Forget life on Mars, we could soon design and ‘print’ alien cells on EARTH, claims scientist

(SOURCE)  We could soon be able to design cells or entire organisms using computer software and 3D printers, a scientist has claimed.

The cells could be used to create biofuels, combat global warming, develop new healthcare and medicines and even recreate alien lifeforms on earth, if alien DNA is ever found.

J.Craig Venter – who helped map the human genome and created the world’s first synthetic life form in 2010 – details the theory in his new book Life at the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life.

J.Craig Venter – who created the world’s first synthetic life form in 2010 – believes we could soon be designing cells and organisms using computer software and 3D printers. The cells could be used to create biofuels, combat global warming, develop new medicines and even recreate alien lifeforms

Scientists begin mapping the genetic blueprint of babies for hundreds of diseases amid raging ethical debate

By Associated Press

PUBLISHED: 12:03 EST, 7 October 2013

This healthy baby girl, Amelia Sloan, became a pioneer for gene mapping shortly after her birth.

Amelia is part of a large research project outside the U.S. capital that is decoding the DNA of hundreds of infants.

New parents in a few other cities soon can start signing up for smaller studies to explore what’s called genome sequencing – fully mapping someone’s genes to look for health risks and should become a part of newborn care.

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Baby Amelia: Holly Sloan interacts with her baby Amelia at their home in Warrenton, Virginia (Amelia is part of a large genetic project in the U.S)

However, it’s full of ethical challenges.

Should parents be told only about childhood threats? Or would they also want to learn if their babies carried a key gene for, say, breast cancer after they’re grown?

Could knowing about future risks alter how a family treats an otherwise healthy youngster? And how accurate is this technology. Could it raise too many false alarms?

Scientists infect mosquitos with bacteria to curb malaria transmission

 By Agence France-Presse

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US scientists have found a way to infect mosquitoes with bacteria in order to break the chain of malaria transmission, according to research published Thursday in a leading scientific journal.

A similar approach has helped cut back on dengue in some locations, and researchers hope that the findings could offer a path toward reducing malaria among the most common mosquitoes in the Middle East and South Asia.

The bacterial infection is inheritable and could be passed on for as many as 34 generations of mosquitoes, rendering them immune to malaria parasites, reported experts from the National Institutes of Health in the journal Science.

Scientists injected Anopheles mosquito embryos with Wolbachia, a common insect bacterium. When the mosquitoes matured, they bred the adult females with uninfected males.

The infection endured for 34 generations of mosquitoes. The study ended at that point, so it remains unknown how much longer the bacterial infection would have been passed on, preventing malaria transmission.

Researchers also tried introducing the bacterial infection in small numbers of adult mosquitoes, between five and 20 percent of females in a given population.

Within eight generations, all of the mosquitoes were infected with the malaria-blocking infection.

The evidence supports the “potential of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes as a malaria control strategy,” said the study.

Previous research has shown the bacterium could prevent malaria-inducing Plasmodium parasites from developing in Anopheles mosquitoes.

But in this study, scientists were able to show for the first time that they could create mosquitoes with a stable Wolbachia infection that passed consistently from mother to offspring.

Researchers also discovered that the infection killed malaria parasites both in the mosquitoes’ guts and in the salivary glands, the main avenue for transmission to humans via mosquito bites.

About 660,000 people die worldwide every year from malaria.

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Latest HIV vaccine doesn’t work; govt halts study

WASHINGTON: The latest bad news in the hunt for an AIDS vaccine: the government halted a large US study on Thursday, saying the experimental shots are not preventing HIV infection.

– File Photo

 SOURCE

Nor did the shots reduce the amount of the AIDS virus in the blood when people who had been vaccinated later became infected, the National Institutes of Health said.

“It’s disappointing,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases but added that “there was important information gained from this” study that will help determine what to try next.

The study had enrolled 2,504 volunteers, mostly gay men, in 19 cities since 2009. Half received dummy shots, and half received a two-part experimental vaccine developed by the NIH. All were provided free condoms and given extensive counselling about the risks for HIV.

It is a strategy known as “prime-boost.” A DNA-based vaccine made with genetically engineered HIV material is given to prime the immune system to attack the AIDS virus.

Then a different vaccine, encasing the same material inside a shell made of a disabled cold virus, acts as a booster shot to strengthen that response. Neither vaccine could cause HIV.

The idea: train immune cells known as T cells to spot and attack the very earliest HIV-infected cells in someone’s body. The hope was that the vaccine could either prevent HIV infection, or help those infected anyway to fight it.

A safety review this week found that slightly more study participants who had received the vaccine later became infected with HIV. It is not clear why. But the difference was not statistically significant, meaning it may be due to chance.

Overall, there were 41 HIV infections in the vaccinated group and 30 among placebo recipients.

When researchers examined only participants diagnosed after being in the study for at least 28 weeks – long enough for the shots to have done their job – there were 27 HIV infections among the vaccinated and 21 among the placebo recipients.

The NIH said Thursday that it is stopping vaccinations in the study, known as HVTN 505, but that researchers will continue to study the volunteers’ health.

Josh Robbins, 30, is among the participants who became infected. He said he is glad he was in the study, because its close monitoring meant he was diagnosed and treated much sooner than most people – and he is feeling great – and because the findings help science.

“We’ve got to keep moving forward,” Robbins said. The study “certainly can lead us down a new direction to hopefully find something that might work.”

Multiple attempts at creating an AIDS vaccine have failed over the years. A 2009 study in Thailand is the only one ever to show a modest success, using a somewhat different prime-boost approach.

Newer research suggests another approach – to try creating powerful antibodies that could work a step earlier than the T-cell attack, before HIV gets inside the first cell.

Both approaches need continued research funding, said Mitchell Warren of the international AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition.

“Clearly an AIDS vaccine remains critical,” he said.

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