According to the Geron News Release, test animals receiving the treatment, GRNOPC1, developed a higher number of cysts at the area of spinal cord injury than in previous studies. However, the FDA has agreed to allow the studies to continue, since the cysts appear to be non-proliferative, confined to the injury site, and not associated with any serious adverse effects or SUSARS.

GRNOPC1 consists of human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs). Oligodendrocytes are cells of the nervous system that produce the myelin shealth, which insultates the axons of nerve cells. Injection with the cells was shown to enhance remyelination of the spinal cord in adult rats. Demyelination after spinal cord injury contributes to loss of neural function. Rats treated with GRNOPC1 seven days after injury exhibited substantially better recovery and improved locomotor ability.

Geron expects re-initiation of the clinical trial in late 2010. Since the treatment must be applied shortly after injury, anyone wanting to participate in a clinical trial must agree to injections within 7 to 14 days of spinal injury.

Geron's pipeline also includes an anti-cancer drug and vaccine that target the telomerase enzyme.

_{Source: Keirstead, H. et al. 2005. Human embryonic stem cell-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cell transplants remyelinate and restore locomotion after spinal cord injury. J. Neuroscience 25:4694-4705. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0311-05.2005.}

Geron Corporation's Stem Cell Trial originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 20:29:12.

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Biofuels still seem to have a long way to go before widespread use and acceptance validate the claims of their proponents. While the biofuels industry has it's critics, the arguments in favour include the use of renewable feedstocks. Many pharmaceuticals today are actually semi-synthetic molecules, made in fermentation processes by living organisms and later chemically modified, if need be. The costs associated with batch production, and complications pertaining to large-scale protein purification and equipment sterilization, are among the downsides to bioprocessing. The most well-known biotech product in the home might be enzyme-based detergents, like those produced by the widely recognized Novozymes.

Just about everyone is familiar with the story of stone-washed jeans and how they came to be enzymatically-altered. But jeans don't make an industry and biotech has yet to gain acceptance in many areas where the public is wary of the bioethical ramifications and potential health risks (xenotransplantation, stem cell research, nanotechnology). With so many complex issues to solve, will we ever become a fully sustainable, bio-based world?

Is a Bio-Based Economy a Fantasy? originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 22:57:40.

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At University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Bertozzi and her research group study cell surface interactions and use synthetic biology to manipulate cellular processes. In doing so, they have been able to adjust the intercellular environment, control how the cells stick to one another, which affects their assembly into tissues. They reported using different types of genetically engineered cells to make artificial tissues capable of many of the functions of cell clusters, such as secreting and responding to hormones.

This work is really founded on the alteration of already existing cells, not the creation of completely new ones from scratch. The novelty of the work, however, is that tissues formed from these cells are like none other and can perform as no individual cell can. In systems such as this, the community of cells acts as a whole towards an end product of the scientist's design, such as large scale drug production. Smart polymers are also examples of synthetic biology, in that they are artificial polymer-based substances that can be designed to react in a cascade-like fashion to changes in their environment, much like the inner workings of a cell.

_{Source: Gartner, Z. and Bertozzi, C. 2009. Programmed assembly of 3-dimensional microtissues with defined cellular connectivity. PNAS 106(12):4606-4610.}

Synthetic Biology and Artificial Systems originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 20:20:28.

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The information obtained about the immune system, or viral and bacterial systems, can be used to produce better vaccines. For example, scientists at the Institute for Systems Biology are using what they have learned about the systems of the influenza virus to determine what makes one strain more potent than another. Some of this has to do with polymorphisms of proteins on the viral outer envelope, and their tolerance for remaining functional upon mutation.

For a complete lecture on this topic, the Institute has provided a 4-part video online.

Using Systems Biology to Study Influenza originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 06:36:26.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on October 12 (2009) that about 100 low and middle-income countries will recieve donated vaccine starting sometime in November. The donations will be made by vaccine producers such as GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi. The protection of health care providers in the recipient countries will be given top priority.

According to a poll taken in early October, only about a third of people intend to get a shot compared to nearly 45% in August. Might that have something to do with that flurry of attention given to an unpublished report (last month) that the flu shot for H1N1 could make you more susceptible to the regular flu? We are still waiting for the details on that one, but the blame could also be attributed to lack of confidence in the flu shot in general, or fear of adverse reactions (SUSARs).

Canada Approves H1N1 Vaccine originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 20:46:58.

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_{Source: Chowdhury et al. 2009. Material properties of the cell dictate stress-induced spreading and differentiation in embryonic stem cells. Nature Materials Online 18 October 2009. doi:10.1038/nmat2563.}

Nano-Scale Mechanical Forces Impact Stem Cell Growth originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 20:19:18.

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The awarding of the Nobel Prize in Medicine last week, to a scientist who pioneered telomere research, exemplifies the importance of research such as this in areas such as epigenetics, cancer, and stem cell research.

_{Source: Chen, X.F. et al. 2009. Telomere recombination accelerates cellular aging in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. PLoS Genetics, June 2009.}

Telomere Repair Mechanisms Linked to Lifespan originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 21:37:56.

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CpG islands are regions of non-coding DNA, where the number of cytosine and guanine residues is greater than 50% (the remainder consisting of adenine and thymine). These areas of DNA are unmethylated and often found near the 5' ends of genes. They often overlap the promoter region of genes and may even extend into areas where transcription starts. Because of this, and their unique sequences, they make useful tools for gene sequencing and were used in the human genome sequencing project in a process called CpG island tagging.

CpG islands are now being studied for another reason. Although the human genome has been sequenced, we still don't know everything about the gene sequences of origins of replication (ORIs), the starting points from which DNA strands are copied. It appears that a large percent of ORI sequences may lie within GC-rich regions of DNA, and often close to CpG islands. Deciphering the details of where ORIs are found and how they control replication and chromatin formation is part of the study of epigenetics.

CpG Islands and ORIs originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 17:49:56.

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By the way, I have to admit I was behind the times when reporting on the Innovation Contest. On October 1st , there was no information on the Nytric or Canadian Business websites about whether the contest had closed, but I've since found that University of Toronto had announced on September 22, 2009, that Dou, who is pursuing a Ph.D. at U of T, did, in fact, win the contest.

Lab-on-a-Chip Making More News originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 at 21:42:51.

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Since the discovery of genes, we have learned that there are portions of chromosomes that don't represent the code for anything functional (i.e. a protein). Telomeres are segments of non-coding, repeating units of DNA found at the ends of our chromosomes, but they serve a variety of different purposes, including making sure our chromosomes align properly during replication. Also, since replication of DNA inevitably introduces some degree of error to the sequence, one of the causes of gene mutation, and since these errors occur more frequently on the ends, the telomeres protect important gene sequences from becoming mutated. Telomeres shorten gradually as our cells replicate and make copy after copy of DNA. Some evidence suggests telomere shortening might be an early sign of cancer, as is indicates frequent cell reproduction. Other research shows that once the telomeres become too short, the enzyme telomerase can lengthen them again, allowing cell replication to continue. Normal cells don't have telomerase activity and control of the enzyme might be an answer to tumor suppression in cancer treatment. Telomeres also play a role in epigenetics, as they appear to be involved in the protection of histone structures, and their lengths are correlated to certain epigenetic markers.

_Source:

Blasco, M. 2007. The epigenetic regulation of mammalian telomeres. Nature Reviews Genetics 8, 299-309 (April 2007). doi:10.1038/nrg2047.

2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Telomeres originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 07:51:25.

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According to the Geron News Release, test animals receiving the treatment, GRNOPC1, developed a higher number of cysts at the area of spinal cord injury than in previous studies. However, the FDA has agreed to allow the studies to continue, since the cysts appear to be non-proliferative, confined to the injury site, and not associated with any serious adverse effects or SUSARS.

GRNOPC1 consists of human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs). Oligodendrocytes are cells of the nervous system that produce the myelin shealth, which insultates the axons of nerve cells. Injection with the cells was shown to enhance remyelination of the spinal cord in adult rats. Demyelination after spinal cord injury contributes to loss of neural function. Rats treated with GRNOPC1 seven days after injury exhibited substantially better recovery and improved locomotor ability.

Geron expects re-initiation of the clinical trial in late 2010. Since the treatment must be applied shortly after injury, anyone wanting to participate in a clinical trial must agree to injections within 7 to 14 days of spinal injury.

Geron's pipeline also includes an anti-cancer drug and vaccine that target the telomerase enzyme.

_{Source: Keirstead, H. et al. 2005. Human embryonic stem cell-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cell transplants remyelinate and restore locomotion after spinal cord injury. J. Neuroscience 25:4694-4705. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0311-05.2005.}

Geron Corporation's Stem Cell Trial originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 20:29:12.

Permalink | Comment | Email this

Biofuels still seem to have a long way to go before widespread use and acceptance validate the claims of their proponents. While the biofuels industry has it's critics, the arguments in favour include the use of renewable feedstocks. Many pharmaceuticals today are actually semi-synthetic molecules, made in fermentation processes by living organisms and later chemically modified, if need be. The costs associated with batch production, and complications pertaining to large-scale protein purification and equipment sterilization, are among the downsides to bioprocessing. The most well-known biotech product in the home might be enzyme-based detergents, like those produced by the widely recognized Novozymes.

Just about everyone is familiar with the story of stone-washed jeans and how they came to be enzymatically-altered. But jeans don't make an industry and biotech has yet to gain acceptance in many areas where the public is wary of the bioethical ramifications and potential health risks (xenotransplantation, stem cell research, nanotechnology). With so many complex issues to solve, will we ever become a fully sustainable, bio-based world?

Is a Bio-Based Economy a Fantasy? originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 22:57:40.

Permalink | Comment | Email this

At University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Bertozzi and her research group study cell surface interactions and use synthetic biology to manipulate cellular processes. In doing so, they have been able to adjust the intercellular environment, control how the cells stick to one another, which affects their assembly into tissues. They reported using different types of genetically engineered cells to make artificial tissues capable of many of the functions of cell clusters, such as secreting and responding to hormones.

This work is really founded on the alteration of already existing cells, not the creation of completely new ones from scratch. The novelty of the work, however, is that tissues formed from these cells are like none other and can perform as no individual cell can. In systems such as this, the community of cells acts as a whole towards an end product of the scientist's design, such as large scale drug production. Smart polymers are also examples of synthetic biology, in that they are artificial polymer-based substances that can be designed to react in a cascade-like fashion to changes in their environment, much like the inner workings of a cell.

_{Source: Gartner, Z. and Bertozzi, C. 2009. Programmed assembly of 3-dimensional microtissues with defined cellular connectivity. PNAS 106(12):4606-4610.}

Synthetic Biology and Artificial Systems originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 20:20:28.

Permalink | Comment | Email this

The information obtained about the immune system, or viral and bacterial systems, can be used to produce better vaccines. For example, scientists at the Institute for Systems Biology are using what they have learned about the systems of the influenza virus to determine what makes one strain more potent than another. Some of this has to do with polymorphisms of proteins on the viral outer envelope, and their tolerance for remaining functional upon mutation.

For a complete lecture on this topic, the Institute has provided a 4-part video online.

Using Systems Biology to Study Influenza originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 06:36:26.

Permalink | Comment | Email this

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on October 12 (2009) that about 100 low and middle-income countries will recieve donated vaccine starting sometime in November. The donations will be made by vaccine producers such as GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi. The protection of health care providers in the recipient countries will be given top priority.

According to a poll taken in early October, only about a third of people intend to get a shot compared to nearly 45% in August. Might that have something to do with that flurry of attention given to an unpublished report (last month) that the flu shot for H1N1 could make you more susceptible to the regular flu? We are still waiting for the details on that one, but the blame could also be attributed to lack of confidence in the flu shot in general, or fear of adverse reactions (SUSARs).

Canada Approves H1N1 Vaccine originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 20:46:58.

Permalink | Comment | Email this

_{Source: Chowdhury et al. 2009. Material properties of the cell dictate stress-induced spreading and differentiation in embryonic stem cells. Nature Materials Online 18 October 2009. doi:10.1038/nmat2563.}

Nano-Scale Mechanical Forces Impact Stem Cell Growth originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 20:19:18.

Permalink | Comment | Email this

The awarding of the Nobel Prize in Medicine last week, to a scientist who pioneered telomere research, exemplifies the importance of research such as this in areas such as epigenetics, cancer, and stem cell research.

_{Source: Chen, X.F. et al. 2009. Telomere recombination accelerates cellular aging in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. PLoS Genetics, June 2009.}

Telomere Repair Mechanisms Linked to Lifespan originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 21:37:56.

Permalink | Comment | Email this

CpG islands are regions of non-coding DNA, where the number of cytosine and guanine residues is greater than 50% (the remainder consisting of adenine and thymine). These areas of DNA are unmethylated and often found near the 5' ends of genes. They often overlap the promoter region of genes and may even extend into areas where transcription starts. Because of this, and their unique sequences, they make useful tools for gene sequencing and were used in the human genome sequencing project in a process called CpG island tagging.

CpG islands are now being studied for another reason. Although the human genome has been sequenced, we still don't know everything about the gene sequences of origins of replication (ORIs), the starting points from which DNA strands are copied. It appears that a large percent of ORI sequences may lie within GC-rich regions of DNA, and often close to CpG islands. Deciphering the details of where ORIs are found and how they control replication and chromatin formation is part of the study of epigenetics.

CpG Islands and ORIs originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 17:49:56.

Permalink | Comment | Email this

By the way, I have to admit I was behind the times when reporting on the Innovation Contest. On October 1st , there was no information on the Nytric or Canadian Business websites about whether the contest had closed, but I've since found that University of Toronto had announced on September 22, 2009, that Dou, who is pursuing a Ph.D. at U of T, did, in fact, win the contest.

Lab-on-a-Chip Making More News originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 at 21:42:51.

Permalink | Comment | Email this

Since the discovery of genes, we have learned that there are portions of chromosomes that don't represent the code for anything functional (i.e. a protein). Telomeres are segments of non-coding, repeating units of DNA found at the ends of our chromosomes, but they serve a variety of different purposes, including making sure our chromosomes align properly during replication. Also, since replication of DNA inevitably introduces some degree of error to the sequence, one of the causes of gene mutation, and since these errors occur more frequently on the ends, the telomeres protect important gene sequences from becoming mutated. Telomeres shorten gradually as our cells replicate and make copy after copy of DNA. Some evidence suggests telomere shortening might be an early sign of cancer, as is indicates frequent cell reproduction. Other research shows that once the telomeres become too short, the enzyme telomerase can lengthen them again, allowing cell replication to continue. Normal cells don't have telomerase activity and control of the enzyme might be an answer to tumor suppression in cancer treatment. Telomeres also play a role in epigenetics, as they appear to be involved in the protection of histone structures, and their lengths are correlated to certain epigenetic markers.

_Source:

Blasco, M. 2007. The epigenetic regulation of mammalian telomeres. Nature Reviews Genetics 8, 299-309 (April 2007). doi:10.1038/nrg2047.

2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Telomeres originally appeared on About.com Biotech / Biomedical on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 07:51:25.

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