Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

Genetically Modified Crops (GM crops) have generated a lot of controversies over the years. They have sparked debates among farmers and consumers alike with people always particularly paying attention to labeled GM and non-GM commodities on the market.

Some describe is as genetic modification. Some call it genetic engineering. Some call them genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Others describe them as biotechnology products, although biotechnology is a broader term. But all of them refer to the same thing.

A lot of ethical concerns have arisen about GM technology over the years. A very common claim made by some anti-GM activists is that you cannot play God which implies that scientists are defying the natural order of creation. Others are concerned about possible health risks associated with the consumption of GM foods although they have been proven scientifically to be safe, 20 years after their introduction.

In fact, in countries like USA, Brazil and South Africa, more than 80% of all soya beans, maize and cotton are GM crops. But there has been no single evidence of any of these crops negatively impacting the health of consumers in those countries. Before GM food is released for consumption, it is subjected to rigorous scrutiny which has zero tolerance for errors.

So, what exactly are GM crops?

In a bid to optimize yield, farmers have been breeding suitable varieties of crops through conventional selection for several centuries. This has made most wild ancestors of crops such as teosinte of maize go into extinction leaving the elite cultivars which look bigger and develop more desirable traits over the generations. This method of breeding is known as selective breeding or artificial selection which is globally accepted but currently inefficient to feed a fast-growing population anticipated to reach 9.6 billion in the next couple of decades. The exponential rise in population is inversely related to available land area hence the need for a more strategic approach to efficiently utilize the limited land resource to feed the growing global population. Also, pests and diseases, climate change, amidst other abiotic factors severely constrain crop production.

Biotechnology (which includes genetic modification) is an applied science that harnesses the natural biological capabilities of microbial, plants and animal cells for the benefit of mankind. It has changed the quality of life through improved medicine, diagnostics, agriculture and waste management, as well as offered opportunities for innovation and discoveries.

Genetic engineering is used to efficiently and precisely modify targeted plants using advanced biotechnological techniques. Advances in molecular biology have helped eliminate certain gaps in breeding such as reducing time to successfully introduce (introgress) a gene of interest into a commercial crop variety through a process called speed breeding and eradicating linkage drags associated with conventional breeding.

The principle is a simple one. To genetically improve or enhance a crop such as sweet potato which is susceptible to nematode attack, another crop such as tomato that is resistant to nematode attack is identified and the gene of interest is isolated. The gene isolated from the tomato is then introduced into the sweet potato. The host plant becomes a transgenic or genetically modified plant which expresses the desired trait (resistance to nematode) in subsequent generations.

Genetic engineering has had several uses such as in biofortification of crops to increase the concentration and availability of nutrients in crops hence solving hidden hunger problem faced by several African countries. The technology has also been used in the enhancement of plant architecture to optimize land usage and increase yield per area of land cultivated; and improved crops with heightened tolerance or resistance to both biotic and abiotic stresses including diseases and weather.

Benefits of GM crops

Some analysis shows that between 1996 and 2015,GM technology increased global production of corn by 357.7 million tons, soybean by 180.3 million tons, cotton fiber by 25.2 million, and canola by 10.6 million tons. GM crops also significantly reduced the use of agricultural land due to this higher productivity. In 2015 alone, they prevented almost 20 million hectares from being used for agricultural purposes, thus reducing the environmental impact of cultivating forests or wild lands. This is a great environmental benefit derived from higher agricultural yield.

Unfortunately, in Africa, only a few countries including South Africa and South Sudan have allowed for the growing of GM crops and are enjoying from these benefits. Ghana has not allowed for the local production of GM crops although parliament passed a law in 2011 to allow for their introduction.

Genetic engineering is a viable way to eradicate hunger and ensure food security in the coming decades hence is pivotal to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 on eliminating hunger. Yield losses due to changing or fluctuating climate, pests, and diseases, drought, acidic or saline soils and, heat stress can all be remedied by growing genetically modified crops. GM technology is a blessing to mankind and promises a hunger-free future especially in such unsettling times with the COVID-19 pandemic. Lets embrace it.

The author is a Teaching Assistant at the University of Ghana, Graduate, Faculty of Agriculture.

View original post here:
Joy Adzovie: Genetically Modified Crops is the solution to global food insecurity - Myjoyonline.com

Genetically Modified Crops (GM crops) have generated a lot of controversies over the years. They have sparked debates among farmers and consumers alike with people always particularly paying attention to labeled GM and non-GM commodities on the market.

Some describe it as genetic modification. Some call it genetic engineering. Some call them genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Others describe them as biotechnology products, although biotechnology is a broader term. But all of them refer to the same thing.

A lot of ethical concerns have arisen about GM technology over the years. A very common claim made by some anti-GM activists is that you cannot play God which implies that scientists are defying the natural order of creation. Others are concerned about possible health risks associated with the consumption of GM foods although they have been proven scientifically to be safe, 20 years after their introduction.

In fact, in countries like the USA, Brazil, and South Africa, more than 80% of all soya beans, maize and cotton are GM crops. But there has been no single evidence of any of these crops negatively impacting the health of consumers in those countries. Before GM food is released for consumption, it is subjected to rigorous scrutiny which has zero tolerance for errors.

So, what exactly are GM crops?

In a bid to optimize yield, farmers have been breeding suitable varieties of crops through conventional selection for several centuries. This has made most wild ancestors of crops such as teosinte of maize go into extinction leaving the elite cultivars which look bigger and develop more desirable traits over the generations. This method of breeding is known as selective breeding or artificial selection which is globally accepted but currently inefficient to feed a fast-growing population anticipated to reach 9.6 billion in the next couple of decades. The exponential rise in population is inversely related to available land area hence the need for a more strategic approach to efficiently utilize the limited land resource to feed the growing global population. Also, pests and diseases, climate change, amidst other abiotic factors severely constrain crop production.

Biotechnology (which includes genetic modification) is an applied science that harnesses the natural biological capabilities of microbial, plants and animal cells for the benefit of mankind. It has changed the quality of life through improved medicine, diagnostics, agriculture and waste management, as well as offered opportunities for innovation and discoveries.

Genetic engineering is used to efficiently and precisely modify targeted plants using advanced biotechnological techniques. Advances in molecular biology have helped eliminate certain gaps in breeding such as reducing time to successfully introduce (introgress) a gene of interest into a commercial crop variety through a process called speed breeding and eradicating linkage drags associated with conventional breeding.

The principle is a simple one. To genetically improve or enhance a crop such as sweet potato which is susceptible to nematode attack, another crop such as tomato that is resistant to nematode attack is identified and the gene of interest is isolated. The gene isolated from the tomato is then introduced into the sweet potato. The host plant becomes a transgenic or genetically modified plant which expresses the desired trait (resistance to nematode) in subsequent generations.

Genetic engineering has had several uses such as in biofortification of crops to increase the concentration and availability of nutrients in crops hence solving hidden hunger problem faced by several African countries. The technology has also been used in the enhancement of plant architecture to optimize land usage and increase yield per area of land cultivated; and improved crops with heightened tolerance or resistance to both biotic and abiotic stresses including diseases and weather.

Benefits of GM crops

Some analysis shows that between 1996 and 2015, GM technology increased global production of corn by 357.7 million tons, soybean by 180.3 million tons, cotton fiber by 25.2 million, and canola by 10.6 million tons. GM crops also significantly reduced the use of agricultural land due to this higher productivity.

In 2015 alone, they prevented almost 20 million hectares from being used for agricultural purposes, thus reducing the environmental impact of cultivating forests or wildlands. This is a great environmental benefit derived from higher agricultural yield.

Unfortunately, in Africa, only a few countries including South Africa and South Sudan have allowed for the growth of GM crops and are enjoying these benefits. Ghana has not allowed for the local production of GM crops although parliament passed a law in 2011 to allow for their introduction.

Genetic engineering is a viable way to eradicate hunger and ensure food security in the coming decades hence is pivotal to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 on eliminating hunger. Yield losses due to changing or fluctuating climate, pests, and diseases, drought, acidic or saline soils and, heat stress can all be remedied by growing genetically modified crops. GM technology is a blessing to mankind and promises a hunger-free future especially in such unsettling times with the COVID-19 pandemic. Lets embrace it.

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Genetically Modified Crops: The Solution To Global Food Insecurity - Modern Ghana

Sunway Universitys Professor Jeff Tan Kuan Onn of the Department of Biological Sciences and Professor Poh Chit Laa from the Centre for Virus and Vaccine Research, along with their research collaborators from Harvard Medical Schools Center for Stem Cell Therapeutics and Imaging (USA) as well as University of Tennessee Health Science Centre (USA) have completed a study that has demonstrated the efficacy of molecular gene therapy as a new strategy for cancer treatment.

The research could potentially contribute to shorter treatment time for cancers, reduce treatment costs and minimize the adverse effects of current chemo-drugs in cancer patients such as susceptibilities toward microbial infections, hair loss, and other side effects of chemo-drugs that drastically affect the quality of life of cancer patients undergoing therapy.

Principal Investigator Professor Jeff Tan explained, Currently, chemo-drugs are relatively ineffective against cancer cells that have developed drug-resistance resulting in the need for high doses of chemo-drugs or a combination of chemo-drugs to be administered to patients with cancer cells. Chemo-drug resistant cancer cells also can spread quickly and that drastically reduce the survival rate of cancer patients.

Our research utilizes molecular gene therapy which is the introduction of genetic materials into cancer cells to promote the sensitivity of cancer cells to chemo-drugs. By genetically engineering the cancer cells, we find that we can induce the cancer cells to produce activated pro-death and tumor suppressor proteins that cause cell death and growth arrests in cancer cells. The weakened cancer cells can then be killed relatively easily by the administration of chemo-drugs in smaller doses. Ultimately, the research could contribute to increasing the survival rates of cancer patients undergoing cancer treatments he added.

Co-Investigator Professor Poh Chit Laa said that the effectiveness of the strategy has been demonstrated in mice implanted with human breast cancer cells. In the mice that were treated with the gene therapy, the tumors obtained from the treated mice showed significant tumor cell death and the tumors were 20 times smaller and 32 times lighter in volume and weight, respectively, when compared to the tumors obtained from the untreated mice. The results indicated that gene therapy was able to shrink the tumors significantly, even without treatment with chemo-drugs. Small doses of market-available anti-cancer drugs could then be used to kill the cancer cells effectively. We hope to see our research contribute to better survival rates of cancer patients, and minimize the side-effects associated with anti-cancer drugs, said Professor Poh.

We are currently working on investigations to optimize the delivery of the gene therapy and anti-cancer drugs to human tumors with hopes that this will result in tangible clinical outcomes, said Professor Jeff Tan.

The research project was recently published in the peer-review Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology. Collaborators for the research include Lee Yong Hoi, Pang Siew Wai and Samson Eugin Simon from the Department of Biological Sciences, Sunway University; Esther Revai Lechtich and Khalid Shah, of the Center for Stem Cell Therapeutics and Imaging, Brigham and Womens Hospital, Harvard Medical School (USA); Suriyan Ponnusamy and Ramesh Narayanan from the Department of Medicine, Centre of Cancer Drug Discovery, College of Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Science Centre (USA).

The research is a result of a collaboration agreement between Harvard Medical School and Sunway University aimed at developing new cancer therapies targeting drug-resistant cancer cells. In 2016, Professor Jeff Tan visited Harvard University on the Jeffrey Cheah Travel Grant which enabled him to better understand how cancer research projects are conducted as well as examining experimental models used to study cancer biology at Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

To read the jointly published article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00432-020-03231-9

Read more here:
Joint Study by Sunway University and Harvard Medical School Shows Gene Therapy Can Advance Cancer Treatment - QS WOW News

CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Research Report

Los Angeles, United States, July 8th, 2020, The report on the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market is comprehensively prepared with main focus on the competitive landscape, geographical growth, segmentation, and market dynamics, including drivers, restraints, and opportunities. It sheds light on key production, revenue, and consumption trends so that players could improve their sales and growth in the Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market. It offers a detailed analysis of the competition and leading companies of the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market. Here, it concentrates on the recent developments, sales, market value, production, gross margin, and other important factors of the business of top players operating in the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market.

With deep quantitative and qualitative analysis, the report provides encyclopedic and accurate research study on important aspects of the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market. It brings to light key factors affecting the growth of different segments and regions in the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market. It also offers SWOT, Porters Five Forces, and PESTLE analysis to thoroughly examine the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market. It gives a detailed study on manufacturing cost, upstream and downstream buyers, distributors, marketing strategy, and marketing channel development trends of the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market. Furthermore, it provides strategic bits of advice and recommendations for players to ensure success in the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market.

Get PDF Sample Copy of the Report to understand the structure of the complete report: (Including Full TOC, List of Tables & Figures, Chart) :

https://www.qyresearch.com/sample-form/form/1704011/covid-19-impact-on-global-crispr-and-crispr-associated-cas-genes-market

Some of the Important Key player operating in this Report are: , Caribou Biosciences, Addgene, CRISPR THERAPEUTICS, Merck KGaA, Mirus Bio LLC, Editas Medicine, Takara Bio USA, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Horizon Discovery Group, Intellia Therapeutics, GE Healthcare Dharmacon CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes

Segmental Analysis

The report has classified the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes industry into segments including product type and application. Every segment is evaluated based on growth rate and share. Besides, the analysts have studied the potential regions that may prove rewarding for the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes manufacturers in the coming years. The regional analysis includes reliable predictions on value and volume, thereby helping market players to gain deep insights into the overall Railway Signaling System industry.

CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Segmentation by Product

, Genome Editing, Genetic engineering, gRNA Database/Gene Librar, CRISPR Plasmid, Human Stem Cells, Genetically Modified Organisms/Crops, Cell Line Engineering CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes

CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Segmentation by Application

Biotechnology Companies, Pharmaceutical Companies, Academic Institutes, Research and Development Institutes

Regions and Countries

The Middle East and Africa (GCC Countries and Egypt) North America (the United States, Mexico, and Canada) South America (Brazil etc.) Europe (Turkey, Germany, Russia UK, Italy, France, etc.) Asia-Pacific (Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Australia)

Key Questions Answered

What is the size and CAGR of the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market?

Which are the leading segments of the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market?

What are the key driving factors of the most profitable regional market?

What is the nature of competition in the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market?

How will the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market advance in the coming years?

What are the main strategies adopted in the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market?

Enquiry for Customization in the Report @https://www.qyresearch.com/customize-request/form/1704011/covid-19-impact-on-global-crispr-and-crispr-associated-cas-genes-market

Table of Contents

1 Study Coverage1.1 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Product Introduction1.2 Market Segments1.3 Key CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Manufacturers Covered: Ranking by Revenue1.4 Market by Type1.4.1 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Growth Rate by Type1.4.2 Genome Editing1.4.3 Genetic engineering1.4.4 gRNA Database/Gene Librar1.4.5 CRISPR Plasmid1.4.6 Human Stem Cells1.4.7 Genetically Modified Organisms/Crops1.4.8 Cell Line Engineering1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Growth Rate by Application1.5.2 Biotechnology Companies1.5.3 Pharmaceutical Companies1.5.4 Academic Institutes1.5.5 Research and Development Institutes1.6 Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19): CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Industry Impact1.6.1 How the Covid-19 is Affecting the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Industry

1.6.1.1 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Business Impact Assessment Covid-19

1.6.1.2 Supply Chain Challenges

1.6.1.3 COVID-19s Impact On Crude Oil and Refined Products1.6.2 Market Trends and CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Potential Opportunities in the COVID-19 Landscape1.6.3 Measures / Proposal against Covid-19

1.6.3.1 Government Measures to Combat Covid-19 Impact

1.6.3.2 Proposal for CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Players to Combat Covid-19 Impact1.7 Study Objectives1.8 Years Considered 2 Executive Summary2.1 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Estimates and Forecasts2.1.1 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue 2015-20262.1.2 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales 2015-20262.2 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size by Region: 2020 Versus 20262.2.1 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Retrospective Market Scenario in Sales by Region: 2015-20202.2.2 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Retrospective Market Scenario in Revenue by Region: 2015-2020 3 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Competitor Landscape by Players3.1 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales by Manufacturers3.1.1 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales by Manufacturers (2015-2020)3.1.2 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales Market Share by Manufacturers (2015-2020)3.2 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue by Manufacturers3.2.1 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue by Manufacturers (2015-2020)3.2.2 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue Share by Manufacturers (2015-2020)3.2.3 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Concentration Ratio (CR5 and HHI) (2015-2020)3.2.4 Global Top 10 and Top 5 Companies by CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue in 20193.2.5 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Share by Company Type (Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3)3.3 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Price by Manufacturers3.4 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Manufacturing Base Distribution, Product Types3.4.1 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Manufacturers Manufacturing Base Distribution, Headquarters3.4.2 Manufacturers CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Product Type3.4.3 Date of International Manufacturers Enter into CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market3.5 Manufacturers Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion Plans 4 Breakdown Data by Type (2015-2026)4.1 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size by Type (2015-2020)4.1.1 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales by Type (2015-2020)4.1.2 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue by Type (2015-2020)4.1.3 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Average Selling Price (ASP) by Type (2015-2026)4.2 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Forecast by Type (2021-2026)4.2.1 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales Forecast by Type (2021-2026)4.2.2 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue Forecast by Type (2021-2026)4.2.3 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Average Selling Price (ASP) Forecast by Type (2021-2026)4.3 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Share by Price Tier (2015-2020): Low-End, Mid-Range and High-End 5 Breakdown Data by Application (2015-2026)5.1 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size by Application (2015-2020)5.1.1 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales by Application (2015-2020)5.1.2 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue by Application (2015-2020)5.1.3 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Price by Application (2015-2020)5.2 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Forecast by Application (2021-2026)5.2.1 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales Forecast by Application (2021-2026)5.2.2 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue Forecast by Application (2021-2026)5.2.3 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Price Forecast by Application (2021-2026) 6 North America6.1 North America CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes by Country6.1.1 North America CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales by Country6.1.2 North America CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue by Country6.1.3 U.S.6.1.4 Canada6.2 North America CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Facts & Figures by Type6.3 North America CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Facts & Figures by Application 7 Europe7.1 Europe CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes by Country7.1.1 Europe CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales by Country7.1.2 Europe CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue by Country7.1.3 Germany7.1.4 France7.1.5 U.K.7.1.6 Italy7.1.7 Russia7.2 Europe CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Facts & Figures by Type7.3 Europe CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Facts & Figures by Application 8 Asia Pacific8.1 Asia Pacific CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes by Region8.1.1 Asia Pacific CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales by Region8.1.2 Asia Pacific CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue by Region8.1.3 China8.1.4 Japan8.1.5 South Korea8.1.6 India8.1.7 Australia8.1.8 Taiwan8.1.9 Indonesia8.1.10 Thailand8.1.11 Malaysia8.1.12 Philippines8.1.13 Vietnam8.2 Asia Pacific CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Facts & Figures by Type8.3 Asia Pacific CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Facts & Figures by Application 9 Latin America9.1 Latin America CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes by Country9.1.1 Latin America CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales by Country9.1.2 Latin America CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue by Country9.1.3 Mexico9.1.4 Brazil9.1.5 Argentina9.2 Central & South America CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Facts & Figures by Type9.3 Central & South America CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Facts & Figures by Application 10 Middle East and Africa10.1 Middle East and Africa CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes by Country10.1.1 Middle East and Africa CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales by Country10.1.2 Middle East and Africa CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue by Country10.1.3 Turkey10.1.4 Saudi Arabia10.1.5 UAE10.2 Middle East and Africa CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Facts & Figures by Type10.3 Middle East and Africa CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Facts & Figures by Application 11 Company Profiles11.1 Caribou Biosciences11.1.1 Caribou Biosciences Corporation Information11.1.2 Caribou Biosciences Description, Business Overview and Total Revenue11.1.3 Caribou Biosciences Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2015-2020)11.1.4 Caribou Biosciences CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Products Offered11.1.5 Caribou Biosciences Recent Development11.2 Addgene11.2.1 Addgene Corporation Information11.2.2 Addgene Description, Business Overview and Total Revenue11.2.3 Addgene Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2015-2020)11.2.4 Addgene CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Products Offered11.2.5 Addgene Recent Development11.3 CRISPR THERAPEUTICS11.3.1 CRISPR THERAPEUTICS Corporation Information11.3.2 CRISPR THERAPEUTICS Description, Business Overview and Total Revenue11.3.3 CRISPR THERAPEUTICS Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2015-2020)11.3.4 CRISPR THERAPEUTICS CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Products Offered11.3.5 CRISPR THERAPEUTICS Recent Development11.4 Merck KGaA11.4.1 Merck KGaA Corporation Information11.4.2 Merck KGaA Description, Business Overview and Total Revenue11.4.3 Merck KGaA Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2015-2020)11.4.4 Merck KGaA CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Products Offered11.4.5 Merck KGaA Recent Development11.5 Mirus Bio LLC11.5.1 Mirus Bio LLC Corporation Information11.5.2 Mirus Bio LLC Description, Business Overview and Total Revenue11.5.3 Mirus Bio LLC Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2015-2020)11.5.4 Mirus Bio LLC CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Products Offered11.5.5 Mirus Bio LLC Recent Development11.6 Editas Medicine11.6.1 Editas Medicine Corporation Information11.6.2 Editas Medicine Description, Business Overview and Total Revenue11.6.3 Editas Medicine Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2015-2020)11.6.4 Editas Medicine CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Products Offered11.6.5 Editas Medicine Recent Development11.7 Takara Bio USA11.7.1 Takara Bio USA Corporation Information11.7.2 Takara Bio USA Description, Business Overview and Total Revenue11.7.3 Takara Bio USA Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2015-2020)11.7.4 Takara Bio USA CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Products Offered11.7.5 Takara Bio USA Recent Development11.8 Thermo Fisher Scientific11.8.1 Thermo Fisher Scientific Corporation Information11.8.2 Thermo Fisher Scientific Description, Business Overview and Total Revenue11.8.3 Thermo Fisher Scientific Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2015-2020)11.8.4 Thermo Fisher Scientific CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Products Offered11.8.5 Thermo Fisher Scientific Recent Development11.9 Horizon Discovery Group11.9.1 Horizon Discovery Group Corporation Information11.9.2 Horizon Discovery Group Description, Business Overview and Total Revenue11.9.3 Horizon Discovery Group Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2015-2020)11.9.4 Horizon Discovery Group CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Products Offered11.9.5 Horizon Discovery Group Recent Development11.10 Intellia Therapeutics11.10.1 Intellia Therapeutics Corporation Information11.10.2 Intellia Therapeutics Description, Business Overview and Total Revenue11.10.3 Intellia Therapeutics Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2015-2020)11.10.4 Intellia Therapeutics CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Products Offered11.10.5 Intellia Therapeutics Recent Development11.1 Caribou Biosciences11.1.1 Caribou Biosciences Corporation Information11.1.2 Caribou Biosciences Description, Business Overview and Total Revenue11.1.3 Caribou Biosciences Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2015-2020)11.1.4 Caribou Biosciences CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Products Offered11.1.5 Caribou Biosciences Recent Development 12 Future Forecast by Regions (Countries) (2021-2026)12.1 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Estimates and Projections by Region12.1.1 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales Forecast by Regions 2021-202612.1.2 Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue Forecast by Regions 2021-202612.2 North America CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Forecast (2021-2026)12.2.1 North America: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales Forecast (2021-2026)12.2.2 North America: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue Forecast (2021-2026)12.2.3 North America: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Forecast by Country (2021-2026)12.3 Europe CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Forecast (2021-2026)12.3.1 Europe: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales Forecast (2021-2026)12.3.2 Europe: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue Forecast (2021-2026)12.3.3 Europe: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Forecast by Country (2021-2026)12.4 Asia Pacific CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Forecast (2021-2026)12.4.1 Asia Pacific: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales Forecast (2021-2026)12.4.2 Asia Pacific: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue Forecast (2021-2026)12.4.3 Asia Pacific: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Forecast by Region (2021-2026)12.5 Latin America CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Forecast (2021-2026)12.5.1 Latin America: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales Forecast (2021-2026)12.5.2 Latin America: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue Forecast (2021-2026)12.5.3 Latin America: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Forecast by Country (2021-2026)12.6 Middle East and Africa CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Forecast (2021-2026)12.6.1 Middle East and Africa: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Sales Forecast (2021-2026)12.6.2 Middle East and Africa: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Revenue Forecast (2021-2026)12.6.3 Middle East and Africa: CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Size Forecast by Country (2021-2026) 13 Market Opportunities, Challenges, Risks and Influences Factors Analysis13.1 Market Opportunities and Drivers13.2 Market Challenges13.3 Market Risks/Restraints13.4 Porters Five Forces Analysis13.5 Primary Interviews with Key CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Players (Opinion Leaders) 14 Value Chain and Sales Channels Analysis14.1 Value Chain Analysis14.2 CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Customers14.3 Sales Channels Analysis14.3.1 Sales Channels14.3.2 Distributors 15 Research Findings and Conclusion 16 Appendix16.1 Research Methodology16.1.1 Methodology/Research Approach16.1.2 Data Source16.2 Author Details

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CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market Status, Players, Types, Applications, and Forecast 2020-2026|Addgene, CRISPR THERAPEUTICS, Merck KGaA...

That can spell real trouble for the bacteria on the receiving end of this gene shuffle. If those MGEs insert themselves into critical gene regions, its bye-bye bacteria. You can think about MGEs the same way you can think about mutations, says Peters. We wouldnt have evolved without them, but 99.99999 percent of them are bad. Bacteria are trying at any cost to stop MGEs from destabilizing their genome.

The Nobel Prize-winning botanist Barbara McClintock discovered the first known class of MGEs, called transposons, or jumping genes, in maize in 1931. Her technique for staining the plants chromosomes allowed her to see when chunks from one would jump to another. But for many decades, the purpose of all these repeated sections of self-rearranging DNA eluded scientists. Some went so far as to dub the MGE-heavy sections of the human genome junk DNA. It was hard to get funding to study it. But little by little, researchers like Peters discovered that MGEs in bacteria were actually highly-evolved systems for recognizing DNA, writing it, and moving it around. In fact, Crispr itself appears to have evolved from a self-synthesizing transposon, as NIH researchers Eugene Koonin and Kira Makarova described in 2017. (Crispr codes for a protein that cuts specific, recognizable pieces of DNA stored in its genetic memory bank. The transposons allowed Crispr to start amassing that memory bank in the first place.)

Earlier that year, Peters and Koonin published a paper describing how this evolution can sometimes come full circle. They found one type of transposon that had stolen some Crispr genes to help it move between bacterial hosts. They realized that these molecular tools for cutting, copying, and pasting were constantly being shuttled between MGEs, phages, and bacteria to be used alternately as a means of offense or defense. At the end of that paper, Peters and Koonin wrote that these systems could potentially be harnessed for genome-engineering applications.

Not long after, Peters says, he started getting calls from commercial interests. One of them was from Jake Rubens, Tesseras Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder. In 2019, the company began a sponsored research collaboration with Peters Cornell lab around the discovery of new MGEs with genome engineering potential. (Tessera also has other research partnerships, but company officials have not yet disclosed them.)

MGEs come in a few flavors. There are transposons, which can cut themselves out of the genome and hop into a different neighborhood. Retrantransposons make a copy and shuttle that replica to its new home, expanding the size of the genome with each duplication. They both work by having special sequences on either end that define their boundaries. In between are genes for making proteins that recognize those boundaries and either excise them out in the case of transposons, leaving a gap. Or in the case of retrotransposons, copy them, via an RNA-intermediate, into new locations. There are other classes, too, but these are the two that Tessera executives are interested in. Thats because you can add a new string of code between those sequencessay a healthy, non-mutated version of a disease-causing geneand let the MGEs machinery do the work to move that therapeutic DNA into a patients chromosomes.

For the past two years, the companys team of bioinformaticians have been mining public databases that house the genome sequences of hundreds of thousands of bacterial species that scientists have collected from all over the world. In those reams of genetic data, theyve been prospecting for MGEs that might be best suited for making these kinds of therapeutic DNA changes.

So far, company scientists have identified about 6,000 retrotransposons (what Tessera calls RNA writers) and 2,000 transposons (DNA writers) that show potential. Tesseras team of 35 scientists have been conducting experiments in human cells to understand how exactly each one works. Sometimes, a promising, naturally-occurring gene writer will get tweaked further in Tesseras lab, to be more precise or go to a different location. The company hasnt yet demonstrated that any of its gene writers can eliminate an inherited disease. But in mouse models, the team has consistently been able to use them to insert lots of copies of a large green fluorescent protein gene into the animals genomes as a way of proving that they can reliably place designer DNA.

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This Company Wants to Rewrite the Future of Genetic DiseaseWithout Crispr Gene Editing - WIRED

In this Perspective on Pharma feature, Jung Doh, market development scientist at Beckman Coulter Life Sciences, explains how they entered the pharmaceutical industry after an unexpected opportunity arose.

As an early career scientist with a good number of years of graduate and post-doctoral training (two post-docs, actually), I made an unexpected leap: from academiawhere I thought I would spend my entire professional lifeto industry. And though it wasnt a move Id initially planned, Im the first to say that Im incredibly happy to have ended up here, since its afforded me research and personal growth opportunities I didnt even know I wanted.

After I received my doctorate in biology, I completed a post-doc in HIV research and a second, NASA-funded post-doc in the effects of microgravity on genomes. My dreamand a very concrete goal for many yearswas to become a professor at a research university, running my own lab in an area I was passionate about.

But then life intervened: my wife was offered a teaching position in Indianapolis that she couldnt pass up, so we relocated. After a few months of fruitless application to teaching and research positions at local universities, I started looking elsewhere. There are a lot of pharma and biotech companies in Indianapolis, so I started exploring some of them. In the interview process, (and much to my surprise), I discovered that they shared many of the same passions and goals I did: to benefit human health and life in fundamental and lasting ways.

The company where I ended up and still work, Beckman Coulter Life Sciences, was particularly interesting to me, since one of their key focuses was on next generation sequencing (NGS). Toward the end of my Ph.D. and in my post-doc training, NGS was becoming more routine, and I was fortunate to be able to learn and apply the techniques in my own research.

So I joined Beckman Coulter Life Sciences, which offers a range of scientific research instruments used to study complex biological problems and to advance scientific breakthroughs, first as a marketing application scientist, and then expanding into a dual role as application scientist and proof of principle scientist. In the latter, I worked with customers to develop modified protocols and tools to help research be done more efficiently. I then became product manager for our genomics product line, and as of this year, I have yet another new role, as market development scientist. In this role, I engage with the scientific community to learn from them, as well as support them to perform research better, faster, and with superior results and outcomes. I also bring the learnings and techniques gained from these collaborations to create collateral to offer other labs, or help our internal team develop product offerings for a specific need.

After making the leap into industry, I never looked back. There are, of course, benefits to both sectors. In academia, theres a certain degree of freedom and job securityonce youre tenured, that is. But it takes a lot to get tenured these daysthe funding and grants and a constant stream of publicationsparticularly in biology and related disciplines.

Though industry may seem more constrained at first glance, in many ways, theres as much or more opportunity, since there are a plethora of techniques to learn and apply in novel ways. And since technology evolves so rapidly, especially in genetic engineering and diagnostics, it seems like there are always new methods to master.

Related to this aspect, and alluded to earlier, is the strong sense that my and my colleagues work is genuinely translating into helping people across the globe. I got an inkling of that in the interview process, but its also been a palpable part of my work here. With the current pandemic, for instance, the company came together, and, within a matter of weeks, we were able to offer labs RNA extraction solutions for the virus, which are so critical right now. I felt honoured to be part of a company doing such great work, with flexibility and speed. It definitely speaks to the versatility of the industry.

Beyond the scientific, Ive learned about areas seemingly outside of science, but that are actually integral parts of the business. When I was product manager, for instance, I learned how to manage people, run meetings, build financial models, approach marketing and sales, and many other facets of the business. I had no formal business training going in, but you learn by doing, from your manager and peers. I ended up really loving all these other parts of the business of sciencetheyre challenging, but incredibly rewarding, because they push you beyond your comfort zone into uncharted areas. For that, industry has opened up areas that I didnt even know would be important, let alone fun and rewarding.

Finally, Ive been surprised and heartened by the strong sense of family that exists within a company. Part of this is felt through the opportunities for development, which is evident in all the stages I went through and all the roles Ive had. Theres a sense that staff are supported to grow as scientists and as people, which has made my accidental leap into industry all the more fulfilling.

For young scientists, theres a lot to think about when making decisions about what to study and what track to follow. I would encourage people to not get too hung up on tracks, but to stay open to the possibilitiesin other words, dont get too stuck on academia as the only option just because its where youve done your training. What really matters is having a passion for what you do, and following your interests. Genetic engineering is an area thats exploded in recent years, and will likely grow in the coming years. Ive been lucky that my own work has translated so tangibly into helping people, and at a large scalebut the same is true for many other areas in medical science. So carry onyou may end up in a totally different place from where you started, and thats not a bad thing at all.

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Perspective on Pharma: Moving from academia to industry - EPM Magazine

CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Industry Overview Competitive Analysis, Regional and Global Analysis, Segment Analysis, Market Forecasts 2026

The new report on the globalCRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes marketpublished by theMarket Research Storeincorporates all the essential facts about the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market. This aids different industry players along with new market entrants to open new gateways for the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market on a global platform. Through in-depth research and data obtained from the reliable database the qualitative and the quantitative data of the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market has been updated based on the current market conditions owing toCOVID-19. The overall market conditions have been affected due to the pandemic. The trading conditions and the economy crisis have affected the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market. The information in the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market report is updated and precise thus the clients will be able to relate themselves to the current market scenario.

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The CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market report also encompasses the details about all the market players that are operating in the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market. The market players includeCaribou Biosciences, Addgene, CRISPR THERAPEUTICS, Merck KGaA, Mirus Bio LLC, Editas Medicine, Takara Bio USA, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Horizon Discovery Group, Intellia Therapeutics, GE Healthcare Dharmacon.

The market analysis in the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market study starts with the market definition and scope. In the next section, there is a brief discussion about the target audience of the market. In the later section, a detailed information about the market growth factors and limitations are discussed along with the market opportunities and challenges that are being faced owing to arise of the pandemic. Research tools and methodologies were used while analyzing the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market.

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The major section that covers the overall market description is the market segmentation. The CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market includes segments{Genome Editing, Genetic engineering, gRNA Database/Gene Librar, CRISPR Plasmid, Human Stem Cells, Genetically Modified Organisms/Crops}; {Biotechnology Companies, Pharmaceutical Companies, Academic Institutes, Research and Development Institutes}. To study any market in detail the major components that need to be analyzed are its product type, application, end-use, the solution and the services that are offered. Details about all these segments helps better understand the market size and demand. Every aspect of every single segment was studied carefully and the impact of COVID-19 was also taken into consideration. Both numerical data and subjective information about every segment is included for better understanding. The regional presence of the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market is also included. The current market condition in each regions is explained thoroughly as to how the pandemic has affected the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market demand in a particular region.

Major Advantages for CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market:

1. Well-organized description of the international CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market along with the ongoing inclinations and future considerations to reveal the upcoming investment areas.2. The all-inclusive market feasibility is examined to figure out the profit-making trends to obtain the most powerful foothold in the CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes industry.3. The CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market report covers data which reveal major drivers, constraints, and openings with extensive impact analysis.4. The current market is quantitatively reviewed from 2019 to 2028 to pinpoint the monetary competency of the global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes market.5. Last but not least, PORTERS Five Forces Analysis shows the effectiveness of the customers and providers from a global perspective.

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Global CRISPR And CRISPR-Associated (Cas) Genes Market 2020 with COVID-19 After Effects Analysis by Key Players Caribou Biosciences, Addgene, CRISPR...

Brewing or beer making represents a massive and highly lucrative sector. According to a study, global alcohol consumption has constantly been on the rise, and the consumption of beer accounts for the highest volume share. Yeast, being the cardinal ingredient used in the production of beer, provides the right proportion of texture and flavor to beer during its production. As a result, increasing demand and consumption of beer has been elevating the globalyeast market, which is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 5.4% during the forecast period 2018-2026. The market valuation has been estimated to be over US$ 10,200 Mn by 2026 end.

Yeast Innovation: The Future of Brewery

The brewing industry has overcome a slew of challenges and moved beyond times when technological breakthroughs were not applied to the beer crafting process. According to a research, one small, low-capital innovation, within the reach of all beer makers is enhancing and improvising the yeast they use in their beer. Even though yeast is partially responsible for imparting the flavor and aroma to beer, brewers often compare yeast to hops. This leaves yeasts dynamic nature untapped, which can be used for product enhancements.

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Research has shown that non-GMO development techniques such as selective breeding can be used to optimize the brewing strains. Ultimately, brewers can enhance the quality of beer by innovative yeast that can be fully customized pertaining to the brewery and its beer with the specific desired parameters in fermentation performance, processing, storage, flavor, and aroma, without compromising quality or brand identity.

Alternatives to Traditional Straining to Drive Innovation in Yeast Market

Studies on the beer and yeast market have pointed at various possibilities that would drive the use of yeast in beer making. For instance, to develop brewers yeast, market players could use hop-accentuating enzymes in high volume which will change the aroma and flavor profiles of the different hop varieties used in beer. Additionally, brewers can add a trait to increase fermentation temperature ranges which would produce desired flavor profiles at lower temperatures, eliminating the problem of off odors that occur at higher temperatures.

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Genetically Engineered Yeast to Offer Excellent Taste to Beer

From great-tasting to cloudy and off-taste beers, yeast accounts for up to a third of a brews final flavor. Brewing yeast has its own genetic limitations. For researchers across the globe, brewing yeast is at the forefront of genetic research and synthetic biology, which is pushing the boundaries of genetic engineering. Geneticists can now tweak the genetic code of brewing yeast to suppress or express certain beer characteristics. From taking out the gene responsible for the butter-flavored molecule diacetyl to using specific gene for banana and clove flavors made by hefeweizen yeast brewers would now be able to use this ability of genetically modified (GM) yeast for the production of beer.

Whether it is straining of yeast or making use of genetically engineered yeast, increased consumption of alcoholic beverages in the world, with beer leading the consumption segment, has witnessed several yeast innovations in recent years, favoring the market growth. For more insights, speak to our expert food analysts at Persistence Market Research to know more about the yeasts market and its impact on the end-user industry.

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Yeast Market Trend, CAGR Status, Growth, Analysis and Forecast to 2028 - 3rd Watch News

Researchers have managed to engineer plants with bigger cells that can store more watergetting them to behave like water-harboring succulents that thrive in deserts around the world. Whats more, this trait could be widely transferred to agricultural crops, a new study finds.

The discovery, detailed in The Plant Journal, hinges on a gene thats found in wine grapes, called VvCEB1, which causes the cells of the fruit to enlarge during development. When the researchers bred that gene into thale cressa plant widely used as an experimental model in researchthey were able to over-express it, which led the plants to develop unusually large cells, capable of storing larger quantities of water. The plants could not only withstand extremely dry conditions, but were also able to tolerate higher salinity in the soil, the researchers found.

In fact, when exposed to drought-like conditions in the experiment, they showed that only 16 to 25% of the regular thale cress plantswhich lacked the over-expressed VvCEB1 geneultimately survived. The difference in the engineered plants was striking: between 91 and 94% of them survived the dire conditions and continued to grow.

Compared to the non-engineered control plants, the engineered cress were found to retain much more waterand the pace at which they lost water was also notably slower than in the controls, the experiments showed.

Presumably, some of this was thanks to their new, larger cells, which act efficiently like a reservoir in times of need. But the researchers discovered that as well as larger cells, the VvCEB1-expressing plants also had fewer and smaller stomata on their leaves. Especially under dry conditions, water transpires out of stomata at a rapid paceso having fewer and smaller portals to the outside world helps them to keep more water locked in.

On top of all this, the engineered thale cress plants had another advantage over their regular counterparts: equipped with larger cells, these plants became more salt-tolerant, the experiments showed. Thats likely because bigger, more watery cells would help the plant dilute salt thats absorbed from saline soils, as the researchers explain. And whats more, the engineered cress had larger leaves and produced more seeds than the controlsuggesting that productivity isnt sacrificed by this particular genetic tweak.

Interestingly, the researchers made this discovery while pursuing a different research goal. Theyd been trying to engineer plants to contain a trait known as crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM), a naturally-occurring feature in some plants that helps them conserve more water by photosynthesizing only at nightwhen its cooler and safer for stomata to be open. To enable this trait, the researchers needed to engineer plants that contained what they call the right leaf anatomy: namely, larger cells in which to store an ingredient called malic acid, which plays a crucial role in enabling the unusual photosynthetic response. It just so happens that the larger cell sizes which serve that purposes could double up as storage space for water, too.

Altogether, the researchers efforts resulted in the model of a plant that could potentially be drought-tolerant and more adaptable in the higher-salinity landscapes that are expected to expand under climate change.Water-storing tissue is considered among the most successful adaptations to drought in the plant kingdom, the researchers write. And yet, its been largely unexplored as a way to bolster crops against the effects of climate change, they add.

They aim to change that: next up, theyll be combining their discoveries on CAM and reservoir cells, and trying to engineer them jointly into crops.

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Engineering plants to withstand drought and tolerate salinity - Anthropoce

The pristine X-ray crystallography data gathered by Rosalind Franklin played a crucial role in the discovery of DNAs structure. Yet when the discovery was recognized by the Nobel Committee in 1962, the winners of the Nobel Prize did not include Franklin, who had died in 1958. Only recently has Franklin received some of the recognition that she deserves for her essential contribution to one of the biggest discoveries of the past century.

We still have a lot of work to do, unfortunately, notes Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, an immunologist at Yale School of Medicine and a fierce advocate for women in science. Things have definitely gotten better since [Franklins] days she tells GEN. But we still have a huge disparity in women representationespecially at the senior level. Iwasaki adds that we have to address what she thinks is the root cause of the problemthe academic culture and the unconscious (or conscious) bias against women and people of color that prevents these brilliant people from moving up the academic ladder.

To mark the centenary of Franklins birth, GEN sought to highlight scientists at the forefront of COVID-19 researchsome of the most influential research currently being conductedwho are women. In this article, GEN speaks with researchers who are leading efforts to track SARS-CoV-2 genomes, to uncover host factors influencing COVID-19 progression, to develop saliva-based COVID-19 tests, and more.

Working as a pediatrician in China, Qian Zhang, MD, wanted to understand why some children are more susceptible to infections than others. Children are exposed to hundreds of pathogens every day, Zhang tells GEN, but only a very small proportion get really severe infections. Zhang has been researching differences in susceptibility for the past decade. Notably, she performed postdoctoral work at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) with Helen Su, MD, PhD. Afterward, Zhang became a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University, in the laboratory of Jean-Laurent Casanova, MD, PhD.

Working with patient samples, researchers in the Casanova laboratory look for rare, deleterious mutations that might govern susceptibility to infection. In particular, they look for monogenic variants, where a single defect makes an individual far more susceptible to infection. Zhangs hypothesis for COVID-19 is that patients who are susceptible to less virulent respiratory pathogens will also be susceptible to COVID-19. By taking an unbiased approach, Zhang and colleagues may find genetic factors that have never been identified before.

Normally, Zhang analyzes children because it is in childhood that people usually experience infection for the first time. But COVID-19 is different, she notes, because this infection is the first time for everyone.

Zhang previously led the influenza team in the Casanova laboratory. So, taking on COVID-19 is a natural shift. She adds that many commonalities between the two lung infections have been established, and that many tools developed for flu research can be used in COVID-19 work. Besides, there simply arent any more flu patients coming in.

Zhang asserts that her group, like others, has adapted its work to the pandemic. Investigators normally work on well-defined infections. COVID-19, however, isnt so well defined. Too little about it is known. For example, without key pieces of data such as a fatality rate, investigators who look for genetic lesions may be unaware of the lesions prevalence. We have to change our analysis while the data are coming in, Zhang explains.

How much hesitation did Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, have in moving into COVID-19 research? None, she says. I knew the importance of speed and urgency. She notes that she had learned the value of these attributes from her experience jumping into Zika.

Iwasaki, a professor of immunobiology and molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at the Yale School of Medicine and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has spent the past few months trying to understand the immune response of COVID-19 patients. Iwasakis laboratory is working to develop real-time analyses of immune markers and cytokines that could sharpen patient assessments and even inform treatmentdecisions.

The biggest surprise, so far, has been the role of interferon (IFN) in this disease, asserts Iwasaki. For other viruses, such as influenza and rhinovirus, type 1 IFN has a protective role for the host. But SARS-CoV-2 seems different. Studies in a mouse model have shown that IFN contributes to the inflammatory response without shutting down viral replication. According to Iwasaki, this is unusual. In other viral infections, IFN can shut down the virus. But Iwasaki thinks that the IFN here is being induced a little bit too late or in too small of an amount.

Iwasakis main goal is to understand what type of immune response confers protective immunity versus the types that lead to disease. Because patients have diverse responses to SARS-CoV-2, the researchers are working to build disease trajectories that reflect patient-specific aspects of the immune responsecytokine or antibody production, T-cell response, viral load, etc. By conducting longitudinal sampling and following patients trajectories, the researchers hope to predict how patients will fare when they are admitted to the hospital. Ideally, she envisions a panel that could be ordered by a physician that would allow patients to be treated with a more personalized medicine approach, based on their immune profiles.

This analysis has never been done so extensively for an infectious disease, Iwasaki asserts, because we never had the urgency to do this for other viral pathogens. In 2020, thankfully, the technology exists to do this type of analysis in real time.

Another area Iwasaki has recently explored is sex differences in SARS-CoV-2 infection. By studying male and female immune responses, her group found one clue as to why males are reportedly more susceptible to COVID-19. In a preprint posted in medRxiv, Iwasaki and colleagues described how they investigated sex differences in viral loads, antibody titers, and cytokines in COVID-19 patients, and how they found that T-cell activation was significantly more robust in women than in men. Men who dont develop a good T-cell response have worse disease outcomes.

Emma B. Hodcroft, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Basel, recalls agreeing to keep her supervisors project going while he traveled. She was to take charge in early February. Continuity was important because they had just started uploading sequences of SARS-CoV-2 into the online genomics engine Nextstraina collaboration started in 2014 to track flu virus diversity and help predict the next flu strain.

Because Nextstrain has hubs in Europe and the United States, the absence of data uploads at the University of Basel would hamper runs during the European daytime. She has, in her own words, never looked back.

The pipeline analysis that Nextstrain runs makes phylogeny from viral genome mutations. Phylogenetics is a field full of limitations, Hodcroft notes. She adds that the field is particularly troublesome because its beautifully dangerousthe picture that is drawn is always less certain than it looks. While it is tempting to start telling stories about these sequences, she says, one must be cautious. The roughly 40,000 cases currently in the system is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of COVID-19 cases. There is much more likelihood that we havent sampled someone than we have, she admits.

As borders reopen and travel resumes, continued genomic analysis, Hodcroft tells GEN, could uncover details about virus transmission, including transmission routes. She will be keeping a close watch while cautiously communicating new findings. These data are of interest to a large and growing audience, and members of this audience may misinterpret (intentionally or not) what they hear. Deciphering the uncertainty that surrounds the field of phylogenetics requires expertisesomething not all scientists who have ventured into the world of COVID-19 phylogenetics possess.

Hodcroft gets upset when misinterpreted data spark a storyline that needs to be debunked. I dont think that telling these false stories that panic the public helps anybody, she declares. There is plenty to be worried about with this virus.

COVID-19 is the second SARS epidemic Rachel Graham, PhD, has worked on since she started her graduate work in a coronavirus lab in 2002. Currently working in a large coronavirus laboratory at University of North Carolina (UNC) led by Ralph S. Baric, PhD, she says that Barics group has scaled up from what was a busy program to an extremely busy program.

Graham uses large sequence sets to study how the virus transcriptional program contributes to replication and virulence. As the virus mutates, its subgenomic RNAs are produced in different ways, indicating that the transcription itself may be a virulence factor. She says that as the population acquires more herd immunity, researchers may see a lot of transcriptional differences in the virus, and these differences could result in changes in virulence. SARS-CoV-2 will be the first virus where this relatively new idea in virology will be examined in detail.

Lisa Gralinski, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at UNC, has been studying coronaviruses for 12 years. Her current work centers around virus host interactions, specifically in animal models such as the humanized ACE2 transgenic mouse. The mouse was developed at UNC in the mid-2000s after the first SARS outbreak. Researchers had even started the paperwork to cryopreserve the mouse just before COVID-19 struck. Quickly adjusting to COVID-19, they changed course and started as many breeding pairs as possible.

Graham and Gralinski may be new to the UNC faculty, but they are veterans in a rapidly growing field. Gralinski notes that six months ago, few people worked in coronavirus. Unlike SARS, SARS-CoV-2 is not currently a select agentwhich means that more people are free to work on it. Both Graham and Gralinski welcome more hands on deck, but theyve been alarmed by some of the ways that people are working with SARS-CoV-2 in their Biological Safety Level 3 (BSL3) labs. SARS-CoV-2 requires special precautions and security due to the high titers used in experiments.

In early March, Anne L. Wyllie, PhD, an associate research scientist in epidemiology at Yale, was chatting with her colleague, Nathan D. Grubaugh, PhD, an assistant professor of epidemiology. He was lamenting the level of SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection in patient samples. Wyllie drew his attention to a method she had been using to detect Streptococcus pneumoniae from saliva samples of asymptomatic carriers.

Her method, which used Thermo Fishers MagMAX Kit for Nucleic Acid Extraction, had worked so well for Wyllie that she suggested that Grubaugh use it to test for SARS-CoV-2. Wyllie recalls that when Grubaugh and colleagues compared the methods, Wyllies method blew the other one out of the water. Ultimately, the MagMAX Kit and the King Fisher platform (which happens to be named Frankie in the lab, in honor of Rosalind Franklin) became the Grubaugh laboratorys method of choice. Wyllie is now co-lead on the COVID-19 project with Grubaugh.

Wyllie was the lead author on a preprint uploaded to medRxiv showing that saliva samples offer a more sensitive and consistent alternative to nasopharyngeal swabs for COVID-19 testing. Saliva samples, the paper argued, should be considered a viable alternative to nasopharyngeal swabs to alleviate COVID-19 testing demands. This could be key to meeting public testing demands.

We knew a pandemic would come and we knew we would have to be ready, says Viviana Simon, MD, PhD, professor of microbiology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. A decade after starting her virology laboratory in 2006, Simon and her colleagues built the Virology Initiative in 2017, which allowed real-time access to samples from patients with viral infections. The goal, she explains, was to study emerging viruses in New York Cityviruses such as Zika, chikungunya, and dengue. Having the initiative established allowed the laboratory to spring into action when the pandemic hit. Simon notes that a virology infrastructure capable of such responsiveness would not be easy to build in the middle of a pandemic.

Simon remarks that there was never any doubt that there would be a pandemic: We thought that it would be a respiratory virus and figured that it would be an avian influenza strain. Any pandemic would almost certainly come through New York City, which serves as a gateway not just for people, but for viruses from all over, she says.

Simon tells GEN that her team heard rumors about a new virus in December and began preparing. The moment the first sequences were released in mid-January, she recalls, We ordered primers. And then? Simon and colleagues waited and waited, she says, for the first case to show up. The first COVID-19 case was diagnosed at Mount Sinai on February 29. Only then could the Simon team grow the virus and sequence it.

Simons team has analyzed the genetic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 circulation in New York City and how the virus was introduced. The team is also interested in assessing the durability of antibodies and determining the degree to which antibodies are protective.

The size of Simons laboratory has doubled, primarily due to a temporary influx of postdoctoral researchers and technicians, volunteers that come from laboratories shut down by COVID-19. This COVID task force jumped in to support the COVID-19 research being done at Mount Sinai. Simon remarks that when temporary personnel start returning to their own laboratories, she will be busy hiring more people.

The dedicated researchers highlighted in this article have been working almost nonstop for months, motivated by a shared passion to beat back a virus that has taken over the world. These researchers represent different scientific backgrounds, and they are tackling different facets of the virus. But they would no doubt recognize common elements in their professional development. For example, the challenges that come with being women in male-dominated fields. Hopefully, it will not take decades to recognize and celebrate the contributions of some of these outstanding scientists.

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COVID-19 Research: Women Are Changing the Face of the Pandemic - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News