Advanced Biological Computer Developed

Microprocessor with DNA (illustration). Scientists have developed and constructed an advanced biological transducer, a computing machine capable of manipulating genetic codes, and using the output as new input for subsequent computations (Credit: © Giovanni Cancemi / Fotolia)

Using only biomolecules (such as DNA and enzymes), scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed and constructed an advanced biological transducer, a computing machine capable of manipulating genetic codes, and using the output as new input for subsequent computations. The breakthrough might someday create new possibilities in biotechnology, including individual gene therapy and cloning.

Interest in such biomolecular computing devices is strong, mainly because of their ability (unlike electronic computers) to interact directly with biological systems and even living organisms. No interface is required since all components of molecular computers, including hardware, software, input and output, are molecules that interact in solution along a cascade of programmable chemical events.

”Our results show a novel, synthetic designed computing machine that computes iteratively and produces biologically relevant results,” says lead researcher Prof. Ehud Keinan of the Technion Schulich Faculty of Chemistry. ”In addition to enhanced computation power, this DNA-based transducer offers multiple benefits, including the ability to read and transform genetic information, miniaturization to the molecular scale, and the aptitude to produce computational results that interact directly with living organisms.”

The transducer could be used on genetic material to evaluate and detect specific sequences, and to alter and algorithmically process genetic code. Similar devices, says Prof. Keinan, could be applied for other computational problems.

”All biological systems, and even entire living organisms, are natural molecular computers. Every one of us is a biomolecular computer, that is, a machine in which all components are molecules ”talking” to one another in a logical manner. The hardware and software are complex biological molecules that activate one another to carry out some predetermined chemical tasks. The input is a molecule that undergoes specific, programmed changes, following a specific set of rules (software) and the output of this chemical computation process is another well defined molecule.”

Also contributing to the research were postdoctoral fellows Dr. Tamar Ratner and Dr. Ron Piran of the Technion’s Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, and Dr. Natasha Jonoska of the Department of Mathematics at the University of South Florida.

Someone Else Owns Your Genes

Michael White informs us of the following:

On April 15, in the case of The Association for Molecular Pathology vs. Myriad Genetics, Inc., the United States Supreme Court heard arguments questioning the legitimacy of patents on human genes. A genetic testing company, Myriad Genetics, has patent claims on two human genes that influence a person’s risk for breast cancer. Myriad is being sued by a conglomerate of physicians, scientists, and patients who argue that Myriad has illegitimately patented a product of nature. While the lawyers and Justices delved into the arcana of patent law and molecular biology, many of the rest of us were wondering: how the heck can you patent someone’s genes?

The idea of having your genome Balkanized into small fiefdoms of intellectual property may sound offensive, but do gene patents make any practical difference?

Well, genetic information, much like a text, is encoded as a sequence of chemical “letters.” The alphabet of DNA consists of four letters (whose chemical names are abbreviated as A, C, T, or G), and each gene is made up of a sequence of tens of thousands of these letters. Scientists read the text of a gene by “sequencing” it: determining its sequence of letters. Knowing the sequence of a gene is not just important to scientists who study how that gene works; the sequence is also important for patients who are worried about their genetic risk for certain diseases. Each of us has small misspellings, deletions, and insertions scattered all over our genetic text—it’s what makes us unique from one another—and while most of these mutations are harmless, some are dangerous. For example, the information in the sequence of your particular copy of the gene BRCA1 can tell you whether you are at high risk for breast cancer. By sequencing the BRCA1 gene, you (or your mother, wife, or daughter) can find out whether you have a high-risk version of BRCA1—as long as you pay Myriad Genetics to read your sequence, because Myriad owns a patent on the sequence of your BRCA1 gene.

How did Myriad Genetics get a patent on the naturally occurring DNA sequence of the BRCA1 gene of every man, woman, and child in America? (They also own a patent on the sequence of BRCA2, another breast cancer risk gene.) Here’s the trick: you can own the naturally occurring sequence of a gene by making a patent claim to all physical copies of that sequence that exist outside of human cells.

This trick works because, in the process of sequencing a gene, scientists create a synthetic copy. This synthetic copy is chemically the same as the original; it has the exact same sequence of chemical letters that was put together by nature inside your cells. Synthetic copies of genes are routinely created in the lab using very general methods widely used by molecular biologists for decades, methods that were not invented by Myriad Genetics. However, Myriad was first to sequence the BRCA1 gene, and they claimed physical copies of the BRCA1 sequence as their original invention. The result is that nobody can read the sequence of any BRCA1 gene of anyone in America without Myriad’s permission.

THE IDEA OF HAVING your genome Balkanized into small fiefdoms of intellectual property may sound offensive, but do gene patents make any practical difference? Yes and no. If you are worried about your genetic risk for breast cancer and Myriad doesn’t take your insurance, you’re out of luck. Want a second opinion on Myriad’s interpretation of your genetic risk? Nobody is legally allowed to offer one. Aggressively protected gene patents also interfere with basic research focused on studying how genes function and contribute to disease, because they prevent scientists from using basic research tools to study those genes.

(What’s the point of a gene patent, then? Money. Your BRCA1 sequence is important to you, and Myriad wants you to pay them, and only them, for it.)

On the other hand, the era of human gene patents appears to be ending, regardless of what the Supreme Court decides. Myriad Genetics obtained its gene patents at a time when sequencing one gene was a big job; with the same effort today, we can sequence thousands of genes at once. A company that offers to predict your genetic risk for disease by reading only a single gene is going to look shabby compared to competitors that offer to sequence a large fraction of your genome to give you a much more comprehensive estimate of your genetic risk. Gene patents may hold off the competition for a limited time (while also temporarily holding up some basic genetics research and causing anxiety and suffering among patients), but they won’t stop the arrival of a new standard of genetic testing based on low-cost readings of all your genes.

CHINA IS ENGINEERING GENIUS BABIES

At BGI Shenzhen, scientists have collected DNA samples from 2,000 of the world’s smartest people and are sequencing their entire genomes in an attempt to identify the alleles which determine human intelligence. Apparently they’re not far from finding them, and when they do, embryo screening will allow parents to pick their brightest zygote and potentially bump up every generation's intelligence by five to 15 IQ points. 

Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist and lecturer at NYU, is one of the 2,000 braniacs who contributed their DNA. I spoke to him about what this creepy-ass program might mean for the future of Chinese kids.

Geoffrey Miller: As soon as Deng Xiaoping took power in the late 70s, he took the whole focus of the Chinese government from trying to manage the economy, to trying to manage the quality and quantity of people. In the 90s, they started to do widespread prenatal testing for birth defects with ultrasound, and more recently, they've spent a lot of money researching human genetics to figure out which genes make people smarter.

BGI is also doing lots of plant genetics, animal genetics, anything that’s economically relevant or scientifically interesting.

They seem mostly interested in people of Chinese and European descent. They’re basically recruiting through a scientific conference, through word of mouth. You have to provide some evidence that you’re as smart as you say you are. You have to send your complete CV, publications you’ve produced, standardized-test scores, where you went to college... stuff like that.

Once you’ve got that information and a fertilized egg that’s divided into a few cells, you can sample one of the cells to figure out the expected intelligence if it’s implanted and becomes a person.

Even if it only boosts the average kid by five IQ points, that’s a huge difference in terms of economic productivity, the competitiveness of the country, how many patents they get, how their businesses are run, and how innovative their economy is.

Actual use of the technology to do embryo screening might take five to ten years, but it could be just a few years. It depends on how motivated they are.

In fact, almost any trait other than intelligence would be easier to do. We know that intelligence depends on lots of genes while physical traits—like hair or eye color—only depend on a few genes. Things like body shape would be easier to do, physical attractiveness would be pretty complicated, personality traits might be a little simpler than intelligence—how hard working somebody is, how impulsive, how politically liberal or conservative they are would be easier. How religious you are—that’s definitely influenced by genes to some degree.

What Else Is China Doing That We Aren’t?

Well, they’re also investing a huge amount of money in education, they’re creating new systems of universities that emphasise more creative approaches to learning, and they’re sending hundreds of thousands of college students to America and Europe to see how our education systems operate so they can bring their own systems up to our standards and above.

Do You Think Global Domination Is In The Cards?

The Chinese Communist party has never really sought global domination. They think of it as restoring China to its rightful and historical place as the central culture of humanity. Europe got a temporary advantage, but they’re just restoring the natural balance as the world’s most populous country. I don’t think they have any imperial ambitions to spread China’s borders—they’re not going to act like Nazi Germany or America in the 20th century—but they do want respect and they do want influence and they don’t trust America or Europe to run the world in the right way, in terms of issues like global warming or equality or economic stability.

Via: "Vice"

'Quadruple Helix' DNA Discovered In Human Cells

Image via: Gizmodo.com

In 1953, Cambridge researchers Watson and Crick published a paper describing the interweaving 'double helix' DNA structure - the chemical code for all life. Now, in the year of that scientific landmark's 60th Anniversary, Cambridge researchers have published a paper proving that four-stranded 'quadruple helix' DNA structures - known as G-quadruplexes - also exist within the human genome. They form in regions of DNA that are rich in the building block guanine, usually abbreviated to 'G'.

The findings mark the culmination of over 10 years investigation by scientists to show these complex structures in vivo - in living human cells - working from the hypothetical, through computational modelling to synthetic lab experiments and finally the identification in human cancer cells using fluorescent biomarkers. 

The research, published today in Nature Chemistry and funded by Cancer Research UK, goes on to show clear links between concentrations of four-stranded quadruplexes and the process of DNA replication, which is pivotal to cell division and production. 

By targeting quadruplexes with synthetic molecules that trap and contain these DNA structures - preventing cells from replicating their DNA and consequently blocking cell division - scientists believe it may be possible to halt the runaway cell proliferation at the root of cancer. 

"The research indicates that quadruplexes are more likely to occur in genes of cells that are rapidly dividing, such as cancer cells. For us, it strongly supports a new paradigm to be investigated - using these four-stranded structures as targets for personalised treatments in the future."

Physical studies over the last couple of decades had shown that quadruplex DNA can form in vitro - in the 'test tube', but the structure was considered to be a curiosity rather than a feature found in nature. The researchers now know for the first time that they actually form in the DNA of human cells. 

"This research further highlights the potential for exploiting these unusual DNA structures to beat cancer – the next part of this pipeline is to figure out how to target them in tumour cells," said Dr Julie Sharp, senior science information manager at Cancer Research UK. 

"We have found that by trapping the quadruplex DNA with synthetic molecules we can sequester and stabilise them, providing important insights into how we might grind cell division to a halt," said Balasubramanian. 

The study showed that if an inhibitor is used to block DNA replication, quadruplex levels go down - proving the idea that DNA is dynamic, with structures constantly being formed and unformed. 

The researchers also previously found that an overactive gene with higher levels of Quadruplex DNA is more vulnerable to external interference. 

"The possibility that particular cancer cells harbouring genes with these motifs can now be targeted, and appear to be more vulnerable to interference than normal cells, is a thrilling prospect. 

Via: "Phys"

Scientists Catch Virus In The Act Of Infecting A Cell

Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UT Health) Medical School announced that they have caught a virus (called T7) in the act of infecting a cell. Researchers observed the changes in the structure of a virus as it infects an E. coli bacterium. The research paper was published in Science Epxress. 

The researchers found that the T7 virus has six tail fibers folded back against its capsid. The virus can extend these fibers to "walk" across its host cell surface to find a site to infect. The researchers say the virus behaves "a bit like a planetary rover." 

Ian Molineux, professor of biology at The University of Texas at Austin, said in a release that the idea that phages "walk" over the cell surface was previously proposed, but their paper provides the first experimental evidence. This is also the first time scientists have made images showing how the virus's tail extends into the host, which allows it to infect a cell with its DNA. 

Molineux says, "Although many of these details are specific to T7, the overall process completely changes our understanding of how a virus infects a cell." 

Via: "Science - Space - Robots"

One Cell Is All You Need

Image via: Carthage.edu

As described in a Dec. 21 paper in Science, a team of researchers, led by Xiaoliang Sunney Xie, the Mallinckrodt Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and made up of postdoctoral fellow Chenghang Zong, graduate student Alec Chapman, and former graduate student Sijia Lu, developed a method — dubbed MALBAC, short for Multiple Annealing and Looping-based Amplification Cycles — that requires just one cell to reproduce an entire DNA molecule.

More than three years in the making, the breakthrough technique offers the potential for early cancer treatment by allowing doctors to obtain a genetic “fingerprint” of a person’s cancer from circulating tumor cells. It also could lead to safer prenatal testing for a host of genetic diseases.

“If you give us a single human cell, we report to you 93 percent of the genome that contains three billion base pairs, and if there is a single base mutation, we can identify it with 70 percent detectability, with no false positives detected,” Xie said. “This is a major development.”

In a second paper, published simultaneously, researchers from Xie’s lab worked with scientists at Peking University in China to demonstrate MALBAC by sequencing 99 sperm cells from one individual and examining the paternal and maternal contribution to each cell’s genome.

As its name suggests, Xie said, MALBAC is a type of DNA amplification that allows researchers to duplicate the single DNA molecule present in a cell many times so it can be analyzed in the lab.

“While other methods of DNA amplification exist, most — like polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or multiple displacement amplification (MDA) — suffer from a specific problem,” Xie said. “Because they amplify exponentially, both have bias. They dramatically amplify some parts of the genome, but amplify others very little.”

By comparison, he said, MALBAC relies on linear amplification, meaning it is able to minimize the sequence-dependent bias.

Just as it does with other methods, the amplification process begins by splitting the DNA double helix into two single strands. Xie’s team then adds a random “primer” — tiny fragments of DNA — that binds in dozens of locations along each strand.

To extend those primers, Xie’s team used a DNA polymerase, the same cellular “machine” that synthesizes DNA as cells divide. Using that machine, researchers are able to extend the primers from as few as seven bases to as many as 2,000. Upon heating, they break the elongated primers apart from the original DNA, yielding half products.

When those half products are then amplified using the same primers, the two ends of the DNA combine, forming a loop that prevents it from being amplified again. The leftover half products and the original DNA are subject to another cycle of amplification. After five cycles of such linear pre-amplification, the full product is amplified by PCR to produce enough material for sequencing.

Despite the high coverage, DNA polymerases do occasionally make errors, Xie explained. To ensure that the genome produced by MALBAC is accurate, researchers turned to a different technique.

“Many diseases are associated with a single base mutation,” Xie said. “The challenge, however, is that finding one mutation in more than 3 billion base pairs is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Earlier techniques, like PCR or MDA, start with many cells, making the challenge even greater; a single mutation simply gets lost in the process. MALBAC, however, starts with a single cell, so it is easier to identify those mutations when they happen.”

To ensure MALBAC’s accuracy, Xie’s team simply let the original cell divide.

While the polymerase that researchers use to build the DNA sequence is highly accurate, only making one mistake per 10,000 bases, letting the cell divide gives researchers a chance to double check its work.

“The chances of the same mistake being made at the same base position are about one in 100 million,” Xie said. “If we let the cells divide again, and sequence three cells, the chances go up to one in 10 billion, less than the number of bases in the entire DNA molecule, so we can remove all the false positives.

“Getting that level of accuracy is very important, because if a doctor tells a patient that he detects a mutation, he doesn’t want to be wrong,” he continued. “When we use MALBAC, if a mutation appears in two or three related cells, we know it must be a real mutation.”

As a demonstration of MALBAC’s power, Xie and his team monitored the mutations that arose in a single cancer cell as it divided over 20 generations, and uncovered as many as 50 newly acquired mutations.

“This is the first time the mutation rate of a human cell has been measured directly,” Xie said. “Because we can now see the unique, newly acquired bases, we can study the dynamics of the genome in a way that was not possible before.”

Via: "The Harvard Gazette"

The Pentagon's DNA Factory

Darpa wants to take the life-making business into its own hands — and manufacture new biological forms in a factory of mix-and-match bio-bits.

A recent call for research by the Pentagon’s mad science agency proposes a new program called “Living Foundries.” The idea is to use biology as a manufacturing platform to “enable on-demand production of new and high-value materials, devices and capabilities.”

In other words, let’s engineer life to make stuff we want.

The fields of bioengineering and synthetic biology have already produced some useful, scary and flat-out bizarre entities. Besides renewable petroleum or steel strong spider silk, there are all sorts of potential therapeutic, industrial and agricultural purposes for reorganized DNA.

To jumpstart the process, Darpa wants to open the playing field to people from outside the biological sciences, recruiting designers, engineers, manufacturers, computer scientists, academics and anyone else who has an idea. By democratizing the biological design and manufacturing process, they hope to speed up the development of a reliable factory for all sorts of kind-of-living things.

One of the specifics they’re looking for? Modular genetic parts. Kind of like Legos for biology, a standardized system of bio-units capable of being assembled in any which way would explode the possibilities for producing new materials and systems.

Something like this already exists — the Registry of Standard Biological Parts lists thousands ofBioBricks, or DNA modules that control everything from breaking down chemicals to killing off cells. Expanding this open source “Williams-Sonoma catalog of synthetic biology” could lead to creations we’ve only ever dreamed of.

Darpa is also looking for design tools to map out individual projects, cell-like systems and chassis to use as templates, new test platforms and DNA-assembly techniques, and methods for fine-tuning and debugging. Basically, they want a space for biological innovation limited only by the “creativity of the designer.”

And designers have been known to get pretty creative, so who knows what they could do with Darpa money. I guess we’ll see soon enough — they, along with all other brave souls, have until June 21 to submit an idea.

Photo: Flickr/Spamily; photoshopped by Lena Groeger

Via: "Wired"

DNA Origami Opens Way For Nanoscale Machines

Image: The thrust to design single-molecule-sized nanocar. 

DNA strands can be coaxed to fold up into shapes in a matter of minutes, reveals a study. The finding could radically speed up progress in the field of DNA origami.

Biotechnologists are itching to be able to use DNA to make nanoscale machines, but so far they have made only simple forms — tubes, boxes, triangles — and the process has been laborious and time-consuming (see 'What to make with DNA origami').

The technique involves using short DNA strands to hold a longer, folded strand in place at certain points, like sticky tape. Until now, assembling the shape has involved heating the DNA and allowing it to cool slowly for up to a week.

But that time has now been slashed to minutes. Hendrik Dietz, a biophysicist at the Technical University of Munich in Germany, and his colleagues stained the DNA with fluorescent dye and watched what happened as it cooled and folded. By stopping the reaction at different stages, they could check how far the folding and sticking had gone.

They discovered something striking: “It turns out that almost for the entire temperature range, nothing happens," says Dietz. But when a crucial temperature is reached, the whole structure forms suddenly. The results are published in Science¹.

Dietz analysed the folding of 19 different DNA shapes, including cylindrical, brick-like and cog-like objects. Each shape folded in a specific narrow temperature range somewhere between 45 °C and 60 °C.

After working out which temperature corresponded to which shape, Dietz subjected the unfolded DNA reaction mixtures to these pre-determined temperatures for just a few minutes to see whether they would fold into the desired shape. They did — and with high yield.

DNA-origami experts are excited at the prospect of speeding up their work. “It makes our lives a lot easier,” says William Shih, who works in the field at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, and whose group has already benefited from Dietz’s work. Easier, quicker and more efficient folding will help to take DNA origami beyond simple shapes, he adds.

Dietz hopes that he will be able to use his findings to build a computer model to predict how to make other DNA objects. He noticed that certain traits of the shapes that he made were correlated with the temperature at which they folded — for example, shapes that used longer binding strands folded at higher temperatures. Dietz aims to design nanostructures with optimal folding temperatures close to 37 °C, the temperature at which mammalian cell cultures are grown, so that DNA machines could one day be used in biological settings.

Via: "Nature"

DNA Could Soon Be Used To Reconstruct Facial Images

By Bryan Nelson,

Crime scene investigators may soon have a new tool at their disposal. Scientists are currently perfecting technology that could one day reconstruct an image of your face using just your DNA, according to New Scientist.

The technology will be most useful for police looking to identify and catch a suspect. By leaving just a strand of DNA at a crime scene — a lock of hair, saliva on a cigarette butt, even dead skin cells — a suspect could have his or her face reconstructed and broadcasted for all to see. The technology is still in its infancy, but once realized, it could eventually make police sketch artists obsolete.

A recent study identifying five genes that contribute to facial shape and features has made the technology feasible. Manfred Kayser and colleagues from the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, spearheaded the research. They analyzed DNA from 10,000 Europeans and compared the results against nine specific facial landmarks which were recorded using three-dimensional MRI scans of the subjects' heads. An additional eight facial landmarks were also analyzed using photographs of the subjects' faces.

Several key correlations between genes and facial features were identified. For instance, a gene called TP63 could predict the gap between the centers of each eye socket by a distance of about 9 millimeters. Other genes also predicted features like the distance from the eyes to the bridge of the nose, the length of the nose, and the facial width between cheekbones.

These findings, coupled with previous DNA tests already known to identify eye, hair and skin color, are a big step toward perfecting DNA facial reconstruction technology. Even so, scientists caution that the method is still a long way off from being able to reconstruct all the nuances of a person's face.

Further research is already underway, though. For instance, researcher Mark Shriver of Pennsylvania State University in Hershey is currently working on a studylooking at up to 7,000 facial landmarks, and his study involves a far more diverse set of subjects, not just the faces of Europeans.

The technology may one day also benefit other fields of research. For instance, it could allow archeologists to gaze upon the faces of ancient peoples with startling accuracy. Or perhaps one day individuals researching their family trees could look upon their ancestors even when no photographs remain.

Via: "Mother Nature Network"

Introducing 'Bi-Fi' - The Biological 'Internet'

The researchers, Monica Ortiz, a doctoral candidate in bioengineering, and Drew Endy, PhD, an assistant professor of bioengineering, have parasitized the parasite and harnessed M13's key attributes -- its non-lethality and its ability to package and broadcast arbitrary DNA strands -- to create what might be termed the biological Internet, or "Bi-Fi." Their findings were published online Sept. 7 in the Journal of Biological Engineering.

Using the virus, Ortiz and Endy have created a biological mechanism to send genetic messages from cell to cell. The system greatly increases the complexity and amount of data that can be communicated between cells and could lead to greater control of biological functions within cell communities. The advance could prove a boon to bioengineers looking to create complex, multicellular communities that work in concert to accomplish important biological functions.

Medium and Message

M13 is a packager of genetic messages. It reproduces within its host, taking strands of DNA -- strands that engineers can control -- wrapping them up one by one and sending them out encapsulated within proteins produced by M13 that can infect other cells. Once inside the new hosts, they release the packaged DNA message.

The M13-based system is essentially a communication channel. It acts like a wireless Internet connection that enables cells to send or receive messages, but it does not care what secrets the transmitted messages contain.

"Effectively, we've separated the message from the channel. We can now send any DNA message we want to specific cells within a complex microbial community," said Ortiz, the first author of the study.

It is well-known that cells naturally use various mechanisms, including chemicals, to communicate, but such messaging can be extremely limited in both complexity and bandwidth. Simple chemical signals are typically both message and messenger -- two functions that cannot be separated.

"If your network connection is based on sugar then your messages are limited to 'more sugar,' 'less sugar,' or 'no sugar'" explained Endy.

Cells engineered with M13 can be programmed to communicate in much more complex, powerful ways than ever before. The possible messages are limited only by what can be encoded in DNA and thus can include any sort of genetic instruction: start growing, stop growing, come closer, swim away, produce insulin and so forth.

Rates and Ranges

In harnessing DNA for cell-cell messaging the researchers have also greatly increased the amount of data they can transmit at any one time. In digital terms, they have increased the bit rate of their system. The largest DNA strand M13 is known to have packaged includes more than 40,000 base pairs. Base pairs, like 1s and 0s in digital encoding, are the basic building blocks of genetic data. Most genetic messages of interest in bioengineering range from several hundred to many thousand base pairs.

Ortiz was even able to broadcast her genetic messages between cells separated by a gelatinous medium at a distance of greater than 7 centimeters.

"That's very long-range communication, cellularly speaking," she said.

Down the road, the biological Internet could lead to biosynthetic factories in which huge masses of microbes collaborate to make more complicated fuels, pharmaceuticals and other useful chemicals. With improvements, the engineers say, their cell-cell communication platform might someday allow more complex three-dimensional programming of cellular systems, including the regeneration of tissue or organs.

"The ability to communicate 'arbitrary' messages is a fundamental leap -- from just a signal-and-response relationship to a true language of interaction," said Radhika Nagpal, professor of computer science at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, who was not involved in the research. "Orchestrating the cooperation of cells to form artificial tissues, or even artificial organisms is just one possibility. This opens a door to new biological systems and solving problems that have no direct analog in nature."

Ortiz added: "The biological Internet is in its very earliest stages. When the information Internet was first introduced in the 1970s, it would have been hard to imagine the myriad uses it sees today, so there's no telling all the places this new work might lead."

Via: "Science Daily"

World's First Genetically Modified Humans Created

By MICHAEL HANLON
July 01, 2012
Courtesy Of "The Daily Mail"

The world's first genetically modified humans have been created, it was revealed last night.

The disclosure that 30 healthy babies were born after a series of experiments in the United States provoked another furious debate about ethics.

So far, two of the babies have been tested and have been found to contain genes from three 'parents'.

Fifteen of the children were born in the past three years as a result of one experimental programme at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science of St Barnabas in New Jersey.

The babies were born to women who had problems conceiving. Extra genes from a female donor were inserted into their eggs before they were fertilised in an attempt to enable them to conceive.

Genetic fingerprint tests on two one-year- old children confirm that they have inherited DNA from three adults --two women and one man.

The fact that the children have inherited the extra genes and incorporated them into their 'germline' means that they will, in turn, be able to pass them on to their own offspring.

Altering the human germline - in effect tinkering with the very make-up of our species - is a technique shunned by the vast majority of the world's scientists.

Geneticists fear that one day this method could be used to create new races of humans with extra, desired characteristics such as strength or high intelligence.

Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, the researchers, led by fertility pioneer Professor Jacques Cohen, say that this 'is the first case of human germline genetic modification resulting in normal healthy children'.

Some experts severely criticised the experiments. Lord Winston, of the Hammersmith Hospital in West London, told the BBC yesterday:

'Regarding the treat-ment of the infertile, there is no evidence that this technique is worth doing . . . I am very surprised that it was even carried out at this stage. It would certainly not be allowed in Britain.'

John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: 

'One has tremendous sympathy for couples who suffer infertility problems. But this seems to be a further illustration of the fact that the whole process of in vitro fertilisation as a means of conceiving babies leads to babies being regarded as objects on a production line.

'It is a further and very worrying step down the wrong road for humanity.' 

A spokesman for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which regulates 'assisted reproduction' technology in Britain, said that it would not license the technique here because it involved altering the germline.

Jacques Cohen is regarded as a brilliant but controversial scientist who has pushed the boundaries of assisted reproduction technologies.

He developed a technique which allows infertile men to have their own children, by injecting sperm DNA straight into the egg in the lab.

Prior to this, only infertile women were able to conceive using IVF. Last year, Professor Cohen said that his expertise would allow him to clone children --a prospect treated with horror by the mainstream scientific community.

"...adding that he had been approached by 'at least three' individuals wishing to create a cloned child, but had turned down their requests.

DNA-Destroying Chip Being Embedded Into Mobile Phones

Terrence Aym
April 29, 2012
Courtesy Of "4 Winds 10"

According to Dr. Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, terahertz (THz) waves destroy human DNA. The waves literally unzip the helix strand. Now a team of technologists at UT Dallas are planning to take chips broadcasting THz waves and embed them into mobile phones for use as an imaging system for consumers, law enforcement and medical personnel… a potentially deadly technology that could eventually kill or sicken millions of people.

The controversial THz scanner technology used by the TSA at many of the nation’s airports is being adapted for cell phone use. Studies of terahertz radiation have caused experts to raise alarms over the significant health risks to humans.

Recently major media touted a new chip that permits the adaption of a THz generating device to be embedded into cellular phones.

Is the price for seeing through walls, a grisly death?

The excited press painted grand pictures of such technology being used by consumers to see through walls and objects, while health professionals like physcians might incorporate the technology to seek out small tumors inside patients without the need for invasive surgery.

The THz wave—located between microwaves and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum—was chosen for security devices because it penetrates matter such as clothing, wood, paper and other porous material that’s non-conducting. At the time experts believed this type of radiation was harmless.

They were wrong.

From this…                                                To this…?

THz Radiation Unzips The DNA Molecule

In a breakthrough study conducted by Dr. Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and a team of physicists, they discovered terrifying evidence that exposure to THz radiation builds cumulatively and affects human and animal tissue DNA. In essence, it tends to unzip the DNA molecule. [See: Inside TSA scanners: How terahertz waves tear apart human DNA]

The Los Alamos scientists paper, DNA Breathing Dynamics in the Presence of a Terahertz Field reveals very disturbing—even shocking—evidence that THz radiation significantly damages the DNA of the people being directed through airport scanners and all TSA workers in close proximity to the machines.

Their synopsis: “We consider the influence of a terahertz field on the breathing dynamics of double-stranded DNA. We model the spontaneous formation of spatially localized openings of a damped and driven DNA chain, and find that linear instabilities lead to dynamic dimerization, while true local strand separations require a threshold amplitude mechanism. Based on our results we argue that a specific terahertz radiation exposure may significantly affect the natural dynamics of DNA, and thereby influence intricate molecular processes involved in gene expression and DNA replication.“

 

What all that means is the resonant effects of the THz waves bombarding humans unzips the double-stranded DNA molecule. This ripping apart of the twisted chain of DNA creates bubbles between the genes that can interfere with the processes of life itself: normal DNA replication and critical gene expression.

Likely To Cause Cancer

David J. Brenner, a Columbia University doctor and expert on the effects of radiation stated that it’s quite likely the TSA scanners will cause cancer in some individuals.

Brenner, whose Columbia’s Center for Radiological Research work focuses on radiation’s effects on biological processes, low exposure risk evaluation and radio-isotopic therapy, is concerened that people with compromised immune systems such as AIDS patients, those suffering from lupus or other immune-deficient ailments are especially at risk. Infants, children up to age 5 or 6, women who are pregnant or lactating, cancer patients and many more should steer far clear of the machines.

DNA strand bombarded by THz radiation unzips

Those exposed to THz radiation—whether from security scanners or future cell phone technology—who are taking certain prescription medications or have significantly low levels of certain vitamins have increased risk of radiation induced carcinomas.

Repeated exposure to low level radiation scans can also lead to cataracts and bring on skin cancer—including deadly melanoma.

A CMOS chip used in many different products

THz To Utilize Existing CMOS Chips

According to the Daily Mail, the chips—created using Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor—or CMOS use the same technology already incorporated into devices like HD TVs, smart phones and personal computers.

Dr. Kenneth O, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas and leader of the project explained to theDaily Mail that “We’ve created approaches that open a previously untapped portion of the electromagnetic spectrum for consumer use and life-saving medical applications.

“CMOS is affordable and can be used to make lots of chips,” Dr. O said. “The combination of CMOS and terahertz means you could put this chip and receiver on the back of a cellphone, turning it into a device carried in your pocket that can see through objects.”

The team’s findings were presented to an enthusiastic audience at the 2012 International Solid-State Circuits Conference held in San Francisco, California. Next the team plans to create the CMOS terahertz imaging system.

Before moving ahead with the project, the good doctor and his team might consider contacting Dr. Boian Alexandrov and histeam at Los Alamos to compare notes.

It would be a shame if a deadly technology that could eventually kill or sicken millions of people were unknowingly sold across the world.

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