Free Republic

A month ago oil giant BP announced a 600 million dollar investment in green algae research. Exxon did not stand still for that. Now they are matching that with their own 600 million bucks. Green algae is a very versatile crop. You can literally and inexpensively make anything from Green Algae that you can make from petroleum or from corn. Hundreds of companies world wide are already hard at work building infrastructure; hundreds of thousands of jobs will result as the Bio Tech Age and the green algae technologies mature over the next few years. Our defense department is supporting...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest private philanthropy fund, sold off almost all of its pharmaceutical, biotechnology and health-care investments in the quarter ended June 30, according to a regulatory filing published Friday. The Seattle-based charity endowment, set up by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and his wife, sold its total holding of 2.5 million shares in health-care giant Johnson & Johnson in the quarter, according to the filing.

“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!” —President Ronald Reagan Life Legal Defense Foundation continues to watchdog the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and in doing so found the latest attempt to promulgate embryonic stem cell research by “educating” children. Let us introduce you to Senate Bill 471. Titled “The California Stem Cell and Biotechnology Education and Workforce Development Act of 2009,” the purpose of SB 471 is purportedly to train up a new generation of...

The First and Best Biotechnician by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Mankind’s attempts at bioengineering have yet to match the precision of some techniques already found in nature: cloning, tissue culturing, and gene therapy. Recent studies have explored how these processes operate in amoebas, aphids, and parasitic wasps, respectively...

Relying on principles similar to those that cause Jell-O to congeal into that familiar, wiggly treat, University of Michigan researchers are devising a new method of detecting nitric oxide in exhaled breath. Because elevated concentrations of nitric oxide in breath are a telltale sign of many diseases, including lung cancer and tuberculosis, this development could prove useful in diagnosing illness and monitoring the effects of treatment. Assistant professor of chemistry Anne McNeil and graduate student Jing Chen will discuss the work at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah. McNeil and Chen work with...

In pursuing cleaner energy there is such a thing as being too green. Unicellular microalgae, for instance, can be considered too green. In a paper in a special energy issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley describe a method for using microalgae for making biofuel. The researchers explain a way to genetically modify the tiny organisms, so as to minimize the number of chlorophyll molecules needed to harvest light without compromising the photosynthesis process in the cells. With this modification, instead of making more sugar molecules, the microalgae could be...

Interleukin-12 is a naturally occurring protein essential for the proper functioning of the human immune system. Having either too much or too little interleukin-12 may play a role in the development of many diseases, including some cancers and auto-immune disorders like Crohn's, psoriasis, and rheumatoid arthritis. In turn, modulating interleukin-12 levels could yield new therapies for those conditions. In an effort to create a new and cost-effective method for producing interleukin-12 and make more of the scarce protein available for research and therapeutic development, a team of scientists at Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center (WPI) and the...

A radical technique for treating diabetes could recruit cells in the gut to make insulin SAN DIEGO — If your pancreas fails you, go with your gut. Inserting a gene into gut cells in mice enabled those cells to take over the pancreas’s job, producing insulin after meals, according to unpublished research announced June 18 in San Diego at the Biotechnology Industry Organization International Convention. The work may offer a novel way to treat diabetes. "This is the first time that we've engineered a tissue that is not the pancreas to manufacture insulin" in animals, says researcher Anthony Cheung, a...

University of Maryland research that started with bacteria from the Chesapeake Bay has led to a process that may be able to convert large volumes of all kinds of plant products, from leftover brewer’s mash to paper trash, into ethanol and other biofuel alternatives to gasoline. That process, developed by University of Maryland professors Steve Hutcheson and Ron Weiner, is the foundation of their incubator company Zymetis, which was on view today in College Park for Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley and state and university officials. "The new Zymetis technology is a win for the State of Maryland, for the University...

Seattle, WA (LifeNews.com) -- A biotech firm has announced it will offer ethical alternatives to some of the vaccines that currently rely on the use of fetal tissue form abortions. The Seattle-based AVM Biotechnology says it will produce ethical alternatives in the fields of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and vaccine development. The news gives hope to pro-life people who have been reluctant to use some vaccines because their development came as a result of the destruction of unborn children. “We will be working to bring commercially available, morally acceptable, vaccines to the US market and to use existing technology to produce new...

Leon R. Kass | Friday, 31 August 2007 How brave a new world? There is nothing "brave" or beautiful about the biotechnised world we are entering, says one of America's best-known bioethicists. This is a commencement speech made by Dr Leon Kass at St John's College, in Annapolis, Maryland, earlier this year. Dr Kass, a physician and philosopher, was the chairman of the President's Council for Bioethics from 2002 to 2005. He teaches at the University of Chicago. Surveying the world you graduates are about to enter, I am reminded of the ancient Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting...

UTRECHT, The Netherlands (Reuters) - Dutch researchers are trying to grow pork meat in a laboratory with the goal of feeding millions without the need to raise and slaughter animals. ... But it will take years before meat grown in labs and eventually factories reaches supermarket shelves. And so far, Roelen and his team have managed to grow only thin layers of cells that bear no resemblance to pork chops. Under the process, researchers first isolate muscle stem cells, which have the ability to grow and multiply into muscle cells. Then they stimulate the cells to develop, give them nutrients...

Source: American Society of Agronomy Date: May 16, 2007 Biotechnology Solves Debate Over Origin Of European Potato Science Daily — Molecular studies recently revealed new genetic information concerning the long-disputed origin of the "European potato." Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of La Laguna, and the International Potato Center used genetic markers to prove that the remnants of the earliest known landraces of the European potato are of Andean and Chilean origin. They report their findings in the May-June 2007 issue of Crop Science. Americans each eat about 140 pounds of potatoes a year in fresh and processed...

Senate Deciding Whether to Kill Humans; Waste Taxpayer Dollars Contact: Phil Magnan, Director, Biblical Family Advocates, 011-36-1-246-2587, phil@bfamilyadvocates.com BUDAPEST, Hungary, Apr. 9 /Christian Newswire/ -- According to a recent article written by Steven Ertelt of Lifenews.com, Senate Will Debate Embryonic Stem Cell Research Funding April 10, the Senate has "scheduled a debate and vote on a bill that would force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research." The article continued by saying, "The main bill, S. 5, is legislation that would mandate federal funding of embryonic stem cell research that requires the destruction of days-old unborn children for their stem...

In the contest for oddest pronouncement in a State of the Union address, high marks should go to President Bush’s call last January for a national ban on “creating human-animal hybrids.� Fortunately, the modern biotech laboratory does not yet resemble H.G. Wells’s island of Dr. Moreau, that fictional place where an exiled scientist blends man and beast by vivisection. Not even our most skillful, least scrupulous genetic engineers can manufacture humanzees to provide spare parts or serve as semi-skilled labor. We are not yet so talented or so depraved. Yet the President’s call to action did not come out of...

A silicon chip that faithfully mimics the neural circuitry of a real retina could lead to better bionic eyes for those with vision loss, researchers claim. About 700,000 people in the developed world are diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration each year, and 1.5 million people worldwide suffer from a disease called retinitis pigmentosa. In both of these diseases, retinal cells, which convert light into nerve impulses at the back of the eye, gradually die. Most artificial retinas connect an external camera to an implant behind the eye via a computer (see 'Bionic' eye may help reverse blindness). The new silicon...

Recent successful tests of neural prosthetics bring the devices closer to widespread use. Paralyzed patients dream of the day when they can once again move their limbs. That dream is making its way to becoming a reality, thanks to a neural implant created by John Donoghue and colleagues at Brown University and Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems. In 2004, Matthew Nagle, who is paralyzed due to a spinal-cord injury, became the first person to test the device, which translated his brain activity into action (see "Implanting Hope," March 2005, and "Brain Chips Give Paralyzed Patients New Powers"). Nagle's experience with the prosthetic...

A genetic "roadmap" will help to find treatments for diseases, by looking at the signatures that drugs leave behind. A newly developed genetic "roadmap" promises to streamline the drug discovery process. Called the Connectivity Map, this public database matches drug compounds with diseased cells and the processes occurring within them. "The reason it's so difficult to find those disease and drug connections is that the languages in which they are conventionally described are very different," says Justin Lamb, senior scientist at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, MA. "A physician would describe a disease in terms of its physical symptoms, whereas...

Spider web silk, the strongest natural fiber known, could possess untapped medical potential in artificial tendons or for regenerating ligaments, scientists now say. A body of folklore dating back at least 2,000 years tells of the potential medical value of spider webs in fighting infections, stemming bleeding and healing wounds, explained molecular biologist Randolph Lewis at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Spider webs have even found a place in Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream," where the character dubbed Bottom noted, "Good Master Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you." While research has found...

Newswise — University of Florida researchers have shown ordinary human brain cells may share the prized qualities of self-renewal and adaptability normally associated with stem cells. Writing in an upcoming edition of Development, scientists from UF’s McKnight Brain Institute describe how they used mature human brain cells taken from epilepsy patients to generate new brain tissue in mice. Furthermore, they can coax these pedestrian human cells to produce large amounts of new brain cells in culture, with one cell theoretically able to begin a cycle of cell division that does not stop until the cells number about 10 to the...

As the "new biotechnology" -- gene-splicing, or "genetic modification" (GM) -- enjoys ever more varied and impressive successes, the intractable opposition from environmental and other activists has become reminiscent of the old cartoon cliché about the person who year after year inaccurately predicts the end of the world. Activists' antagonism belies the fact that gene-splicing offers enhanced efficiency for a vast array of processes, and proven benefits to both human health and the environment. For example, a single issue of a prominent monthly biotech journal contained three unrelated articles that illustrate a good part of the spectrum of benefits of...

SAN FRANCISCO - A tiny biosciences company is developing a promising drug to fight diarrhea, a scourge among babies in the developing world, but it has made an astonishing number of powerful enemies because it grows the experimental drug in rice genetically engineered with a human gene. Environmental groups, corporate food interests and thousands of farmers across the country have succeeded in chasing Ventria Bioscience's rice farms out of two states. And critics continue to complain that Ventria is recklessly plowing ahead with a mostly untested technology that threatens the safety of conventional crops grown for food. "We just want...

Scientists have created a molecular switch that could play a key role in thousands of nanotech applications. The Mol-Switch project successfully developed a demonstrator to prove the principle, despite deep scepticism from specialist colleagues in biotechnology and biophysics. "Frankly, some researchers didn't think what we were attempting was possible because standard descriptions in physics, for example the Stokes equation for viscosity indicated that the system might not work. But viscous forces do not apply at the nano-scale," says Dr Keith Firman, Reader in Molecular Biotechnology at Portsmouth University and coordinator of the Mol-Switch project, funded under the European Commission’s FET...

Healing brain and spinal-cord injuries is one of the most desirable, but challenging, goals of regenerative medicine. Molecules that self-assemble into nanoscale filaments may show the way. A scaffold of nanoscale fibres that self-assembles from small, synthetic protein-like components provides a framework for the regrowth of damaged brain tissue, allowing vision to be restored in hamsters with brain lesions, a team in the USA and China reports1. Rutledge Ellis-Behnke of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his co-workers say their results show that nanotechnology is not just about microelectronics and tiny machinery, but has significant implications for biomedicine. Rutledge Ellis-Behnke...

Florida Capital: TallahasseeState abbreviation/Postal code: Fla./FLGovernor: Jeb Bush, R (to Jan. 2007)Lieut. Governor: Toni Jennings, R (to Jan. 2007)Senators: Mel Martinez, R (to Jan. 2011); Bill Nelson, D (to Jan. 2007)U.S. Representatives: 25Historical biographies of Congressional membersSecy. of State: Glenda Hood, R (to Jan. 2007)Atty. General: Charlie Crist, R (to Jan. 2007)Chief Financial Officer: Tom Gallagher, R (to Jan. 2007)Organized as territory: March 30, 1821Entered Union (rank): March 3, 1845 (27)Present constitution adopted: 1969Motto: In God we trust (1868)State symbols: flower orange blossom (1909) bird mockingbird (1927) song “Suwannee River� (1935) Nickname: Sunshine State (1970)Origin of name: From the...

A handful of genes that control the body's defenses during hard times can also dramatically improve health and prolong life in diverse organisms. Understanding how they work may reveal the keys to extending human life span while banishing diseases of old age You can assume quite a bit about the state of a used car just from its mileage and model year. The wear and tear of heavy driving and the passage of time will have taken an inevitable toll. The same appears to be true of aging in people, but the analogy is flawed because of a crucial difference...

At the dawn of the era of genetically engineered crops, scientists were envisioning all sorts of healthier and tastier foods, including cancer-fighting tomatoes, rot-resistant fruits, potatoes that would produce healthier French fries and even beans that would not cause flatulence. But so far, most of the genetically modified crops have provided benefits mainly to farmers, by making it easier for them to control weeds and insects. Now, millions of dollars later, the next generation of biotech crops — the first with direct benefits for consumers — is finally on the horizon. But the list does not include many of the...

WASHINGTON--Leon Kass is willing--reluctantly willing--to indulge a request. I have asked him to refresh our interview of several weeks ago by reflecting on the case of Hwang Woo Suk, the internationally celebrated South Korean researcher who recently admitted to fabricating cloned stem cells. Dr. Kass thinks that a decennial White House conference on aging might make for an equally timely news peg. Health and longevity; dementia and death; euthanasia and living wills; performance enhancement and life-prolonging genetic manipulations--these are the subjects that really engage the mind of this 66-year-old physician and ethicist (and former philosophy professor of mine). As for...

AP BIOTECHNOLOGY WRITER SAN FRANCISCO -- The notorious E. coli bug made its film debut Wednesday. That's when researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Texas announced in the journal Nature that they had created photographs of themselves by programming the bacteria - best known for outbreaks of food poisoning - to make pictures in much the same way Kodak film produces images. It's the latest advance in "synthetic biology," a disputed research movement launched largely by engineers and chemists bent on genetically manipulating microscopic bugs into acting like tiny machines, creating new, powerful and...

The past 50 years have been the most productive period in global agricultural history, leading to the greatest reduction in hunger the world has ever seen. The Green Revolution, as this period came to be known in the developing world, has kept more than one billion people from hunger, starvation, and even death. Many factors contributed to the Green Revolution. The doubling of the global area under irrigation was certainly important. But at the core was the development and application of new high-yielding, disease- and insect-resistant seeds, new products to restore soil fertility and control pests, and a succession of...

When Dr. Christian Barnard performed the world's first successful heart transplant back in 1967, he reached a new peak of human scientific achievement. However, almost 40 years later, the criteria for receiving a new heart is quite stringent, and heart transplants are granted to those patients who have the highest chance for recovery. For thousands of elderly or gravely ill patients with damaged hearts, a transplant is not an option. Now Israeli researchers are at the forefront of research which could one day make heart transplants obsolete - using stem cell technology, they're developing a way to use the blood...

Scientists have created a “miracle mouse” that can regenerate amputated limbs or badly damaged organs, making it able to recover from injuries that would kill or permanently disable normal animals. The experimental animal is unique among mammals in its ability to regrow its heart, toes, joints and tail.

The European Union and fellow traveling anti-biotech activists may well succeed in bottling up the next wave of genetically improved crops that aim directly at helping poor farmers in the developing world. How? Anti-biotech European regulations are spooking the governments of poor countries into preventing their farmers from growing the new genetically enhanced crops. The EU wants to export its regulatory system to the world, and it is offering "capacity building" foreign aid to persuade developing countries to adopt its no-go or go-slow approach to crop biotechnology regulations. Even more tragically, some developing countries are so afraid of the EU’s...

A team of South Korean scientists has created genetically altered pig clones, which produce an exorbitantly expensive substance that helps patients fight cancer. The team, led by professor Park Chang-sik at Chungnam National University, Wednesday said they cloned four female piglets that will secrete GM-CSF in their milk in a year. GM-CSF is a protein that stimulates the bone marrow to produce several kinds of white blood cells and prolong their survival outside the bone marrow.

N.J.'s big-bucks experiment Sunday, June 19, 2005 Series archive: Betting on BiotechFirst of four partsWith little fanfare and no direct approval of the electorate, the state of New Jersey has spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting the biotech industry.Powerful forces are hard at work in Trenton, selling biotechnology as a way to simultaneously bolster the state economy and improve the health of citizens. Acting Governor Codey has been front and center, promoting a plan to spend $380 million more on research into embryonic stem cells.Much is at stake in a state where 200,000 jobs depend on the pharmaceutical industry...

Copenhagen, Denmark: Scientists in the UK have proved that human embryonic stem cells can develop in the laboratory into the early forms of cells that eventually become eggs or sperm. Their work opens up the possibility that eggs and sperm could be grown from stem cells and used for assisted reproduction, therapeutic cloning and the creation of more stem cells for further research and for the improved treatments for patients suffering from a range of diseases. Behrouz Aflatoonian will tell the 21st annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Monday 20 June) that the research...

A TREATMENT for balding men, women with stretchmarks and anyone who has gum disease may have been discovered by scientists. As cure-alls go, an injection of fibroblasts may be the ultimate. The new technology is being developing by Isolagen, a Texas-based biotech company, and 50 patients are to undergo clincial trials in London. Fibroblasts are tiny cells that control levels of the proteins collagen and elastin, which are found in skin, bones and other tissue. To treat burns, the scientists take cells from an undamaged area, extract the fibroblasts and multiply them in the laboratory before injecting them back into...

Fri, Apr. 29, 2005BusinessweekGenetic mingling mixes human, animal cells The Associated Press /RENO, Nev. By PAUL ELIAS AP Biotechnology Writer   RENO, Nev. - On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil, March 3 - In a significant victory for large biotechnology companies like Monsanto, Brazil's lower house of Congress has overwhelmingly approved legislation paving the way for the legalization of genetically modified crops. After months of delays and heated debate, legislators passed a biotechnology law late Wednesday night by a vote of 352 to 60. The bill had pitted farmers and scientists against environmental and religious groups. Besides lifting a longstanding ban on the sale and planting of gene-altered seeds, the legislation also clears the way for research involving human embryonic stem cells that have been frozen for...

Race to the Finish Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World, by Wesley J. Smith By Travis D. Smith Wesley J. Smith excels at making complicated and controversial biotechnologies easier to understand while exposing the tricks and rationalizations that are oftentimes used to advance them. His latest book offers an inventory of the interested parties in these matters, from ethicists to ideologues and cult leaders, to scientists, celebrities, politicians, and businessmen. But the most essential and durable part of Smith's book is the author's uncompromising yet carefully considered arguments, which will hold, while various procedures, and those devoted to...

Human stem cells trigger immune attackJessica Ebert Doubt cast on therapeutic use of embryonic cell lines. Exposure to molecules from animals might have made human stem cells unacceptable.© ANDREW LEONARD / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Most human embryonic stem-cell lines, including those available to federally funded researchers in the United States, may be useless for therapeutic applications. The body's immune defences would probably attack the cells, say US researchers. When embryonic stem cells are added to serum from human blood, antibodies stick to the cells. This suggests the cells are seen as foreign, and that transplanting them into the body would...

Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies) - South Korea gave official government backing on Wednesday to ground-breaking research that produced the world’s first cloned human embryos. The health and welfare ministry said a research team led by Hwang Woo-Seok, a Seoul National University professor, has been officially registered as a state institute and its research approved. “Professor Hwang Woo-Seok’s team will now be able to step up its research on stem cells under the government’s management system,” the ministry said in a statement. In February 2004, Professor Hwang’s cutting edge research produced the first cloned human embryos to generate stem cells for therapeutic purposes....

Almost everywhere food is sold these days, you are likely to find products claiming to contain no genetically modified substances. But unless you are buying wild mushrooms, game, berries or fish, that statement is untrue. Nearly every food we eat has been genetically modified, through centuries of crosses, both within and between species, and for most of the last century through mutations induced by bombarding seeds with chemicals or radiation. In each of these techniques, dozens, hundreds, even thousands of genes of unknown function are transferred or modified to produce new food varieties. Most so-called organic foods are no exception....

The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com Pew's parallel universeBy Henry I. MillerPublished January 6, 2005 The "new biotechnology," or gene-splicing, applied to agriculture and food production is here to stay. More than 80 percent of processed foods on supermarket shelves soft drinks, preserves, mayonnaise, salad dressings include ingredients from gene-spliced plants, and Americans have safely consumed more than a trillion servings of these foods.     But opposition continues to genetically improving plants by use of these precise and predictable techniques, largely due to a drumbeat of misrepresentations by antibiotechnology activists.     Some of these radicals, like Greenpeace, make no secret they intend to...

The end of the cold war was cruel to Cuba. The country's trading partners, denied Soviet largesse, dried up. Hard cash ran low. What food the country could grow languished in the fields; trucks didn't have enough gasoline to bring the crops to market. And of course there was the US embargo. What Cubans call "the Special Period" produced one notable success: pharmaceuticals. In the wake of the Soviet collapse, Cuba got so good at making knockoff drugs that a thriving industry took hold. Today the country is the largest medicine exporter in Latin America and has more than 50...

A group of prominent scientists, researchers and doctors is teaming up to push for a state law permitting embryonic stem-cell research in Washington. The effort, fueled by concerns that other states are poised to drain away top people and funding from the region's research institutions and biotechnology companies, aims to keep local researchers competitive in a science that many believe will yield cures for diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. "We don't want Washington state to be left behind on stem-cell research by default," said state Rep. Shay Schual-Berke (D-Normandy Park), who intends to be a lead sponsor for...

Cuba Helps Vietnam Road Development Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Dec 17 (Prensa Latina) Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khi opened Friday construction works at the 38-mile Ho Chi Minh-Trung Luong highway, in which Cuban experts have played a pivotal role. The road is part of a wider driveway that links different spots of the huge southern Can Tho, administrative center of the Mekong-river delta provinces. It is the first highway in Vietnam, with eight 3.75-yard lanes and two others devoted to emergencies, expected to be finished in 2007. This project is a property of MTA (My Thuan's Administration), while...

THE PASSAGE OF PROPOSITION 71 in California (the Stem Cell Research and Cures Act) was an acute case of electoral folly. As Californians plunged headlong into a $6 billion quagmire of debt in a quixotic quest for "miracle cures" from human cloning and embryonic stem cells, they simultaneously rejected Prop. 67, an initiative that would have added a modest tax to phone bills to keep the state's endangered emergency rooms and trauma centers from shutting down. This is a remarkable and disconcerting development. It wasn't long ago that California's trauma centers were the pride of the state and a model...

The clamor over genetically enhanced crops has reached a fevered pitch in France. In the last few months, a group of neo-luddite radicals have crisscrossed the countryside razing fields and sowing baseless paranoia. In one evening alone, more than 1,500 people -- led by anti-globalization militant Jose Bove -- tore the crops out by their roots as police stood by and watched. "For us," Bove has exclaimed, "this combat will not stop."

MY STATE of California now has three United States senators. No, we weren't granted increased representation because we are the biggest state. Rather, New Jersey Democratic senator Jon Corzine just tried to boost California's biotech sector by personally donating $100,000 to help pass Proposition 71, an initiative on the November ballot that would force Californians to borrow $3 billion over 10 years to pay biotech companies and their university business partners to conduct mass experiments in human cloning and embryonic stem cell research.Proposition 71's supporters claim that since only in-state companies will be eligible to pick fruit off the public...