Sariel007

Sariel007 OP t1_iree9ir wrote

>In July, an HIV-positive man became the first volunteer in a clinical trial aimed at using Crispr gene editing to snip the AIDS-causing virus out of his cells. For an hour, he was hooked up to an IV bag that pumped the experimental treatment directly into his bloodstream. The one-time infusion is designed to carry the gene-editing tools to the man’s infected cells to clear the virus.

>Later this month, the volunteer will stop taking the antiretroviral drugs he’s been on to keep the virus at undetectable levels. Then, investigators will wait 12 weeks to see if the virus rebounds. If not, they’ll consider the experiment a success. “What we’re trying to do is return the cell to a near-normal state,” says Daniel Dornbusch, CEO of Excision BioTherapeutics, the San Francisco-based biotech company that’s running the trial.

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Sariel007 OP t1_iqvgt9i wrote

>It is a long way from the romance of a sun-dappled Highland glen. Picture instead a white cube equipped with the computer-controlled automation you would sooner expect to see in an Amazon or Ikea warehouse.

>Scotland’s state forestry agency believes this prefabricated structure, erected at an agricultural research centre near Dundee, could play a significant part in its quest to help combat climate heating by greatly expanding the country’s forest cover.

>Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) wants to plant tens of millions of new trees in the coming years – conifers such as Norway and sitka spruce, douglas fir and Scots pine, and broadleaf varieties such as oak, alder and birch.

>This white cube, held up by steel ribs and girders, can help it do so at a remarkable speed and efficiency, producing saplings six times faster than it takes to grow them naturally outdoors. In the open, it would take about 18 months to bring a tree seedling up to 40-50mm in height; in these units, that growing time is about 90 days.

>“Essentially, this isn’t a building. It’s a machine; it’s a growing machine,” said Georgia Lea, a communications manager for Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS), the Edinburgh-based firm that has designed the system.

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Sariel007 OP t1_iqm7ufr wrote

>The human genome is made of more than 6 billion letters, and each person has a unique configuration of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts—the molecular building blocks that make up DNA. Determining the sequence of all those letters used to take vast amounts of money, time, and effort. The Human Genome Project took 13 years and thousands of researchers. The final cost: $2.7 billion.

>That 1990 project kicked off the age of genomics, helping scientists unravel genetic drivers of cancer and many inherited diseases while spurring the development of at-home DNA tests, among other advances. Next, researchers started sequencing more genomes: from animals, plants, bacteria, and viruses. Ten years ago, it cost about $10,000 for researchers to sequence a human genome. A few years ago, that fell to $1,000. Today, it’s about $600.

>Now, sequencing is about to get even cheaper. At an industry event in San Diego today, genomics behemoth Illumina unveiled what it calls its fastest, most cost-efficient sequencing machines yet, the NovaSeq X series. The company, which controls around 80 percent of the DNA sequencing market globally, believes its new technology will slash the cost to just $200 per human genome while providing a readout at twice the speed. Francis deSouza, Illumina’s CEO, says the more powerful model will be able to sequence 20,000 genomes per year; its current machines can do about 7,500. Illumina will start selling the new machines today and ship them next year.

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