Monthly Archives: June 2022

ClearPoint Neuro Congratulates Partner PTC Therapeutics on Receiving Positive CHMP Opinion for Gene Therapy to Treat AADC Deficiency – GuruFocus.com

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:39 am

SOLANA BEACH, Calif., May 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClearPoint Neuro, Inc. ( CLPT) (the Company), a global therapy-enabling platform company providing navigation and delivery to the brain, today congratulates partner PTC Therapeutics for receiving a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agencys (EMA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommending its gene therapy treatment Upstaza (eladocagene exuparvovec), formerly PTC-AADC, for the treatment of aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC) deficiency. The use of ClearPoint Neuros proprietary CE Marked SmartFlow Neuro Ventricular Cannula for minimally invasive infusion of the gene therapy is included in the submission for administration of Upstaza.

This is a significant milestone for PTC Therapeutics, for ClearPoint and for biologics researchers everywhere as it marks the very first positive CHMP recommendation for direct injection to the brain of a gene therapy to treat a severe, highly morbid and fatal neurological disorder, commented Joe Burnett, President and CEO of ClearPoint Neuro. This milestone is incredibly important for a couple of reasons. First, it provides a potential path for other therapies to follow and sets an important precedent for regulatory approval of direct administered gene therapies to the brain. And second, we see this as a validation of ClearPoints biologics partnership strategy and our rigorous bench, preclinical and clinical experience. We believe this announcement will give our 45 existing and future pharmaceutical, academic and biotech partners the confidence that SmartFlow is able to pass through the necessary regulatory scrutiny and can de-risk the commercialization efforts of many different drugs to multiple targets in the brain.

About aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC) deficiency

AADC deficiency is a fatal, rare genetic disorder that typically causes severe disability and suffering from the first months of life, affecting every aspect of life physical, mental, and behavioral. The suffering of children with AADC deficiency may be exacerbated by episodes of distressing seizure-like oculogyric crises, which can happen daily and last for hours, causing the eyes to roll up in the head, frequent vomiting, behavioral problems, difficulty sleeping, and life-threatening complications such as respiratory infections and gastrointestinal problems.

There is no disease-modifying treatment approved for AADC deficiency, and the lives of affected children are severely impacted, and shortened, with the use of many different medications to help manage symptoms. Ongoing physical, occupational and speech therapy, and interventions, including surgery, to manage potentially life-threatening complications such as infections, severe feeding, and breathing problems also are often required.

About the SmartFlow Cannula

With over 5,000 cannulas sold to date, SmartFlow is the only co-labeled device to gain approval by a regulatory agency for delivery of an approved gene therapy to the brain. The industry-leading cannula is used by many of ClearPoint Neuros 45 pharmaceutical, academic, and biotech partners to bypass the blood brain barrier and deliver therapeutics to regions of interest using Convection Enhanced Delivery (CED) under direct image guidance. The SmartFlow cannula has received 510(k) clearance from the FDA for use in the United States for the aspiration of cerebrospinal fluid or injection of the chemotherapy drug Cytarabine into the ventricles. It has also been CE marked to deliver approved fluids into the brain or aspiration of CSF. SmartFlow is being utilized in approved clinical and preclinical studies for various research and drug trials. This device is not intended for implant and is intended for single patient use only.

About ClearPoint Neuro

ClearPoint Neuros mission is to improve and restore quality of life to patients and their families by enabling therapies for the most complex neurological disorders with pinpoint accuracy. Applications of the Companys current product portfolio include deep brain stimulation, laser ablation, biopsy, neuro-aspiration, and delivery of drugs, biologics, and gene therapy to the brain. The ClearPoint Neuro Navigation System has FDA clearance, is CE-marked, and is installed in over 60 active sites in the United States, Canada, and Europe. ClearPoint Neuro is partnered with approximately 45 biologics/pharmaceutical companies and academic centers, providing solutions for direct CNS delivery of therapeutics in preclinical studies and clinical trials worldwide. To date, more than 5,000 cases have been performed and supported by the Companys field-based clinical specialist team, which offers support and services to our customers and partners worldwide. For more information, please visit http://www.clearpointneuro.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements herein concerning the Companys plans, growth and strategies may include forward-looking statements within the context of the federal securities laws. Statements regarding the Company's future events, developments and future performance, as well as management's expectations, beliefs, plans, estimates or projections relating to the future, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of these laws. Uncertainties and risks may cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by forward-looking statements. Particular uncertainties and risks include those relating to: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures adopted to contain its spread; future revenue from sales of the Companys ClearPoint Neuro Navigation System products; the Companys ability to market, commercialize and achieve broader market acceptance for the Companys ClearPoint Neuro Navigation System products; and risks inherent in the research and development of new products. More detailed information on these and additional factors that could affect the Companys actual results are described in the Risk Factors section of the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, and the Companys Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended March 31, 2022, both of which have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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ClearPoint Neuro Congratulates Partner PTC Therapeutics on Receiving Positive CHMP Opinion for Gene Therapy to Treat AADC Deficiency - GuruFocus.com

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Tenaya Therapeutics Launches Operations of New Genetic Medicines Manufacturing Center to Support the Development of Potentially First-In-Class…

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:39 am

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tenaya Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: TNYA), a biotechnology company with a mission to discover, develop and deliver curative therapies that address the underlying causes of heart disease, today announced that it has completed the build-out and operational launch of its Genetic Medicines Manufacturing Center in Union City, California. Tenaya is advancing a pipeline of therapeutic candidates, including several adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapies, for the potential treatment of both rare and prevalent forms of heart disease.

Tenaya made an early, strategic commitment to internalize several core capabilities to optimize the safety, efficacy, and supply of our product candidates on behalf of patients. With todays announcement we have made a big leap forward on that commitment by establishing end-to-end in-house manufacturing capabilities for our pipeline of AAV-based gene therapies, said Faraz Ali, Chief Executive Officer of Tenaya. The operational launch of Tenayas Genetic Medicines Manufacturing Center represents an important milestone as we prepare to advance our robust pipeline of potentially first-in-class cardiovascular therapies into initial clinical studies.

Tenayas Genetic Medicines Manufacturing Center is designed to meet regulatory requirements for production of AAV gene therapies from discovery through commercialization under Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) standards. Initial production efforts will support first-in-human studies of Tenayas lead gene therapy, TN-201. TN-201 is being developed for the treatment of genetic hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) due to MYBPC3 gene mutations. Tenaya plans to submit an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for TN-201 to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the second half of this year. The facility will also support cGMP production for TN-401, Tenayas gene therapy program being developed for the treatment of genetic arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) due to PKP2 gene mutations, for which the company plans to submit an IND to the FDA in 2023.

The investment in our own world-class manufacturing facility provides Tenaya with greater control over product attributes, quality, production timelines and costs, which we believe will ultimately translate into better treatments for patients, said Kee-Hong Kim, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer of Tenaya Therapeutics. Tenayas Genetic Medicines Manufacturing Center complements our established internal genetic engineering and drug discovery capabilities and is designed to meet our near- and long-term needs such that we can readily scale and expand as our pipeline matures and evolves.

Tenaya completed customization of approximately half of the 94,000 square foot facility to incorporate manufacturing suites and labs, office space and storage. Utilizing a modular design, the state-of-the-art facility is now fully operational with initial capacity to produce AAV-based gene therapies at the 1000L scale, utilizing Tenayas proprietary baculovirus-based production platform and suspension Sf9 cell culture system. The excess space and modular design of the Genetic Medicines Manufacturing Center is intended to provide Tenaya with considerable flexibility to expand manufacturing capacity by increasing both the number and the scale of bioreactors to meet future clinical and commercial production needs.

The Union City location, approximately 30 miles from Tenayas South San Francisco headquarters, is expected to enable the seamless transition of Tenayas science from early research through commercial manufacturing. The selection of this location is intended to foster a culture of close collaboration across teams at all stages of developing and testing novel AAV capsids, de-risk the translation from research to process development and create opportunities for improvements in production processes. The Genetic Medicines Manufacturing Center is staffed by a growing in-house team with expertise in all aspects of gene therapy manufacture, including process development, analytical development, quality assurance and quality control.

About Tenaya Therapeutics

Tenaya Therapeutics is a biotechnology company committed to a bold mission: to discover, develop and deliver curative therapies that address the underlying drivers of heart disease. Founded by leading cardiovascular scientists from Gladstone Institutes and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Tenaya is developing therapies for rare genetic cardiovascular disorders, as well as for more prevalent heart conditions, through three distinct but interrelated product platforms: Gene Therapy, Cellular Regeneration and Precision Medicine. For more information, visit http://www.tenayatherapeutics.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements as that term is defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements. Words such as potential, will, plans, believe, expected, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements regarding the therapeutic potential of Tenayas pipeline of therapeutic candidates; Tenayas plan to use the cGMP manufacturing facility for the production of TN-201 and TN-401; Tenayas belief that its cGMP manufacturing facility will enable seamless transition from early research through commercial manufacturing and translate into better treatments for patients; the expected timing for submission of IND applications for TN-201 and TN-401; and statements by Tenayas chief executive officer and chief technology officer. The forward-looking statements contained herein are based upon Tenayas current expectations and involve assumptions that may never materialize or may prove to be incorrect. These forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to: risks associated with the process of discovering, developing and commercializing drugs that are safe and effective for use as human therapeutics and operating as an early stage company; Tenayas ability to successfully manufacture product candidates in a timely and sufficient manner that is compliant with regulatory requirements; Tenayas ability to develop, initiate or complete preclinical studies and clinical trials, and obtain approvals, for any of its product candidates; the timing, progress and results of preclinical studies for TN-201, TN-401 and Tenayas other programs; Tenayas ability to raise any additional funding it will need to continue to pursue its business and product development plans; negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Tenayas manufacturing and operations, including preclinical studies and planned clinical trials; the timing, scope and likelihood of regulatory filings and approvals; the potential for any clinical trial results to differ from preclinical, interim, preliminary, topline or expected results; Tenayas manufacturing, commercialization and marketing capabilities and strategy; the loss of key scientific or management personnel; competition in the industry in which Tenaya operates; Tenayas reliance on third parties; Tenayas ability to obtain and maintain intellectual property protection for its product candidates; general economic and market conditions; and other risks. Information regarding the foregoing and additional risks may be found in the section entitled Risk Factors in documents that Tenaya files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and Tenaya assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

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Life-saving lecture: Auburn student uses lessons from class to help discover father’s brain tumor – Office of Communications and Marketing

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:38 am

Auburn University student Rachel Ruhlin never expected the lessons she learned in her audiology class might potentially save her fathers life, but thats exactly what happened earlier this year.

Ruhlinan incoming senior from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, studying Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences in the College of Liberal Artswill eventually apply what shes learned in the program to her career. But Ruhlin is different in that shes already taken what she learned from the classroom all the way to the Mayo Clinic after she set a chain of events in motion that led to the discovery of her fathers brain tumor.

In class, Ruhlin learned about parts of the ear, the importance of hearing aids and tumors like acoustic neuromas that can cause hearing loss. Meanwhile, her father, Joe, had struggled with worsening hearing loss for yearsonly talking on the phone on one side, not hearing anything said near his left earso Ruhlin urged him to set up an appointment with an audiologist.

Once I started taking these classes, it put it more into perspective, Rachel Ruhlin said. My professor would talk about how many people have hearing loss, and if you dont get hearing aids, your hearing will just get worse and worse. Finally, I texted my dad and I said, We have to go. I didnt really give him an option.

Originally, the appointment was simply to test if Joe Ruhlin would be a candidate for hearing aids. He thought his worsening hearing was just a result of aging, but after Rachel explained the many social, emotional and psychological implications of hearing loss, he was persuaded.

Plus, Joe Ruhlin said, it would be interesting for his daughter to see a real hearing test, so he agreed to go.

She strongly encouraged me to set up an appointment while she was home, Joe Ruhlin said. And I think she knew I would go with her, partly because it was going to be interesting for her to see up close what an audiology test looks like, what a hearing test would look like and participate in it and ask questions.

At the first audiology appointment, it was no surprise to Ruhlin that her fathers hearing test indicated serious hearing loss on one side. The next step in the process was for Rachels father to visit an ear, nose and throat doctor, who would conduct a more comprehensive test, including ordering an MRI.

When the MRI results came back showing a large tumor, Rachel knew exactly what it was: an acoustic neuroma, an extremely rare, but serious brain tumor. It was one of the worst-case scenarios she was familiar with through her classes at Auburn.

In Auburns Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, or SLHS, program, all students must take Professor Sridhar Krishnamurtis audiology class, where they learn foundational knowledge about hearing loss.

This class teaches them what the field is about, its our trademark class in audiology for undergraduates, Krishnamurti said. Very few people, like Rachel, take it to that next level where they translate it to help their family. This is the first time in 25 years that Ive experienced a student affecting their familys future.

Because of that class, Ruhlin said she had a firm grasp on everything that was happening.

When we went to the audiologist the first time, I knew exactly what was going on with his audiogram and how bad it was because I had seen audiograms in class all the time, Ruhlin said. Then we went to the surgeons, and they were talking about parts of the ear, and Ive learned all those. Before surgery, I knew everything that was going on because we learned about this specific type of tumor in class. So, if I hadnt had these classes, I definitely wouldve been a lot more confused and in the dark.

An acoustic neuroma, also known as a vestibular schwannoma, is a benign tumor that grows in the cells surrounding the hearing and balance nerves. Common symptoms include hearing loss on one side, ringing in one ear, dizziness and facial numbness when the tumor gets large.

Acoustic neuromas are rare, affecting only about three people in 100,000, but are risky because of their proximity to the brain stem. Left untreated, they can grow large enough to compress the brain stem and become life-threatening.

Dr. Michael Link is the neurosurgeon who took care of Joe Ruhlin at the Mayo Clinic, one of the best facilities in the world for vestibular schwannoma treatment. Link has seen thousands of patients with this type of tumor and said the longer it goes untreated, the more dangerous it can become.

Even though its benign, having something growing inside your head is somewhat of a risk. And where this tumor arises, theres a lot of important things, especially the brain stem, right next to it. So, as these tumors slowly enlarge, they can start to push on some critical structures, Link said. The other issue is that right with the hearing and balance nerve runs the facial nerves, which innervates all the muscles of facial expression. As the tumor gets bigger, the risk that the facial nerve will be injured or wont work well after surgery goes up.

The treatment options for a vestibular schwannoma include surgery, radiation and observation. Because of the size of Joe Ruhlins tumor, Link conducted a successful surgical removal on Feb. 16 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Because the tumor is so embedded in the hearing nerves, total hearing loss on the affected side is expected when a large tumor is removed. Link said patients also experience temporary balance issues and facial weakness following the surgery.

Link said while acoustic neuromas are rare, any hearing issues should be taken seriously.

The great, great majority of the time, when people have unilateral hearing loss or unilateral ringing in the ear, it is not a tumor. But once again, its always worth getting it checked out, Link said. Its been fascinating to me that so many people have hearing loss and refuse to get it checked out. It is a big issue for quality of life if youre missing a lot of whats going on around you. So, I think for all of our family members, we have to be vigilant and say if youre not hearing well, you need to get it checked out.

For the next few months, Joe Ruhlin will recover from the surgery and slowly regain his balance, content with the knowledge that the tumor is completely removed and he is no longer at risk of further damage.

Ruhlin said hes grateful his daughter had the knowledge to help guide him through the process.

It means a lot that she helped me get through this, Ruhlin said. Im very grateful that she pushed me to go see the doctor. It did take some encouragement, and shes very good at encouraging me to do things. Daughters can be that way.

So, Im very grateful that she was in that audiology class at the time. She was talking to her audiology professors, and they were backing up what we were hearing, so it was very comforting to have her support.

Throughout the process, Rachel Ruhlin consulted her SLHS professors, who also worked with her schedule to ensure that she could be at home with her father around the time of the surgery.

The SLHS program was so supportive prior to the surgery and during the surgery, she said. I could just tell them my dad had an acoustic neuroma, and they knew exactly what it was. I didnt have to explain anything, and they still ask me how hes doing. The support from the SLHS faculty, especially being thousands of miles away, I couldnt be happier to be a part of this program.

Krishnamurti said what really sets Rachel apart from her peers is that she had the conviction to immediately apply what she learned in class, from the first hearing test through treatment.

All credit goes to Rachel because she was conscientious, she listened in class, she wrote it down and went home and took her father to the doctor, Krishnamurti said. She made sure that he went to one of the best places in the world and got the best treatment, and Im sure hes a lot happier man today. Its heartening for us as faculty members that we were able to give her the information she needed to do the right things.

Despite some of her professors encouragement to pursue audiology, Ruhlin still looks forward to becoming a speech-language pathologist who works with Spanish-speaking families. She said this experience has given her a new appreciation for audiology.

A lot of times, you learn something in the classroom and you just kind of leave it in the classroom, but it was so impactful that I was able to apply it to something so meaningful in my life, Ruhlin said. This will have an impact for years and years, because now the tumors gone and hell be fine. What I learned potentially saved his life.

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Physiology Educators to Discuss Inclusive Teaching, Mentoring and Assessment at the APS Institute for Teaching and Learning – Newswise

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:38 am

Newswise (Rockville, Md.) June 17, 2022Physiology educators will gather in Madison, Wisconsin, June 2124, 2022, for the American Physiological Society (APS) Institute on Teaching and Learning (ITL). The interactive multiday workshop will engage educators in sessions focused on the latest research and best practices in teaching, learning and assessment.

We are very excited that APS President Dee Silverthorn, PhD, FAPS, will be giving the keynote lecture for the fifth ITL. The meeting will cover topics such as inclusive and anti-racist teaching, mentoring and advising; assessment; helping students cope with failure in research; career transitions to teaching; and tools for teaching challenging physiology concepts. Something new this year will be featured workshops to bookend the conference, said co-organizers Beth Beason-Abmayr, PhD, of Rice University in Houston, and Ryan Downey, PhD, of the American University of the Caribbean in Saint Maarten, in a statement.

Highlighted sessions are listed below. View the meeting program for more information.

Program Highlights

Tuesday, June 21

Featured workshopScientific communication through improv: talking about tough ideas

Facilitator: Monkey Business Institute,Madison, Wisconsin

Keynote lectureAdapting to change: reflections on the evolution of teaching and learning

Speaker: Dee Silverthorn, PhD,FAPS,University of Texas at Austin

Wednesday, June 22

Plenary lecture 1Where do we go from here? Key considerations for equity-focused teaching in dynamic times

Speaker: Kayon Murray-Johnson, PhD,University of Rhode Island

Workshop 1Navigating difficult dialogues on race and justice: building capacity for when emotions run high

Facilitator: Kayon Murray-Johnson, PhD,University of Rhode Island

Workshop 2Effective and inclusive assessment strategies in physiology

Facilitator: Josef Brandauer, PhD,Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania

Workshop 3A framework for reasoning about complex physiological systems

Facilitator: Tara Slominski, PhD,North Dakota State University

Plenary lecture 2Toward more inclusive biology learning environments: identifying inequities and possible underlying mechanisms

Speaker: Katelyn Cooper, PhD,Arizona State University

Workshop 4Building inclusive and fair classrooms: spotting sources of bias in biology classrooms

Facilitator: Katelyn Cooper, PhD,Arizona State University

Workshop 5The joys and challenges of mentoring students and colleagues in teaching settings

Facilitators: Robert Carroll, PhD, FAPS,Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University;Dee Silverthorn, PhD, FAPS,University of Texas at Austin

Workshop 6Teaching strategies/tools: Learning how to use dramatization to teach difficult concepts in physiology

Facilitators: Helena Carvalho, PhD,Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine;Patricia Halpin, PhD,University of New Hampshire at Manchester;Elke Scholz-Morris, PhD,Methodist College Unity Point Health, Peoria, Illinois

Thursday, June 23

Plenary lecture 3Anti-racist and inclusive pedagogies

Speaker: Amanda Jungels, PhD,Rice University, Houston

Workshop 7Using anti-racist and inclusive techniques in the classroom

Facilitator: Amanda Jungels, PhD,Rice University, Houston

Workshop 8Inclusive and productive advising

Facilitator: Katie Johnson, PhD,Trail Build LLC, East Troy, Wisconsin

Workshop 9How do I move up or over? Making transitions to teaching and education

Facilitator: Sydella Blatch, PhD,National Institutes of Health/National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland

Plenary lecture 4Failing (in order) to succeed: Exploring how challenge and failure in course-based undergraduate research experiences can become a learning opportunity

Speaker: Lisa Corwin, PhD,University of Colorado, Boulder

Workshop 10Failing (in order) to succeed: helping STEM students to approach challenges, cope with failures and develop scientific resilience

Facilitator: Lisa Corwin, PhD,University of Colorado, Boulder

Workshop 11Putting our points where our mouths are: pre-specifying exam structure to improve cognitive richness and fairness

Facilitators: Gregory Crowther, PhD,Everett Community College, Seattle;Benjamin Wiggins, PhD,University of Washington

Workshop 12Teaching strategies/tools: tools for teaching cell signaling, bioenergetics and the oxyhemoglobin dissociation curve

Facilitators: Zhiyong Cheng, PhD,University of Florida;Alice Villalobos, PhD,Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center

Friday, June 24

Plenary lecture 5Bearing witness to trauma and resilience of our students

Speaker: Mays Imad, PhD,Pima Community College, Tucson, Arizona

Featured workshopEngaging students and identifying barriers to inclusion in physiology classrooms

Facilitators: Monica Cardenas Guzman,University of Maryland;Jeff Schinske, PhD,Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, California

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: The APS Institute on Teaching and Learning will be held June 2124 in Madison, Wisconsin. To schedule an interview with the researchers, conference organizers or presenters, contact APS Media Relations or call 301.634.7314. Find more highlights in our Newsroom.

Physiology is a broad area of scientific inquiry that focuses on how molecules, cells, tissues and organs function in health and disease. The American Physiological Society connects a global, multidisciplinary community of more than 10,000 biomedical scientists and educators as part of its mission to advance scientific discovery, understand life and improve health. The Society drives collaboration and spotlights scientific discoveries through its 16 scholarly journals and programming that support researchers and educators in their work.

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Zenith Epigenetics Triple Negative Breast Cancer Clinical Data Highlighted in an Oral Discussion at the American Society of Clinical Oncology…

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:35 am

CALGARY, Alberta, June 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zenith Epigenetics Ltd. (Zenith or the Company) announced today that the data from its Phase 2 Metastatic Triple Negative Breast Cancer (mTNBC) clinical trial combining ZEN-3694 + Pfizer Inc.s Talzenna (talazoparib) was highlighted at an oral session Optimizing Targeted Therapies in Advanced Breast Cancer: Building on Past Success. The discussant presented the novel concept of administering ZEN-3694, a bromodomain and extraterminal (BET) inhibitor (BETi), to sensitize resistant mTNBC tumors to talazoparib, a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor (PARPi), and the clinically meaningful response rate and manageable safety profile of the combination from the Phase 2 study. Selection of an abstract for an oral discussion is a very competitive process with only 24 of the more than 125 accepted abstracts selected for this presentation format. The poster can be viewed on Zenith Epigenetics website (Poster) and the discussion can be viewed on the ASCO website (Discussion).

The data from the Phase 2 trial demonstrate that the ZEN-3694 plus talazoparib combination regimen, with a clinically meaningful response rate of 32% in a defined population, has the potential for treating patients whose tumors do not harbor germline mutations in BRCA1/2, said Dr. Philippe Aftimos, a principal investigator and medical oncologist at The Institut Jules Bordet in Brussels, Belgium. This combination is active with a manageable safety profile and warrants continued clinical evaluation. Zenith has expanded the Phase 2 trial to continue to evaluate the combination in an additional 120 mTNBC patients (NCT03901469).

In conjunction with ASCO, Zeniths TNBC poster was also awarded the GRASP Advocate Choice Award and selected to be discussed at theGRASPPoster Walkthroughs. GRASP, which standsfor Guiding Researchers and Advocates for Scientific Partnerships,is a patient-led organization that brings together patients, clinicians, and researchers to exchange ideas and learn from each other to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. GRASP Poster Walkthroughs are small group discussions of selected posters presented at scientific conferences such as ASCO.

We are very pleased that the data from our mTNBC clinical study, conducted in collaboration with Pfizer, was well received and recognized at ASCO, said Don McCaffrey, CEO of Zenith Epigenetics. The combination regimen of ZEN-3694 + talazoparib has shown promising clinical activity in a mTNBC patient population with significant unmet need. We continue to advance this program toward registration and are committed to bring an important therapy to these patients.

About Zenith and ZEN-3694

Zenith Epigenetics Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zenith Capital Corp., is a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and other disorders with significant unmet medical need. Zenith Epigenetics is developing various novel combinations of BET inhibitors with other targeted agents. The lead compound, ZEN-3694, is in clinical development for various oncologic indications, specifically:

About Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)

TNBC is an aggressive form of breast cancer with low survival rates. TNBC accounts for about 10-15%of all breast cancers and it differs from other types of invasive breast cancer in that it tends to grow and spread faster, has fewer treatment options, and tends to have a worse prognosis. The termtriple-negative breast cancerrefers to the fact that the cancer cells have only low or no amount of the receptors ER, PR, and HER2. Approximately 75,000 women in the US, Japan and the major EU countries are diagnosed with TNBC each year.

About ZEN-3694 + Talazoparib Combination

In the United States, talazoparib is currently approved under the brand name TALZENNA, which is a PARP inhibitor indicated for the treatment of adult patients with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline BRCA-mutated (gBRCAm) HER2-negative locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer. ZEN-3694, in combination with talazoparib, is being developed for targeting tumors that do not have a germline BRCA mutation which represent approximately 89% of TNBC tumors. Preclinical and clinical data has shown that BET inhibition may reduce the levels of DNA repair proteins such as BRCA1/2 and RAD51 and thus create synthetic lethality in wildtype BRCA1/2 TNBC tumors when combined with PARP inhibition.

For further information, please contact:

Investor Relations & Communications

Zenith EpigeneticsPhone: 587-390-7865Email: info@zenithepigenetics.comWebsite:www.zenithepigenetics.com

This news release may contain certain forward-looking information as defined under applicable Canadian securities legislation, that are not based on historical fact, including without limitation statements containing the words "believes", "anticipates", "plans", "intends", "will", "should", "expects", "continue", "estimate", "forecasts" and other similar expressions. In particular, this news release includes forward looking information relating to the Companys development activities involving ZEN-3694 in combination with Pfizers PARP inhibitor Talzenna, and other targeted agents used in precision oncology, as well as other planned PARPi based combination therapy clinical trials in other tumor types. Our actual results, events or developments could be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. We can give no assurance that any of the events or expectations will occur or be realized. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions and risk factors including those discussed in our most recent MD&A which are incorporated herein by reference and are available through SEDAR at http://www.sedar.com. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement and are made as of the date hereof. Zenith disclaims any intention and has no obligation or responsibility, except as required by law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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Genetics proposes, epigenetics disposes: how our approach to human health changes in the 21st century and how CRISPR-Cas is involved – Digital Journal

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:35 am

Los Angeles, California, United States 06-16-2022 (PR Distribution)

Change your lifestyle and you will initiate a chain of biochemical changes that will imperceptibly but steadily help you and, possibly, all your descendants until the end of their lifeon Earth. This quote belongs to German neurophysiologist P.Spork, who considers epigenetics the breakthrough science that will spearhead progress in the 21st century.

The Greek prefix epi-means over or upon; in other words, we are dealing with something that goes above genetics. It is hardly possible to overestimate the role epigenetic mechanisms play in embryonic development: specialized cells of an adult body grow from embryonic cells sharing the same DNA. Scientists think that genetic activity responds to external stimuli, such as stress levels, physical activities, and diurnal rhythms.

In case epigenetics has already done its dirty deed, it is still possible to use the molecular scissors of the CRISPR/Cas gene editing system, first described by Japanese scientist Y. Ishino.

In nature, CRISPR/Cas is the adaptive immune system used by bacteria to countervarious pathogens. It has the following work principle: once a bacterium gets attacked by a virus,its specialized Cas proteins quickly cut out parts of the virus and insert them into the CRISPR cassette in a certain order.The purpose of this process is to learn the face of the enemy and develop a specialized immune response.

Soon, scientists started to hope they could use the CRISPR-Cas9 system of Streptococcus bacteria to edit genomes of other organisms and fight genetic disorders. CRISPR-Cas9 is already used for treating various diseases. In spring 2020, scientists reported on the first intraretinalinjection of a modified virus to a patient suffering from Leber congenital amaurosis (a disease that causes blindness). The new method involves point base editing of RPE65 gene mutations [8]. Twoyears ago, The New England Journal of Medicinepublished the results of the firstsuccessful editing of ?-Thalassemia sickle cell anemia mutations.

For discovering the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors and their potential for point editing, E. Charpentier (France) and J. Doudna (USA) were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020.

It seems that genetic or epigenetic research can hardly be imagined without information technologies. We know bioinformatics methods are commonly used in computational epigenetics in addition to experimental studies; given the explosive growth of epigenomic data sets, computational methods are starting to play a greater role.

For instance, experimental ChIP-on-chip, ChIP-seq, and bisulfite sequencing methods are applied for genome-wide mapping of epigenetic data. They all generate large amounts of dataand demand effective ways of processing and quality control. On the one hand, big data is ofimmense help to scientists. Back in the day,complete genome sequencing took years and required millions of dollars. The next-generation sequencing method can provide the sameresults for $1200 within 24 hours.

On the other hand, some experts have a somewhat skeptical attitude to big data, as researchers simply cannot keep up with the enormous volumes of information. Besides, the use of supercomputers overhauls the work of scientists. In 2015, Italian biologist F.Mazzocchi noted that classical scientific methods are getting outdated in the age of data and supercomputing, with theories, hypotheses, and discussions becoming obsolete. Scientists no longer search formodels, while correlations offered by big data are replacing causality. M. Frick warns his colleagues against putting too much trust in the machine. He claims that data-driven science will or would find many spurious connections. Data-driven science could easily lead toapophenia and a wild outbreak of hornswoggling.

Only time will tell how justified these concerns are. Yet one thing is already crystal clear: there will be no going back to the old ways because treatment of the most complex diseases is on the verge of a breakthrough.

About the Author

Rustam Gilfanov is an IT entrepreneur and a venture partner of the LongeVC fund.

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Genetics proposes, epigenetics disposes: how our approach to human health changes in the 21st century and how CRISPR-Cas is involved - Digital Journal

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The relationship between P16INK4A and TP53 promoter methylation and the risk and prognosis in patients with oesophageal cancer in Thailand |…

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:35 am

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The relationship between P16INK4A and TP53 promoter methylation and the risk and prognosis in patients with oesophageal cancer in Thailand |...

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New Combination Therapy Effective in Pediatric Leukemia – Technology Networks

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:34 am

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is the most common cancer affecting children. The T-ALL form of leukaemia that emerges from early T lineage cells has a poorer prognosis than B-lineage ALL. The prognosis for relapsed T-ALL is very poor and new therapies are sorely needed. A joint study by Tampere Universitys Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology in Finland, the Massachusetts General Research Institute, and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute discovered a new combination of drugs that is effective against T-ALL.

The finding is based on a previous discovery made by the Tampere University research group where the general tyrosine kinase inhibitor dasatinib was found to be effective in approximately one third of the tested patient samples.

In the treatment of leukaemia, the efficacy of a single drug is usually lost quickly, so the new study searched for drug combinations that would have an enhanced synergistic effect with dasatinib. This was the case with temsirolimus, a drug that inhibits a parallel signalling pathway. The combination of the two drugs was more effective in eradicating leukaemia cells in zebrafish and human disease than using a single drug.

During this study, we developed a new drug screening method for the rapid assessment of drug responses in zebrafish leukaemia samples. In this screen, an effective drug combination was found, which was later confirmed by several cell line models, patient samples and human leukemias grown in mice, says PhDSaara Laukkanen, the first author of the study.

This has been a long project, taking 45 years, and as a result, we now understand the mechanism of action of these drugs at molecular level in T-ALL, Laukkanen adds.

During the project, she spent six months as Visiting Researcher in the Department of Pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston with ProfessorDavid Langenau'sresearch group, with whom the project was carried out. She worked extensively with PhDAlexandra Veloso, a research fellow in the Langenau team and co-lead author on the work.

This is a promising new treatment option for T-acute leukaemia. The next step is to take the discovery into clinical practice for patients with relapsed or refractory disease via early phase clinical trials, says Research DirectorOlli Lohi, MD, PhD, from Tampere University and Tays Hospitals Cancer Centre.

The development of precision treatments is slow and requires accurate knowledge of the molecular mechanisms that cause and maintain disease. Here we utilized a specific dependency of T-ALL cells on certain signalling routes that the combination of dasatinib and temsirolimus shuts off, Lohi says.

The study was published inBlood, the most prestigious scientific journal in the field of haematology. In addition to researchers at Tampere University and Harvard Stem Cell Institute, researchers from the Universities of North Carolina, Eastern Finland and Helsinki also participated in the study.

Reference:Laukkanen S, Bacquelaine Veloso A, Yan C, et al. Combination therapies to inhibit LCK tyrosine kinase and mTOR signaling in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Blood. 2022:2021015106. doi: 10.1182/blood.2021015106

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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MIT Pioneers Technology To Grow Customizable Wood Products in the Lab With Little Waste – SciTechDaily

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:34 am

Scientists demonstrate that they can control the properties of lab-grown plant material, which could enable the production of wood products with little waste.

Because of deforestation, the world loses about 10 million hectares of forest an area about the size of Iceland each year. At that rate, some researchers predict the worlds forests could disappear in 100 to 200 years.

A hectare is an area equal to a square with 100-meter sides, or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. One hectare contains about 2.47 acres and an acre is about 0.405 hectares. 100 hectares makes one square kilometer.

In an effort to provide an environmentally friendly and low-waste alternative, researchers at MIT have pioneered a tunable technique to generate wood-like plant material in a lab, which could enable someone to grow a wooden product like a table without needing to cut down trees, process lumber, etc.

These researchers have now demonstrated that, by adjusting certain chemicals used during the growth process, they can precisely control the physical and mechanical properties of the resulting plant material, such as its stiffness and density.

They also show that, using 3D bioprinting techniques, they can grow plant material in shapes, sizes, and forms that are not found in nature and that cant be easily produced using traditional agricultural methods.

In an effort to provide an environmentally friendly and low-waste alternative, researchers at MIT have pioneered a tunable technique to generate wood-like plant material in a lab. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

The idea is that you can grow these plant materials in exactly the shape that you need, so you dont need to do any subtractive manufacturing after the fact, which reduces the amount of energy and waste. There is a lot of potential to expand this and grow three-dimensional structures, says lead author Ashley Beckwith, a recent PhD graduate.

Though still in its early days, this research demonstrates that lab-grown plant materials can be tuned to have specific characteristics, which could someday enable researchers to grow wood products with the exact features needed for a particular application, like high strength to support the walls of a house or certain thermal properties to more efficiently heat a room, explains senior author Luis Fernando Velsquez-Garca, a principal scientist in MITs Microsystems Technology Laboratories.

Joining Beckwith and Velsquez-Garca on the paper is Jeffrey Borenstein, a biomedical engineer and group leader at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory. The research is published recently in the journal Materials Today.

To begin the process of growing plant material in the lab, the researchers first isolate cells from the leaves of young Zinnia elegans plants. The cells are cultured in liquid medium for two days, then transferred to a gel-based medium, which contains nutrients and two different hormones.

Adjusting the hormone levels at this stage in the process enables researchers to tune the physical and mechanical properties of the plant cells that grow in that nutrient-rich broth.

In the human body, you have hormones that determine how your cells develop and how certain traits emerge. In the same way, by changing the hormone concentrations in the nutrient broth, the plant cells respond differently. Just by manipulating these tiny chemical quantities, we can elicit pretty dramatic changes in terms of the physical outcomes, Beckwith says.

In a way, these growing plant cells behave almost like stem cells researchers can give them cues to tell them what to become, Velsquez-Garca adds.

They use a 3D printer to extrude the cell culture gel solution into a specific structure in a petri dish, and let it incubate in the dark for three months. Even with this incubation period, the researchers process is about two orders of magnitude faster than the time it takes for a tree to grow to maturity, Velsquez-Garca says.

Following incubation, the resulting cell-based material is dehydrated, and then the researchers evaluate its properties.

They found that lower hormone levels yielded plant materials with more rounded, open cells that have lower density, while higher hormone levels led to the growth of plant materials with smaller, denser cell structures. Higher hormone levels also yielded plant material that was stiffer; the researchers were able to grow plant material with a storage modulus (stiffness) similar to that of some natural woods.

Another goal of this work is to study what is known as lignification in these lab-grown plant materials. Lignin is a polymer that is deposited in the cell walls of plants which makes them rigid and woody. They found that higher hormone levels in the growth medium causes more lignification, which would lead to plant material with more wood-like properties.

The researchers also demonstrated that, using a 3D bioprinting process, the plant material can be grown in a custom shape and size. Rather than using a mold, the process involves the use of a customizable computer-aided design file that is fed to a 3D bioprinter, which deposits the cell gel culture into a specific shape. For instance, they were able to grow plant material in the shape of a tiny evergreen tree.

Research of this kind is relatively new, Borenstein says.

This work demonstrates the power that a technology at the interface between engineering and biology can bring to bear on an environmental challenge, leveraging advances originally developed for health care applications, he adds.

The researchers also show that the cell cultures can survive and continue to grow for months after printing, and that using a thicker gel to produce thicker plant material structures does not impact the survival rate of the lab-grown cells.

I think the real opportunity here is to be optimal with what you use and how you use it. If you want to create an object that is going to serve some purpose, there are mechanical expectations to consider. This process is really amenable to customization, Velsquez-Garca says.

Now that they have demonstrated the effective tunability of this technique, the researchers want to continue experimenting so they can better understand and control cellular development. They also want to explore how other chemical and genetic factors can direct the growth of the cells.

They hope to evaluate how their method could be transferred to a new species. Zinnia plants dont produce wood, but if this method were used to make a commercially important tree species, like pine, the process would need to be tailored to that species, Velsquez-Garca says.

Ultimately, he is hopeful this work can help to motivate other groups to dive into this area of research to help reduce deforestation.

Trees and forests are an amazing tool for helping us manage climate change, so being as strategic as we can with these resources will be a societal necessity going forward, Beckwith adds.

Reference: Physical, mechanical, and microstructural characterization of novel, 3D-printed, tunable, lab-grown plant materials generated from Zinnia elegans cell cultures by Ashley L. Beckwith, Jeffrey T. Borenstein and Luis F. Velsquez-Garca, 7 March 2022, .DOI: 10.1016/j.mattod.2022.02.012

This research is funded, in part, by the Draper Scholars Program.

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Where science meets fiction: the dark history of eugenics – The Guardian

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:33 am

Its a quirk of history that the foundations of modern biology and as a consequence, some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century should rely so heavily on peas. Cast your mind back to school biology, and Gregor Mendel, whose 200th birthday we mark next month. Though Mendel is invariably described as a friar, his formidable legacy is not in Augustinian theology, but in the mainstream science of genetics.

In the middle of the 19th century, Mendel (whose real name was Johann Gregor was his Augustinian appellation) bred more than 28,000 pea plants, crossing tall with short, wrinkly seeds with smooth, and purple flowers with white. What he found in that forest of pea plants was that these traits segregated in the offspring, and did not blend, but re-emerged in predictable ratios. What Mendel had discovered were the rules of inheritance. Characteristics were inherited in discrete units what we now call genes and the way these units flowed through pedigrees followed neat mathematical patterns.

These rules are taught in every secondary school as a core part of how we understand fundamental biology genes, DNA and evolution. We also teach this history, for it is a good story. Mendels work, published in 1866, was being done at the same time as Darwin was carving out his greatest idea. But this genius Moravian friar was ignored until both men were dead, only to be rediscovered at the beginning of the new century, which resolved Darwinian evolution with Mendelian genetics, midwifing the modern era of biology.

But theres a lesser-known story that shaped the course of the 20th century in a different way. The origins of genetics are inextricably wedded to eugenics. Since Plato suggested the pairing of high-quality parents, and Plutarch described Spartan infanticide, the principles of population control have been in place, probably in all cultures. But in the time of Victorian industrialisation, with an ever-expanding working class, and in the wake of Darwinian evolution, Darwins half-cousin, Francis Galton, added a scientific and statistical sheen to the deliberate sculpting of society, and he named it eugenics. It was a political ideology that co-opted the very new and immature science of evolution, and came to be one of the defining and most deadly ideas of the 20th century.

The UK came within a whisker of having involuntary sterilisation of undesirables as legislation, something that Churchill robustly campaigned for in his years in the Asquith government, but which the MP Josiah Wedgwood successfully resisted. In the US though, eugenics policies were enacted from 1907 and over most of the next century in 31 states, an estimated 80,000 people were sterilised by the state in the name of purification.

American eugenics was faithfully married to Mendels laws though Mendel himself had nothing to do with these policies. Led by Charles Davenport a biologist and Galton devotee the Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, set out in 1910 to promote a racist, ableist ideology, and to harvest the pedigrees of Americans. With this data, Davenport figured, they could establish the inheritance of traits both desirable and defective, and thus purify the American people. Thus they could fight the imagined threat of great replacement theory facing white America: undesirable people, with their unruly fecundity, will spread inferior genes, and the ruling classes will be erased.

Pedigrees were a major part of the US eugenics movement, and Davenport had feverishly latched on to Mendelian inheritance to explain all manner of human foibles: alcoholism, criminality, feeblemindedness (and, weirdly, a tendency to seafaring). Heredity, he wrote in 1910, stands as the one great hope of the human race; its saviour from imbecility, poverty, disease, immorality, and like all of the enthusiastic eugenicists, he attributed the inheritance of these complex traits to genes nature over nurture. It is from Davenport that we have the first genetic studies of Huntingtons disease, which strictly obeys a Mendelian inheritance, and of eye colour, which, despite what we still teach in schools, does not.

One particular tale from this era stands out. The psychologist Henry Goddard had been studying a girl with the pseudonym Deborah Kallikak in his New Jersey clinic since she was eight. He described her as a high-grade feeble-minded person, the moron, the delinquent, the kind of girl or woman that fills our reformatories. In order to trace the origin of her troubles, Goddard produced a detailed pedigree of the Kallikaks. He identified as the founder of this bloodline Martin Kallikak, who stopped off en route home from the war of independence to his genteel Quaker wife to impregnate a feeble-minded but attractive barmaid, with whom he had no further contact.

In Goddards influential 1912 book, The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness, he traced a perfect pattern of Mendelian inheritance for traits good and bad. The legitimate family was eminently successful, whereas his bastard progeny produced a clan of criminals and disabled defectives, eventually concluding with Deborah. With this, Goddard concluded that the feeble-mindedness of the Kallikaks was encoded in a gene, a single unit of defective inheritance passed down from generation to generation, just like in Mendels peas.

A contemporary geneticist will frown at this, for multiple reasons. The first is the terminology feeble-minded, which was a vague, pseudopsychiatric bucket diagnosis that we presume included a wide range of todays clinical conditions. We might also reject his Mendelian conclusion on the grounds that complex psychiatric disorders rarely have a single genetic root, and are always profoundly influenced by the environment. The presence of a particular gene will not determine the outcome of a trait, though it may well contribute to the probability of it.

This is a modern understanding of the extreme complexity of the human genome, probably the richest dataset in the known universe. But a meticulous contemporary analysis is not even required in the case of the Kallikaks, because the barmaid never existed.

Martin Kallikaks legitimate family was indeed packed with celebrated achievers men of medicine, the law and the clergy. But Goddard had invented the illegitimate branch, by misidentifying an unrelated man called John Wolverton as Kallikaks bastard son, and dreaming up his barmaid mother. There were people with disabilities among Wolvertons descendants, but the photos in Goddards book show some of the children with facial characteristics that are associated with foetal alcohol syndrome, a condition that is entirely determined not by genetic inheritance, but by exposure to high levels of alcohol in utero. Despite the family tree being completely false, this case study remained in psychology textbooks until the 1950s as a model of human inheritance, and a justification for enforced sterilisation. The Kallikaks had become the founding myth of American eugenics.

The German eugenics movement had also begun at the beginning of the 20th century, and grown steadily through the years of the Weimar Republic. By the time of the rise of the Third Reich, principles such as Lebensunwertes Leben life unworthy of life were a core part of the national eugenics ideology for purifying the Nordic stock of German people. One of the first pieces of legislation to be passed after Hitler seized power in 1933 was the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring, which required sterilisation of people with schizophrenia, deafness, blindness, epilepsy, Huntingtons disease, and other conditions that were deemed clearly genetic. As with the Americans tenacious but fallacious grip on heredity, most of these conditions are not straightforwardly Mendelian, and in one case where it is Huntingtons the disease takes effect after reproductive age. Sterilisation had no effect on its inheritance.

The development of the Nazis eugenics programmes was supported intellectually and financially by the American eugenicists, erroneously obsessed as they were with finding single Mendelian genes for complex traits, and plotting them on pedigrees. In 1935, a short propaganda film called Das Erbe (The Inheritance) was released in Germany. In it, a young scientist observes a couple of stag beetles rutting. Confused, she consults her professor, who sits her down to explain the Darwinian struggles for life and shows her a film of a cat hunting a bird, cocks sparring. Suddenly she gets it, and exclaims, to roars of laughter: Animals pursue their own racial policies!

The muddled propaganda is clear: nature purges the weak, and so must we.

The film then shows a pedigree of a hunting dog, just the type that you might get from the Kennel Club today. And then, up comes an animation of the family tree of the Kallikaks, on one side Erbgesunde Frau and on the other, Erbkranke Frau genetically healthy and hereditarily defective women. On the diseased side, the positions of all of the miscreants and deviants pulse to show the flow of undesirable people through the generations, as the voiceover explains. Das Erbe was a film to promote public acceptance of the Nazi eugenics laws, and what follows the entirely fictional Kallikak family tree is its asserted legacy: shock images of seriously disabled people in sanatoriums, followed by healthy marching Nazis, and a message from Hitler: He who is physically and mentally not healthy and worthy, may not perpetuate his suffering in the body of his child. Approximately 400,000 people were sterilised under this policy. A scientific lie had become a pillar of genocide in just 20 years.

Science has and will always be politicised. People turn to the authority of science to justify their ideologies. Today, we see the same pattern, but with new genetics. After the supermarket shootings in Buffalo in May, there was heated discussion in genetics communities, as the murderer had cited specific academic work in his deranged manifesto, legitimate papers on the genetics of intelligence and the genetic basis of Jewish ancestry, coupled with the persistent pseudoscience of the great replacement.

Science strives to be apolitical, to rise above the grubby worlds of politics and the psychological biases that we are encumbered with. But all new scientific discoveries exist within the culture into which they are born, and are always susceptible to abuse. This does not mean we should shrug and accept that our scientific endeavours are imperfect and can be bastardised with nefarious purpose, nor does it mean we should censor academic research.

But we should know our own history. We teach a version of genetics that is easily simplified to the point of being wrong. The laws in biology have a somewhat tricksy tendency to be beset by qualifications, complexities and caveats. Biology is inherently messy, and evolution preserves what works, not what is simple. In the simplicity of Mendels peas is a science which is easily co-opted, and marshalled into a racist, fascist ideology, as it was in the US, in Nazi Germany and in dozens of other countries. To know our history is to inoculate ourselves against it being repeated.

This article was amended on 20 June 2022. The mass shooting in Buffalo, US, in May 2022 was at a supermarket, not a school as an earlier version said.

Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics by Adam Rutherford is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson (12.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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Where science meets fiction: the dark history of eugenics - The Guardian

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