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Harvard, Yale scientists develop technique to make GMOs safer
Two teams of scientists from Harvard and Yale have reached a crucial milestone in the effort to build synthetic life forms: a powerful way to prevent genetically modified organisms from escaping into the wild.
The new technique essentially inserts a built-in self-destruct mechanism into bacteria. The cells carry an alternative genetic code that makes them dependent on an artificial nutrient that is not found in nature.
Harvard Medical School genetics professor George Church, who oversaw one of the studies published Wednesday in the journal Nature, compared the new technique to putting a GMO “on a leash.” If scientists stop supplying a particular unnatural amino acid synthesized in the laboratory, the bacteria die.
The ability to tweak organisms’ DNA to give them new capabilities has long been tantalizing to biologists who already are turning microbes into factories that generate drugs and biofuels. But the wider use of engineered organisms -- for example, creating bacteria that can clean up a hazardous waste spill -- requires an effective leash to make sure they don’t escape scientists’ control.
The worries about escape are rooted in the uncertainty about what could happen. GMO bacteria might outcompete native strains, with unintended ripple effects on the environment. They also could unexpectedly transfer the genes that confer those powerful new traits to other organisms.
“I view us right now at the beginning of the biotech century, where I think a lot of solutions to defining global challenges ... are in large part going to result from advances in biotechnology,” said Farren Isaacs, assistant professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Yale, who led one of the studies. “In many ways, what we are doing is trying to be a step ahead of any challenges we might face.”
In extensive laboratory experiments, both groups saw no evidence the bacteria could find ways to escape the control measure. The two teams grew about 1 trillion cells and found that without the amino acid, the cells could not live.
“We’re changing the whole genome,” Church said. “So all genes, including the ones involved in producing whatever chemical you’re interested in, all those genes get changed. None of these can go in or out functionally.”
The technique works now in E. coli and although it could theoretically be applied to more sophisticated organisms such as plants, that application is far off today because of technical challenges, Isaacs and Church said.
Outside researchers and watchdog groups concerned about safeguards for genetically modified organisms said the research was an important first step.
Karmella Haynes, an assistant professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering at Arizona State University, said that what impressed her was that it was the very low rate of “escapers” compared with other techniques that have been tried.
“The problem is that we cannot quickly determine if every single GMO that is produced is absolutely safe or absolutely unsafe to people and the environment. The last thing we want to have happen is to figure out that something is dangerous through accidental release, after it is too late,” Haynes wrote in an email. “I feel that this research represents a step-change towards building reliable control switches for GMOs.”
Jaydee Hanson, policy director of the International Center for Technology Assessment, said that the research was limited because these first tests were done in traditional laboratory environments. It will be important, Hanson said, to test this technology in controlled environments that mimic the wild situations where they might ultimately be deployed.
“The basic idea in them is that can we engineer something so that if it gets out into the environment, or in the case of probiotics -- when it’s in your body -- so it doesn’t morph into something else,” Hanson said. “I hope their next step would be to run the experiment longer, and to make sure that you’re not having any problems after multiple generations.”
Both teams built on a feat they reported in October 2013, when they successfully recoded the genome by making fundamental and widespread changes to the DNA of bacteria. That left the organisms’ functions intact but made them more resistant to viruses.
In the new research, they started with such a recoded organism and decided to give it an Achilles’ heel -- making it dependent on a synthetic amino acid not found in nature that would have to be provided by researchers.
Todd Kuiken, a senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, said that it was significant that two research groups working separately arrived at almost exactly the same result.
“People have been talking about this as a potential way to deal with biocontainment,” Kuiken said. “This is the frist time there are actual research results and data showing this could work.”
Source: https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/science/2015/01/21/harvard-yale-scientists-develop-technique-make-gmos-safer/hb5gJPjfl0EzkpR6yUQHgL/story.html
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
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• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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