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Tag Archives: biotechnology
Another year, another controversy at Cal
Jasper Rine, the molecular and cell biology professor at the center of this debate, had no idea that his relatively simple project would ignite a firestorm of publicity and controversy that would eventually bring him head-to-head with the California Department of Public Health. His plan had been to provide a unifying experience for Cal’s incoming freshman class and teach them a little about understanding genetic data, by collecting some of their DNA and testing them for three simple genetic variants associated with the metabolism of alcohol, lactose, and folate.
Though scientifically very straight-forward, Rine and his co-planners knew that collecting genetic information can be a very sensitive issue, so they took a number of steps to ensure that safety and privacy concerns were met.
Talk about a change of heart!
A ruling was released a few days ago by the US Department of Justice on the topic of genetic intellectual property laws, barring companies and individuals from claiming patents on isolated genetic sequences. For those of you unfamiliar with this incredibly controversial field, it essentially revolves around the question of whether or not any entity can “own” the rights to a particular sequence of the human genome.
Granted, this isn’t “own” as in “Hi, I’m Genencorp and I own your genes, now give them to me.” It’s a much more abstract and subtle sense of ownership, though it still has a strong impact on the world of biological research (and possibly on each of our lives).
Rotationplasty rocks!
Sometimes you see something that just makes you take a break and marvel at how fantastic our medical technology has become. Here is one such example.
The Mayo Clinic offers an online “patient education” video series that describes various medical procedures, their effects on the individual, and what life is like after undergoing them. This particular video covers rotationplasty, a thoroughly amazing operation that I’m still trying to wrap my mind around.
Genetically modified organisms? That’s old news
Would you be excited about a swiftly growing salmon that yields the same amount of flesh as a normal fish in half the time, yielding more product for less input and saving time, energy, and money? Great news: such fish already exist! But the producer, AquaBounty, faces major opposition in bringing them to market because they carry the dreaded label of “genetically modified.” (Their speedy development is thanks to the introduction of an extra gene for a growth hormone.)
Opponents have two main objections: the dangers of consuming engineered meat (shown to be minimal) and the potential environmental impact if the animals were released to the wild (a much more open question).
Jump out of your skin and into your e-skin
Last time, I wrote about the reverse-engineering of natural processes to develop more efficient solar cells. It turns out that photovoltaics research is not the only field being guided by nature. This month, the journal Nature Materials published two reports describing a pair of successful attempts to fabricate artificial skin – flexible, stretchable arrays of highly sensitive pressure sensors that produce electrical signals in response to contact. The so-called “e-skin” can be used in applications such as robotics and manufacturing to provide a softer touch during manipulation delicate objects.
Designer genes
Synthetic biology is a promising field of research that aims, in part, to engineer organisms to produce medicines and biofuels. Its allure lies in using biological building blocks and pathways, already exquisitely designed by nature, to produce essential materials for human use (instead of trying to re-invent everything ourselves from scratch). This technology is currently being used to produce the anti-malarial drug artemisinin from bacteria in large-scale amounts, which would significantly lower the cost.
Tinkering with existing life forms, and even creating new ones to suit our purposes, brings up serious ethical questions regarding evolution, the nature of life, and our responsibilities in designing it. These questions have recently been receiving a lot more attention, in the wake of the announcement on May 20th in Science Express by Craig Venter, Hamilton Smith and colleagues that they had created a bacterium with a chemically synthesized genome. Continue reading