Lifeboat Foundation

By coating nanoparticles with gold, researchers have successfully destroyed prostate cancer cells in people without damaging surrounding tissue.

SCIENTISTS have made a major breakthrough which they hope could lead to a cure to HIV and AIDS.

New nerve cells represent a quantum jump for regenerative therapy.

Unlike other reprogrammed stem cells, these can continue to multiply in a lab.

Remarkable! 🎸 🎶

A potent molecular cocktail containing a compound from ayahuasca spurs rapid growth of insulin-producing cells.

• By Emily Willingham on December 21, 2018

Today, the application of engineering methodologies to the rational modification of organisms is a persistent goal of synthetic biology. Most synthetic biologists describe biological engineering as a hierarchy, wherein parts (genes, DNA) are used to build devices (many genes together), which in turn can be used to construct systems (a series of many devices). The challenge in transforming synthetic biology into a true engineering discipline is that the parts, which are the rudimentary building blocks of higher-order constructions, are fundamentally limited by the rigor of their characterization. This is really the case in all established engineering disciplines. In electrical engineering, for instance, the baseline components (transistors, resistors, wires, etc.) have been characterized so well that children can use them and the resulting circuits behave as expected. Once all ‘parts’ are standardized, it may be possible for synthetic biologists to use individual DNA building blocks to construct entirely synthetic life forms from the bottom-up.

Coming up with potent anti-cancer drugs is one thing, delivering them to the site of a tumor inside the body is very much another. With a complicated organism guarded by a highly evolved immune system to navigate, getting these particles to there target in one piece is a challenging task, and one that scientists are continuing to tackle from all angles. A promising new approach developed at Virginia Tech leans on the penetrative properties of a salmonella infection, which they’ve found can be used as a vehicle to smuggle cancer-fighting nanoparticles into a tumor in a huge abundance.

Had a great time with my regenerative biology Q&A session with Ayersville (Ohio, USA) Schools 2nd graders and high school advanced anatomy class — so happy to see kids out there that are interested in these topics at such a young age — creating the future, one mind at a time — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_uu9f7nafc

Plants are very good at producing oxygen that we all need in order to breath, but what about clearing the air of harmful chemicals? Past research has revealed that plants do a bit of housekeeping when it comes to cleaning the air of certain compounds but researchers wondered if they could help boost that function with a genetic tweak.

In new research published in Environmental Science & Technology, researchers explain how they were able to give a common house plant more power to clean the air around it, and it’s all thanks to DNA from a mammal.