Tag Archives: biotechnology

genetic engineering and coronavirus vaccines

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Some of the coronavirus candidates are being developed using tech such as chicken eggs that have been around for a while (no, I don’t know which one came first…) But there are also some cutting edge genetic engineering technologies being applied to commercial vaccine development for the first time.

The gene-based vaccines (several based on messenger RNA, and which I’ll refer to as mRNA vaccines from here on out) are novel and promising because of the speed with which they can be designed and scaled for manufacturing, but none has ever been licensed for use to combat a disease. The mRNA candidates inject genetic coding from the SARS-CoV-2 virus into the vaccinee, which then induces the body to create part of the virus to attack with an immune response. In other words, through genetic coding, the body itself produces a component of the pathogen, which then primes the body to attack the full virus if it later presents itself.

Viral vector vaccines using adenoviruses are also more novel than traditional vaccine platforms. Viral vector vaccines use a genetically engineered virus that is not the vaccine target to deliver into the cells of a vaccinee the genetic instructions to produce a protein of the targeted virus, which then induces an immune response. The European Medicines Agency (Europe’s counterpart to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) recently approved an adenovirus vaccine (with a booster) for the prevention of Ebola.

AEI

I remember reading in the past that new techniques like these should be applied to vaccine development, but weren’t being because the sure-fire profit motive wasn’t there for the big drug companies. I guess tens of billions of dollars in government funding changed that in a matter of months. The good thing is we will have this technology up and running going forward. The bad thing is it sounds a little scary if it were to fall into the wrong hands.

what’s new with genetic engineering

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The Week has a roundup.

  • Genetically modified mosquitoes are set to be released in Florida this year and Texas next year. They pass along a gene to their offspring that causes them to die as larvae, potentially wiping out a particularly nasty species that can spread all kinds of disease like Zika, West Nile, and Dengue fever. I know lots of people who have had Dengue fever and it’s nasty. It surprises me we don’t have it in the U.S. yet when we have the mosquitoes now that carry it. Our winter must be just a tiny bit too cool, and how long will that last. The article points out that birds and bats eat mosquitoes. That is certainly true. I tend to think some other little critter will just fill the niche left by the mosquitoes, but we’ll see. Hopefully the birds will have something to eat. As for the bats, I’m kind of mad at them right now.
  • Similar technology is being used to target the diamondback moth and army worm, agricultural pests.
  • University of Georgia made the first genetically modified reptile last year.
  • Genetically modified salmon are already in commercial production.
  • Plants are being modified to absorb more carbon dioxide. (This one actually concerns me. If you release plants that can outcompete native plants that a broad range of insects rely on, there goes your entire food chain. This seems much riskier than targeting one type of insect at a time.)

U.S. Army biological weapons testing

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It is documented that the U.S. Army intentionally tested biological weapons on American civilians, mostly in the 50s and 60s. From The New York Times archive in a 1994 article:

The Army released an organism called Aspergillus fumigatus at the Norfolk Naval Supply Center because most workers were black; for some reason, the testers imagined an enemy might target the blacks at military bases. “Since Negroes are more susceptible to coccidioides than are whites,” a report said, “this fungus disease was simulated by using Aspergillus fumigatus.” Aspergillus, further, was known to cause lethal infections.

In 1949, and for 20 years afterward, the Army released bacteria among millions of unsuspecting people. At hearings in 1977, Pentagon witnesses acknowledged that bacteria and chemical particles were sprayed over San Francisco, St. Louis, Minneapolis and 236 other populated locations.

The Army conceded that it had released microorganisms at Washington National Airport in 1965 and into the New York City subway system in 1966 during peak travel hours. The purpose was to see how the bacteria spread and survived as people went about their routine activities.

New York Times

The article goes on to say that the Army still (as of 1994) intentionally tests microorganisms at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Chemical weapons were also once tested in the same area, with devastating results for nearby sheep.

an immunity test for Covid?

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This article raises the possibility that maybe an immunity test for Covid-2 could be rolled out faster than a vaccine. The concept is that people who have had the disease and recovered, thereby developing some immunity (which is still being studied and not 100% confirmed that it is long-lasting), could be identified and allowed to resume their normal routines before people who have not been exposed and/or are at high risk.

January 2020 in Review

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Most frightening and/or depressing story:
  • Open cyberwarfare became a thing in the 2010s. We read the individual headlines but didn’t connect the dots. When you do connect the dots, it’s a little shocking what’s going on.
Most hopeful story:
  • Democratic socialism actually does produce a high quality of life for citizens in many parts of the world. Meanwhile, the hard evidence shows that the United States is slipping behind its peer group in many measures of economic vibrancy and quality of life. The response of our leaders is to tell us we are great again because that is what we want to hear, but not do anything that would help us to actually be great again or even keep up with the middle of the pack. This is in the hopeful category because solutions exist and we can choose to pursue them.
Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both:

science trends to watch in 2020

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Wired has a story on science trends to watch in 2020.

  • Stem cells are being used to grow mini-versions of all sorts of human organs, including hearts, kidneys and brains.
  • advances in trying to detect dark matter
  • the end of a key U.S tax credit for solar panels
  • gene editing going mainstream in medical treatments, and newer, safer techniques evolving (pun intended, ha ha!)
  • obvious bond villain Elon Musk launching satellites by the thousands. Also, private flights to the International Space Station.
  • use of massive data sets in “personalized medicine”

Meanwhile, here’s a rundown from LiveScience.com on the weird, wacky world of quantum physics. In a nutshell, these are recent, real-world experiments where matter, energy, and even time do things you wouldn’t think they are supposed to do.

The Minnesota Diet

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In this short story by Charlie Jane Anders, a relatively near-future (it refers to events “way back in the 2040s”) smart city is beset by supply chain problems with automated trucks that no human can seem to control. It also seems like nobody can leave. I’ll try not to spoil the plot but I’ll just list a few of the technologies woven into the story:

  • automated passenger and freight vehicles. Algorithms seem to determine who gets what in terms of food, and the government is not functional enough to step in. You can rent a car but where it can go depends on its software license.
  • jobs seem to be mostly professional tech and amorphous “business”, plus service jobs to support them. No truck drivers, construction workers, assembly line workers, etc.
  • “bioplastic” seems to be the key building material, produced by crops and/or genetically engineered fungus. Using crop land for this stuff rather than food seems to be part of the problem.
  • augmented reality goggles, but people are also still staring at screens
  • vertical farms producing maybe a sixth of the food supply. These seem to mostly or completely automated.

The title is a reference to the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, which was a World War II-era scientific study in which people actually volunteered to (partially) starve and then test out different ways to recover. According to Wikipedia it was a diet of about 1500 calories per day consisting mostly of potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, bread and macaroni for 24 weeks. It actually doesn’t sound all that terrible to me because these are relatively filling, satisfying foods. But 24 weeks sounds like a long, long time. I think I could handle this for 24 days if I was allowed unlimited seasonings and condiments, and maybe a beer or two on Fridays.

October 2019 in Review

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Most frightening and/or depressing story:

  • A third of all of North America’s birds may have disappeared since the 1970s. (Truth be told, it was hard to pick a single most depressing story line in a month when I covered propaganda, pandemic, new class divisions created by genetic engineering, and nuclear war. But while those are scary risks for the near future, it appears the world is right in the middle of an ongoing and obvious ecological collapse, and not talking much about it.)

Most hopeful story:

  • I’ll go with hard shell tacos. They are one of the good things in this life, whether they are authentic Mexican food or “trailer park cuisine” as I tagged the story!  

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both:

  • A list of “jobs of the future” includes algorithms, automation, and AI; customer experience; environmental; fitness and wellness; health care; legal and financial services; transportation; and work culture. I’ll oversimplify this list as computer scientist, engineer, doctor, lawyer, banker, which don’t sound all that different than the jobs of the past. But it occurs to me that these are jobs where the actual tools people are using and day-to-day work tasks evolve with the times, even if the intended outcomes are basically the same. What might be new is that even in these jobs, you need to make an effort to keep learning every day throughout your career and life if you want to keep up.

There will still be openings for evil HR cats.

glyphosate ban in Thailand

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I find it interesting that Thailand is banning the herbicide glyphosate, which is widely used in the U.S. The U.S. is protesting this ban, and I wondered why until I realized that it could include a ban on importing food from the U.S. grown with glyphosate. One chemical and one relatively small export market might not be a big deal, but food is one thing the U.S. does still export in enormous quantities, and if bans like this spread on a larger scale and encompass more chemicals and biotechnologies, it could start to affect our agricultural practices. Probably for the better, but it could be complicated.

bee-delivered pesticides

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Now bees can be directed to deliver pesticides on behalf of humans. It sounds kind of sinister, but it is just a relatively harmless antifungal chemical in this particular application.

On August 28, the EPA approved the first-ever bee-distributed organic pesticide for the US market—a fungus-fighting powder called Vectorite that contains the spores of a naturally occurring fungus called Clonostachys rosea (CR-7). CR-7 is completely harmless to its host plant and acts as a hostile competitor to other, less innocuous fungi. It has been approved for commercial growers of flowering crops like blueberries, strawberries, almonds, and tomatoes.

Mulder and Scully could not be reached for comment at the time of this publication, but we were able to obtain this archived footage.