Scientists Created Artificial Life

[QueEx]

Gene breakthrough against brain diseases

<font size="5"><center>Gene breakthrough against brain diseases</font size></center>

Dr Michael Kaplitt injects a virus into the brain of Nathan Klein


The Telegraph (London)
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 8:13am BST 22/06/2007

major worldwide breakthrough in gene therapy was signalled last night after injections into the brain were used for the first time to successfully treat a degenerative brain disease.

In a pioneering study, researchers used the treatment to bring about significant improvements in the mobility of Parkinson's sufferers. They said it could also herald a breakthrough in the treatment of other neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's or epilepsy.

The 12 patients involved in the study - a world-first human gene therapy trial for a brain disease - all reported a substantial reduction in their symptoms after having a human gene injected.

Within months, their ability to move had improved on average by 30 per cent. Some reported a 65 per cent improvement in their mobility.

Nathan Klein, 59, the first to undergo the pioneering treatment told The Daily Telegraph last night that before the gene therapy, he had been "in a state that nobody could survive". He said: "The treatment saved my life."

Prof Matthew During, one of the lead researchers, said: "Nathan Klein has further improved, I saw him just a week ago and he looked great, further improved since I had last seen him 18 months ago."

Parkinson's affects about 120,000 people in Britain, with 10,000 new cases diagnosed every year. It robs sufferers of the ability to walk and even eat, causes long motionless periods known as "freezing" as well as head and limb tremors.

As the disease progresses, higher doses of drugs are required, leading to side-effects that include involuntary movements.

Sufferers include the former world boxing champion Muhammad Ali and the actor Michael J Fox.

The study was carried out by a team in the United States. The lead researcher, Dr Michael Kaplitt, said: "We believe this is a milestone - not only for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, but for the use of gene-based therapies against neurological conditions generally."

Dr Kieran Breen, the director of research and development for the UK Parkinson's Disease Society, said: "There are many potential ways to treat or cure Parkinson's, and gene therapy is one potential route holding a lot of promise.

"The results of the study are encouraging in terms of safety and efficacy and we look forward to seeing the results of the larger trial planned for later this year."

The research team, from the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Centre and the New Jersey-based company Neurologix, report their findings in today's edition of The Lancet.

Parkinson's occurs when the brain cells - neurons - that release the messenger chemical known as dopamine die. Protein deposits also form in the brain, and levels of another messenger chemical called GABA - which calms overexcited brain cells - drop.

The study, begun in 2003, was carried out on 11 men and one woman with an average age of 58, who had all had severe Parkinson's for at least five years and for whom current therapies were no longer effective.

They were given injections of billions of copies of a genetically altered virus into part of the brain called the subthalamic nucleus.

The altered virus carried the human gene for an enzyme, called GAD, which helps to make GABA. Once implanted, brain cells of the patients started to make the GABA chemical, said Prof During.

To show that the treatment was truly having an effect, the doctors injected the virus into the subthalamic nucleus of each of the 12 Parkinson's patients, but only on one side of their brains. One reason for this was out of concerns for the patients' safety, after deaths caused by gene therapy.

Three months after the injections, the patients had shown up to 30 per cent improvement. Several showed improvements of up to 65 per cent.

"Will these remarkable improvements persist? Only longer follow-up can tell, but prior studies in animals, including primates, suggest that the transplanted gene does stay active for years," Dr Kaplitt said.

"This breakthrough trial has implications that go far beyond Parkinson's research. It's taken us nearly two decades of hard work to get here, but the success of this trial lays the foundation for the use of gene therapy against neurological diseases generally."

The researchers are planning a larger Phase 2 study in Parkinson's disease this year and a preliminary trial with epilepsy sufferers.

"This ground-breaking study represents not only an encouraging first step in the development of a promising new approach to Parkinson's disease therapy, but also provides a platform to translate a variety of new gene therapy agents into human clinical trials for many devastating brain disorders," said Paul Greengard, the chairman of the Neurologix Scientific Advisory Board.

Prof Alan Kingsman of Oxford Biomedica, who will soon test his own gene therapy treatment for Parkinson', also lauded the results. "This is very good news for the field of gene therapy for neurological disorders," he said.

However, in an accompanying comment in The Lancet, Dr Jon Stoessl, of the Pacific Parkinson's Research Centre at the University of British Columbia, Canada, questioned the advantages of gene therapy over deep-brain stimulation, a current method for treating Parkinson's disease by implanting ultra fine electrodes to stimulate the brain.

"During and colleagues should be congratulated," he said. "But much work should be done before neurologists and neuroscientists will regard this as an effective approach."

Prof During's laboratory grew copies of the human gene used in the therapy in bacteria from DNA isolated from a human sample and the gene multiplied with the bacteria.

Mr Klein announced: 'The treatment saved my life'



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/22/nbrain122.xml

 

[QueEx]

I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer
· Scientist has made synthetic chromosome
· Breakthrough could combat global warming​

​

The Guardian
Ed Pilkington in New York
Saturday October 6 2007

Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.

The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes. It is certain to provoke heated debate about the ethics of creating new species and could unlock the door to new energy sources and techniques to combat global warming.

Mr Venter told the Guardian he thought this landmark would be "a very important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before".

The Guardian can reveal that a team of 20 top scientists assembled by Mr Venter, led by the Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith, has already constructed a synthetic chromosome, a feat of virtuoso bio-engineering never previously achieved. Using lab-made chemicals, they have painstakingly stitched together a chromosome that is 381 genes long and contains 580,000 base pairs of genetic code.

The DNA sequence is based on the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium which the team pared down to the bare essentials needed to support life, removing a fifth of its genetic make-up. The wholly synthetically reconstructed chromosome, which the team have christened Mycoplasma laboratorium, has been watermarked with inks for easy recognition.

It is then transplanted into a living bacterial cell and in the final stage of the process it is expected to take control of the cell and in effect become a new life form. The team of scientists has already successfully transplanted the genome of one type of bacterium into the cell of another, effectively changing the cell's species. Mr Venter said he was "100% confident" the same technique would work for the artificially created chromosome.

The new life form will depend for its ability to replicate itself and metabolise on the molecular machinery of the cell into which it has been injected, and in that sense it will not be a wholly synthetic life form. However, its DNA will be artificial, and it is the DNA that controls the cell and is credited with being the building block of life.

Mr Venter said he had carried out an ethical review before completing the experiment. "We feel that this is good science," he said. He has further heightened the controversy surrounding his potential breakthrough by applying for a patent for the synthetic bacterium.

Pat Mooney, director of a Canadian bioethics organisation, ETC group, said the move was an enormous challenge to society to debate the risks involved. "Governments, and society in general, is way behind the ball. This is a wake-up call - what does it mean to create new life forms in a test-tube?"

He said Mr Venter was creating a "chassis on which you could build almost anything. It could be a contribution to humanity such as new drugs or a huge threat to humanity such as bio-weapons".

Mr Venter believes designer genomes have enormous positive potential if properly regulated. In the long-term, he hopes they could lead to alternative energy sources previously unthinkable. Bacteria could be created, he speculates, that could help mop up excessive carbon dioxide, thus contributing to the solution to global warming, or produce fuels such as butane or propane made entirely from sugar.

"We are not afraid to take on things that are important just because they stimulate thinking," he said. "We are dealing in big ideas. We are trying to create a new value system for life. When dealing at this scale, you can't expect everybody to be happy."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange

 

[macker007]

posted by QueEx
We are not afraid to take on things that are important just because they stimulate thinking," he said. "We are dealing in big ideas. We are trying to create a new value system for life. When dealing at this scale, you can't expect everybody to be happy."


This is interesting stuff here.

 

[VegasGuy]

The Guardian

Nuff said.

-VG

 

[Makkonnen]

danger will robinson!

 

[The Black Hand]

White people kill me. Why are they so obsessed with "playing God"? Nothing good can come of this. To quote Han Solo: "I got a bad feeling about this."

 

[nittie]

We were fighting about the concept of God on the main board a few months ago and I mentioned that if evolution was a universal law then God had to obey it like everyone else. If we were made in His image He went through an evoluntionary process because we did and eventually we will be able to create life too. I thought it would happen but not this soon.

 

[level219]

What if this is the second time that intelligent life has started this process on this planet?

 

[QueEx]

Scientists have a new way to reshape
nature, but none can predict the cost​

​

Synthetic biologists say their technology
could tackle climate change and feed the
hungry, but its dangers are terrifying ​

Madeleine Bunting
Monday October 22, 2007
The Guardian


If you've never heard of synbio, you will hear plenty in the next decade. Synthetic biology now occupies roughly the same space on the public's radar that computing might have done in the 1960s or genetic modification in the 1970s - it's largely unheard of by anyone except the scientific community and its geeky observers. But as the pace of breakthrough in this area quickens, the sense of being on the edge of an extraordinary technological revolution is giving even the scientists involved vertigo.

Part of the reason why synbio has had so little attention in the British media is that most of the running is being made in America. There, a few key players are jockeying for position in a race that promises to make them wealthy in the way that computers did Bill Gates. With the arrival in the UK this week of one of those players, Craig Venter, for a string of public talks, the huge implications of synbio might finally begin to impinge on public consciousness here.

We didn't much like genetic modification (GM) by the time it reached trials in the UK in the 1990s, but that could come to look like a storm in a teacup compared to synbio. While GM was about adding or knocking out the odd gene, synbio is about using nature as a giant Meccano set, building entirely new organisms from bits of DNA called BioBricks in what's known as the bottom-up approach. Alternatively, there's Venter's method of stripping out DNA to find the simplest life form and then using that - like a car chassis - to add bits to achieve a bespoke design: this is the breakthrough he says he is on the point of achieving. In this brave new world, they talk of a future in which synthetic biologists will work much like graphic designers, building new organisms on their laptops and emailing them off to the gene foundry for construction.

The best guess is that we are a year or two away from the first commercial application becoming clear, but already huge money is being ploughed in. Venter and his colleagues are plastering every step of their research with sweepingly broad patent applications; it's a gold rush. By 2015 it's estimated that a fifth of the chemical industry (worth $1.8 trillion) could be dependent on synbio. But if that is to happen, the public have to be kept on side and persuaded that the risks with synbio - and it is a frightening science - are worth taking.

What leading synthetic biologists don't want is a public backlash and heavy-handed government interference. They talk of self-regulation - last week the J Craig Venter Institute in Maryland put out another set of proposals - while pushing their research so far ahead of the public debate that by the time we've all cottoned on to what they're up to, it will be too late to do much about it.

So beware of how we are being sold this scientific revolution with pledges to help Africa's poor and ease global warming. The poster child for synbio is the production of a cheap anti-malarial drug. There is a worldwide shortage of natural artemisinin, the most effective anti-malarial extracted from the wormwood tree, but synthetic biologists are on the verge of finding a way to insert the gene responsible for artemisinin into a strain of yeast which could then "manufacture" it in cheap, vast quantities. Further from development but equally plausible are bacteria that could mop up oil spills or extract heavy metal contamination from soil. The most tantalising possibilities might offer help with climate change: bacteria that could break down cellulose to produce ethanol, and even bacteria that could soak up carbon dioxide. Fuel from vast slurry pits of bacteria (they could always lob in a gene to make the smell palatable): the future is an industrialisation of nature.

Some of these promises will be much like the "golden rice" that was used to promote GM, with claims that it would alleviate chronic vitamin A deficiency across Asia, but which has yet to materialise. However, no one doubts that there will be dramatic and benign applications of synbio. The problem is that no one can predict what their price tag might be. How synbio could go wrong keeps even dedicated synthetic biologists awake at night; one, Drew Endy, at the Massachussets Institute of Technology, has said: "I expect this technology will be misapplied... and it would be irresponsible to have a conversation about the technology without acknowledging that fact." Sir Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, talks of bioterror or "bioerror" - a mistake - that could lead to a million casualties in a single event by 2020.

The most frightening aspect of synbio lies in two dimensions of the science. First, after the upfront research costs, synbio has the potential to be a highly accessible technology much like electronics. Unlike nuclear technology, for example, it won't require expensive resources or unusual expertise. In a decade, thousands of laboratories and science graduates are likely to be able to practise synbio, making the task of regulating its use extremely difficult.

Second, creating fantastic bacteria in a contained laboratory is one thing, but what happens when they get out and cross with their wild cousins, mutating into organisms we had never foreseen? The whole point of this science is the development of large-scale use outside a lab, but can we predict what consequences releasing these new organisms could have? The answer is a resounding no. We know about less than 1% of existing bacteria, and have very little understanding of how they mutate. But what we do know is that bacteria survive almost anything - if some malevolent bacteria developed, they would be hard to kill off.

This is scary stuff, but no one is seriously suggesting we can stop here. Even the most nervous synthetic biologists recognise that if they don't keep ploughing ahead, others without their scruples will: we need responsible scientists to alert us to the possibilities of this science. Besides, the promise of huge riches will keep driving development - Venter claims that if he pulls off his organism, it could be worth billions or even trillions of dollars in licensing deals.

Imagine if the engineers of 18th-century Britain could have foreseen the consequences of industrialisation. If they had been warned that it would bring untold wealth and comfort to millions, but would also disrupt human communities, lead to a terrible escalation of war and huge environmental degradation, how then would they have weighed the massive and momentous consequences? And how are we going to? In a couple of decades we could have a nature to organise entirely as we like - the scientist Freeman Dyson suggested black-leaved forests for more efficient use of sunlight in an article on synbio in a recent New York Review of Books. We could be busy creating our own biodiversity to replace the one we will have lost. We might have a "new, improved nature" which is more efficient in meeting our needs and ensuring the survival of future generations: is that a threat or a promise of salvation? And who are we going to trust to make that judgment call?

· Craig Venter is speaking at the London School of Economics on Wednesday

m.bunting@guardian.co.uk


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2196398,00.html