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50 2 Mr. Li – Cervical Spinal Cord Injury (male, 31-year-old)- After stem cell treatment – Video


50 2 Mr. Li - Cervical Spinal Cord Injury (male, 31-year-old)- After stem cell treatment
Mr. Li, 31 years old, happened to injury his neck via a car crash, was diagnosed to cervical spinal cord injury with high paraplegia. He complained the mov...

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"IN A MINUTE" – Cell Therapy – Video


"IN A MINUTE" - Cell Therapy

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Dr. Mya Schiess: Cell Therapy in Parkinson Degeneration – Video


Dr. Mya Schiess: Cell Therapy in Parkinson Degeneration
"Cell Therapy in Parkinson Degeneration" Mya Schiess, MD, Neurologist, University of Texas The 3rd Annual Parkinson #39;s Conference July 19, 2014 Pennington Biomedical Research Center 6400 Perkins...

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Ebola Field Trial in Genetic Engineering Financed by Pentagon? – Video


Ebola Field Trial in Genetic Engineering Financed by Pentagon?
5 years after the fake with the swine flu: The World Health Organization WHO beats alarm: A fatal virus again threatens the world, this time it is called Ebo...

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Ebola Field Trial in Genetic Engineering Financed by Pentagon? - Video

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Lecture 10: Genetic Engineering – Video


Lecture 10: Genetic Engineering
I would like to welcome you to Lecture 10 of the subject Genetic Engineering. This subject is a component of the BACHELOR OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY offered at both NMIT Melbourne...

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D420K and Jake stop by for a puff and some genetics – Video


D420K and Jake stop by for a puff and some genetics
Jake and D420K stop by and grab some genetics, D picks up his Apex pen gift bag from Bird, and dabs are taken!!!

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FTB Monster w/ DC_MiLK S2E11 "Advanced Genetics More Hearts" – Video


FTB Monster w/ DC_MiLK S2E11 "Advanced Genetics More Hearts"
The lab is done and now its to to experiment on our new guest. This mod is GRINDY. ======================================== Don #39;t forget to like, share, subscribe, and favorite. If you enjoyed this.

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Gene Therapy EDTECH – Video


Gene Therapy EDTECH

By: Krittamet Tatsanapornsatith

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Gene Therapy EDTECH - Video

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Efficacy of new gene therapy approach for toxin exposures shown in mouse study

The current method to treat acute toxin poisoning is to inject antibodies, commonly produced in animals, to neutralize the toxin. But this method has challenges ranging from safety to difficulties in developing, producing and maintaining the anti-serums in large quantities.

New research led by Charles Shoemaker, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Infectious Disease and Global Health at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, shows that gene therapy may offer significant advantages in prevention and treatment of botulism exposure over current methods. The findings of the National Institutes of Health funded study appear in the August 29 issue of PLOS ONE.

Shoemaker has been studying gene therapy as a novel way to treat diseases such as botulism, a rare but serious paralytic illness caused by a nerve toxin that is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. Despite the relatively small number of botulism poisoning cases nationally, there are global concerns that the toxin can be produced easily and inexpensively for bioterrorism use. Botulism, like E. coli food poisoning and C. difficile infection, is a toxin-mediated disease, meaning it occurs from a toxin that is produced by a microbial infection.

Shoemaker's previously reported antitoxin treatments use proteins produced from the genetic material extracted from alpacas that were immunized against a toxin. Alpacas, which are members of the camelid family, produce an unusual type of antibody that is particularly useful in developing effective, inexpensive antitoxin agents. A small piece of the camelid antibody -- called a VHH -- can bind to and neutralize the botulism toxin. The research team has found that linking two or more different toxin-neutralizing VHHs results in VHH-based neutralizing agents (VNAs) that have extraordinary antitoxin potency and can be produced as a single molecule in bacteria at low cost. Additionally, VNAs have a longer shelf life than traditional antibodies so they can be better stored until needed.

The newly published PLOS ONE study assessed the long-term efficacy of the therapy and demonstrated that a single gene therapy treatment led to prolonged production of VNA in blood and protected the mice from subsequent exposures to C. botulinum toxin for up to several months. Virtually all mice pretreated with VNA gene therapy survived when exposed to a normally lethal dose of botulinum toxin administered up to nine weeks later. Approximately 40 percent survived when exposed to this toxin as late as 13 or 17 weeks post-treatment. With gene therapy the VNA genetic material is delivered to animals by a vector that induces the animals to produce their own antitoxin VNA proteins over a prolonged period of time, thus preventing illness from toxin exposures.

The second part of the study showed that mice were rapidly protected from C. botulinum toxin exposure by the same VNA gene therapy, surviving even when treated 90 minutes after the toxin exposure.

"We envision this treatment approach having a broad range of applications such as protecting military personnel from biothreat agents or protecting the public from other toxin-mediated diseases such as C. difficile and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli infections," said Shoemaker, the paper's senior author. "More research is being conducted with VNA gene therapy and it's hard to deny the potential of this rapid-acting and long-lasting therapy in treating these and several other important illnesses."

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

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CU scientists' discovery could lead to new cancer treatment

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

29-Aug-2014

Contact: Kris Kitto kris@morethanpr.com 303-320-7790 The Bawmann Group

AURORA, Colo. (Sept. 2, 2014) A team of scientists from the University of Colorado School of Medicine has reported the breakthrough discovery of a process to expand production of stem cells used to treat cancer patients. These findings could have implications that extend beyond cancer, including treatments for inborn immunodeficiency and metabolic conditions and autoimmune diseases.

In an article published Aug. 29 in PLOS ONE, researchers from the Charles C. Gates Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Biology and Taiga Biotechnologies, Inc. said they have uncovered the keys to the molecular code that appear to regulate the ability of blood stem cells to reproduce and retain their stem-like characteristics.

The team developed protein products that can be directly administered to blood stem cells to encourage them to multiply without permanent genetic modifications.

"Use of stem cells to treat cancer patients who face bone marrow transplants has been a common practice for four decades," said Yosef Refaeli, Ph.D., an associate dermatology professor and one of the study's lead scientists. "The biggest challenge, however, has been finding adequate supplies of stem cells that help patients fight infection after the procedure."

Gates Stem Cell Center Director Dennis Roop, Ph.D., recognized the magnitude of the team's work.

"Researchers have long attempted to increase the number of blood stem cells in a lab," Roop said. "Most of those approaches have been limited by the nature of the resulting cells or the inadequate number of cells produced."

The technology described in the PLOS ONE article has worked with blood stem cells obtained from cord blood, adult bone marrow or peripheral blood from adults.

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How zebrafish forms its stripes revealed

A new research has revealed that three major pigment cell types i.e. black cells, reflective silvery cells, and yellow cells helped in forming the stripes on zebrafish.

The research conducted by Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tubingen showed that the yellow cells undergo dramatic changes in cell shape to tint the stripe pattern of zebrafish.

First author Prateek Mahalwar said that they were surprised to observe such cell behaviours, which were totally unexpected color pattern formation.

The study revealed that the three cell types reached the skin by completely different routes. A pluripotent cell population situated at the dorsal side of the embryo gave rise to larval yellow cells, which covered the skin of the embryo and began to multiply at the onset of metamorphosis when the fish was about two to three weeks old.

However, the black and silvery cells came from a small set of stem cells, which is associated with nerve nodes located close to the spinal cord in each segment.

Brigitte Walderich, a co-author of the Science paper, explained that they were surprised to discover that the small clusters of fluorescently labelled cells in the embryo, which could be followed during larval and juvenile stages to unravel growth and behaviour of the yellow cells, divided and multiplied as differentiated cells to cover the skin of the fish before the silvery and black cells arrive to form the stripes.

The study is published in journal Science.

(Posted on 29-08-2014)

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How the zebrafish gets its stripes: Uncovering how beautiful color patterns can develop in animals

The zebrafish, a small fresh water fish, owes its name to a striking pattern of blue stripes alternating with golden stripes. Three major pigment cell types, black cells, reflective silvery cells, and yellow cells emerge during growth in the skin of the tiny juvenile fish and arrange as a multilayered mosaic to compose the characteristic colour pattern. While it was known that all three cell types have to interact to form proper stripes, the embryonic origin of the pigment cells that develop the stripes of the adult fish has remained a mystery up to now. Scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tbingen have now discovered how these cells arise and behave to form the 'zebra' pattern. Their work may help to understand the development and evolution of the great diversity of striking patterns in the animal world.

Beauty in the living world amazes poets, philosophers and scientists alike. Nobel prize laureate Christiane Nsslein-Volhard, Director of the Department for Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, has long been fascinated by the biology behind the colour patterns displayed by animals. Her group uses zebrafish as a model organism to study the genetic basis of animal development.

New research by Nsslein-Volhard's laboratory published in Science shows that the yellow cells undergo dramatic changes in cell shape to tint the stripe pattern of zebrafish. "We were surprised to observe such cell behaviours, as these were totally unexpected from what we knew about colour pattern formation," says Prateek Mahalwar, first author of the study. The study builds on a previous work from the laboratory, which was published in June this year in Nature Cell Biology (NCB), tracing the cell behaviour of silvery and black cells. Both studies describe diligent experiments to uncover the cellular events during stripe pattern formation. Individual juvenile fish carrying fluorescently labelled pigment cell precursors were imaged every day for up to three weeks to chart out the cellular behaviours. This enabled the scientists to trace the multiplication, migration and spreading of individual cells and their progeny over the entire patterning process of stripe formation in the living and growing animal. "We had to develop a very gentle procedure to be able to observe individual fish repeatedly over long periods of time. So we used a state of the art microscope which allowed us to reduce the adverse effects of fluorescence illumination to a minimum," says Ajeet Singh, first author of the earlier NCB study.

Surprisingly, the analysis revealed that the three cell types reach the skin by completely different routes: A pluripotent cell population situated at the dorsal side of the embryo gives rise to larval yellow cells, which cover the skin of the embryo. These cells begin to multiply at the onset of metamorphosis when the fish is about two to three weeks old. However, the black and silvery cells come from a small set of stem cells associated with nerve nodes located close to the spinal cord in each segment. The black cells reach the skin migrating along the segmental nerves to appear in the stripe region, whereas the silvery cells pass through the longitudinal cleft that separates the musculature and then multiply and spread in the skin.

Brigitte Walderich, a co-author of the Science paper, who performed cell transplantations to trace the origin of yellow cells, explains: "My attempt was to create small clusters of fluorescently labelled cells in the embryo which could be followed during larval and juvenile stages to unravel growth and behaviour of the yellow cells. We were surprised to discover that they divide and multiply as differentiated cells to cover the skin of the fish before the silvery and black cells arrive to form the stripes."

A striking observation is that both the silvery and yellow cells are able to switch cell shape and colour, depending on their location. The yellow cells compact to closely cover the dense silvery cells forming the light stripe, colouring it golden, and acquire a loose stellate shape over the black cells of the stripes. The silvery cells thinly spread over the stripe region, giving it a blue tint. They switch shape again at a distance into the dense form to aggregate, forming a new light stripe. These cell behaviours create a series of alternating light and dark stripes. The precise superposition of the dense form of silvery and yellow cells in the light stripe, and the loose silvery and yellow cells superimposed over the black cells in the stripe cause the striking contrast between the golden and blue coloration of the pattern.

The authors speculate that variations on these cell behaviours could be at play in generating the great diversity of colour patterns in fish. "These findings inform our way of thinking about colour pattern formation in other fish, but also in animals which are not accessible to direct observation during development such as peacocks, tigers and zebras," says Nsslein-Volhard -- wondering how her cats got their stripes.

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The above story is based on materials provided by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Embryology IPS Cell Therapy IPS Cell Therapy

MCAT embryology Based on Kaplan's notes for MCAT biology and Jason Mraz's song. Lyrics are as follows: First is a zygote, then an embryo, then a blastula with a blastocoel Trophoblast outside the inner cell

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How to Pronounce Embryo-logical Can we reach 1 Like? Watch video to the end embryology /mbrildi/ [em-bree-ol-uh-jee] noun, , plural embryologies. 1.the science dealing with the formation, development, structure,

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Embryology Gastrointestinal Tract Development Part 1 ( High yield ) These videos are designed for medical students studying for the USMLE step 1 . I took step 1 when i was in 5th grade , my step 1 score : 241 , i did these vi

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Bala Cynwyd, PA (PRWEB) August 25, 2014

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Stem Cell Activation Phuket, Thailand: How have the stem cell therapy results been so far – Video


Stem Cell Activation Phuket, Thailand: How have the stem cell therapy results been so far
http://www.thanyapurahealth.com/health-services/natural-stem-cell-activationregenerative-therapy/stem-cell-activation-phuket-thailand-how-have-the-stem-cell-therapy-results-been-so-far/ Client...

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Stem Cell Activation Phuket, Thailand: How is your stem cell therapy different – Video


Stem Cell Activation Phuket, Thailand: How is your stem cell therapy different
http://www.thanyapurahealth.com/health-services/natural-stem-cell-activationregenerative-therapy/how-is-your-stem-cell-therapy-different/ Thanyapura Health offers natural stem cell activation,...

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Stem Cell Activation Phuket, Thailand: How have athletes been using stem cell therapy – Video


Stem Cell Activation Phuket, Thailand: How have athletes been using stem cell therapy
http://www.thanyapurahealth.com/health-services/natural-stem-cell-activationregenerative-therapy/how-have-athletes-been-using-stem-cell-therapy/ Using stem cell therapy treats body issue e.g....

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Stem Cell Activation Phuket: What type of clients have you been seeing for stem cell therapy – Video


Stem Cell Activation Phuket: What type of clients have you been seeing for stem cell therapy
http://www.thanyapurahealth.com/health-services/natural-stem-cell-activationregenerative-therapy/what-type-of-clients-have-you-been-seeing-for-stem-cell-therapy/ Wide range of client who has...

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Jilly’s Miracle post stem cell therapy at Australind Veterinary Hospital – Video


Jilly #39;s Miracle post stem cell therapy at Australind Veterinary Hospital
Jilly pain free following stem cell therapy at Australind Veterinary Hospital.

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Jed and Kendra Ice Bucket Challenge – Video


Jed and Kendra Ice Bucket Challenge
Kendra and Jed taking Kalen up on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. We will be making donations to the United Mitochondrial Foundation http://www.umdf.org as well as the Cell Therapy Foundation...

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Gene Research Yields Insights Into Ebola Virus

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter Latest Infectious Disease News

THURSDAY, Aug. 28, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Genetic research performed during the early days of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has given scientists unprecedented insight into how the virus mutates and spreads.

Researchers report in the Aug. 28 online issue of Science that they have now determined the following:

The researchers' efforts have quadrupled the amount of genetic data available on Ebola, creating mounds of new and publicly available information about the DNA structure of the deadly virus, said senior study author Dr. Pardis Sabeti.

Sabeti is a senior associate member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and an associate professor at Harvard University.

The ongoing Ebola outbreak has infected 3,069 people and claimed the lives of 1,552, according to the World Health Organization.

The genetic researchers rapidly sequenced and analyzed more than 99 Ebola viruses from 78 patients in Sierra Leone during the first 24 days of the outbreak there.

Government health officials traced the entrance of Ebola into Sierra Leone to the burial of a traditional healer who had treated patients in neighboring Guinea. Thirteen women who attended the burial contracted Ebola, and researchers drew viral samples from these women to begin genetic sequencing.

Such genetic data is comparable to "fingerprints at the scene of the crime," said Dr. Lee Norman, chief medical officer of the University of Kansas Hospital.

"It tells you so much about how and where the virus came from, and what we can do about it," Norman said.

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Close Encounter of the Third Kind with Penfishingreels.com – Video


Close Encounter of the Third Kind with Penfishingreels.com
http://Penfishingreels.com X Files MX-15 Top water strike close encounter of the Peacock bass! Lure gets abducted in slow-mo by Peacock bass Alien creature,near boat encounter..Peacock non...

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Ancient DNA Could Return Passenger Pigeons to the Sky

Genetic engineering could restore the once profuse North American bird after a century or more of extinction

PASSENGER PIGEON: The numerous bird went from abundant to extinct in less than 100 years. Louis Agassiz Fuertes

The last lonely bird of a species that once numbered three billion or more died on September 1, 1914. Martha, as she was known, had been the last passenger pigeon since her mate George died in 1910. The last of a social species, she lived out her days in solitary confinement in a cage in the Cincinnati Zoo. Her corpsestuffed and primpedcan now be seen at the Smithsonian Institution. But what if the passenger pigeon could be brought back? That's the idea behind de-extinction. Take DNA harvested from specimens stuffed in museum drawers, like Martha. Figure out which genes matter and then use the fast growing field of genetic engineering to edit the DNA of a closely related species into some version of the extinct species. If all goes well, a chimera of the long-lost Martha could be born and, one day, flocks of passenger pigeons could be restored to the regrown eastern North American woodlands. Would-be de-extinction pioneer Ben Novak is working at the University of California, Santa Cruz, to make this exact scenario come true. A joint venture between the Revive and Restore effort of The Long Now Foundation (an organization dedicated to long-term thinking) and the ancient DNA lab at U.C. Santa Cruz, Novak's effort is focused on acquiring genetic information from stuffed passenger pigeons and sequencing the genome of the closely related band-tailed pigeon. So far, 32 samples have had the genetic code in their mitochondria sequenced. All of the samples come from birds killed between 1860 and 1898, according to Novak. "That's right in the range when the bird was going extinct," he notes. Outside efforts have helped as well, including nearly complete sequencing of three individuals that showed passenger pigeons have been through booms and busts before. "If passenger pigeons survived through several population bottlenecks during their evolutionary history, perhaps we don't need to create billions of them in order for their populations to be sustainable," notes paleogenomicist Beth Shapiro of U.C. Santa Cruz, whose lab hosts Novak and this effort.

"All of our birds are all very, very similar to each otherlike everybody being cousins, essentiallywhich is the effect of this recent rapid population expansion," Novak adds. "What we're really interested in is figuring out when that population expansion happened." If the population explosion happened more than 400 years ago, then it is unlikely that the European arrival in North America precipitated the boom that produced billions of birds, as some have suggested. To figure out when the last boom occurred will require finding DNA from fossil samples thousands of years olda few of which Novak has begun to examine. With ancient samples and those from the 19th century, Novak and his peers could begin to piece together the actual ecology of the bird in the wild. And understanding how the passenger pigeon existed makes it more likely people could bring the bird back and have the species thrive in the woods that are available today as well as in the future as the climate changes. "Nothing in the data so far to shout at us to turn back now and not bring back the passenger pigeon," Novak says. The team has not yet completed the band-tailed pigeon sequencing required to begin resurrecting the passenger pigeon, but experiments in cell cultures from the band-tailed pigeon may begin as soon as next year, Novak says. This work would be similar to experiments being done at Harvard Medical School to see if the woolly mammoth might be resurrected through its still living relative, the Asian elephant. And the passenger pigeon work may be helped along by similar germ cell efforts in the chicken and houbara bustarda rare bird prized by oil sheikhs with the funds to attempt a genetic rescue. If cell cultures thrive and genetic engineering works, the only remaining challenge would then be to teach the resulting hybrid band-tailed and passenger pigeons how to be passenger pigeons. This will likely even more challenging than the genetic work, given experience from rearing California condors with puppets or teaching cranes to migrate with ultralight airplanes. Thats why Revive and Restore, for one, is not putting all its de-extinction eggs in the passenger pigeon basket (as it were). The foundation-funded outfit might undertake a similar effort to revive the heath hen in Martha's Vineyard, if they can get funding from outside donors. But, assuming breeding, sequencing and cell-culture experiments go well, birds that carry the now extinct genes of the passenger pigeon could be flapping around a California facility by the end of the decade, according to Novak. These de-extinction projects may prove too ambitious, however. Similar efforts that stretch back 30 years have so far failed to produce a quagga, an extinct species of zebra, although acquiringquagga genetics from museum specimens did kick off the entire ancient DNA field in 1984. And the 2003 experiment that resurrected a bucardo for seven minutes has yet to be repeated. Nevertheless, even the International Union for Conservation of Nature has set up a committee to examine how the genetics used for de-extinction might be used to preserve endangered animals and plants or bring them back if they die out. De-extinction is not just for extinct species, after all. It could also be used to save a plant or animal that is on the verge of extinction. The black-footed ferret has been bred back from just seven viable individuals in the 1980s to thousands today, but the species may need a genetic transfusion to protect the new animals from the perils of inbreeding, which include reproductive problems, susceptibility to disease and genetic drift. So Revive and Restore has sequenced four ferret genomes, including two that had been stored in cell cultures from deep freeze at the Zoological Society of San Diego for the Frozen Ark Consortium, a global project to save the DNA and viable cells of endangered species. If genetic information from such frozen samples could be used to infuse robust genetics into a living population, it would be a first in the annals of conservation. "The northern white rhino has only four living individuals left. They are not viable," says Ryan Phelan of Long Now, who has petted the last individuals of this functionally extinct species. "Do we use genomic techniques and advanced genetic technology to keep that species alive or let it march over to the right on the continuum of extinction and become extinct?" But there are advantages to work with an animal that is already extinct, not least of which is the absence of urgency. After all, Martha died 100 years ago. "If we succeed, the world gets a new organism," Novak says. "If we fail, we learn things that are valuable and the world isn't left with another extinct species."

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ALJASSAR: The merits of GMOs

Genetically modified foods should not require distinguishing labels by Nazar Aljassar | Aug 28 2014 | 08/28/14 10:57pm

A new brand of Luddism has erupted in America. In spite of ample scientific evidence that corroborates the biosafety of genetic modification of crops, over half of Americans believe genetically modified foods are unsafe, with 93 percent in favor of mandatory labels on genetically modified food.

Part of the objection to genetically modified crops stems from a belief that natural foods are superior to unnatural foods a naturalistic fallacy. Nothing is intrinsically virtuous about consuming food crops that are grown naturally. Unfortunately, appeals to nature and tradition have hijacked the discourse surrounding genetic modification.

Its important to note that all agriculture is unnatural. Any claim about the extent to which food crops are natural is meaningless. Agriculture is the largest and most enduring human intervention into the natural world. Through selective breeding, farmers have artificially created several crops for human consumption. Kale and kohlrabi were developed from wild mustard after decades of careful heredity manipulation. Artificial selection has given rise to high-quality strains of soybeans, wheat and corn, all of which have been a boon to civilization. Artificial selection and artificial mutation through genetic engineering both alter food crops on the same microbiological level. The primary distinction is that the latter method can be used to obtain desired traits with greater speed and efficiency.

Genetic modification of organisms is not a novel concept. We have been doing it for thousands of years. Genetic modification through DNA extraction, gene cloning, gene design, transformation and backcross breeding is simply a faster, better way to achieve the results sought through traditional artificial selection.

Despite left-wing insistence that the right wing is anti-science, some of the most strident opposition to genetic modification of food crops comes from progressives. Although liberals are often stalwart supporters of clean energy laws and evolution education, many are fervently in favor of mandating labels on genetically modified foods. Vermont became the first state to enact such legislation, and pressure currently mounts for similar laws in liberal states such as New York, California, Oregon and Massachusetts.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin defended his states GMO labeling law, maintaining that consumers have the right to know what they buy. The problem with this line of thought lies in the fact that it suggests dangers immanent in genetically modified food. The scientific consensus, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is that crop improvement by the modern molecular techniques of biotechnology is safe. After allocating over 300 million to research, the European Union revealed in a report its findings on the safety of genetically modified crops: the main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projectsis that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies. Among other organizations that have affirmed the biosafety of genetically modified crops are the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the British Royal Society.

For liberal legislators to yield to the publics fears about genetic modification only advances scientific misinformation about an agricultural innovation that provides plants resistant to infectious disease, superior foods with longer shelf lives and large crop yields to permit more efficient land use.

There are legitimate criticisms of genetic modification. Economically, introducing genetically modified food to market demands significant time and cost, endangering smaller farms that cannot afford to compete with large agricultural biotechnology companies. Genetic modification also presents a few environmental risks such as reduced biodiversity through genetic homogeneity and resulting from extensive monoculture crop production.

But we shouldnt ignore its efficiency because of these few flaws. Like any scientific advancement, genetic modification will continue to improve with research for which public and political support is crucial. In the face of concerns about genetic modification, we should not jettison the benefits of genetic modification of crops, nor should we propagate the falsehoods that infect scientific discussion by encouraging labels that imply biohazards associated with genetic modification.

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Medicine's Next Big Mission: Understanding Wellness

The bioengineering pioneer Leroy Hood has seen vast changes in medicine over his decades in the biz, in part thanks to his own work on automated DNA sequencing. But he's not much for looking back he's too busy envisioning a future model of medicine. "Contemporary medicine is all about disease, and not about wellness," he says. Hood says the medical profession must learn to measure and maximize wellness, and he's happy to show the way.

At the annual meeting of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Hood presented his vision for "P4 medicine," which is predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory. In a keynote speech, he described the 100K Wellness Project he launched this year as president of the Institute for Systems Biology. The ambitious study aims to enroll 100,000 participants and track their biometrics over 20 years (funding permitting). Hood wants to quantify wellness, and also to provide "actionable information" to the participants.

In March, the project enrolled 108 healthy people to take part in the pilot study. At the end of 2014 the project will scale up to 1000 participants, with the big steps to 10,000 and then 100,000 people expected in the next few years.

Each participant gets their whole genome sequenced at enrollment, and then every three months provides samples of blood, saliva, urine, and stool for analysis. Users also submit data from self-trackers like the Fitbit activity tracker and Omron blood pressure monitor.All that information is integrated to create a dynamic picture of the person's biological state. As the years go by, "patients will either stay well or transition into disease," Hood says. The collected data will not only define the biological parameters of wellness when a participant is diagnosed with a disease, researchers can go back through that patient's data to identify early warning signs.

In a conversation with Spectrum, Hood described the study's first results. All 108 people were found to have some actionable possibility, and received counseling from the project's health coaches. For example, 85 people had low levels of vitamin D. The researchers then checked those people's genomes, and identified some people with a genetic variation that makes it difficult for their bodies to absorb vitamin D. The health coaches could therefore tell each of those 85 people how much vitamin D they needed to take to bring up their levels.

One of the participants received even more critical information. Blood testing revealed that his iron levels were very high, and the health coaches advised him to go to a doctor. It turns out he had a dangerous genetic condition called hemochromatosis that damages the organs and eventually leads to heart attack, but that can be managed by bringing down iron levels. "So instead of having an individual who is sick for the last 20 years of his life, we have a healthy individual," Hood says. That substitution is not just a good health outcome, it's also a significant cost saving for the health care system.

Hood thinks his study of wellness is of such national importance that he's considering pitching it to Congress as "a second Human Genome Project." He would argue that the study would bring about great innovations and cost savings in health care, and would let the United States lead a revolution in medicine. "I think the arguments are actually better for this than they were for the genome project," Hood says.

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Medicine's Next Big Mission: Understanding Wellness

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