UK Scientists Plan to Construct Synthetic Human Genetic Material From Scratch (theguardian.com) 21
"Researchers are embarking on an ambitious project to construct human genetic material from scratch," reports the Guardian, "to learn more about how DNA works and pave the way for the next generation of medical therapies."
Scientists on the Synthetic Human Genome (SynHG) project will spend the next five years developing the tools and knowhow to build long sections of human genetic code in the lab. These will be inserted into living cells to understand how the code operates.
Armed with the insights, scientists hope to devise radical new therapies for the treatment of diseases. Among the possibilities are living cells that are resistant to immune attack or particular viruses, which could be transplanted into patients with autoimmune diseases or with liver damage from chronic viral infections. "The information gained from synthesising human genomes may be directly useful in generating treatments for almost any disease," said Prof Jason Chin, who is leading the project at the MRC's Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge...
For the SynHG project, researchers will start by making sections of a human chromosome and testing them in human skin cells. The project involves teams from the universities of Cambridge, Kent, Manchester, Oxford and Imperial College London... Embedded in the project is a parallel research effort into the social and ethical issues that arise from making genomes in the laboratory, led by Prof Joy Zhang at the University of Kent. "We're a little way off having anything tangible that can be used as a therapy, but this is the time to start the discussion on what we want to see and what we don't want to see," said Dr Julian Sale, a group leader at the LMB.
Armed with the insights, scientists hope to devise radical new therapies for the treatment of diseases. Among the possibilities are living cells that are resistant to immune attack or particular viruses, which could be transplanted into patients with autoimmune diseases or with liver damage from chronic viral infections. "The information gained from synthesising human genomes may be directly useful in generating treatments for almost any disease," said Prof Jason Chin, who is leading the project at the MRC's Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge...
For the SynHG project, researchers will start by making sections of a human chromosome and testing them in human skin cells. The project involves teams from the universities of Cambridge, Kent, Manchester, Oxford and Imperial College London... Embedded in the project is a parallel research effort into the social and ethical issues that arise from making genomes in the laboratory, led by Prof Joy Zhang at the University of Kent. "We're a little way off having anything tangible that can be used as a therapy, but this is the time to start the discussion on what we want to see and what we don't want to see," said Dr Julian Sale, a group leader at the LMB.
Truly from scratch? (Score:2)
"..pave the way for the next generation of humans" (Score:4, Funny)
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In 5 years (Score:2)
"Scientists on the Synthetic Human Genome (SynHG) project will spend the next five years developing the tools and knowhow to build long sections of human genetic code in the lab."
Yeah, come back to us when you've actually done some of that. I'm going to do a lot of amazingly cool things over the next five years too. Or not.
Space travel (Score:2)
I guess deep-freezing eggs and sperm would be easier.
Re: Space travel (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
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Or in 5.
Right, because people are just bodies (Score:1)
Lets not worry about the psychological effect of being "born" in a spaceship with no parents and being expected to colonise some planet no one has ever visited. Yes, I can see perfectly well adjusted individuals coming out the other end.
Go back to your sci fi books mate.
Drug delivery problem (Score:3)
We should spend money instead on the biggest barrier to that prevents humans from curing virtually any disease -- the drug delivery problem. All other problems solvability is difficult only because of the fact that we haven't a solution to it.
"How do you deliver a large payload into every and any cell of the human body?"
The closest tech we have to that is "LNP (for mRNA) + protein binder" or Adenovirus vector.
Small molecules can be delivered into every cell, however small notoriously molecules go off target and even if it didn't they cannot fix every problem in a cell.
If you can efficiently deliver a large payload—such as 15 kilobases of mRNA or an equivalent amount of protein—directly into the cytoplasm of every cell, you can essentially equip each cell with an internal diagnostic lab. This setup can detect abnormal or harmful cellular activity by sensing internal mRNA or aberrant proteins. If a cell is identified as malfunctioning or cancerous, you can then either correct the defect or initiate destruction of the cell. There are numerous ways to do the detection of unwanted mRNA and, if present, perform an action, however they all require large molecular "machines" (proteins/RNA).
Re: Drug delivery problem (Score:2)
If only there were enough people to be able to do (work toward) **both** of these goalsâ¦
What's the core of the project? (Score:2)
You are not up to date (Score:3)
The synthetic yeast genome project (the precursor to this project) is more or less complete (currently at about 70%). Most chromosomes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been successfully synthesized from scratch. We are not speaking of a few hundred nucleotides (that was state of the art a couple of decades ago), but millions, all properly wrapped up in the proteins stabilizing chromosomes in eukaryotic cells. This project is a logical extension.
Original text fine, editor added tautology (Score:2)
This was fine as it was: "UK Scientists Plan to Construct Human Genetic Material From Scratch"
Re: Original text fine, editor added tautology (Score:2)
Why did you feel the need to capitalize editor?
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