Minecraft Cube SMP S2 - Ep 14 - STEALING JULIAN #39;S GENETICS
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Minecraft Cube SMP S2 - Ep 14 - STEALING JULIAN'S GENETICS - Video

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Genetics, Methylation 21st Century Evidence-Based Clinical Nutrition
In this free webinar we will be discussing our new course THE MTHFR, METHYLATION, AND BIOCHEMISTRY-SPECIFIC NUTRITION MASTER COURSE As well as sharing the introduction to the ...

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JSB Market Research: Gene Therapy Oncology Insight
Gene Therapy Oncology Insight: Pipeline Assessment, Technology Trend, and Competitive Landscape provides the information across the gene therapy value chain ...

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JSB Market Research: Gene Therapy Oncology Insight - Video

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JSB Market Research: Gene Therapy Central Nervous System Insight
Gene Therapy Central Nervous System Insight: Pipeline Assessment, Technology Trend, and Competitive Landscape provides the information across the gene therapy value chain covering gene ...

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JSB Market Research: Gene Therapy Infectious Disease Insight
Gene Therapy Infectious Disease Insight: Pipeline Assessment, Technology Trend, and Competitive Landscape provides the information across the gene therapy va...

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JSB Market Research: Gene Therapy Metabolic Disorders Insight
Gene Therapy Metabolic Disorders Insight: Pipeline Assessment, Technology Trend, and Competitive Landscape provides the information across the gene therapy v...

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Have people ever said to you, "It's in your genes"? They were probably talking about a physical characteristic, personality trait, or talent that you share with other members of your family.

We know that genes play an important role in shaping how we look and act and even whether we get sick. Now scientists are trying to use that knowledge in exciting new ways, such as treating health problems.

To understand how genes work, let's review some biology basics. Most living organisms are made up of cells that contain a substance called deoxyribonucleic (pronounced: dee-AHK-see-rye-bow-noo-KLEE-ik) acid (DNA).

DNA contains four chemicals (adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine called A, T, C, and G for short) that are strung in patterns on extremely thin, coiled strands in the cell. How thin? Cells are tiny invisible to the naked eye and each cell in your body contains about 6 feet of DNA thread, for a total of about 3 billion miles of DNA inside you!

So where do genes come in? Genes are made of DNA, and different patterns of A, T, G, and C code for the instructions for making things your body needs to function (like the enzymes to digest food or the pigment that gives your eyes their color). As your cells duplicate, they pass this genetic information to the new cells.

DNA is wrapped together to form structures called chromosomes. Most cells in the human body have 23 pairs of chromosomes, making a total of 46. Individual sperm and egg cells, however, have just 23 unpaired chromosomes. You received half of your chromosomes from your mother's egg and the other half from your father's sperm cell. A male child receives an X chromosome from his mother and a Y chromosome from his father; females get an X chromosome from each parent.

Genes are sections or segments of DNA that are carried on the chromosomes and determine specific human characteristics, such as height or hair color. Because you have a pair of each chromosome, you have two copies of every gene (except for some of the genes on the X and Y chromosomes in boys, because boys have only one of each).

Some characteristics come from a single gene, whereas others come from gene combinations. Because every person has about 25,000 different genes, there is an almost endless number of possible combinations!

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The Basics on Genes and Genetic Disorders

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Dr. Robert Dunn - Becker #39;s USMLE Faculty - Physiology
Dr. Dunn, PhD, has decades of experience preparing candidates to succeed on the USMLE exam. He is the author and instructor of Becker #39;s USMLE Step 1 lectures in Physiology. Dr. Dunn has...

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HIROSHIMA In a world first, a team at Hiroshima University Hospital on Friday conducted regenerative knee surgery using a technique that employs magnets to concentrate iron-laced stem cells around damaged cartilage, it said.

The endoscopic surgery is less arduous for the patient, said the team led by Mitsuo Ochi, a professor at the hospital. Conventional treatment requires two operations to repair cartilage.

It will take at least a year to determine the effectiveness of the regenerative technique, though previous tests on animals have proven successful, it said.

The team plans to conduct further operations to reaffirm the regenerative surgerys safety in clinical research.

In the operation, the team extracted mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow of an 18-year-old female high school student and cultivated them with a dash of iron powder to create magnetic stem cells that can develop into various tissues.

The team injected the iron-laced stem cells into the patients right knee joint and used the magnet to concentrate them in areas where cartilage was lost. The stem cells are expected to develop into cartilage.

Cartilage absorbs shock and reduces friction between bones so everything moves smoothly, but its regenerative abilities are limited.

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Hospital pioneers Magneto-style stem cell surgery

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For patients with brain cancer, radiation is a powerful and potentially life-saving treatment, but it can also cause considerable and even permanent injury to the brain. Now, through preclinical experiments conducted in rats, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center researchers have developed a method to turn human stem cells into cells that are instructed to repair damage in the brain. Rats treated with the human cells regained cognitive and motor functions that were lost after brain irradiation. The findings are reported in the February 5 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell.

During radiation therapy for brain cancer, progenitor cells that later mature to produce the protective myelin coating around neurons are lost or significantly depleted, and there is no treatment available to restore them. These myelinating cells--called oligodendrocytes--are critical for shielding and repairing the brain's neurons throughout life.

A team led by neurosurgeon Viviane Tabar, MD, and research associate Jinghua Piao, PhD, of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, wondered whether stem cells could be coaxed to replace these lost oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. They found that this could be achieved by growing stem cells--either human embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells derived from skin biopsies--in the presence of certain growth factors and other molecules.

Next, the investigators used the lab-grown oligodentrocyte progenitor cells to treat rats that had been exposed to brain irradiation. When the cells were injected into certain regions of the brain, brain repair was evident, and rats regained the cognitive and motor skills that they had lost due to radiation exposure. The treatment also appeared to be safe: none of the animals developed tumors or inappropriate cell types in the brain.

"Being able to repair radiation damage could imply two important things: improving the quality of life of survivors and potentially expanding the therapeutic window of radiation," said Dr. Tabar. "This will have to be proven further, but if we can repair the brain effectively, we could be bolder with our radiation dosing, within limits." This could be especially important in children, for whom physicians deliberately deliver lower radiation doses.

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The above story is based on materials provided by Cell Press. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Human stem cells repair damage caused by radiation therapy for brain cancer in rats

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Abstract

Human artificial chromosomes (HACs) have unique characteristics as gene-delivery vectors, including episomal transmission and transfer of multiple, large transgenes. Here, we demonstrate the advantages of HAC vectors for reprogramming mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Two HAC vectors (iHAC1 and iHAC2) were constructed. Both carried four reprogramming factors, and iHAC2 also encoded a p53-knockdown cassette. iHAC1 partially reprogrammed MEFs, and iHAC2 efficiently reprogrammed MEFs. Global gene expression patterns showed that the iHACs, unlike other vectors, generated relatively uniform iPS cells. Under non-selecting conditions, we established iHAC-free iPS cells by isolating cells that spontaneously lost iHAC2. Analyses of pluripotent markers, teratomas and chimeras confirmed that these iHAC-free iPS cells were pluripotent. Moreover, iHAC-free iPS cells with a re-introduced HAC encoding Herpes Simplex virus thymidine kinase were eliminated by ganciclovir treatment, indicating that the HAC safeguard system functioned in iPS cells. Thus, the HAC vector could generate uniform, integration-free iPS cells with a built-in safeguard system.

Reprogramming somatic cells to become induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells is important in making regenerative medicine a reality [1]-[3]. The best iPS cells for therapeutic applications are derived from cells harvested from individual patients and the reprogramming should not involve permanent genetic changes because strategies involving insertional modifications of the genome increase the risk of insertional mutagenesis [4] and perturbation of differentiation potential [5]. To avoid permanent, detrimental modification of the host genome while reprogramming somatic cells, several vectors and protocols that exclude permanent transgene integration into the host genome have been developed: the piggyBac transposon [6]-[8], adenovirus vectors [9], Sendai virus vectors [10], EB-derived episomal vectors [11] and iterant administration of non-replicative materials (i.e. plasmid [12], minicircle DNA [13], protein [14], and synthetic modified mRNA [15]). However, these vectors and methods should be scrutinized with regard to quality of individual iPS cells, reprogramming efficiency and genome integrity. In addition, iPS cells should have a safeguard system because iPS cells with teratoma-forming potential can persist even after differentiation, leading to unexpected and undesired events [16].

With respect to the generation of iPS cells, human artificial chromosomes (HACs) have two important and unique characteristics as gene-delivery vectors; effectively unlimited carrying capacity for transgenic material and autonomous maintenance through cell division that is independent of host chromosomes. We have created several HAC vectors from human chromosome 21 using a top down method [17], [18] and have demonstrated that full-length genomic loci, such as DMD [19], HPRT [20] and p53 [20] could be cloned into a defined HAC cloning site. We have also shown that these loci are efficiently transcribed. Moreover, expression in human cells of cDNAs introduced into HACs was more stable and sustained and less subject to position effects [21] than expression of cDNAs from conventional plasmids and viral vectors. In addition, our HAC vectors encode EGFP [18]; therefore, because HACs are lost spontaneously at a low frequency [22] we can isolate HAC-free cells from reprogrammed iPS populations by identifying EGFP-negative cells.

Here, we have taken advantage of these features of HAC vectors to generate vector-free and transgene-free iPS cells. Recent attempts to generate iPS cells using polycistronic vectors to express multiple proteins demonstrated that a significant portion of the iPS clones carried more than two copies of the polycistronic vector [6], [8], [23], [24], suggesting that multiple copies of the polycistronic transgenes were needed to generate iPS cells. Thus, we devised a reprogramming cassette with four defined reprogramming factors and introduced multiple copies of the cassette into the cloning site of a HAC vector. We constructed a closely related cassette by adding a p53 short hairpin RNA (shRNA) expression construct to the four-factor cassette because suppression of the p53 pathway leads to more efficient reprogramming [25]-[29]. Moreover, our HAC vector encodes Herpes Simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-TK), and we confirmed that iPS cells and/or their differentiated derivatives carrying our HAC can be killed by ganciclovir (GCV), providing a safeguard system if unexpected events (e.g., tumor formation) occur.

All animal experiments were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Tottori University (the permit number: 08-Y-69).

We constructed individual expression cassettes for each reprogramming factor in pBSII (Stratagene) and combined all cassettes into a pPAC4 backbone as follows. The pBSII multiple cloning site was replaced with either KpnI-XhoI-AscI-BsiWI-NheI-ClaI-SalI-PstI-AvrII-PmeI-FseI-XbaI-SpeI-SacI or KpnI-XhoI-AscI-BsiWI-NheI-ClaI-SalI-MluI-SphI-SnaBI-NotI-SacII-BamHI-AvrII-PmeI-FseI-XbaI-SpeI-SacI, resulting in the vectors pB3 and pB4, respectively. Two different 1.2 kb fragments of the chicken HS4 insulator were excised by either SacI or XbaI digestion of pCJ5-4 (a gift from Dr. G. Felsenfeld, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA), blunted by KOD polymerase (Toyobo), and cloned into the SmaI site or the blunted HindIII site of pBSII, respectively. The resulting vector, harboring 2 copies of HS4, was called pBSI-I. A ClaI-BamHI fragment of pBSI-I was cloned into (1) a blunted ClaI site of pB3, (2) a blunted ClaI site of pB4, or (3) blunted ClaI and PmeI sites of pB4, resulting in (1) pinsB3, (2) pinsB4 and (3) pB4ins2, all of which retained the BamHI site immediately downstream of the HS4 dimer. All subcloned HS4 insulators had the same orientation.

Mouse Klf-4, c-Myc, Sox2 and Oct4 were PCR-amplified and individually cloned into the EcoRI site of pCAGGS (a gift from Dr. M. Okabe, Osaka University, Japan), resulting in pCX-Klf4, pCX-c-Myc, pCX-Sox2 and pCX-Oct3/4, respectively. SalI-BamHI fragments of pCX-Klf4, pCX-c-Myc and pCX-Sox2 were blunted and cloned into blunted BamHI sites of pinsB4, resulting in pB4K, pB4M and pB4S, respectively; an SspI-BamHI fragment of pCX-Oct3/4 was cloned into a SnaBI site of pB4ins2, resulting in pB4O. To combine four factors in a single vector, AscI-AvrII fragments from pB4K and pB4S were inserted into the AscI-NheI sites of pB4M and pB4O, resulting in pB4KM and pB4SO, respectively. Finally, an AscI-AvrII fragment of pB4KM and an NheI-FseI fragment of pB4SO were ligated into the AscI and FseI sites of pPH3-9, which was generated by modifying pPAC4; specifically we exchanged the region between the pUC link and the CMV promoter with HPRT ex3-ex9 and added an FseI site immediately downstream of HPRT ex9. The resulting vector was designated pPAC-KMSO. This KMSO reprogramming cassette was duplicated by the same strategy, resulting in pPAC-2CAG-KMSO. A fragment of the duplicated pB4O was cloned into the AscI-NheI site of pPAC-2CAG-KMSO, resulting in pPAC-2CAG-O2.

A mouse p53-knockdown construct was generated by annealing two complementary synthetic oligonucleotides with the target sequence GTACATGTGTAATAGCTCC and cloning the product into the BglII-XbaI sites of pENTR4-H1 (a gift from Dr. H. Miyoshi, RIKEN, Japan), resulting in pENTR4-H1-mp53sh. A SalI-XbaI fragment of pENTR4-H1-mp53sh was inserted into the SalI-AvrII site of pinsB3, resulting in pinsB3mp53sh. Finally, an AscI-SpeI fragment of pinsB3mp53sh was inserted into the AscI-NheI site of pPAC-2CAG-O2, resulting in pPAC-2CAG-O2mp53sh.

Hprt-deficient Chinese hamster ovary cells (JCRB0218, JCRB Cell Bank, Japan) each bearing a HAC vector, (CHO(21HAC2), CHO/iHAC1/E15 and CHO/iHAC2/mp25) were maintained at 37C in Hams F-12 nutrient mixture (Invitrogen) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) and 8 /ml Blasticidin S (Funakoshi). Mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs), isolated from 13.5 day post-coitum (d.p.c.) wild-type embryos (C57BL/6-J), were grown in Dulbeccos modified Eagles medium (DMEM) (Sigma) plus 10% FBS. The mouse ES cell lines, TT2 (a gift from Dr. S. Aizawa, RIKEN, Japan) [30] and B6ES (DAINIPPON SUMITOMO PHARMA, Osaka, Japan), and the microcell hybrid clones, were maintained on mitomycin C-treated Jcl:ICR (CLEA Japan) MEF feeder layers in ES medium [DMEM with 18% FBS (Hyclone), 1 mM sodium pyruvate, 0.1 mM non-essential amino acids, 2 mM L-glutamine (Invitrogen), 0.1 mM 2-mercaptoethanol (Sigma), and 1000 U/ml leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) (Millipore)].

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Integration-Free iPS Cells Engineered Using Human ...

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Advanced stem cell treatments instead of surgery - Denver Regenerative Medicine
If you #39;re tired of treating a chronic injury with prescription drugs, and you #39;ve been told surgery is your next option, there may be a different treatment for you. Dr. Joel Cherdack of...

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Neck and Shoulder arthritis two years after stem cell therapy by Harry Adelson, N.D.
Steve describes his outcome two years after stem cell therapy for his arthritic neck and shoulder by Dr Harry Adelson http://www.docereclinics.com.

By: Harry Adelson, N.D.

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Purtier - Live cell therapy
PURTIER,...... Please call me for more details... Billy Lock( +6598622915.

By: Billy Lock

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Purtier - Live cell therapy - Video

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Cancer Center News

New insights into specific gene mutations that arise in glioma, an often deadly form of brain cancer, have pointed to the potential of gene therapy, but it's very difficult to effectively deliver toxic or missing genes to cancer cells in the brain. Now, researchers have used nanoparticles to deliver a new therapy to glioma cells in the brains of rats, prolonging their lives.

Click here to read the full press release.

###

Among the research institutions NCI funds across the United States, it currently designates 68 as Cancer Centers. Largely based in research universities, these facilities are home to many of the NCI-supported scientists who conduct a wide range of intense, laboratory research into cancers origins and development. The Cancer Centers Program also focuses on trans-disciplinary research, including population science and clinical research. The centers research results are often at the forefront of studies in the cancer field.

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Hopkins scientists find that in rats new nanoparticle gene therapy strategy effectively treats deadly brain cancer

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Researchers led by the Arthritis Research UK Centre for Genetics and Genomics at The University of Manchester have identified genetic variants that are associated with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) but not with psoriasis, in the largest study of PsA ever published.

PsA is a common form of inflammatory form of arthritis causing pain and stiffness in joints and tendons that can lead to joint damage. Nearly all patients with PsA also have skin psoriasis and, in many cases, the skin disease is present before the arthritis develops. However, only one third of patients with psoriasis will go on to develop PsA.

The researchers, who are part of a European consortium, say that their work, which took three years to complete and is published in Nature Communications, is a breakthrough because genetic changes have been identified that increase the risk of PsA but not psoriasis.

Until recently opinion was divided as to whether psoriatic arthritis was a disease in its own right, or psoriasis combined with rheumatoid arthritis.

The findings could, in future, lead to the identification of people with psoriasis who are at risk of developing psoriatic arthritis.

Dr John Bowes, who led the analysis of the work, said: "Our study is beginning to reveal key insights into the genetics of PsA that explain fundamental differences between psoriasis and PsA. Our findings also highlight that CD8+ cells are likely to be the key drivers of inflammation in PsA. This will help us to focus on how the genetic changes act in those immune cells to cause disease."

The gene identified by the research team lies on chromosome 5 and is not the first PsA-specific gene to be identified. Patients who carry the HLA-B27 gene are also more likely to develop PsA.

Professor Anne Barton, a rheumatologist and senior author on the study explained: "By identifying genes that predispose people to PsA but not psoriasis, we hope in the future to be able to test patients with psoriasis to find those at high risk of developing PsA. Excitingly, it raises the possibility of introducing treatments to prevent the development of PsA in those individuals in the future."

Dr Stephen Simpson, director of research at Arthritis Research UK added:" This is a significant finding. Not only does it help establish PsA as a condition in its own right, but it could have major implications in the way that patients with this condition are treated and lead to the development of drugs specifically developed for PsA, which are greatly needed."

The research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Manchester Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Unit.

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Researchers find gene that confirms existence of psoriatic arthritis

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PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cellular Research, Inc., today unveiled a new, massively parallel single-cell sequencing technology platform that enables higher-resolution digital biology. Demonstrated in a manuscript published today in Science by company scientists Christina Fan, Ph.D., Glenn Fu, Ph.D., and Stephen Fodor, Ph.D., this next-generation single-cell technology, which Cellular Research calls Resolve genetic cytometry, simultaneously measures the expression profile of large numbers of genes in thousands of single cells with high sensitivity and digital precision.

Single-cell analysis is widely acknowledged by leading academic and industry researchers as the next frontier of biological discovery and clinical advancement. Traditionally, scientists have relied on next-generation sequencing (NGS), microarrays, or quantitative PCR (qPCR) to measure tens to thousands of genes expressed from a sample but these technologies are not designed to examine individual cells. As a result, scientists lose highly valuable information and the ability to assign important molecular differences among discreet cell types. The current format of the Resolve technology can examine any number of genes across thousands of single cells per sample, and is designed to scale to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of cells, for pennies per cell.

Although sequencing has become less expensive in recent years, the ability to measure genetic profiles at the individual cell level has been extremely constrained by the limitation of technologies to prepare sequencing libraries from single cells, said Christina Fan, Ph.D., paper lead author and Staff Scientist at Cellular Research. This elegantly simple approach based on molecular indexing provides orders of magnitude improvements in throughput and cost compared to existing single-cell analysis technologies.

Stephen Fodor, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Cellular Research, commented: The Resolve technology has tremendous capability to impact fields extending from basic research to therapeutic discovery by enabling massively parallel, single-cell genomic profiling. We now have a practical and scalable technology to examine the genetic heterogeneity in tumors, follow the orchestra of players in an immune response, and more generally help to unravel the role of cellular diversity in health and disease.

The Science manuscript describes a technically simple approach for genetic cytometry that pairs a unique molecular barcoding strategy with NGS. The results reported in this paper are supported by a number of validation studies in hematopoietic cells and demonstrate the ability to resolve the digital gene expression profile of each cell without ambiguity.

We expect the Resolve platform to offer powerful insights for basic research projects and for a number of important medical conditions in fields such as oncology, immunology, neuroscience, and immunotherapy, Fodor added. We have already engaged in partnerships for several of these high-value application areas, and are looking forward to evaluating additional opportunities now that the technology has been introduced and we have formally launched our partner program.

The company plans to have prototype systems based on the Resolve technology available in late 2015, with commercial units shipping in 2016. For more information, please visit http://www.cellular-research.com/resolve/.

The paper, entitled Combinatorial labeling of single cells for gene expression cytometry, can be viewed here: http://www.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1258367.

About Cellular Research

Cellular Research, Inc. is a biotechnology research and development company founded by innovators from Silicon Valley and Stanford University whose mission is to develop revolutionary quantitative biology products. Cellular Research is commercializing research products (including Pixel, a standalone direct mRNA quantitation platform, and Precise, ultra-sensitive, high-throughput molecular assays to examine standard or low-input mRNA samples) and partnering with pharmaceutical and diagnostics companies for clinical applications.For more information, please visithttp://www.cellular-research.com/.

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Cellular Research Unveils Massively Parallel Single-Cell Sequencing Technology; Announces Partnership Program for Drug ...

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Genetically engineered crops: Something to be feared or something to be encouraged?

Two Penn State professors presented the pro side of the genetic engineering debate at the Fogelsville Volunteer Fire Company Thursday night as part of Rep. Gary Day's (R-Lehigh/Berks) annual Agricultural Town Hall Meeting.

About 60 constituents, many of them local farmers, turned out for the meeting and sandwich buffet.

Before introducing the speakers, Day said the 187th district he represents, which includes Upper Macungie Township, was historically predominantly agriculture but has shifted in recent years as farming has given way to residential and commercial development.

He said the topic of Thursday's informational meeting, traditionally referred to in his office as "Farmers' Night," surfaced when he visited his alma mater to learn more about Penn State's work with genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

GMOs are organism that have been altered to produce specific characteristics such as cold tolerance or pesticide resistance in plants by extracting genes responsible for certain traits from the DNA strands of one organism and inserting them into another.

"You rely on your university to give you the facts so you can make decisions," Day said in introducing Richard Roush, PhD, the new dean of Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, and Troy Ott, a reproductive biologist in Penn State's Animal Science Department.

Roush said genetic engineering is not that much different from traditional plant and animal breeding where you select for a desired trait, it's just faster.

"Genetic engineering uses proteins found in the natural world to edit, copy and paste DNA," he said, adding that the evolving technique has the benefit over traditional breeding of being more specific and more rapid.

Restrictions on GMOs vary across the globe. Many European countries are restrictive with regard to growing GMOs within their borders but are more relaxed about importation.

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At Farmers Night, Penn State experts give props to genetically engineered crops

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Newswise BETHESDA, Md., Feb. 5, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Carrier screening for inherited genetic disorders is an important part of preconception and prenatal care for the nearly 4 million women who give birth in the US annually. Carrier screening is meant to identify couples at risk for passing on such genetic conditions to their children. While there have been limitations to this approach in the past, new technology in genotyping and genetic sequencing allows for more efficient carrier screening of a greater number of conditions simultaneously.

In an important new statement, several of the nation's leading medical societies have collaborated to provide guidance on such advances and their use in reproductive medicine. The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) along with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the National Society of Genetic Counselors, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Perinatal Quality Foundation have just released a new Joint Statement on "Expanded Carrier Screening in Reproductive Medicine - Points to Consider" published online ahead of print in Obstetrics & Gynecology ("the Green Journal") in Current Commentary at http://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/toc/publishahead.

Anthony R. Gregg, MD, FACOG, FACMG, vice-president, Clinical Genetics of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics and a co-author of the Joint Statement said, "This document is a sort of a blueprint of expanded carrier screening in clinical practice. It serves obstetric care providers by helping them navigate pretest information to share with patients and concepts applicable to posttest follow-up. Importantly, pitfalls surrounding expanded carrier screening are described. Readers will recognize that this document does not advocate for or against the universal implementation of expanded carrier screening. There is a paucity of scientifically sound information to guide professional organizations in taking a firm stance. For now currently available practice guidelines (summarized in the joint document) authored by ACMG and ACOG prevail and these represent a minimum screening standard. Professional organizations may, at a later time, determine whether and to what extent patients should be informed of expanded screening technology."

The five groups collaborated on the Joint Statement on Expanded Carrier Screening in order to provide education for clinicians and laboratories regarding the use of expanded genetic carrier screening in reproductive medicine. It states, "The current statement demonstrates an approach for health care providers and laboratories who wish to or who are currently offering expanded carrier screening to their patients."

While the new Joint Statement is not intended to replace existing practice guidelines and policy statements, it states that they "offer an opportunity for health care providers to better understand expanded carrier screening. Many more conditions, genes and variants are analyzed when expanded carrier screening is used compared with current screening approaches.... However, this approach introduces complexities that require special considerations."

ACMG President-Elect Gerald Feldman, MD, Ph.D., FACMG stated, "There are always advantages and disadvantages when a new technology is implemented, as is the case for expanded genetic testing. This document was written to provide a summary of the important points a physician should consider when discussing expanded carrier screening with his or her patient, because these tests offer testing for many more conditions than currently recommended by professional organizations. It is important that the patient fully understand and consent to such testing if they so choose. A referral to a genetics health care professional, such as a Board-certified clinical geneticist, should always be recommended when appropriate."

"Variation among people as to what they think justifies consideration when making reproductive decisions is varied and complicates generating a specific list of genes and variants that should be part of a test. Our goal for this document was to highlight the important aspects of genes and diseases that should be considered when developing expanded carrier screening panels, " said co-author Michael S. Watson, MS, Ph.D., FACMG, Executive Director of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics.

About the ACMG and ACMG Foundation Founded in 1991, the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (www.acmg.net) advances the practice of medical genetics and genomics by providing education, resources and a voice for more than 1750 biochemical, clinical, cytogenetic, medical and molecular geneticists, genetic counselors and other healthcare professionals, nearly 80% of whom are board certified in the medical genetics specialties. ACMG is the only nationally recognized medical organization dedicated to improving health through the practice of medical genetics and genomics. The College's mission includes the following goals: 1) to define and promote excellence in the practice of medical genetics and genomics and to facilitate the integration of new research discoveries into medical practice; 2) to provide medical genetics and genomics education to fellow professionals, other healthcare providers, and the public; 3) to improve access to medical genetics and genomics services and to promote their integration into all of medicine; and 4) to serve as advocates for providers of medical genetics and genomics services and their patients. Genetics in Medicine, published monthly, is the official ACMG peer-reviewed journal. ACMG's website (www.acmg.net) offers a variety of resources including Policy Statements, Practice Guidelines, Educational Resources, and a Find a Geneticist tool. The educational and public health programs of the American College of Medical Genetics are dependent upon charitable gifts from corporations, foundations, and individuals through the ACMG Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine (www.acmgfoundation.org.)

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Expanded Carrier Screening in Reproductive Medicine: New Joint Statement Is Released in Acog's Obstetrics & Gynecology

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Genetics Race - Best Practices - Part 4
This section of video discuss best practices in dealing with minority communities where race is a variable in scientific, genetic, race-based medical research. UAB Research (University of...

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Minecraft - FTB Monster Pack [NL] Ep.40 (Advanced Genetics!)
Minecraft | FTB Monster Pack | Episode 40 FTB Monster: http://www.feed-the-beast.com/mod-pack/monster Afspeellijst: http://goo.gl/EpK5xl In deze serie gooi i...

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Minecraft - FTB Monster Pack [NL] Ep.40 (Advanced Genetics!) - Video

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AP Biology Video Notes Genetics, Part A

By: BIO STUFF

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AP Biology Video Notes Genetics, Part A - Video

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XGEN101 Course Preview
Fundamentals of Genetics: The Genetics You Need to Know (XGEN101) This course provides a stair-step introduction of genetics from the basic concepts to exploring more complex topics, including...

By: stanfordonline

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XGEN101 Course Preview - Video

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Introduction to Genetics and Evolution with Mohamed Noor
"Introduction to Genetics and Evolution," taught by Mohamed Noor of Duke University, is a whirlwind introduction to evolution and genetics, from basic principles to current applications, including...

By: Duke Center for Instructional Technology

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Introduction to Genetics and Evolution with Mohamed Noor - Video

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Diseases Caused By Evil Spirits, Genetics? 2/3/15 [Commercial Free Audio]
Dr. Joel Wallach begins the show discussing failed medical theories. Stating that early man thought disease was caused by evil spirits. Then humours and so on and so forth until the human genome...

By: fawkes1570

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Diseases Caused By Evil Spirits, Genetics? 2/3/15 [Commercial Free Audio] - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith