Moderna’s top scientist: ‘We are actually hacking the software of life’

 Leohohmann

Dr. Tal Zaks, the chief medical officer at Moderna Inc., explained in a 2017 TED talk how the company’s mRNA vaccine was designed to work.

Over the last 30 years, he said, “we’ve been living this phenomenal digital scientific revolution, and I’m here today to tell you, that we are actually hacking the software of life, and that it’s changing the way we think about prevention and treatment of disease.”

He went on to explain [see video below] that the human body is made up of organs and organs are made up of cells.

“In every cell there’s this thing called messenger RNA or mRNA for short, that transmits the critical information from the DNA in our genes to the protein, which is really the stuff we’re all made out of. This is the critical information that determines what the cell will do. So we think about it as an operating system.

“So if you could change that, if you could introduce a line of code, or change a line of code, it turns out, that has profound implications for everything, from the flu to cancer.”

DNA from GM foods can survive harsh processing and digestive conditions according to review

Sustainable Pulse  Jan 18 2019

An international group of toxicologists from the UK, Russia, the Republic of Korea and Greece have published a review of research papers on the fate of the DNA derived from genetically modified food and feed entering the human body and animals. The article has been published in the prestigious journal Food and Chemical Toxicology.

According to the review data, the DNA from GM foods can survive harsh processing and digestive conditions. The authors stated that there is strong evidence that plant-food-miRNAs can survive digestion, enter the body and affect gene expression patterns.

They also added that there is limited evidence of food-born DNA integrating into the genome of the consumer and of horizontal transfer of GM crop DNA into gut bacteria.

“We are only talking about the limited pieces of evidence of this process, because this area has been insufficiently studied. Although we have not found evidence of any effect of DNA of GM products on the human genome, we can safely say that micro-ribonucleic acid (one of the main molecules in cells of living organisms, in addition to DNA and proteins) of the plant food treated with insecticides and antiviral sprays, enters the body of its consumers and can affect genetic processes. This needs exploring further,” commented one of the review co-authors Dr. Muhammad Amjad Nawaz, a visiting scientist at the “Nanotechnology” Research and Education Center (REC) operating at the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU).

In the review, the scientists examined the mechanisms by which foreign DNA can survive during digestion and penetrate into the cells of the body of those who eat GM foods. In particular, the researchers are interested in the region of the gastrointestinal tract as the hot spot for horizontal gene transfer of GM food DNA into gut bacteria. Such a transfer could potentially lead to dysbiosis and ill-health, as well as subsequent mutations.

As of 2016, the global production of genetically modified crops for food and feed was 185.1 million hectares. With such production volumes, more independent research on the potential effects of genetically modified products on human and animal health is vital.

Research: humans and animals sprang from single pair

Dailymail   24 November 2018

All modern humans descended from a solitary pair who lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, scientists say.

Scientists surveyed the genetic 'bar codes' of five million animals - including humans - from 100,000 different species and deduced that we sprang from a single pair of adults after a catastrophic event almost wiped out the human race. 

These bar codes, or snippets of DNA that reside outside the nuclei of living cells, suggest that it's not just people who came from a single pair of beings, but nine out of every 10 animal species, too.

Do We Need an International Body to Regulate Genetic Engineering?

Kristen V. Brown  1/18/17

Imagine a scenario, perhaps a few years from now, in which Canada decides to release thousands of mosquitoes genetically modified to fight the spread of a devastating mosquito-borne illness. While Canada has deemed these lab-made mosquitoes ethical, legal and safe for both humans and the environment, the US has not. Months later, by accident and circumstance, the engineered skeeters show up across the border. The laws of one land, suddenly, have become the rule of another.

If modern science can can defy the boundaries of borders, who exactly should be charged with deciding what science to unleash upon the world?

A version of this hypothetical scenario is already unfolding in the UK. Last year, the British government gave scientists the green light to genetically engineer human embryos. But in the US and most other nations, this possibility is still both illegal and morally fraught. Opponents to the practice argue that it risks opening up a Pandora’s Box of designer babies and genetically engineered super-humans. Even many more neutral voices argue that the technology demands further scrutiny.

And yet, the UK, at the vanguard of genetic engineering human beings, has already opened that box. In 2015, the British government approved the use of a controversial gene-editing technology to stop devastating mitochondrial diseases from being passed on from mothers to their future children. And last February, the UK granted the first license in the world to edit healthy human embryos for research. Recently, a Newsweek headline asked whether the scientists of this small island nation are in fact deciding the fate of all of humanity. It is a pretty good question.

If modern science can can defy the boundaries of borders, who should be charged with deciding which science to unleash upon the world?

This alarming ethical conundrum has not escaped the notice of global governments. A National Intelligence Council report released this month concluded that “genome editing and human enhancement” are “likely to pose some of the most contentious values questions in the coming decades.” Advancements in these arenas, the report said, “will affect relations between states.”    More

Scientists ‘on the brink’ of creating complex life form

Stephen Chen Friday, 10 March, 2017, 3:02am

Chinese scientists are taking part in an immense international project that is expected to create complex artificial life in the laboratory for the first time by the end of the year.

Researchers had previously produced simple life forms such as viruses and bacteria but this time the aim is to make an “eukaryotic organism”, one with cells containing a nucleus surrounded by a membrane and with DNA held together by proteins.

A research team with more than 200 scientists from countries including the United States and China will announce on Friday that Sc2.0, the world’s first artificially designed and built eukaryotic organism, is expected to “come alive” by the end of this year.

The new organism could lead to advances in genetic therapies that could help people live longer, the scientists said.

More than a third of the work was already complete, they said, with successful laboratory synthesis of six of the 16 chromosomes that held the organism’s DNA strands. Their methodology, research observations and technological developments were detailed in seven papers in the latest issue of Science.       SCMP

First step to ‘designer life’: Biologists breed bacteria with lab-made DNA, adding two extra, artificial letters

For billions of years, life has danced that same old DNA jig. At some point after Earth’s formation, but before bacterial slime formed the planet’s oldest fossils 3.7 billion years ago, DNA became the system by which virtually every organism stored and passed on its genetic information. No matter how many times mutations or natural selection remixed the tune, four nitrogenous base units always comprised DNA: adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine. This was as true for hairy apes as it was for brewer’s yeast, redwoods and Tyrannosaurus rex.

Now, scientists led by the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have added two extra, artificial letters to the ancient alphabet of A, C, G and T. And the E. coli living with this unusual six-letter, three-base-pair alphabet are, by the account published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, capable of surviving tough laboratory conditions.         Read more