New Artificial Cornea Could Restore Vision For Millions Worldwide

An improved artificial cornea, which could restore the vision of more than 10 million people worldwide who are blind due to diseased corneas, finally is moving toward reality, scientists in California conclude in a new analysis of research on the topic.

more here
Technorati Tags: Cornea, Health,

Oscar Pistorius and the Future Nature of Olympic, Paralympic and Other Sports

in SCRIPT-ed – A Journal of Law, Technology & Society
Gregor Wolbring, pp.139-160

Oscar Pistorius is a Paralympic bionic leg runner and record holder in the 100, 200, and 400 meters who wants to compete in the Olympics. This paper provides an analysis of a) his case; b) the impact of his case on the Olympics, the Paralympics and other –lympics and the relationships between the –lympics; c) the impact on other international and national sports; d) the applicability of the UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. It situates the evaluation of the Pistorius case within the broader doping discourse and the reality that new and emerging science and technology products increasingly generate internal and external human bodily enhancements that go beyond the species-typical, enabling more and more a culture of increasing demand for, and acceptance of modifications of the human body (structure, function, abilities) beyond its species-typical boundaries and the emergence of new social concepts such as transhumanism and the transhumanisation of ableism.

online open access here
Technorati Tags: Technology, Politics, Sports, Pistorius

Who’s afraid of a synthetic human? If we can enhance our species – make it live longer and resist disease – we should do it

John Harris

In the future there will be no more human beings. This is not something we should worry about.

Much of today’s scientific research may enable us eventually to repair the terrible vulnerability to which our present state of evolution has exposed us. It is widely thought inevitable that we will have to face the end of humanity as we know it. We will either have died out altogether, killed off by self-created global warming or disease, or, we may hope, we will have been replaced by our successors.
more here

World First Discovery: Genes From Extinct Tasmanian Tiger Function In A Mouse

more here

Tomorrow’s sports stars: Is talent all in the genes?

more here

Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine created

the Department of Defense announced the creation of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which will go by the happy acronym AFIRM. According to DOD’s news service, AFIRM will “harness stem cell research and technology … to reconstruct new skin, muscles and tendons, and even ears, noses and fingers.” The government is budgeting $250 million in public and private money for the project’s first five years. NIH and three universities will be on the team.
more here

New paper by me

Why NBIC? Why human performance enhancement?
Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, Volume 21 Issue 1 2008
page 25 – 40
Author: Gregor Wolbring
here
Abstract
A 2001 U.S. workshop with the title “Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science (NBIC): Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance” introduced the convergence of various sciences and technologies based on their nanoscale properties. It highlighted BIC as the science and technologies converging on the nanoscale. However many other sciences and technologies with nanoscale components exist, such as chemistry and material sciences. Furthermore the workshop chose human performance enhancement as its case study of application despite various other possible applications that could have been chosen. This paper addresses the questions why the workshop organizers (a) introduced nanoscale as a convergence concept, (b) chose BIC as the convergence examples and (c) chose human performance enhancement as their application. The paper provides some thoughts as to the success and consequences of that strategy.

Three article on Genetics

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Genetic, And Moral, Enhancement
online here
From the issue dated May 16, 2008

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Years of Toil in the Lab Yield a New Field
online here
From the issue dated May 16, 2008

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Medical Genetics Is Not Eugenics
online here
From the issue dated May 16, 2008

Open biohacking kit project

contains information on important protocols in genetic engineering, stem cell research, microbiology and
other fields of related interest.
more here

Sonic activation of molecularly-targeted nanoparticles accelerates transmembrane lipid delivery to cancer cells through contact-mediated mechanisms: implications for enhanced local drug delivery.

morehere

The prize of biofuel

part 1
part 2
part 3

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

aa view from the British Deaf Association

The BDA has acted as a respondent agent on behalf of the Deaf community, and a draft letter [PDF] has gone to Professor Marcus Pembrey (Professor of Paediatric Genetics), who is acting as an advisor to the House of Lords on amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

See also:
HFEB: Explanatory clause on deaf selection
Parliament: Deaf Embryo selection to be made illegal

Stem Cells without the Embryos

An easy method for reprogramming adult cells may resolve ethical objections. more here

Cloning

A technical breakthrough has enabled scientists to create for the first
time dozens of cloned embryos from adult monkeys, raising the prospect
of the same procedure being used to make cloned human embryos.
morehere

MIT develops ‘tractor beam’ for cells

morehere

Good, Better, Best: The Human Quest for Enhancement

report of this now online
Summary Report of an Invitational Workshop
Convened by the Scientific Freedom, Responsibility and Law Program
American Association for the Advancement of Science
June 1-2, 2006
more here

BT Eyes Technology Revolution for the Pharma Industry

In a white paper, ‘Pharma Futurology: Joined Up Healthcare, 2016 and beyond’, BT’s pharmaceutical division brings its expertise in connecting people and businesses to create a big-picture outlook for the industry. The research reveals expected technology inspired changes that threaten pharmaceutical companies with isolation from an increasingly patient-centric healthcare community.
morehere

new column of mine is out Bionics

seehere

The Nanoparticle Drug Delivery Market Report

here
and excerpts here

“DNA shadow nanolithography”

more here

Nanotechnologies Set to Shake Up and Shake Out Drug Delivery Market

LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug 21, 2007 – A new report from Cientifica Ltd., “The Nanoparticle Drug Delivery Market”, identifies who is positioned to be the “winners” and “losers” in the drug delivery market as new nanoparticles and nanostructured delivery techniques begin replacing existing polymer therapeutics that currently dominate the market.

The report, available at www.cientifica.com, projects that the total market for nanotechnology-enabled drug delivery will rise to $26 billion by 2012 from its current size of $3.39 billion, representing a compound annual growth rate of 37%.

But this is just the beginning; the market could steeply rise after 2012, reaching potentially $220 billion by 2015 for these nano-enabled compounds.
see more here

NBICS and Climate Change

my new column out

Microbial Fuel Cells

more here

Making Deaf Ears Hear with Light

more here

Newest column of mine NBICS, Cultural Identity and Diversity, and the CBD

NBICS, Cultural Identity and Diversity, and the CBD
this is the second part on the convention on biological diversity CBD
first one is
here

and all my columns are listed here

Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital Leads World’s First Adult Stem Cell Study Using Patient’s Own Fat Tissue

more here ocal heart patient gives her account of taking part in stem cell research i could not find it in montgomerynews but its here and a patient account

New molecular switch for genes

Researchers have created a molecular switch that can reversibly turn any mammalian gene on or off and control its level of expression. The results, published this week in Cell, provide a new level of precision in studying genes involved in biological processes and diseases, the authors say.
more here

Copyright © 2007 Cell Press. All rights reserved.
Cell, Vol 130, 363-372, 27 July 2007
Resource
A Tunable Genetic Switch Based on RNAi and Repressor Proteins for Regulating Gene Expression in Mammalian Cells

Tara L. Deans,1 Charles R. Cantor,1 and James J. Collins1,
more here

Coming Soon: Protein Synthesis Without Amino Acids?

Citation: Huailin Sun, Metal-Catalyzed Copolymerization of Imines and CO: A Non-Amino Acid Route to Polypeptides, Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2007, 46, No. 32, doi: 10.1002/anie.200700646
more here

New Proteomics Research Promises To Revolutionize Biomedical Discovery

n a research article that will be published in the July 20th issue of the journal Molecular Cell, a research team led by Dr. Benoit Coulombe from the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) describes a powerful proteomics approach that promises to have a profound impact on our current understanding of the human proteome and the function of its individual proteins.

more here

Nanobionics

from Nanowerk

Countdown to a synthetic lifeform

According to George Church at Harvard Medical School in Boston, who has devised a complete blueprint for a synthetic cell, an investment of around $10 million would be enough to turn the “bottom-up” dream into reality. “Our approach doesn’t require any super new technology,” he says.
more here

Scientists Build Bacteria-Killing Organisms From Scratch

here
here
and here
and here

my new column out: NBICS and the Convention on Biological diversity (CBD)

see here
a list of all columns can be found here

USA President’s Council on Bioethics Meeting, session on nanotechnology

President’s Council on Bioethics Meeting, session on nanotechnology
When: Friday, June 29, 2007, 8:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m
Where: Hay-Adams Hotel, 16th & H Streets NW, Washington DC
see also here

Nature stem cell news page

see at source

“SENSOrimotor structuring of Perception and Action for emergent Cognition”

see more at source
“The SENSOPAC project will combine machine learning techniques and modelling of biological systems to develop a machine capable of abstracting cognitive notions from sensorimotor relationships during interactions with its environment, and of generalising this knowledge to novel situations.

Through active sensing and exploratory actions the machine will discover the sensorimotor relationships and consequently learn the intrinsic structure of its interactions with the world and unravel predictive and causal relationships. Together with action policy formulation and decision making, this will underlie the machine’s abilities to create abstractions, to suggest and test hypotheses, and develop self-awareness.

The project will demonstrate how a naïve system can bootstrap its cognitive development by constructing generalization and discovering abstractions with which it can conceptualize its environment and its own self. The continuous developmental approach will combine self-supervised and reinforcement learning with motivational drives to form a truly autonomous artificial system.

Throughout the project, continuous interactions between experimentalists, theoreticians, engineers and roboticists will take place in order to coordinate the most rigorous development and testing of a complete artificial cognitive system.”
from here

Another of my biweekly columns out

New column here
The column is now published by two sources: Innovationwatch.com (every 15th of a month) and Healthwrights (every 30th of a month)

Scientists close in on “cyborg-like” memory chips

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 16:15

Tel Aviv (Israel) – Two scientists from the Tel-Aviv University have
shown that information can be stored in live neurons. The research
results provide a new way to help understand how our brain learns and
store information, but also indicate that a “cyborg-like integration of
living material into memory chips” could become a reality in the
foreseeable future.
more at source

Converging Cognitive Enhancements

Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg have another paper out: Converging Cognitive Enhancements, Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1093: 201–227 (2006). It is part of a NY annals volume titled Progress in Convergence: Technologies for Human Wellbeing edited by William Sims Bainbridge and Mihail C. Roco.
more at source

Gene Therapy status

according to figures published by the Journal of Gene Medicine in January 2007, there are 1,260 gene therapy clinical trials in progress. Of these, 27 have reached Phase III and 13 Phase II/III, showing that a number of products are edging close to market.
more at source

Gene mutation linked to cognition is found only in humans

The human and chimpanzee genomes vary by just 1.2 percent, yet there is a considerable difference in the mental and linguistic capabilities between the two species. A new study showed that a certain form of neuropsin, a protein that plays a role in learning and memory, is expressed only in the central nervous systems of humans and that it originated less than 5 million years ago. The study, which also demonstrated the molecular mechanism that creates this novel protein, will be published online in Human Mutation, the official journal of the Human Genome Variation Society.
more at source

another of my columns out

Neurodiversity, Neuroenhancement, Neurodisease, and Neurobusiness see here

Is the world ready for cyborg athletes?

more at source

GM mosquito ‘could fight malaria’

A genetically modified (GM) strain of malaria-resistant mosquito has been created that is better able to survive than disease-carrying insects.It gives new impetus to one strategy for controlling the disease: introduce the GM insects into wild populations in the hope that they will take over.

more at source

blood tests for mental health conditions under development

Based on study results from the University of Iowa, blood tests for panic disorder and other mental health conditions are now being developed at UI and will become commercially available in the near future.
more at source

Buy your portable brain-computer interface here

If you can’t wait until next year to get your hands on a Project Epoc EEG cap, never fear: a German company called g.tec (Guger Technologies) is now offering the world’s first commercially available brain computer interface (BCI).
more at source

TR10: Neuron Control

Karl Deisseroth’s genetically engineered “light switch,” which lets scientists turn selected parts of the brain on and off, may help improve treatments for depression and other disorders.
more at source

Human metabolome database

Canadian scientists have announced the completion of the first draft of the human metabolome, the chemical equivalent of the human genome, as published in the latest issue of Nucleic Acid Research (full text freely accessible). The metabolome is the complete complement of all small molecule chemicals (metabolites) found in or produced by an organism.
more at Source

NBICS and Social Cohesion

NBICS and Social Cohesion new column from me out

Human Rights for the 21st Century:Rights of the Person to Technological Self-Determination

IHEU- Appignani Humanist
Center for Bioethics and

Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

present

Human Rights for the 21st Century:

Rights of the Person to Technological Self-Determination

New York City

May 11-13, 2007

Cocktail Reception: Friday May 11, 6:00 – 9:00 pm

Location: TBD

Conference: Saturday May 12 and Sunday May 13, 9:00 am – 3:45 pm

Location: 777 UN Plaza, 2nd Floor, New York City, NY 10017

The 2007 conference “Human Rights for the 21st Century: Rights of the Person to Technological Self-Determination” will focus on (a) human rights in the context of bodily autonomy as well as reproductive and cognitive liberties, (b) emerging biotechnologies which may contribute to the exercise of such rights, and (c) challenges to the essentialist ideas of human identity underlying some human rights discourse.

The conference will address the various roles of emerging technologies and other products of scientific progress in today’s society, as well as their implications for the pursuit of bioethics. Potential topics to be considered include nanotechnology in medical treatment, novel vaccines against addictive behaviors, Internet-enabled social networking and engineering, designer genetic engineering, novel transplantable tissue and organ generation, neuroscience and its application to medical advances, as well as reproductive science and women’s rights. The conference intends to provide an open forum for interaction between various stakeholders in this debate, including those representing public, private, and international sectors.

These topics will be addressed through paper presentations and panel discussions. The deadline for the submission of papers is March 20, 2007. Accepted papers will be peer-reviewed and considered for publication in the Journal of Evolution and Technology (http://jetpress.org). Virtual registrations will be also available for those unable to attend the Conference who still wish to submit a paper for review and possible publication.

———————————————————————

Registration for presenters and early registrants is $50, payable by May 1, 2007.

Registration fee includes attendance at the two-day conference.

Cocktail reception: $15 extra.

The conference fee for students who attend is $25, for the general public (after May 1) $75.

The address for the submission of papers, registration fees (by check, payable to “IHEU”) or inquiries:

IHEU

P.O. Box 4104 Grand Central Station New York, NY 10162

Phone: (212) 687 3324 analita@iheu.org

Or by Paypal (online) to

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/rights2007

Registration forms and other details will be posted on:

http://www.iheu.org/bioethics and at http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/rights2007

———————————————————-

Accommodation packages are available, on a first-come-first-serve basis, from the Pickwick Hotel, E 51st Street and Second Avenue. Tel: 212 355 0300, e-mail: info@pickwickarms.com.

Fifteen hotel rooms have been booked at Millenium UN Plaza Hotel New York, United Nations Plaza, 44th Street between First and Second Avenues, New York,NY, USA 10017-3575 Tel: 212 758 1234 fax: 212 702 5051 reservation: 866 866 8086 email: unplaza@mhrmail.com. Please quote Conference name when booking.

———————————————————-

The IHEU-Appignani Center for Bioethics focuses on raising awareness of bioethical issues confronting the international community and developing and implementing an international program for lobbying. The Center is a new initiative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. IHEU holds a special consultative status with ECOSOC at the United Nations, a general consultative status with UNICEF and the Council of Europe as well as operational relations with UNESCO in Paris.

The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies examines the social implications of technological progress, promoting public policies that distribute the benefits and reduce the risks of accelerating innovation. The IEET is chaired by Dr. Nick Bostrom of Oxford University, and served by Dr. James Hughes of Trinity College (Hartford CT) as its Executive Director. The thirteen Fellows of the IEET span expertise from nanotechnology, neurotechnology, biotechnology and information science to bioethics, philosophy and health policy. The IEET publishes the Journal of Evolution and Technology (jetpress.org) and hosts the Changesurfer podcast.

A Spotless Mind?

Policy, Ethics & the Future of Human Intelligence

Friday, February 16, 2007

8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

National Press Club

529 14th Street N.W.

Washington, D.C.

Is a machine-dominated society á la The Matrix or a Borg-esque collective intelligence looming in humanity’s future?

Emerging technologies in the areas of neuro-enhancement and artificial intelligence promise to drastically alter: our ability to augment human intellectual and sensory capacity; the role of machines; and how we connect, communicate, and share information. But, will such changes bring about the panacea promised by their proponents, or will they be akin to opening Pandora’s Box? Even before such interventions become possible, their exploration should not be left to the realm of science fiction writers and pop-culture movie moguls. Rather, society, as a whole, must engage both science fact and science fiction in confronting the issues presented by these technologies – from who gets them to how they should be used.

To that end, the Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future (IBHF) at Chicago-Kent College of Law/Illinois Institute of Technology is hosting a conference that brings together some of the key voices in the discussion of these critical 21st-century issues:

Ø Keynoters:

o U.S. Representative Brad Sherman, J.D., CPA, (D-CA), member of the House Committee on Science;

o Patricia Smith Churchland, Ph.D., professor of philosophy at the University of California San Diego and author of Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain; and

o Charles T. Rubin, Ph.D., IBHF fellow, associate professor of political science at Duquesne University, IBHF fellow, and author of the forthcoming book Why Be Human? Defending Progress Against Its Friends.

Ø Special Presenters:

o William P. Cheshire, Jr., M.D., neurology consultant at Mayo Clinic, associate professor of Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, and Center on Nanotechnology and Society fellow;

o Marsha Darling, Ph.D., IBHF fellow, and professor of history and interdisciplinary studies and director of the African American & Ethnic Studies Program at Adelphi University;

o Jim Davies, Ph.D., assistant professor at Carleton University’s Institute of Cognitive Science;

o Linda MacDonald Glenn, J.D., L.L.M., faculty member at the University of Vermont’s College of Nursing and Health Sciences in the Department of Medical Laboratory and Radiation Sciences and at the University Vermont in the Department of Biomedical Writing;

o Andrew Imparato, J.D., president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities;

o C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D., IBHF fellow and associate professor of bioethics and contemporary culture at Trinity International University;

o Katrina Sifferd, J.D., Ph.D., IBHF affiliated scholar and adjunct faculty member at Elmhurst College; and

o Lee Zwanziger, Ph.D., assistant professor in Science and Technology Studies at Virginia Tech, and senior science policy analyst with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The event will be chaired by Nigel M. de S. Cameron, Ph.D., president of IBHF, and associate dean and research professor of bioethics at Chicago-Kent College of Law/IIT.

RSVPs are required. There is no charge for the event.

For more information: http://www.thehumanfuture.org/events

To RSVP, contact

Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future

E-mail: rsvp@thehumanfuture.org

Phone: 312.906.5337

Fax: 312.906.5388

Genetically engineered blood protein can be used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen

Scientists have combined two molecules that occur naturally in blood to engineer a molecular complex that uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, says research published today in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Read More at Source

Bizarre Bacterial Creations

Anyone who has ever smelled E. coli bacteria knows that they smell bad. Putridly bad. So, a group of student bioengineers at MIT set out to sweeten the scent of this commonly used lab bacteria. The team constructed its creation from a collection of biological “parts”–bits of DNA that, when inserted into living organisms, can make the organisms glow, detect light, and perform a number of other unusual functions. The team will showcase its sweet-smelling bug this weekend at the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) at MIT, along with 37 other student groups from around the world.
Read more

Scientists grow liver from stem cells

NEWCASTLE, England, Oct. 31 (UPI) — British scientists have grown a liver from stem cells in the first step toward creating fully viable livers, perhaps within 10 years.
Link to Source

Experts crack cancer ‘gene codes’

US scientists have cracked the entire genetic code of breast and colon cancers, offering new treatment hopes.
Read More Link to Source

Grow Your Own Limbs

By Kristen Philipkoski| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Sep, 22, 2006

In response to the hundreds of soldiers coming home from war with missing arms or legs, Darpa is spending millions of dollars to help scientists learn how people might one day regenerate their own limbs.

Prosthetics are getting better all the time, but they will never be as good as the limbs we were born with. So two teams of scientists at 10 institutions across the country are competing to regrow the first mammalian limb.

The two groups are sharing $7.6 million in grants for a year to find a way to give humans salamander-like abilities. According to Army Medical Command, 411 soldiers who fought in Iraq and 37 in Afghanistan are amputees as a result of combat wounds. If preliminary research is successful, the scientists could receive more funding for up to four years.
Motor Heads
The New Bionics
The prosthetics of the not-so-distant future are intertwined with muscles, nerves … even neurons. By Rachel Metz.

Interactive Bionics Tour:
See applied prosthetics research in action.

DIY Prosthetics
Amputees who can’t find the right prosthetics on the market build their own — sometimes out of Legos. By Quinn Norton.

Grow Your Own Limbs
Scientists are learning how amputees might eschew the prosthetic and grow back missing limbs. By Kristen Philipkoski. [ You are here ]

I Want My Bionics
What if bionics get so good that we want them even if we don’t need them? By Chris Oakes. [ Coming Sep 25 ]

The researchers’ first milestone is to generate a blastema — a mass of cells able to develop into various organs or body parts — in a mammal.

“We have to show we can do that in a mammal by 24 months — and by 48 months we have to show that we can actually regrow digits,” said Stephen Badylak, director of the Center for Pre-Clinical Tissue Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh’s McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and a principal investigator for his team. “This is really a Star Wars-type project.”

Mammals can’t naturally regenerate limbs or digits beyond the fetal stage. Amphibians like salamanders and newts, however, can regrow limbs, eyes and even spinal cords. So the scientists are on a hunt for the molecular signals responsible for controlling that regenerative ability.

“We’re looking for what genes get turned on and off to make one regenerative and one not,” Badylak said. “We can regenerate as a fetus. We know the potential is there, but it’s a matter of unlocking that potential (in adults).”

Badylak’s team is working with a remarkably regenerative mammal — a mouse discovered by accident in 1998.

Story continued on Page 2

New Web tool may speed drug discovery

By Gareth Cook, Globe Staff | September 29, 2006

Local scientists have created what they hope will become the Google of drug discovery: a free, Web-based search engine that quickly finds potential new compounds to treat particular diseases.
Article Tools

As the website went live yesterday, the team released three papers in top scientific journals, demonstrating the technique’s promise. In initial testing, the search engine identified a potential leukemia drug. A clinical trial for that drug, which is already approved for another use, is likely to begin in the next few months — a testament to the speed of the new approach.The new tool, dubbed the “connectivity map,” works by quickly matching drugs and diseases that have opposite effects on some of the genes inside a human cell — the set of instructions that, when turned on, tell the cell what to do. A match would indicate that giving the drug might reverse the effects of the disease, turning off genes the disease turns on, and vice versa.

The utility of the database needs to be verified with a larger study, but scientists said it promises to accelerate drug discovery at a time when developing a new drug is frustratingly slow and expensive.

“The industry is always going to be enthusiastic about any tool that helps in the discovery process, and this looks like a very exciting tool that has real potential,” said Janice Reichert , a senior research fellow at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development .
Pop-up Speeding the search for cures

Scientists at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, which created the web site and search engine, said they have already begun work to expand the database to include more than 10 times as many compounds. And, they said, they were hopeful that other laboratories would eventually join in, creating a massive, cooperative venture similar to the Human Genome Project, allowing scientists from around the world to efficiently aggregate their genetic data and insights.

“It is a major intellectual and practical tool,” said Eric S. Lander, director of the Broad Institute. “I imagine a world, five years from now, where everyone who is working on a potential drug will, as the first thing they do, quickly look it up” to see what diseases it might work on.

The work, published by the journals Science and Cancer Cell, suggests that it is possible to dramatically simplify some aspects of biology, and thus speed the search for cures, according to Dr. Todd R. Golub , who led the research at the Broad Institute and is also a cancer researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital Boston. Different types of cells typically respond slightly differently to drugs, but the team found that analyzing just a few types of cells, such as skin cells, was enough to make connections to diseases that affect organs as diverse as the brain and the prostate.Continued...

Genetic ‘Roadmap’ Charts Links Between Drugs And Human Disease

October 02, 2006

Genetic ‘Roadmap’ Charts Links Between Drugs And Human Disease (Science Daily)
October 2, 2006 05:59 AM Read more
A research team led by scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard developed a new kind of genetic “roadmap” that can connect human diseases with potential drugs to treat them, as well as predict how new drugs work in human cells. Called the “Connectivity Map,” the tool and its uses are described in the September 29 issue of Science and in separate publications in the September 28
Link to Source

Nanotube Scaffolds for Neural Implants

Friday, September 22, 2006
Tiny carbon fibers are helping stem cells to grow in stroke-damaged brains.

By Jennifer Chu
Stem cells are a promising therapy for stroke and other brain injuries–they can sprout into healthy neurons and may be able to re-establish brain activity in brain-injured patients. While preliminary animal research shows promise, there’s often a common hurdle: adult stem cells have a hard time growing in damaged areas and tend to migrate to healthier regions of the brain.

That makes sense, says Thomas Webster, associate professor of engineering at Brown University, because healthy neurons emit proteins that attract stem cells away from diseased, inactive areas. What’s needed is an “anchor” to keep stem cells fixed to the damaged areas, where they can then differentiate into working neurons, he says.

Webster and his collaborators in South Korea found a possible anchor in carbon nanotubes: tiny, highly conductive carbon fibers that not only act as scaffolds, helping stem cells stay rooted to diseased areas, but also seem to play an active role in turning stem cells into neurons.

Just how this works isn’t clear, but the researchers say their initial results could someday be engineered into a stem cell delivery device for stroke therapy. Webster presented the team’s findings at the American Chemical Society meeting this month in San Francisco.

Prior to this experiment, Webster had been experimenting with the properties of carbon nanotubes as possible neural implant material. Since nanotubes are highly conductive, they’re an ideal template for transmitting electrical signals to neurons. In 2004, Webster was able to stimulate neurons to grow multiple nerve endings along carbon nanotubes. The study attracted the attention of South Korean stroke researchers, who proposed a collaboration: Why not use carbon nanotubes as a template for adult stem cells to grow into neurons? Taking it one step further, the team injected this nano-cocktail directly into the stroke-damaged brain regions of rats.

In order to determine how well the two therapies work together, the team compared the effects of injections of both stem cells and nanotubes with control groups injected with only adult stem cells or carbon nanotubes. After one and three weeks, researchers sacrificed the rats and examined the diseased areas of their brains. In rats who had received only adult stem cells, the cells tended to stray to healthier regions of the brain. But rats given both nanotubes and cells showed new neural growth in stroke-damaged brain regions in as little as a week…….
Read More

Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology established

Gift will support the exploration of life and biology at the nanoscale level

The Kavli Foundation and Harvard University have agreed to establish the Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology (KIBST). The endowment from the Kavli Foundation will help to boost the University’s research efforts at the interfaces of biology, engineering, and nanoscale science. In particular, the gift will fund postdoctoral research fellows and support a lectureship series dedicated to “nano-” or small-scale science.

A “nanometer” is one-billionth of a meter, about a 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of the average human hair. Nanoscience offers scientists a way to get a close-up view of life’s building blocks – near-atomic-resolution images that help to determine the structure and function of proteins and even to follow the dynamics of individual molecules. Likewise, advances in manipulating nanoscale matter and materials are likely to lead to tiny machines that could deliver medicine or detect viruses.

“Fred Kavli’s gift on behalf of his foundation is a wonderful commitment to both the basic and applied sciences,” said Harvard’s interim President Derek Bok. “It will allow Harvard to build an even stronger presence in this exciting and emerging field.”

“Some of the most fascinating scientific research today is being done at the nanoscale, the realm of atoms and molecules,” said business leader and philanthropist Fred Kavli, founder of the Kavli Foundation. “I expect that the Harvard institute will contribute significantly to our knowledge of nanoscale processes, and help to harness them for the benefit of humanity.”

George Whitesides, Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor, and David Weitz, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics, will serve as the founding directors for the KIBST. The institute, which is expected to reside in either the future Laboratory for Integrated Sciences and Engineering or Northwest buildings, will complement Harvard’s existing hubs dedicated to small-scale science: the Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS), the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC), the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC), and the newly formed Initiative in Quantum Science and Engineering (IQSE).

“The KIBST will seek to develop a deeper understanding of the functioning of life and biology at the nanoscale level by developing new tools and probes that marry microfabrication and microfluidics with high-resolution imaging,” said Whitesides. “Our goals are to use such new techniques to probe the behavior of single molecules, cells, tissue, and organs; to gain a deeper understanding of the essential relationship between structure and function that controls all biology; and to combine structural and functional studies from the scale of single molecules to the scale of tissues and whole organs.”

The Harvard Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences (DEAS), with almost half of its faculty having some interest in biology-related questions and with its increasingly strong ties to the Harvard Medical School, will play a large role in shaping the direction of the institute. In addition, participants in the KIBST will span various departments in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences – such as Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Physics, and Statistics – and include researchers from broader science initiatives such as those in neuroscience, genomics, and the Rowland Institute.

“While there are a number of faculty already engaged in research on various aspects of bionano science and technology, the establishment of the Kavli Institute will help to further integrate these activities by providing an umbrella institution,” said Venkatesh “Venky” Narayanamurti, dean of engineering and applied sciences. “Investing at the interfaces of fields is critical for sustaining continued advances across areas in science and engineering. Future innovations might range from new types of imaging devices to smart drug delivery systems to novel materials.”

Co-directors Whitesides and Weitz expect the KIBST’s initial efforts to be focused on applying advances from the physical sciences, particularly at the nanoscale level, to the study of important questions in the life sciences. One area of considerable interest involves using microfluidic techniques (the precise control and manipulation of extremely small volumes of fluids) to better understand biological problems at the level of cells and below.

“The Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology is an important addition to the expanding network of Kavli institutes,” said David Auston, president of the Kavli Foundation. “We expect it will play a key role in advancing the frontiers of science in this emerging field where biology, physics, chemistry, and materials science intersect.”

About the Kavli Foundation

Dedicated to the advancement of science for the benefit of humanity, the Kavli Foundation supports scientific research, honors scientific achievement, and promotes public understanding of scientists and their work through an international program of research institutes, prizes, professorships, and symposia in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience. Established in 2000, its headquarters are in Oxnard, Calif.
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Powerful Batteries That Assemble Themselves

Thursday, September 28, 2006
MIT researchers are developing low-cost manufacturing methods based on the rapid reproduction of viruses. Angela Belcher, a panelist at the Emerging Technology Conference, explains.

By Kevin Bullis

Biology may be the key to producing light-weight, inexpensive, and high-performance batteries that could transform military uniforms into power sources and, eventually, improve electric and hybrid vehicles. …

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Designer babies’growing popular

Designer babies’growing popular
Many couples choose embryo based on sex

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE and LINDSEY TANNER
The Associated Presss
September 24. 2006 10:00AM

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NBICS and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

My new biweekly column
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Report:Nanotech Rx Medical applications of Nano-scale technologies: What Impact on Marginalized communities?

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Issue: Medical applications of nano-scale technologies have the potential to revolutionize healthcare by delivering powerful tools for diagnosing and treating disease at the molecular level. But the current zeal for nano-enabled
medicines could divert scarce medical R&D funds away from essential health services and direct resources away from non-medical aspects of community health and wellbeing. Although nanomedicine is being touted as a solution to pressing health needs in the global South, it is being driven from the North and is designed primarily for wealthy markets. Using nano-scale technologies, the pharmaceutical industry’s ultimate goal is to make every person a patient and every patient a paying customer by “medicating” social ills with human performance enhancement (HyPE) drugs and devices. Nanoenabled HyPEs could usher in an era of two-tiered humans – Homo sapiens and Homo sapiens 2.0.

Market: As of mid-2006, 130 nanotech-based drugs and delivery systems and 125 devices or diagnostic tests are in preclinical, clinical or commercial
development. The combined market for nanoenabled medicine (drug delivery, therapeutics and diagnostics) will jump from just over $1 billion in 2005 to almost $10 billion in 2010 and the US National Science Foundation predicts
that nanotechnology will produce half of the pharmaceutical industry product line by 2015. Nanomedicine will help big pharma extend its exclusive monopoly patents on existing drug compounds and on older, under-performing drugs. Analysts suggest that nanotech-enabled medicine will increase profitability and discourage competition.

Impact: Nanomedicine may have its greatest impact in the realm of “human performance enhancement” (HyPE). Nanomedicine in combination with other new technologies will make it theoretically possible to alter the structure,
function and capabilities of human bodies and brains. In the near future, nano-enabled HyPE technologies will erase distinctions between “therapy” and “enhancement” and could change, quite literally, the definition of what it means to be healthy or human.

Reality check: Ironically, crucial questions remain about the health and environmental impacts of nanomaterials that are being used to develop nanomedicines. The nascent field of “nanotoxicology” is awash with uncertainty. Despite the fact that nano-scale products have already been commercialized (including nanomedicines), no government in the world has
developed regulations that address basic nanoscale safety issues.

Policy: Can OECD donors who have failed to deliver promised mosquito netting to malariastricken countries and who have managed to provide only one condom per adult male per annum to combat HIV/AIDS in the global
South really claim that hefty investment in new nanomedicines will pay off for poor countries? Governments urgently need broad, participatory societal and scientific, ethical, cultural, socioeconomic and environmental risk assessment to evaluate nanomedicine. Policies must be guided by the concerns of civil society and social movements, including disability rights and women’s organizations. To keep pace with technological change, an intergovernmental
framework is needed to monitor and assess the introduction of new technologies. At its next meeting in 2007, the World Health Assembly should undertake a full analysis of nanomedicine within this wider social health context.

Public Overwhelmingly Supportive of Genetic Science and its Use for a Wide Variety of Medical, Law Enforcement and Personal Purposes

Most U.S. adults are opposed to its use by employers and insurers

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 30 /PRNewswire/ — According to a new Wall Street
Journal Online/Harris Interactive Healthcare Poll, the public is almost
unanimous in its opinions on the science of genetics and the use of DNA.
While only five percent of all adults have ever had a genetic test to study
their DNA, the vast majority of U.S. adults (93%) feel that genetic science
is a good thing, and few (only 1%) feel it is a bad thing. Furthermore,
most adults are supportive of using genetic information for purposes such
as to identify criminals (93%) and to treat disease (87%).
These are some of the results of a Harris Interactive(R) online survey
of 3,091 U.S. adults, conducted between August 10 and 14, 2006 for The Wall
Street Journal Online’s Health Industry Edition (http://www.wsj.com/health).
The vast majority of adults strongly or somewhat support the use of
genetic information for:
– Identifying criminals in rape, murder and other crimes (93%)
– Establishing paternity (whether a man is or is not the father of a
child) (92%)
– Research by scientists to find new ways to prevent or treat diseases
(91%)
– Genetic testing by doctors to identify diseases for which people are
at risk (88%)
– Genetic therapy to treat people who have, or are likely to get, a
particular disease (87%)
– Tracing one’s family tree and ancestors (85%)
– Screening potential parents for inherited diseases or genetic
weaknesses at fertility clinics (72%)
On the other hand, when it comes to issues that could affect their jobs
or insurance coverage and costs, adults do not want DNA science to play a
role. Approximately four out of five adults strongly or somewhat oppose the
use of genetic information by:
– Employers to help decide whether to employ somebody (81%)
– Life insurance companies to determine who to insure or how much to
charge (80%)
– Health insurance companies to determine who to insure and how much to
charge (80%)
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