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biotech

A mind-boggling Read: This machine could print synthetic life forms on demand, and our minds are reeling – ScienceAlert (Science Alert)

This is quite an astonishing read. Craig Venter is a driving force in this technology which would allow us to not only print synthetic life forms, but also digitally send that across – if necessary – very long distances. Perhaps interplanetary distances. But check for yourself:

“Back in 2016, biologist Craig Venter achieved something extraordinary. He built a new species of bacteria from scratch in the lab – the simplest genetic life form known to science, made entirely through chemical synthesis of a custom-made genome.

Now, he’s unveiled a new machine that could print these synthetic life forms on demand – simply feed in a genome design, and let the ‘ink’ form the building blocks of life. The invention could see us colonise Mars with synthetic life without ever setting foot on the Red Planet, and Venter and Elon Musk have teamed up to make this happen…”

Source: This machine could print synthetic life forms on demand, and our minds are reeling – ScienceAlert

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Scientists Can Now Store Digital Data in DNA With 100 Percent Accuracy (Farnia Fekri)

All the digital data we’re creating – 44 trillion gigabytes by 2020 – has to go somewhere. The “where” of the near future, many researchers believe, will be on DNA strands, which can store thousands more gigabytes than the best iPhone on the market. Millions of years of evolution have perfected this form of biological information storage…

Source: Scientists Can Now Store Digital Data in DNA With 100 Percent Accuracy – Motherboard

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Really great Long-Read on Genetic Engineering: Rewriting the Code of Life (Michael Specter)

Early on an unusually blustery day in June, Kevin Esvelt climbed aboard a ferry at Woods Hole, bound for Nantucket Island. Esvelt, an assistant professor of biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was on his way to present to local health officials a plan for ridding the island of one of its most persistent problems: Lyme disease. He had been up for much of the night working on his slides, and the fatigue showed. He had misaligned the buttons on his gray pin-striped shirt, and the rings around his deep-blue eyes made him look like a sandy-haired raccoon.

Esvelt, who is thirty-four, directs the “sculpting evolution” group at M.I.T., where he and his colleagues are attempting to design molecular tools capable of fundamentally altering the natural world…

Source: Rewriting the Code of Life – The New Yorker

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Great Read on the Future of Human Physical and Cognitive Development: Exponential Growth Will Transform Humanity in the Next 30 Years (Peter Diamandis)

Today’s extraordinary rate of exponential growth may do much more than just disrupt industries. It may actually give birth to a new species, reinventing humanity over the next 30 years.

I believe we’re rapidly heading towards a human-scale transformation, the next evolutionary step into what I call a “Meta-Intelligence,” a future in which we are all highly connected—brain to brain via the cloud—sharing thoughts, knowledge and actions. In this post, I’m investigating the driving forces behind such an evolutionary step, the historical pattern we are about to repeat, and the implications thereof. Again, I acknowledge that this topic seems far-out, but the forces at play are huge and the implications are vast. Let’s dive in…

Source: Exponential Growth Will Transform Humanity in the Next 30 Years

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Printable Organs Are Closer Than Ever Thanks to Three Bioprinting Breakthroughs (Sveta McShane)

Over the next few weeks, while browsing cuties on the dating app, Tinder, you may find an image of a celebrity with an ‘organ donor’ icon next to their photo. By swiping right (usually an action which means “sexy!”), you will be given the option to register as an organ donor.In what might seem an unlikely partnership, Tinder has partnered with the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) to recruit organ donors.

Why? Desperate times sometimes call for unconventional measures…

Source: Printable Organs Are Closer Than Ever Thanks to Three Bioprinting Breakthroughs

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According to Kazuo Ishiguro we will soon be able to create Humans who are superior to other Humans (June Javelosa)

According to Kazuo Ishiguro, there are three areas of science that are set to transform how we live and interact with others over the next few decades: gene editing, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI).Ishiguro, granted, is best known as one of the most celebrated fiction writers today. He is behind the novel Never Let Me Go, the story of a dystopian future where humans are cloned to be organ donors. But the possibility of a future so fundamentally changed by scientific advancements could be more than the fruit of the author’s creativity and imagination…

Source: Kazuo Ishiguro: Soon, We Will Be Able to Create Humans Who Are Superior to Other Humans

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Great Article on Background of CRISPR and Genetic Engineering: WTF is CRISPR? (Sarah Buhr)

Say you’ve inherited a rare genetic mutation that guarantees you’ll get a certain form of cancer by the time you reach 50 years of age.

And that this is most likely how you are going to die. But what if I told you this cancer gene, passed down from generation to generation, can be snipped out of your genome entirely and you never pass it on to any of your offspring?

That is the promise of CRISPR, which not only has the potential to radically change the genetic code of all of humanity but could also fundamentally affect our health care, food system, farming and even the manufacturing and production industries…

Source: WTF is CRISPR? | TechCrunch

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Great AI & Biotech Infographic: IBM Watson and clinical cancer trial recruitment (Business Insider)

Nearly 14 million Americans are fighting cancer, but huge obstacles stand in the way of finding a cure: It takes too much time and money to fill clinical trials, which are needed to explore whether a treatment is safe and effective. See how IBM Watson Health uses cognitive computing to connect patients with researchers — which speeds up the development of cancer therapies — in the infographic…

Source: IBM Watson and clinical trial recruitment

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This is an exciting read: Smallest-yet genome reveals how little we know about life — synthetic or real (Graham Templeton)

This week, a team of biologists headed by genomics pioneer Craig Venter published a study in Science that should amaze and excite the world: they built a life-form, and they have no idea how it works. It’s an incredible achievement that’s been decades in the making, and while it might seem like it would be a disappointment that one of our first steps into the field of synthetic biology has made our own ignorance so plain, the reality is that it only shows the incredible room left for advancement. Think genetic and medical engineering are coming up with cool things now? Just wait until they start answering some of the pointed new questions raised by this incredible study…

Source: Smallest-yet genome reveals how little we know about life — synthetic or real | ExtremeTech

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