timing is important. Exercising 20 minutes in the early-morning sun helps set your body clock to the right schedule. In the evening, dont exercise within at least one hour of bedtime; this is the time when you should be winding down.

Prepare your body and your bedroom for rest. They dont call it body clock for nothing; schedule is everything when it comes to getting adequate rest. To signal your body that it will soon be time to fall asleep, create a relaxing bedtime ritual. To complement this, the bedroom should be like a tomb: cold and dark, Johnson said. Cooling caps or blankets can help aid sleep, along with white noise.

BedTIME matters. Bedtime shouldnt change daily. Hit the pillow within the same half-hour timeframe each night. What time should that be? Johnson recommends getting to sleep by about 10 p.m. Doing so takes advantage of an important window for the delta portion of sleep, which helps the brain lock in the days memories, clear toxins, increase energy stores and release growth hormone to repair the body, he said. A 10 p.m. bedtime also protects REM sleep. REM promotes a healthy immune system, improves memory, prevents mood problems and protects nerve cells.

Avoid napping and night shifts. If at all possible, Johnson recommends avoiding overnight shiftwork. To a lesser degree, napping can also wreak havoc on a healthy sleep cycle. Try not to nap, but if you must, do so before 2 p.m. and only sleep 15-20 minutes, he said.

Weigh the benefits and risks of chemical help. Johnson recommends trying to avoid sleep medications that interfere with REM and/or delta sleep which is most of them, he said. Additionally, taking melatonin can help people fall asleep, but this risks lowering the bodys own natural production of this hormone. Discuss options with a qualified physician. When daytime comes, dont be fooled by caffeine it gives a false sense of well-being, Johnsons said. Sufficient sleep is vital for the health of ones mind and body.

Get tested for a sleep disorder. Sleep apnea, Johnson said, is a huge cause of mental health problems. A sleep study is in order, he noted, for people who have symptoms such as morning headache, fuzzy mind and irritability, as well as family members who snore.

Dont be too hard on yourself if you cant do all of these, Johnson cautioned.

The best approach to improving sleep habits, he said, is to choose one of these tips and practice it for three months, by which point it will become an unconscious habit. Then repeat with a second change for three months, and so on.

Don't push yourself too hard, Johnson said. Get early wins.

A pleasant way to start? Get a weekly massage for six weeks, which can improve sleep and cause a cascade of other health benefits, Johnson said.

Approximately 40 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders. The Sleep Disorders Center at Loma Linda University Medical Center can help. Opened in 1982, the center is accredited by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and treats both adults and children. Call 909-558-6344 to learn more.

Read the rest here:
Summertime, and the sleeping is not easy: 7 tips for putting insomnia to rest - Loma Linda University Health

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Newswise CHAPEL HILL A higher proportion of aggressive breast cancer subtypes are seen in black women, University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have found. The study findings help to explain a gap in mortality that exists between black and white women with breast cancer, and could lead to improved treatment approaches to help close it.

In the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers published results of an analysis of approximately 1,000 invasive breast tumors. The study confirmed that young black women are more likely to have triple negative, or basal-like, breast cancers, a subtype that does not express any of the receptors for targeted biologic therapies. The study also identified variation by race within a clinical breast cancer type that has the greatest mortality disparity. Researchers found that younger black women with hormone-receptor positive, HER2-negative breast cancer were more likely to have a high risk of recurrence score.

When we look at a more clinically homogeneous group, such as women who have hormone-responsive, HER2-negative disease, we see pretty significant and biologically important differences between black and white women, said the studys lead author Melissa Troester, PhD, UNC Lineberger member and professor of epidemiology in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. With genomic information, were better able to say which patients are likely to have indolent or slow-growing disease. And right now, we might mistake some people as having indolent disease, when actually they have a more aggressive tumor.

The study was part of the third phase of the seminal Carolina Breast Cancer Study, a population-based study launched at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1993. A driving motivation for the study has been to understand why African-American women disproportionately die from breast cancer. Since 1993, the study has gathered data on more than 8,000 women from 44 counties in North Carolina.

In the new study, researchers compared the findings of commonly used immunohistochemical tests, which classify breast cancer according to tumor markers, with the findings of the PAM50 gene expression assay, which classifies tumors into different risk groups as well as different molecular subtypes based upon each tumors genomic characteristics.

Confirming previous findings, researchers found that black women were less frequently diagnosed with luminal A breast cancer, a subtype of breast cancer that has a better prognosis overall. Black women had significantly higher odds of all three non-luminal A breast cancer subtypes: Their odds of basal-like breast cancer, a particularly aggressive subtype, were three times higher for black women compared to white women; odds were 45 percent higher for luminal B breast cancer or black women, and odds were twice that of white women for HER2-enriched breast cancer.

If you look at the group of basal-like breast cancers, the burden of this disease is much higher if youre young and black, said UNC Linebergers Lisa A. Carey, MD, physician-in-chief of the N.C. Cancer Hospital. We believe this is playing a role in racial disparities in outcomes between young and old, and black and white women with breast cancer.

They also found variation within a clinically defined subtype the hormone-receptor positive, HER2-negative subtype in particular. Hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer has the best prognosis overall, but the researchers report mortality disparities are also greatest within this group. In both black and white women, hormone receptor positive, HER2-negative breast cancer tumors were sometimes classified into the more aggressive genomic subtypes, including as basal-like breast cancer. In addition, on average, black womens tumors were more often classified into aggressive subtypes and had higher risk of recurrence scores within this group.

The findings underscore the role for genomic testing to drive precision medicine approaches to treatment, and may help explain a disparity in survival for black women with this type of breast cancer. In addition, the findings could have important clinical implications: Black patients with higher risk of recurrence scores could be candidates for chemotherapy or new treatment approaches since high-risk scores are an indication for chemotherapy.

If you really have a luminal A, low-risk tumor, and you were hormone receptor-positive and HER2-negative, you could be treated less aggressively, and have different surgical options, Troester said. But if you had these other tumor genomic subtypes, your doctor might consider a more aggressive treatment plan. We can do better to distinguish aggressive and indolent cancers if we use the genomic data that is becoming available.

In addition to Troester and Carey, other authors include Charles Perou, Xuezheng Sun, Emma H. Allott, Joseph Geradts, Stephanie M. Cohen, Chiu-Kit Tse, Erin L. Kirk, Leigh Thorne, Michelle Matthews, Yan Li, Zhiyuan Hu, Whitney R. Robinson, Katherine A. Hoadley, Olufunmilayo I. Olopade, Katherine E. Reeder-Hayes, H. Shelton Earp, and Andrew F. Olshan.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute.

Perou is listed as an inventor on a patent application on the PAM50 assay, which is licensed to BioClassifier LLC, Perou is an equity stock holder and board of director member of BioClassifier.

SEE ORIGINAL STUDY

See the rest here:
Aggressive Breast Cancers May Contribute to Racial Survival Disparities - Newswise (press release)

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The European Patent Office has signaled that it intends to grant MilliporeSigma a key CRISPR patent.

vchal/shutterstock

By Jon CohenAug. 4, 2017 , 4:16 PM

MilliporeSigma, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical giant Merck KGaA of Darmstadt, Germany, has become a new major player in the complicated European patent battles over CRISPR, the revolutionary genome-editing tool.

The European Patent Office (EPO) on 27 July signaled that it intends to grant a patent to MilliporeSigma, which operates in the United States and Canada, for the use of CRISPR to splice genetic information into eukaryotic cells. Just such a knock-in strategy made headlines this week in a controversial experiment that corrected a disease-causing gene in a human embryo. The MilliporeSigma claims explicitly state that the method does not comprise a process for modifying the germ line genetic identity of a human being.

The most high-profile patent battle over the CRISPR technology pits a group led by the University of California (UC) against the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and its collaborators.In that dispute over filings at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, UC claims its patent covers uses of CRISPR in all types of cells, whereas the Broad says only it deserves patents for the tools use in eukaryotes, which is the key marketplace for developing novel human medicines with the technology. I find it quite fascinating that most people seem to think the patent disputes are between two groups when its far more complicated than that, says Catherine Coombes, a patent attorney with HGF Limited in York, U.K., who has handled some CRISPR-related litigation but is not now involved with what she refers to as the foundational intellectual property (IP) at the center of these disputes.

As Coombes explains, there is unlikely to be a winner takes all situation in Europe. MilliporeSigma (Sigma-Aldrich in Europe) is one of six parties that filed early CRISPR claims with EPO. In Europe its quite possible for all six of the early players to have substantially overlapping rights, Coombes says.This is a good position for MilliporeSigma to be in. Theyre going to have some great foundational IP for their business, which is going to help them massively. Aside from UC, the Broad, and MilliporeSigma, the other groups include ToolGen, Vilnius University, and Harvard College.

Jacob Sherkow, a patent specialist at the New York Law School in New York City who has followed the CRISPR case closely, says hes pretty shocked by EPOs decision. The specific claims made by MilliporeSigma, he notes, closely match what the Broads lead researcher reported in a landmark Science paper in January 2013. But MilliporeSigma filed its claims 6 days before the Broad group. Thats wild, Sherkow says. Im not sure how this gets resolved. The European patent landscape is now a sight to behold.

Link:
CRISPR patent battle in Europe takes a 'wild' twist with surprising player - Science Magazine

Recommendation and review posted by sam

In BriefChinese researchers have successfully engineered HIV-resistance in mice using CRISPR/Cas9 to replicate a naturally occurring genetic mutation. Their method could eventually help prevent humans from contracting HIV, which currently affects more than 36.7 million people worldwide.

Of the many diseases that have plagued humanity, HIV is proving to be one of the trickiest to cure. The virus ability to remain hidden in latent reservoirs makes eliminating it particularly challenging, which is why Chinese researchers decided to test a different approach. Instead of developing a drug to fight HIV, theyre working on a way to make cells immune to the virus.

In a study published inMolecular Biology, a team led by Hu Chen of the 307 Hospital of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army and Hongkui Deng of the Peking University Stem Cell Research Centerused CRISPR/Cas9 to induce a homozygous mutation in a gene called CCR5, which encodes receptors in immune cells.

Previous studies have shown that this mutation of CCR5 can prevent HIV from entering cells, but only a small percentage of people have it naturally. Using CRISPR/Cas9, the researchers edited human fetal liver hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs), which were then engrafted into mice. Their research showed that this targeted approach of editing CCR5 waseffective at making T-cells more resistant to HIV.

While this study isnt the first to use edited stem cells to develop HIV-resistance in immune cells, it is the first example of using CRISPR to edit CCR5. One of the advantages of CRISPR is its high efficiency on difficult to transfect cells, Cheng and Deng told The Scientist. Using the remarkable method, they achieved a 21 to 28 percent efficiency in editing CCR5.

This isnt surprising since CRISPR is considered the most effective and efficient gene-editing tool available. One of the most recent and remarkable demonstrations of its precision was the first-ever editing of a human embryo in the U.S.. The tooleven gives us the ability torevive extinct species(if we wanted to).

As for this CCR5 study, Kamel Khalili from Temple University told The Scientist that expectation should remain in check:[It] may not be a complete cure because the virus itself is not eliminated and may shift to using the CCR4 or another receptor to spread. However, he did add, CCR5 seems to be the one Achilles heel of HIV. There may be some other targets, but for now, its the best target.

HIV affects more than 36.7 million people worldwide, 1.8 million of whom are younger than15 years old. An approach that helps humans develop a resistance or immunity to it could be our best chance at future eradication.

Link:
Researchers Used CRISPR to Successfully Increase HIV Resistance in Animals - Futurism

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Earlier this week, a team of scientists, led by a researcher at Oregon Health and Science University, published a paper showing its possible to alter human embryo DNA to prevent congenital disease. The study shows that CRISPR-Cas9 is certainly powerful. But in the fanfare and controversy surrounding the news, the public may have lost sight that CRISPR is also highly versatile.

Scientists are using the technology to develop effective treatment therapies for a range of diseases, including cancer, diabetes and communicable diseases. Other researchers applygene editing to solve agricultural problems,counter bioterrorism and clean up the environment.

Since CRISPR was first identified, geneticists have been adapting it in the laboratory as a tool that could be used to alter genetic codes of all living organisms. The study, published in Nature on Wednesday has incited a debate about the ethics of using CRISPR technology to alter human genes, which draws attention to the ongoing public fear that humanity will soon have the capacity to build designer babies.

Tech & Science Emails and Alerts - Get the best of Newsweek Tech & Science delivered to your inbox

Newsweek spoke with Jennifer Doudna, a microbiologist at the University of California, Berkeley and co-discover of the breakthrough gene-editing technique, about how quickly the technology is advancing and the progress she expects to see in the future.

What do you make of the findings in the Nature study?

In a way its not a surprising study. Theres obviously been interest in the potential application of genome editing to curing genetic disease. Ultimately, if one could do this in the germline, it would be possible to get rid of disease-causing mutations at the beginning of life.

Whats really interesting here is that the study was conducted in a way that could create a path to the clinic, and to establish a procedure for doing gene editing that would be feasible in these embryos. The researchers largely achieved that.

Whats the one thing you say to people to try to assuage their the worries that were on the path to creating designer babies?

People say it wont happen in the U.S. but what about China? I am asked this question at cocktail parties. What about Asia? What about places that have fewer restrictions, and perhaps fewer cultural feelings against germline editing? Its entirely possible that there will be use of germline editing in those jurisdictions. I encourage the scientific and clinical communities around the world to not rush CRISPR to clinical research because I think it would be a shame if a powerful technology gets a black eye in the public perception, at least in terms of using it inappropriately.

Are there other ways to use this technology in a reproductive medicine setting that dont involve editing an actual embryo?

Perhaps in the not-too-distant future it will be possible to generate gametesmeaning eggs or spermfrom somatic cells in a person. Already it is possible to do this in animals. Once this is technically feasible in humans, doctors could use CRISPR for patients with a known genetic predisposition to something or certain mutations to generate gametes that could be used in an in vitro fertilization setting. This removes the issue of embryo editing, though it doesnt remove the issue of making changes that become heritable in the human germline.

Are you surprised by how fast this research has progressed?

Its been about five years since we published our paper describing the CRISPR system and how it could be used for genome editing. I never imagined back then that I would be reading this headline in the New York Times this week.

What are you working on that shows CRISPRs broad capabilities?

Im leading the Innovative Genomics Institute, a UC San Franciscopartnership aiming to bring genome editing to important problems in human health and the environment, which is aimed at bringing people who do fundamental research like me together with clinicians and plant biologists. Weve teamed up with neurosurgeons at UC San Francisco, and were developing ways to deliver gene-editing molecules into the brain. This has nothing to do with germline editing. This is therapy for neurological disease. Im very excited about the potential to use gene editing to correct mutations that could really benefit patients in the future.

We published a paper in Nature Biotechnology earlier this year showing how we can use CRISPR for editing DNA in the brains of mice. Were focused right now on Huntingtons disease and working in a couple of different animal models toinvestigate whether the approach has a therapeutic benefit in these animals. If that looks promising then we hope to make steps toward clinical trials with our partners at UCSF.

The vast majority of scientists right now who are working with gene editingand CRISPR in particularare focused on this type of application. Researchers are not trying to make heritable changes to DNA in humans. They are trying to make changes to DNA that would impact a patient in their lifetime and have a positive effect.

Read the original:
Gene Editing Could Stop Cancer, Diabetes and Bioterrorism: An Interview With CRISPR Scientist Jennifer Doudna - Newsweek

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The potential of the gene editing tool CRISPR just seems to keep growing and growing, and the latest experimental use of the technology is creating skin grafts that trigger the release of insulin and help manage diabetes.

Researchers have successfully tested the idea with mice that gained less weight and showed a reversed resistance to insulin because of the grafts (high insulin resistance is a common precursor to type 2 diabetes).

In fact, the team from the University of Chicago says the same approach could eventually be used to treat a variety of metabolic and genetic conditions, not just diabetes it's a question of using skin cells to trigger different chemical reactions in the body.

"We didn't cure diabetes, but it does provide a potential long-term and safe approach of using skin epidermal stem cells to help people with diabetes and obesity better maintain their glucose levels," says one of the researchers, Xiaoyang Wu.

Immunofluorescence image of a skin graft. Image: University of Chicago

If you're new to the CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) phenomenon, it's a new and innovative way of editing specific genes in the body, using a biological copy and paste technique: it can do everything from cut out HIV virus DNA to slow the growth of cancer cells.

For this study, researchers used CRISPR to alter the gene responsible for encoding a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which triggers the release of insulin and then helps remove excess glucose from the blood.

Type 2 diabetes comes about due to a lack of insulin, also known as insulin resistance.

Using CRISPR, the GLP-1 gene could be tweaked to make its effects last longer than normal. The result was developed into skin grafts that were then applied to mice.

Around 80 percent of the grafts successfully released the edited hormone into the blood, regulating blood glucose levels over four months, as well as reversing insulin resistance and weight gain related to a high-fat diet.

Significantly, it's the first time the skin graft approach has worked for mice not specially designed in the lab.

"This paper is exciting for us because it is the first time we show engineered skin grafts can survive long term in wild-type mice, and we expect that in the near future this approach can be used as a safe option for the treatment of human patients," says Wu.

Human treatments will take time to develop but the good news is that scientists are today able to grow skin tissue very easily in the lab using stem cells, so that won't be an issue.

If we can make it safe, and patients are happy with the procedure, then the researchers say it could be extended to treat something like haemophilia, where the body is unable to make blood clots properly.

Any kind of disease where the body is deficient in specific molecules could potentially be targeted by this new technique. And if it works with diabetes, it could be time to say goodbye to needles and insulin injections.

Other scientists who weren't directly involved in the research, including Timothy Kieffer from the University of British Columbia in Canada, seem optimistic.

"I do predict that gene and cell therapies will ultimately replace repeated injections for the treatment of chronic diseases," Kieffer told Rachel Baxter at New Scientist.

The findings have been published in Cell Stem Cell.

Original post:
CRISPR Skin Grafts Could Replace Insulin Shots For Diabetes - ScienceAlert

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

The results of the first gene-editing experiment conducted on a human embryo in the United States were published on Wednesday, and their implications cant be overstated. A research team was able to erase the gene mutation responsible for a condition causing sudden heart failure from a one-cell human embryo.

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University, lead by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, used a tool called the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, or CRISPR a DNA cutting and splicing machine that scientists can program to target a specific sequence of our DNA. Think of it as a precise carnival claw machine.

The ability to target and edit deadly gene mutations from a human embryo means diseases could be cured before a pregnancy even starts. Like Jonas Salks miracle cure for polio, perhaps embryonic gene editing could be the new vaccination.

But when the scientific journalNaturereleased the highly anticipated report, it once again raised concern about designer babies a fear that initially began after scientists successfully transplanted mitochondrial DNA, resulting in a so-called three-parent baby. According to some headlines, scientists were on the verge of making designer babies.

After all, if science can target a gene mutation for eradication, parents selecting hair and eye color and tweaking for increased intelligence cant be far off.But while the news is indeed huge, Aldous Huxleys dystopian Brave New World isnt as close as it might feel.

CRISPR, while incredible, has yet to be perfected to yield real-life results for humans. And its less likely to lead to designer-baby kits than to be used to target known genetic disorders. In fact, the editing of a human embryo isnt even the most exciting application of CRISPR released this summer.

So how will CRISPRs capabilities affect our lives? The answer lies in the political and technical impediments it faces.

How CRISPR could fight disease

Using CRISPR to experiment successfully on a human embryo is an important scientific advancement, but in the near term the technology is more likely to be used to treat or potentially eradicate genetic diseases in children and adults. One of the diseases currently in CRISPRs crosshairs is Huntingtons disease: a fatal genetic disease that destroys nerve cells in the brain of the sufferer, leading to mental and physical deterioration.

In June a report was released showing CRISPR had targeted and reversed the occurrence of Huntingtons disease in mice. While this doesnt sound as exciting as editing the genes of a human embryo, the success of this experiment is a tangible, practical bombshell.

In the world of clinical trials, testing on an animal subject is the step before clinical trials on humans. Although researchers are a few years out from being able to conduct CRISPR trials for Huntingtons disease, other advances with the technology are moving apace.

The summer 2017 edition of Genome magazine reported that a possible therapy using CRISPR technology and targeting a rare immune disorder, granulomatous disease, or CGD, could be used on humans in the next year. Researchers successfully corrected the genetic mutation causing CGD by using some of the patients own blood-forming stem cells.

Again, mice played a pivotal role: The edited cells were injected into the mice, then as programmed by CRISPR, worked their way into the bone marrow, where neutrophils (the missing defense mechanism in CGD patients) began being produced. Corrected cells programmed to produce normal neutrophils can theoretically be reintroduced into human sufferers with the same results.

But genetic variation in the disparate human population means one CRISPR code doesnt fit all. As each disease needs its specially designed tool, each person may need additional genetic testing to see if the tool even works for their unique DNA code.

Proposed federal budget cuts might stop CRISPR before it even starts

The National Institutes of Health, nested within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has a tight rein on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell line research, or hES. President Bill Clinton signed a law restricting research on human embryos that resulted in embryosdestruction. George W. Bush, fueled by his evangelical base, further restricted testing to fewer hES lines.

In 2009, President Barack Obama overturned the Bush-era law and expanded the number of lines that once again could be scientifically studied and importantly, funded through the NIH. The Trump administrations record of rejecting scientific consensus, courting the religious right and slashing the federal budget doesnt bode well for accelerating hES research, let alone for CRISPR technology.

The successful editing of a human embryo is a breakthrough worthy of celebration,but with proper funding and continued research,equally stunning advancements with CRISPR could help many more people as the technology takes aim at a widening range of genetic diseases.

Go here to see the original:
CRISPR Helped 'Edit' A Human Embryo But That's Not All It Can Do - HuffPost

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Xconomy National

Gene editing took an important step this week when a group of U.S. researchers used CRISPR-Cas9 technology to correct a genetic error in dozens of human embryos without complications. Its a significant achievement, but amidst the hype, its worth cautioning just how much work has to be done before the technology leads to a safe and effective human therapeutic. Years of clinical testing, and likely unforeseen twists and turns, lay ahead, with many more biological mysteries to solve along the way. For a dose of reality, look no further than a separate research paper also submitted this week by one of the CRISPR fields pioneers, Feng Zhang, who warned drugmakers about potential problems that could arise in human testing.

Beyond CRISPR, weve got the latest on the ongoing healthcare soap opera, details on new drug approvals, and much more. Read on below.

THIS WEEK IN GENE EDITING

In a paper published in Nature Medicine, Feng Zhang, one of the pioneers of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, urged companies to analyze the DNA of patients before giving them experimental medicines that alter their genes with the breakthrough technology.

Just two days later, Nature published the details of the paper showing a team of researchers used CRISPR to correct, in dozens of human embryos, a genetic mutation known to cause a specific type of heart disease.

In related news, Bedford, MA-based Homology Medicines, a startup trying to advance a gene editing alternative to CRISPR, raised an $83.5 million Series B round, giving it a whopping $127 million in raised cash since its inception last year.

ON CAPITOL HILL

The GOPs efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act fell short last week, but while the law lives, for now, its future remains unclear. The Trump administration again threatened to withhold critical subsidies that fund part of the ACA, rattling insurers, and tried to browbeat Congress into moving forward with a new repeal and replace effort. Yet Congress appeared to have other ideas. Some indicated it was time to move on to tax reform, while others scheduled hearings to begin working toward a bipartisan fix to the current system.

-By a 94-1 vote, the U.S. Senate passed a bill that reauthorizes the fees collected from drug and medical device developers in order to fund the FDAs regulatory review of new medical products. Before that vote, the Senate passed a right to try bill that would expand dying patients access to experimental drugs.

AND AT THE FDA

The 2010 alliance between Celgene (NASDAQ: CELG) and Agios Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CELG) paid dividends this week with FDA approval of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) drug enasidenib (Idhifa). The drug is the first marketed product for Agios, and one it was able to advance from discovery to finish line far quicker than the norm.

Jazz Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: JAZZ) was cleared to begin selling its own AML drug, branded as Vyxeos, which the company acquired when it bought Celator Pharmaceuticals last year.

The FDA approved ibrutinib (Imbruvica) for adults with chronic graft-versus-host disease. The drug, sold by Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) and AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV), is already on the market for a variety of blood cancers.

The agency also gave the green light to a new hepatitis C medicine, glecaprevir/pibrentasvir (Mavyret), from Enanta Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ENTA) and partner AbbVie.

AstraZenecas 2015 investment in Netherlands and Redwood City, CA-based Acerta Pharma may soon pay off. The FDA will decide by early next year whether to approve Acerta lymphoma drug alacabrutinib; if it does, Acertas backers would get $1.5 billion from AstraZeneca.

Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) plans to seek FDA approval of migraine drug lasmitidan next year now that a second Phase 3 trial has succeeded. Lilly got the drug when it bought CoLucid Pharmaceuticals in January.

An FDA advisory committee voted to recommend approval of a hepatitis B vaccine, Heplisav-B, from Dynavax Technologies (NASDAQ: [[ticker: [[NASDAQ:DVAX[]]), and shares shot up 70 percent. But on Thursday, the Berkeley, CA, company announced that the FDA wants more information about post-marketing study plans, which will delay an FDA decision until November.

FDA advisors didnt, however, recommend approval of sirukumab (Plivensia), a rheumatoid arthritis drug developed by J&J, citing safety concerns. The agency will decide the drugs fate by Sept. 23.

New details emerged showing the internal rift between FDA staffers over the agencys controversial 2016 approval of Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug eteplirsen (Exondys 51). Heres more from Undark.

NEW STARTS, FUNDINGS & DEALS

Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) paid $300 million to buy Cambridge, MA, startup IFM Therapeutics and get ahold of some cancer drugs the startup has ben developing. IFM, however, kept some assets in-house and is spinning them into a new company called IFM Therapeutics LLC.

Takeda formed a new startup in Cambridge, MA, Cardurion Pharmaceuticals, which will develop drugs for heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases.

Amplyx Pharmaceuticals of San Diego raised a $67 million Series C round of fund testing of an anti-fungal drug.

San Francisco-based Invitae (NASDAQ: NVTA) reached deals to acquire Good Start Genetics and Combimatrix (NASDAQ: CBMX), moves to expand its gene testing menu to include carrier and newborn screening.

Vertitas Genetics, a Boston company that offers whole genome sequencing for less than $1,000, acquired Curoverse, also based in Boston, to help bring artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to genetic analysis.

HEME HAPPENINGS

Shares of Spark Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ONCE) climbed 16 percent after it provided the first small, early look at a trial testing an experimental gene therapy for hemophilia A; the company quickly raised $350 million in a stock offering. BioMarin Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ: BMRN) is ahead of Spark with its own hemophilia A gene therapy.

Meanwhile, Lexington, MA, and Amsterdam-based UniQure (NASDAQ: QURE) reacquired European rights to its experimental hemophilia B gene therapy from partner Chiesi.

CUTBACKS

Pain drug developer PixarBio (OTC: PXRB) slashed its headcount by 17 and relocated its headquarters from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, according to an SEC filing. But in an e-mail to Endpoints, CEO Frank Reynolds insisted that the company is in Cambridge, MA, and remains on target for an FDA decision on its drug in 2019.

Ocular Therapeutix (NASDAQ: OCUL) laid off 19 percent of its staff, a cost-saving move that follows the FDAs rejection of the Bedford, MA, companys drug delivery device for the eye.

Frank Vinluan contributed to this report.

Ben Fidler is Xconomy's Deputy Biotechnology Editor. You can e-mail him at bfidler@xconomy.com

Go here to read the rest:
Bio Roundup: CRISPR Advances, Obamacare Lives, FDA Nods & More - Xconomy

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Merck KGaA has received a Notice of Intention to Grant from the European Patent Office that its CRISPR patent will cover genomic integration.

Everyone in biotech is gunning for a piece of the CRISPR pie, and German Merckwill likely become the next company to acquire IP, adding to the pile it began building in 2012. Mercks CRISPR patent, which theEuropean Patent Office (EPO) has just signaled its intent to grant, will cover the use of the technology in a genomic integration method for eukaryotic cells, according to the statement.

This comes hours after the official publication of the results from thefirst embryo editing experiment in the US, headed by Shoukhrat Mitalipov at Oregon Health & Science University. (If youve been living under a rock, it was leaked last week.) His research group successfully replaced a gene that causes heart disease with a healthy one not only efficiently but also accurately, though the edited DNA wasnt taken up by a single embryo in the experiment.

As Richard Hynes, Professor of Cancer Research at MIT, toldThe New York Times,Weve always said in the past gene editing shouldnt be done, mostly because it couldnt be done safely. Thats still true, but now it looks like its going to be done safely soon [Its] a big breakthrough.Merck KGaA may lead the charge on this side of the Atlantic.

Filed in May of this year, Mercks patent application describes what it calls proxy-CRISPR, which improves the efficiency, flexibility, and specificity of the original technique by giving access to previously inaccessible cell locations. The pharma says explicitly that the method can be used to replace a disease-associated mutation with a beneficial or functional sequence, limiting its CRISPR patent to therapies and disease models while ruling out the introduction of vanity genes.

Ahorde of companies has been rushing into the CRISPR patent space, albeit for a broad range of comparatively narrow uses. Cellectis, for instance,just secured one for its CAR-T efforts. The battle for the original CRISPR patent is ongoing, though the EPO unsurprisingly ruled in favor of Emmanuelle Charpentier earlier this year after its American counterpart sided with Feng Zhang of The Broad Institute. For everyone missing the boat, theres always licensing.

Images via nobeastsofierce, crystal light / shutterstock.com

View post:
Designer Babies in Europe: German Merck Set to Receive CRISPR Patent - Labiotech.eu (blog)

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The Economist

Genetic testing threatens the insurance industry The Economist IF A genetic test could tell whether you are at increased risk of getting cancer or Alzheimer's, would you take it? As such tests become more accessible, more and more people are saying yes. The insurance industry faces a few headaches as a result.

Continued here:
Genetic testing threatens the insurance industry - The Economist

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

(Editors Note: This article is part of a collaborative reporting series between the American Cancer Society and Next Avenue. The series is exploring the state of genetic testing in breast cancer patients.)

After a routine mammogram in 2014 revealed a tumor in her right breast, Wendy Mayer was diagnosed with invasive lobular carcinoma. Fortunately, it had not spread. But her mother, her grandmother and a cousin had all had breast cancer, so on the advice of her doctors, Mayer underwent genetic testing.

I think waiting for those results may have been the most stressful part of this entire thing, the Washington, D.C.-area resident said. To her great relief, it showed she did not have a harmful mutation on either the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. (Mutations in these genes are linked to an increased risk for breast and ovarian cancers.)

That knowledge made Mayer, now 67, comfortable with her treatment decision. She had a lumpectomy, which allowed her to keep most of her breast. The alternative was what she said she would have probably chosen if she did have a mutation: bilateral mastectomy, the removal of both breasts.

Women newly diagnosed with breast cancer face so many unknowns: What does the diagnosis mean for my future? What kind of treatment is best? Did I inherit a high-risk gene? What effect will my cancer, if it is genetic, have on my children or grandchildren?

Genetic testing can answer some of those questions. But what precedes and follows that test is vital, experts say. Many women have been helped by genetic counseling, a detailed discussion by a trained professional of a womans specific circumstances.

Genetic testing is very complicated; its not a simple blood test, said Suzanne Mahon, a registered nurse and genetic counselor at Deaconess Cancer Center in St. Louis. The interpretation hinges not only on the test results, but also on the personal and family history.

Unfortunately, not everyone has equal access to such counseling. And research has shown that many women fail to get it because their doctor didnt suggest it, as noted in the first story of our collaborative reporting series with the American Cancer Society. Instead, most newly diagnosed women first see a surgeon.

Kathy Bressler is thankful that she had the benefit of counseling after her breast cancer diagnosis.

That was such a positive experience, said the 56-year-old Omaha hospital administrator. I felt really comfortable that we had done the latest testing and that it showed everything that there was to show at the time.

Genetic tests are far different now than they used to be. Previous tests looked for mutations on only the BRCA genes, but todays genetic tests can identify variations associated with breast cancer on 20 or more genes. The tests are also far less expensive now.

Like Mayer, Bressler also had a mother with breast cancer. But Bressler was relieved to learn through a genetic test about 15 years ago that she did not have any harmful BRCA mutations. Nevertheless, a sharp pain in her right breast in December 2015 led her doctor to recommend an ultrasound. It revealed a 1.7 cm lump.

A new genetic test showed no harmful mutations on any of the genes, but the breast biopsy revealed a darker result: She was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, in which the three most common proteins involved in tumor growth are missing, thus ruling out several treatment options. Its the kind you dont want to have, she said.

Though her medical team encouraged her to choose a lumpectomy, also known as breast-conserving surgery, Bressler didnt hesitate: she wanted a bilateral mastectomy. I was 27 when my mom died, and I just knew I wasnt going to mess around, she said. I wasnt going to have mammograms every six months and worry and stress.

A subsequent test made her even more convinced that her choice was a good one: An examination of the breast tissue after mastectomy revealed three additional tumors.

Bressler said she always encourages other women to get genetic counseling and testing if they have any family history of breast cancer. I think it really helps women in their decision-making. Without that information before surgery, youre not making a completely informed decision, she said.

She also emphasizes early diagnosis through regular mammograms and other screening as appropriate. Bressler urges women to be aware of their own breasts and report any changes to their doctor. And she encourages everyone to help fund breast cancer research.

Thats where we learn about more of the genes that are indeed connected to breast cancer, and thats really important, she said. Were not done learning about what causes breast cancer.

Christine Thies, 48, of Austin, Texas, also chose a double mastectomy even though genetic testing revealed no harmful mutations. Her mother had died of breast cancer and Thies was diagnosed with it after a breast reduction surgery, when her tissue was tested.

Im not good with the unknown, she said. I tend to be pretty analytical, and for me, it was a numbers game.

But she would never describe her decision as something thats best for others.

Everyone has their own journey, and everyone comes to this decision differently, she said. There is no right answer. You just have to make an answer that is best for you.

Twin Cities Public Television - 2017. All rights reserved.

Here is the original post:
Genetic Testing and Counseling for Breast Cancer Can Help Guide Decisions - Next Avenue

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

(CBS) The expiration dates onover-the-counterandprescription medicationsseem pretty black and white, but theres some question about whether drugs last even longer.

Expiration dates typically range from 12 to 60 months after production. But manufacturers arent required to determine how long theyll remain potent after that, enabling them to set their own expiration dates and possibly shortchange consumers.

Testing reported inJAMA Internal Medicineshowed that eight medications with 15 different active ingredients were still potent decades beyond their expiration dates.

The U.S. governments own Shelf Life Extension Program extends the dates on some drugs in federal stockpiles to save the military from the cost of replacing them. Its own study found that 90 percent of more than 100 drugs were perfectly good even 15 years after expiration.

But what about the medications in your home?

A lot depends on how carefully you store them you probably dont do as good a job as the U.S. Army. Thats why the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends never taking drugs beyond their expiration date its just too risky. In particular, nitroglycerin,insulinand liquidantibioticsshouldnt be used after their expiration dates.

To safeguard all medications, protect them from heat, light and humidity by keeping them in a cool, dry, dark place. A steamy bathroom isnt a good environment.

Know, too, that some drugs can lose their potency more quickly than others, includingaspirin. If you take aspirin for heart health, be sure to replace it as needed.

Read more:
Can you take medications past their expiration date? - WBTW - Myrtle Beach and Florence SC

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

From TV to books to movies, dystopian tales are in the air right now. All week long, Vulture is exploring how theyve been imagined in popular culture.

Twenty years ago this month, 3 billion people were saved from nuclear annihilation at the hands of a murderous artificial intelligence called Skynet, thanks to the quick thinking and selflessness of an inexplicably Austrian-accented robot. Dont believe me? Check out the famed documentary film Terminator 2: Judgment Day. But follow-up scholarship from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines points toward a troubling conclusion: The T-800 didnt actually prevent Skynet from destroying half the Earths population it only delayed it. (In the words of John Connor, humanitys destiny was never to stop Judgment Day; it was merely to survive it. And one more John Connor quote for good measure: All I know is what the Terminator taught me: Never stop fighting.)

We are therefore, in a sense, living on borrowed time, awaiting the moment when a network of computers with enormous destructive capabilities achieves consciousness and launches a systematic nuclear attack.The best we can do now is identify the agent of our destruction. In the Terminator series, Skynet is created by a sleek and forbidding defense contractor named Cyberdyne, but those movies depict alternate timelines to our own. On the impossibly stupid Earth we inhabit, Skynet wont come from an ominous military-industrial giant but from one of the websites we use to investigate exes or order gummy bears in bulk. The only question is: which one?

In 1997, the year Skynet was originally projected to achieve consciousness, Microsoft was easily the company best-positioned to develop a homicidal computer network. In Windows, it had control of millions of computers in businesses and homes around the world, and in Clippy, it had the rudimentary beginnings of truly sociopathic artificial intelligence. One lesson we might learn from the intervening two decades is that antitrust law might actually be humanitys greatest weapon against powerful computers: The Justice Departments lawsuit against Microsoft diminished the companys power and hampered its ability to compete in the mobile space and the lethal liquid-metal robot space. Microsoft might still be able to create a Skynet, but it seems more intent on destroying humanity through other means, such as purchasing and operating LinkedIn.

Of the fearsome five that dominate Silicon Valley, Apple is the company that has the most extensive experience and knowledge in manufacturing, which would be helpful for building a bloodthirsty robot army. Beyond that, though, Apple seems like an unlikely candidate. Its long lagged behind its peers in cloud-computing technology, which is an absolute necessity for coordinating nuclear strikes on population centers. It has an institutional aversion to violence would a genocidal neural network emerge from a company that replaced the handgun emoji with a water pistol? And, frankly, despite its experience in mass producing machinery, a design-obsessed company like Apple could never produce the kind of velvet-poster metallic skeletons favored by Skynet. Say whatever else youd like, Apples automaton stormtroopers would at least be tasteful.

Facebook has information about the whereabouts of 2 billion humans beings. Its experimenting with solar-powered, internet-connected drones. And it already has a sophisticated artificial intelligence that specializes in negotiation CEO Mark Zuckerberg! Folks, Im kidding. Mark Zuckerberg is absolutely human, as are his well-compensated lawyers. When I say Facebook has sophisticated artificial intelligences specializing in negotiation, Im talking about the artificial-intelligence program that was shut down after it created its own language without human input. Well,technically it only created its own shorthand, not its own language. Still! Sample dialogue: Alice: balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to. Will Facebook make Skynet? That, or it will make solar-powered internet-connected drones that visit your home screaming balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to at you, which might be worse.

Google owns the smart-home company Nest, the self-driving car company Waymo, and the artificial-intelligence company Deepmind. It also, until recently, owned Boston Dynamics, the company that makes those impossibly creepy giant robot dogs youve probably seen in viral videos. Which means that the company with comprehensive information about you could potentially also control your home, your car, and the giant robot dog that will chase you down and rip out your heart after youve been forced out of your home and your car. Sadly (for the robots), Google sold Boston Dynamics, so the robot dog wont be able to read your email to see what parties youre going to, and is unlikely to lead a robot rebellion. Consider this, too: Google also owns a life-extension research company, and why would you be interested in life extension if your ultimate plan was to kill half the world? Unless its a very clever hedge.

Im not sure why I think Amazon is the company most likely to Skynet the planet. It might be that it has the most advanced, and most ominous-appearing, personal home speakers. It might be that its incredible logistical abilities as a company would seem to give it some kind of strategic advantage over its rivals. Mostly I think its this: More than any of the other fearsome five, Amazon does not seem to care much for human beings.Sure, it needs humans to purchase, sell, pack, and ship its products (for now). But if you visit the site and see the kinds of things it has for sale a wall decal of an older Asian man, a $23 million book about flies, a heroin-themed cell-phone case it seems clear that Amazon not only finds humans confusing, it does not particularly like them at all. Amazon may not have the killer robots to be Skynet(yet). But it already has the contempt for humans. And also a decal of an old woman using an inhaler only $22.98!

Read more:
Which Giant Tech Company Is Winning the Race to Be Skynet? - Vulture

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Global Male Hypogonadism Market Research Report 2017 to 2022presents an in-depth assessment of the Male Hypogonadism including enabling technologies, key trends, market drivers, challenges, standardization, regulatory landscape, deployment models, operator case studies, opportunities, future roadmap, value chain, ecosystem player profiles and strategies. The report also presents forecasts for Male Hypogonadism investments from 2017 till 2022.

This study answers several questions for stakeholders, primarily which market segments they should focus upon during the next five years to prioritize their efforts and investments. The Male Hypogonadism markets are highly fragmented due to the presence of numerous small and large vendors. Most of the international pharmaceutical companies are facing challenges such as price pressure, regulatory constraints, and competition from local and other international pharmaceutical companies in the Male Hypogonadism markets. The competitive environment in the market is expected to intensify with an increase in product extensions, technological innovations, and increase in mergers and acquisitions.

These stakeholders include Male Hypogonadism manufacturers such as : Astrazeneca Plc., Merck & Co. Inc., Laboratories Genevrier, Allergan Plc., Endo International Plc., Ferring, AbbVie Inc., Eli Lilly and Company Ltd., Finox Biotech, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Bayer AG, IBSA Institut Biochimque.

Inquire for sample of report @:

https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/080413335/global-male-hypogonadism-market-research-report-2017/inquiry

Primary sources are mainly industry experts from core and related industries, and suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, service providers, and organizations related to all segments of the industrys supply chain. The bottom-up approach was used to estimate the global market size of Male Hypogonadism based on end-use industry and region, in terms of value. With the data triangulation procedure and validation of data through primary interviews, the exact values of the overall parent market, and individual market sizes were determined and confirmed in this study.

Secondly the study, besides estimating the Male Hypogonadism market potential till 2022, analyzes on who can be the market leaders and what partnerships would help them to capture the market share. The report gives an overview about the dynamics of the market, by discussing various aspects such as drivers, restraints, Porters 5 forces, value chain, customer acceptance and investment scenario.

TheGlobal Male Hypogonadism marketconsists of different international, regional, and local vendors. The market competition is foreseen to grow higher with the rise in technological innovation and M&A activities in the future. Moreover, many local and regional vendors are offering specific application products for varied end-users. The new vendor entrants in the market are finding it hard to compete with the international vendors based on quality, reliability, and innovations in technology.

The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, types, technology and applications.

Global Male Hypogonadism Sales (K Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type:

Global Male Hypogonadism Sales (K Units) by Application (2016-2022)

by Application

(2016-2022)

The research provides answers to the following key questions:

This independent 112 page report guarantees you will remain better informed than your competition. With over 150 tables and figures examining the Male Hypogonadism market, the report gives you a visual, one-stop breakdown of the leading products, submarkets and market leaders market revenue forecasts as well as analysis to 2022.

Browse Full Report @:

https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/080413335/global-male-hypogonadism-market-research-report-2017

Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share and growth rate of Storage Area Network Switch in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), covering

by Regions

The report provides a basic overview of the Male Hypogonadism industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. And development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures.

Then, the report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information. Whats more, the Male Hypogonadism industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.

The report segments this market based on products, portability, methods, applications, and end users. Among various end users, the hospitals segment is expected to account for the largest share of the market and is expected to grow at the highest CAGR from 2014 to 2019. The high growth in this segment can be attributed to the rising rate of maternal mortality and fetal birth defects, and increasing number of initiatives taken by government organizations for improving prenatal care.

The research includes historic data from 2012 to 2016 and forecasts until 2022 which makes the reports an invaluable resource for industry executives, marketing, sales and product managers, consultants, analysts, and other people looking for key industry data in readily accessible documents with clearly presented tables and graphs. The report will make detailed analysis mainly on above questions and in-depth research on the development environment, market size, development trend, operation situation and future development trend of Male Hypogonadism on the basis of stating current situation of the industry in 2017 so as to make comprehensive organization and judgment on the competition situation and development trend of Male Hypogonadism Market and assist manufacturers and investment organization to better grasp the development course of Male Hypogonadism Market.

The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.

The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.

There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Male Hypogonadism market.

Chapter 1, to describe Male Hypogonadism Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;

Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Grain and Seed Cleaning Equipment, with sales, revenue, and price of Grain and Seed Cleaning Equipment, in 2016 and 2017;

Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;

Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Grain and Seed Cleaning Equipment, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;

Chapter 5, 6, 7,8and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;

Chapter 10and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;

Chapter 12, Male Hypogonadism market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;

Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Male Hypogonadism sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.

See the original post:
Male Hypogonadism Market Research Report 2017 To 2022 - Equity Insider (press release)

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Scientists say there are no known safe levels of phthalates for pregnant women and young children

Published Jul 30, 2017 at 11:13 am (Updated Jul 28, 2017)

For the study, the coalition contracted with an independent laboratory experienced in the testing of phthalates in food to test 30 cheese products purchased at retail grocery stores in the United States and shipped to the lab, unopened, in their original packaging. Findings revealed:Phthalates in nearly every cheese product tested (29 of 30 samples), with 10 different phthalates identified and up to six found in a single product.Phthalates in eight of the nine Kraft cheese product samples tested.Toxic chemical phthalates at levels on average more than four times higher in macaroni and cheese powder than in hard cheese blocks and other natural cheese.DEHP, the most widely banned phthalate around the world, in all 10 macaroni and cheese powders. DEHP accounted for nearly 60 percent of all phthalates found in the cheese product samples that were tested.

The cheese powers in ten varieties of macaroni and cheese products tested all contain toxic industrial chemicals (known as phthalates), according to the Coalition for Safer Food Processing and Packaging, a national alliance of leading public health and food safety groups.

Phthalates (THAL-eights) are hormone-disrupting chemicals that can lower testosterone, the male sex hormone, and alter thyroid function. Scientists have linked exposure to some phthalates, during pregnancy and early childhood, to changes in the developing brain that may result in kids who grow up struggling to succeed in school, at work, and in life.

Serving up one of Americas favorite comfort foods shouldnt mean exposing your children and family to harmful chemicals, said Mike Belliveau, executive director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center, a coalition member.

Two million boxes of macaroni and cheese are sold every day in the United States.

An 'indirect' food additiveScientists say there are no known safe levels of phthalates for vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women and young children," said Charlotte Brody, RN, national director of Healthy Babies Bright Futures, a coalition member.

Federal scientists reported this year that up to 725,000 American women of childbearing age may be exposed daily to phthalates at levels that threaten the healthy development of their babies, should they become pregnant.

Scientists agree that for most people, the greatest exposure to phthalates comes from the food we eat.

Phthalates are not intentionally added to food, but are classified as indirect food additives by government agencies. Industrial chemicals commonly added to plastics, rubber, adhesives, inks, and coatings, phthalates have been shown to migrate into food products during food processing, packaging, and preparation.

Source: Center for Food Safety: centerforfoodsafety.org

MUST READ NEWS

VIDEOS

The rest is here:
Mac and cheese products contain harmful chemicals, study finds - The Pike County Courier

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

BINGHAMTON (WBNG) -- Thursday, a cancer survivor met her bone marrow donor for the first time, just days before her wedding.

"They told me that without a transplant I really only had about six months to a year," said Vivian Nolan, a bone marrow transplant recipient.

In 2008, Vivian Nolan was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called multiple myeloma. Later on, she was diagnosed with leukemia.

Doctors tried a bone marrow transplant with her own stem cells. When that didn't work, they said she needed a donor.

"The only cure or chance of holding it off at all is a bone marrow transplant," Nolan said.

Lucky for Nolan, doctors found a match.

A stranger volunteered to save her life. Scott Durbin is Nolan's donor. He lives in Kentucky, over 850 miles away.

Thursday, Durbin and Nolan met for the first time.

Nolan is getting married on Saturday.Durbin and his family flew in to support her in her next phase of life, a life that she wouldn't have without him.

"This is the man who gave me my life back. So I'm really happy," Nolan said.

For Durbin, the decision to help someone in need was second nature.

"I signed up. 7 months later I got that phone call saying they was gonna fly me to Atlanta," bone marrow donor Scott Durbinsaid.

Nolan was still in shock that someone would do something so kind for a person he had never met.

"I just couldn't believe that there was someone out there that I never knew that would go through that for me," she said.

After the transplant, Nolan wanted to meet the man who now is a part of her.

Today, she was able to introduce her family to its newest member.

"Now I've got this whole new life and he's got this whole big new family."

For Durbin, it's a choice he'd make over and over.

"I would do it again to give you a second chance," Durbin said.

Nolan remains forever grateful for that second chance.

Since her bone marrow transplant, Nolan's leukemia is virtually gone. She says she feels great, and can't wait for her new lease on life.

See the original post:
Cancer survivor meets bone marrow donor days before wedding - WBNG-TV

Recommendation and review posted by sam

In 2002, Ian Thompson, a specialist in facial reconstruction at Kings College, London, received an urgent phone call. A patient in his late 20s had been struck by an out-of-control car mounting the pavement. The impact had sent him catapulting over the bonnet of the car, smashing his face and shattering the fragile orbital floor the tiny bone, no more than 1mm thick, which holds the eyeball in place in the skull.

Without the orbital floor, your eye moves backwards into the skull, almost as a defensive mechanism, Thompson explains. But this results in blurred vision and lack of focus. This patient had also lost the ability to perceive colour. His job involved rewiring aircraft and as he could no longer detect a red wire from a blue one, hed barely been able to work in three years.

The accident had happened three years earlier. Since then, surgeons had desperately tried to reconstruct the bony floor and push the eye back into position, first using material implants and then bone from the patients own rib. Both attempts had failed. Each time, infection set in after a few months, causing extreme pain. And now the doctors were out of ideas.

You might also like: How ancient skeletons are helping modern medicine The viruses that may save your life I was blind now I have bionic eyes

Thompsons answer was to build the worlds first glass implant, moulded as a plate which slotted in under the patients eye into the collapsed orbital floor. The idea of using glass a naturally brittle material to repair something so delicate may seem counterintuitive.

But this was no ordinary glass.

If you placed a piece of window glass in the human body, it would be sealed off by scar tissue, basically wobble around in the body for a while and then get pushed out, says Julian Jones, an expert in bioglass at Imperial College London. When you put bioglass in the body, it starts to dissolve and releases ions which kind of talk to the immune system and tell the cells what to do. This means the body doesnt recognise it as foreign, and so it bonds to bone and soft tissue, creating a good feel and stimulating the production of new bone.

Bioglass actually works even better than the patients own bone Ian Thompson

For Thompson, the results were immediate. Almost instantaneously, the patient regained full vision, colour and depth perception. Fifteen years on, he remains in full health.

Thompson has gone on to use bioglass plates to successfully treat more than 100 patients involved in car or motorcycle accidents. Bioglass actually works even better than the patients own bone, Thompson says. This is because weve found that it slowly leaches sodium ions as it dissolves, killing off bacteria in the local environment. So, quite by chance, you have this mild antibiotic effect which eliminates infections.

Cutting edge

Bioglass was invented by US scientist Larry Hench in 1969. Hench was inspired by a chance conversation on a bus with an army colonel who recently had returned from the Vietnam War. The colonel told Hench that while modern medical technology could save lives on the battlefield, it could not save limbs. Hench decided to shelve his research into intercontinental ballistic missiles and instead work on designing a bionic material which would not be rejected by the human body.

Hench ultimately took his research to London, and it has been in Britain where some of the most revolutionary bioglass innovations are being made in fields from orthopaedic surgery to dentistry.

Over the last 10 years, surgeons have used bioglass in a powdered form, which looks and feels like a gritty putty, to repair bone defects arising from small fractures. Since 2010, this same bioglass putty has hit the high street as the key component in Sensodynes Repair and Protect toothpaste, the biggest global use of any bioactive material. During the brushing process, the bioglass dissolves and releases calcium phosphate ions which bond to tooth mineral. Over time, they slowly stimulate regrowth.

But many scientists feel that the current applications of bioglass are barely scratching the surface of what could be possible. New clinical products are being developed which could revolutionise bone and joint surgery like never before.

Sitting in his office in Imperial Colleges Department of Materials, Jones is holding a small, cube-shaped object hes dubbed bouncy bioglass. Its similar to the current bioglass but with a slight twist: subtle alterations in the chemical composition mean its no longer brittle. Instead it bounces,like a kids power ball as Jones describes it, and its incredibly flexible.

The point of this is that it can be inserted into a badly broken leg and can support both the patients weight and allow them to walk on it without crutches, without requiring any additional metal pins or implants for support. At the same time, the bouncy bioglass also will stimulate and guide bone regrowth while slowly, naturally assimilating into the body.

To regenerate large pieces of bone, for example in a really big fracture, its very important to be able to put weight on your leg, Jones says. And its really important that the bio-implant in your leg is able to transmit the force from your weight to the bone cells, like a signal. Our body makes its own bone in the architecture that its in, because the cells feel the mechanical environment. So to grow back a big piece of bone you need to be able to transmit the right signals to them. The reason why astronauts in space lose bone mass is because without gravity, the cells arent receiving the same information as they do on Earth.

Further alterations to the chemical makeup of bioglass produce a different form which is much softer and has an almost rubbery feel. It feels almost like a piece of squid at a seafood restaurant. This bioglass is designed for possibly the holy grail of orthopaedic surgery: cartilage repair.

Right now, surgeons attempt to repair damaged cartilage in arthritic hips or damaged knee joints with a fiddly procedure called microfracture. This involves smoothing over the damaged area to expose the bone underneath, then pricking it to release stem cells from the bone marrow which stimulate repair. But this results in scar cartilage and within a few years, as many athletes have found, the original problem returns.

As a solution, Jones is looking to produce bioglass which can be 3D-printed and then slotted into any hole in the cartilage. For the cells to accept it, the material must retain all the natural properties of cartilage. To test its effectiveness, Jones uses a simulator that has human knee joints from cadavers donated for medical research.

We simulate the walking action, bending, all the things a knee would do, and make sure that the bioglass actually preserves the rest of the joint and behaves as it should do, he says. If that works then well proceed to animal and then clinical trials.

This same bioglass could find an additional use in aiding people with chronic back pain due to herniated discs. At the moment surgeons treat this by replacing the dysfunctional disc with a bone graft which fuses the vertebrae in the back together. But while this takes away the pain, it results in a considerable loss in mobility. Instead, a bioglass implant could be printed and simply inserted to replace the faulty disc.

It seems the obvious thing to do, Jones says. So far nobody has been able to replicate the mechanical properties of cartilage synthetically. But with bioglass, we think we can do it.

Weve just got to prove that we can. If all goes well and we pass all the necessary safety tests, it could reach the clinic in 10 years.

Using man-made materials which can fuse to the body may seem far-fetched but it is appearing to be a more and more likely component of future medicine. Already, millions of people brush their teeth with it. And that may just be the start.

This story is a part of BBC Britain a series focused on exploring this extraordinary island, one story at a time. Readers outside of the UK can see every BBC Britain story by heading to theBritain homepage; you also can see our latest stories by following us onFacebookandTwitter.

Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

If you liked this story,sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called If You Only Read 6 Things This Week. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

Read the original here:
The best way to fix broken bones might be with glass - BBC News

Recommendation and review posted by simmons