Category Archives: Vermont Stem Cells

San Lorenzo, California TheNewswire - May 11, 2022 - GeneTether Therapeutics Inc. (GeneTether or the Company) (CSE:GTTX), an innovative genetic medicines company focused on creating best-in-class gene editing therapies based on its proprietary GeneTether platform, announces a new paper co-authored by R. Geoffrey Sargent, GeneTether CSO, and colleagues from The University of California, San Francisco, The University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston), Kumamoto University, University of Pavia, and University of Vermont College of Medicine.

The paper entitled Seamless Gene Correction in the Human Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator Locus by Vector Replacement and Vector Insertion Events, published online in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Genome Editing, describes novel homology directed recombination (HDR) products and the subsequent derivation of seamless gene correction of the W1282X CFTR mutation in human induced pluripotent stem cells. The corresponding senior author is R. Geoffrey Sargent, PhD, CSO at GeneTether; and the first, and co-corresponding, author is Shingo Suzuki, PhD, research instructor at The Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine in McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston.

The paper demonstrates a class of HDR products that appear to be often overlooked in experiments using the CRISPR/Cas9 nuclease. One of the goals of gene editing is to make seamless corrections of mutant genes to restore the normal or wild type DNA sequence without errors including undesired mutations or inadvertent DNA sequence changes. The most frequent approach for HDR gene corrections is to replace the target mutation with the normal DNA sequences, a process sometimes referred to as vector replacement events. The research in the paper demonstrates that for some DNA repair, templates used to replace target mutations results in the duplication of the target gene sequences. These are often referred to as vector insertion events which have the potential to allow creation of multiple cell lines, containing different DNA edits, starting from one parental cell line.

If we go back to classic HDR gene editing, before CRISPR/Cas, Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases (TALENs), and Zinc Finger Nucleases (ZFN), vector insertion events were well-known and shown to occur in organisms from yeast to human cell lines. Indeed, under certain circumstances, vector insertion events can occur more frequently than vector replacement events. In the paper, we show that vector insertion events frequently occur using CRISPR/Cas9 treated human-induced pluripotent stem cells. We have now observed these events in other human iPS cell lines and at other genes, commented Dr. Sargent. This expands the toolkit of ways to modify genes in cells to study disease and for developing new therapeutic approaches. I am excited to utilize these HDR vector insertion products in our GeneTether platform development.

About GeneTether

Founded by EGB Ventures founder and managing partner, William J. Garner, M.D., and veteran gene editing researcher, R. Geoffrey Sargent, Ph.D., GeneTether is focused on developing its disruptive proprietary platform technology to significantly increase the efficiency of DNA insertion into the genome for gene correction and complementation strategies. The Companys wholly-owned platform technology uses a proprietary method to tether donor DNA templates to the genome editing complex, making the template readily available for use during the genome editing repair stage. The Company is leveraging its platform technology to develop curative therapies for the treatment of rare genetic diseases. GeneTethers proof of concept study demonstrated an approximately 7x higher gene editing efficiency as compared to the same gene editing payload without application of GeneTethers technology.

For more information, visitwww.genetether.com.

Contact:

Geoffrey Sargent, CSO

(833) 294-4363 ext. 3

geoff@genetether.com

Forward-Looking Disclaimer

This news release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause GeneTethers actual results, performance or achievements, or developments in the industry to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "could" or "should" occur. Forward-looking statements in this news release include the expectation that the Company will utilize HDR vector insertion products in its GeneTether platform development and all other statements that are not statements of historical fact.

Although GeneTether believes the forward-looking information contained in this news release is reasonable based on information available on the date hereof, by their nature forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. By their nature, these statements involve a variety of assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, levels of activity and achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Examples of such assumptions, risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, those set forth under the heading Risk Factors in the Companys final prospectus dated March 21, 2022.

The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the expectations of the Company as of the date of this news release and, accordingly, is subject to change after such date. Readers should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. While the Company may elect to, it does not undertake to update this information at any particular time except as required in accordance with applicable laws.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Service has approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release.

Excerpt from:
GeneTether Therapeutics Publishes Paper on Novel Recombination Products in the CFTR Gene - TheNewswire.ca

The concept of automation in business and non-business functions has undergone more than a few evolutions along the way. The earliest types of automation-related applications could only carry out repetitive tasks such as printing and basic calculations. In a bid to save time and minimize human error, such applications were used by businesses and individuals to automate the tasks that, according to organizations, employees didnt need to waste their energy on. The eventually widespread adoption of IoT, AI and robotics resulted in the growth of cognitive automation to execute more challenging, diverse and multifaceted functions such as supply chain operations, robotic surgery, architecture and construction.

The sheer accuracy and consistency of cognitive automation tools powered by AI and robotics allow organizations to evaluate data at lightning-quick speed, predict future trends in consumer demand patterns and formulate robust strategies and frameworks for improved operational efficiency and regulatory compliance. In domotics, cognitive automation brings innovation in the form of smart kitchens, pervasive computing for elder care and autonomous smart cleaners.

Now, AI and robotics are about to witness another giant leap forward with the brand-new concept of self-replicating, alive robots known as xenobots.

For several reasons, xenobots are a great leap forward from standard AI and robotics applications of the past. One of the reasons is that such "living" robots may finally enable data scientists, tech developers, businesses and governments around the world to finally create Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). In basic terms (as the concept has a wider meaning too), AGI makes it possible for machines and digital applications to comprehend and perform intelligent tasks that humans do. AGI, currently just a concept, involves robots and smart tools possessing high levels of sentience and machine consciousness to definitively think like humans and make decisions or carry out functions autonomously with the ruthless efficiency of a machine while possessing the strategic nous and short-notice adaptability of the human brain. Xenobots were first developed by researchers at the University of Vermont, US.

Also referred to occasionally as alive robots, Xenobots possess a few peculiarities that set them apart from any other existing AI and robotics-based applications. For instance, xenobots are created using an amalgamation of robotics, AI and stem cell technology. The creators of the technology used stem cells from the African clawed frog (its scientific name is Xenopus Laevis) to create a self-healing, self-living robot that is minute in sizexenobots are less than a millimeter wide. Like natural animal and plant cells, the cells used to create xenobots also die after completing their life cycle. Their minute size and autonomy allow xenobots to enter the human body, micro-sized pipelines or underground or extremely small and constricted spaces for performing various kinds of tasks. Additionally, such robots are extremely sturdy despite their tiny size. In this way, xenobots show a passing resemblance to nanobots. Although nanobots are much smaller as compared to xenobots, both are used to perform tasks that require the invasion of micro-spaces to carry out ultra-sensitive operations. Technologies such as AI and robotics, combined with stem cell technology, allow such robots to perfectly blend in with other cells and tissues if they enter the human body for futuristic healthcare-related purposes. One of the biggest advantages of xenobots is their stealthy nature, which enables them to blend in with the surroundings during any operation.

And now, the most important detail of xenobotsthey can replicate autonomously and create an army of themselves within no time. Basically, xenobots closely follow the reproduction mechanism of actual cells in plants, animals and other organisms that are found in various ecosystems around the globe. The stem cells within xenobots can undergo endless fission to set in motion a chain of self-replication that can be useful for various kinds of tasks. Although xenobots are a fairly new concept and possess no known and tried applications, their main working mechanism draws parallels with swarm robotics, an AI and robotics subsection involving collective robots that function in perfect sync with regards to each others movement to carry out complex functions, such as supply chain assembly line distribution and redirection.

As stated above, there are not many known publicly-carried out applications of xenobots currently in use. So, any use of the AI and robotics-driven technology involves a certain degree of assumption and hypothetical predictions.

Procreating robots- The next big thing in cognitive automation

As stated earlier, xenobots are extremely tiny and mobile. Those attributes are a necessity in healthcare, especially during complex and sensitive operations, when an individuals life is on the line. On diagnosing malignancy in individuals, healthcare experts can release xenobots into their bodies. Using elements of AI and robotics, xenobots can then detect and locate not only the tumor within a persons body but also the factors directly causing and enabling it to enlarge unabated. Cancer, as you know, needs to be detected at an early stage when a tumor is just being formed to have any realistic chance of stopping it. To detect cancer, doctors can create a xenobot using the cells of a cancer patient themselves using the incredible blending ability of the technology. This serves two purposesfirstly, with the help of computer vision, AI and robotics, doctors can exactly know the location, malignancy status and severity of a tumor by checking details related to the blood flow and organ health. Secondly, the presence of cells of the patient on the xenobots within their body will not trigger massive immune system responses as there are no foreign bodies involved in the procedure at all. Once all these elements fall into place, tumors or precursor cells to a tumor can be taken out of a patients body via surgery.

There are several other ways in which xenobots can be utilized by healthcare experts. Another example is during major bypass surgeries in heart patients. As you may know, these kinds of operations require surgeons to remove the blockages caused by unsaturated fats and other similar elements within the arteries of an individual. The operation is tricky and even a single misstep could lead to life loss. Micro-sized xenobots can enter the bloodstream of a patient, circulate all around the body without undergoing damage and carry out the taskremoving blockades within their arteries and veins. In this way, xenobots treat persons from within their bodies. Once the life-cycle of a xenobots cells is over, they can die like other normal cells.

Further advancements in AI and robotics will bring operations such as the two listed above closer to reality from its current concept stage.

Apart from healthcare, xenobots have use in environmental sustainability too. Smart cities, where urban computing connects several pieces of technology scattered across various zones, can use xenobots for pollution monitoring and control. Xenobots will possess advanced AI and robotics tech, such as the memory of harmful toxins that can cause pollution-related issues in smart cities. Smart city authorities can use the information gathered and analyzed by xenobots to keep control of pollution. Xenobots can also link up with the urban computing network in smart cities to detect novel viral particles in the air or water before alerting the appropriate smart city authorities about it. This can be used to prevent potential disease outbreaks and pandemics in heavily crowded zones in smart cities.

As stated earlier, xenobots will boost swarm intelligence. This will involve several tiny robots working to carry products into packaging, transport or other functional lines in a multi-way assembly line. Packages can be directed anywhere within a given assembly line just by the swarm intelligence tools aligning with each other in specific ways. This application will be further optimized by xenobots self-replication abilitiesallowing the robots that have broken down to be replaced in real-time and keep the assembly line in the factory running continually.

There may be a thousand different ways in which procreating robots will impact various sectors. Most importantly, the "living and thinking" nature of this application brings it closer to AGI. That will mark a monumental step forward for AI and robotics in the future.

Originally posted here:
Procreating Robots: The Next Big Thing In Cognitive Automation? - Forbes

The wait is over! The time to start tomatoes in our region is here.

If you garden in the Champlain Valley or lower Connecticut River Valley, begin planting tomato seeds indoors now.

If you're in the mountains, give it just one more week or so till mid-April to start them.

And as tomato varieties are nearly endless, if you're starting from seed, try some unusual types this season.

Once you've chosen a few varieties, take the seeds and sow them into two-inch diameter pots filled with potting soil. Place a couple tomato seeds in each pot.

As they germinate, thin them out to just one seedling per pot.

At this point in your seed-prep, you'll need to veer a bit from the usual practice of placing the seedlings to grow in a sunny spot indoors.

Placing your seedlings under grow lights will be a game-changer.

Grow lights placed just a couple of inches above the seedlings will be essential for the seedlings to grow strong and stay small and stocky.

Though tall, leggy seedlings grown on your sunny windowsill can certainly be transplanted into your garden, it might take them longer to catch up.

So to get a small, stocky and fast-growing seedlings, grow lights are the way to go.

Once the seeds begin germinating, keep moving the lights as they grow so they are about two inches above the seedlings.

You can also mimic the natural world by brushing your hand across the new seedlings, almost like you're petting a cat! This motion imitates the wind that would brush against the seedling outdoors.

Once they're about two and a half inches tall, start brushing them with your hand about 10 times once per day.

Doing this practice daily basis helps stimulate the cells on the sides of the stem to get bigger and doing so helps the plants stay shorter and stockier. You can actually reduce the height of your seedlings by about 20%.

Once the seedlings' height is three times the diameter of the container, repot them into a larger container and keep them growing strong, using your brushing technique!

When you're ready to transplant them into your garden or raised bed, you can harden them off by first taking them outside for an hour or so the first day. Then extend that period for about five or six days until you can leave them outside full time.

Hardening the seedling transplants will help prevent any kind of sunscald or stress due to the wind, weather or cold.

Once they are full-time outdoor residents, pop them into the garden soil and you'll be eating tomatoes in the summertime!

A: Try to pull fig tree out of the container and knock off a bunch of the soil. It might mean taking out most of the potting soil to get rid of the any colony.

Then clean the inside of the container with a 10% bleach solution. Once clean, repot the fig with fresh potting soil and hopefully that will keep the ants away.

If you can evict the queen from the colony that has formed in your fig tree container, that will prevent them from coming back and recolonizing.

Virtually any vegetable does well in a grow bag! Grow bags are made from a breathable fleece material and come in bright colors and a variety of sizes.

As the plant's roots get big, they get naturally air-pruned and won't become rootbound in a grow bag.

Another bonus to using grow bags is you can move them as needed into the sunniest spots in your yard.

Then when the season is over, dump out the compost or potting soil, wash the grow bags out if you like, then fold and stack them until next season!

All Things Gardening is powered by you, the listener! Send your gardening questions and conundrums and Charlie may answer them in upcoming episodes. You can also leave a voicemail with your gardening question by calling VPR at (802) 655-9451.

Hear All Things Gardening during Weekend Edition Sunday with VPR host Mary Engisch, Sunday mornings at 9:35.

Have questions, comments or tips?Send us a messageor get in touch by tweeting us@vprnet.

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A juicy tomato this summer begins with starting sturdy transplants now. - Vermont Public Radio

Before Newport police took Michael Cornell to prison, they brought him to the hospital. The 33-year-old was suspected of stealing $1,184 from a computer repair store and robbing a hotel clerk of $168. Cornell was unemployed at the time, on probation for a domestic assault and, he told police, in need of mental help.

Cornell didn't remember breaking into the computer store, but he acknowledged buying 15 lorazepam, a prescription anxiety medication that can cause memory loss, earlier the same night in January 2021. The hospital developed a safety plan for Cornell because he was homicidal and suicidal, according to police records. Following his release, the cops arrested and lodged him at Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport. A judge would order Cornell to be held without bail.

It was an inauspicious time to be confined inside Vermont's largest prison. Pandemic precautions meant that Cornell's two young children, ages 4 and 7, couldn't visit. The chow hall had been mothballed, so prisoners were forced to eat meals inside their cells, which double as bathrooms and are roughly the size of one. Basketball was banned, and classes were canceled or held over the phone. An overstretched corps of correctional officers tried to maintain calm among units of men who felt increasingly cooped up.

That was on good days. On bad days, when COVID-19 was in the air, the prison went on full lockdown, which meant that prisoners were confined to their cells for up to 23 hours and 45 minutes per day.

At Northern State, one of six prisons in Vermont, there have been a lot of bad days during the past year. A few weeks after Cornell arrived in February 2021, a massive outbreak infected 179 prisoners and kept them locked down for nearly two straight months. Another outbreak, in August, infected 40 people, prompting another lockdown. Then another in November. And fresh infections last month. More lockdown.

During one of those periods, Cornell wrote to Betsy Trucott, the mother of his two children. Cornell told Trucott he was reading books to pass the time while trying to chart a better course for his life.

"I still feel ashamed everyday because of my actions, but I'm also trying not to be too hard on myself so that way I'm not too depressed to make the changes I need to," he wrote in an undated, handwritten letter that Trucott shared with Seven Days. "I wish they had classes to take but fucking covid has stopped everything."

Cornell did not live to endure the most recent outbreak, in February. He died on New Year's Day at age 34, during his 11th month of detention before trial, while housed in a special quarantine cell following an outside medical appointment. The circumstances are still under investigation, but this month the state medical examiner ruled his death an accidental overdose.

The Vermont Department of Corrections remains the only state prison system in the country where the coronavirus has not killed anyone. But Vermont has achieved this distinction through protective measures that shut down most of the rehabilitative aspects of incarceration and intensified the punitive ones, including unprecedented amounts of time confined to cells. The precautions have not prevented outbreaks or relentless lockdown cycles, even after booster shots became available. Some prisoners have spent as much as half of the last four months under full lockdown, a Seven Days analysis found.

The conditions faced by roughly 1,300 Vermont prisoners and many of the 1,000 corrections workers during COVID-19 are difficult for anyone on the outside to comprehend, though few probably spend much time trying. The discomfiting reality is that, even as many other institutions have dropped most onerous precautions nursing homes have allowed visitors for more than a year, for example Vermont prisons have remained sealed off to the loved ones of the incarcerated.

Meanwhile, the pandemic has worsened a critical shortage of correctional officers and interrupted nascent efforts aimed at reforming the long-troubled department, which is now on its third commissioner since 2020. Earlier this year, the situation got so bad at two of the men's prisons that the department took the extraordinary step of locking down inmates not to protect them from COVID-19, but because too few correctional officers were available to safely manage their movement.

Last October, Gov. Phil Scott appointed Nicholas Deml, a former Central Intelligence Agency official and Capitol Hill aide, as the department's new leader, replacing Jim Baker, who stepped in as interim commissioner in 2020 in the wake of a sexual misconduct scandal at the women's prison that Seven Days exposed just before the pandemic hit. The 34-year-old Deml, who has no prior experience in corrections, is now charged with addressing the system's woeful workforce shortage and reforming its toxic culture.

First, he's trying to turn the page on the two-year-long COVID-19 crisis. This month, the department quietly enacted a phased plan that could allow the prisons to resume a semblance of normal operations in the weeks ahead. Each prison will be able to offer in-person family visits, programs, unrestricted recreation and normal dining hall operations, as long as staff and inmates go several weeks without a cluster of uncontained infections.

"I don't want anybody to succumb to this illness," Deml said. "But as we look to the future, I think we also need to weigh the mental and emotional toll and physical toll, frankly, in some instances that this has taken on people."

During the last two weeks of February, COVID-19 swept through Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, which meant that Matthew Hathaway watched a lot of TV.

Hathaway, 38, takes his television seriously. He recently threatened a hunger strike, he claimed, to get correctional officers to move him from a cell where the TV didn't get his preferred channels.

On weeknights, right after watching "Jeopardy!," Hathaway would call his fiance using his tablet computer. All Vermont inmates receive tablets through a for-profit contractor, although watching movies or listening to music on it costs money. Emails, too, cost 25 cents each. It's sort of like being locked down with a hotel minibar.

For weeks on end, Hathaway and his tablet were confined to a room that measures eight cinder blocks long by five and a half cinder blocks wide, furnished with a small desk, a twin bed, the TV, some shelves and a toilet. He got only 15 minutes outside the cell each day, generally to use the shower. "If you want to know what it's like to be locked down, lock yourself in your bathroom and stay there for a month," he said.

Lockdowns are the prisons' bluntest COVID-19 safety tool, used to stem outbreaks once testing or contact tracing reveals a widespread exposure. The outbreaks aren't prisoners' fault. The virus generally spreads through staff, who, after work, leave the sterile environment of prison for the unknowns of the outside world then return the next day. By contrast, any time prisoners enter the facility, as a new arrival or after an outside medical appointment, they are sent straight to the quarantine unit often confined to the same cells designed for solitary confinement for two weeks.

Many prisoners are wary of the health risks posed by COVID-19, and 73 percent are vaccinated, slightly more than the 72 percent of facility staff who got their shots. Nearly 700 prisoners have been infected with the virus in Vermont prisons at some point over the last two years, some more than once. Another 185 infections have occurred among Vermont inmates kept at a private prison in Tutwiler, Miss. Of those, only four cases led to hospitalizations. Hathaway is vaccinated but said he didn't see the point in getting a booster shot. He's more concerned about the terms of his confinement.

"I've had basically every right that I have as an inmate violated in the name of COVID," Hathaway said.

Corrections officials can't say how many days each incarcerated person has spent under full lockdown the department doesn't track it. But the available records suggest that between November 11, 2021, and March 11, 2022, Vermont's prisons were locked down nearly one-third of the time, on average. Pairs of inmates were generally locked into cramped concrete cells around the clock and allowed out for just a few minutes to shower. The frequency of these lockdowns varied by location, from 23 days at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility to 67 at Northern State.

Prisoners have found their own ways to cope. Brielle Barker landed back in prison in the summer of 2020 after she was picked up on a probation violation for a new criminal charge that was later dropped. Barker, who is trans, was taken to Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans. But she petitioned corrections for a transfer to Chittenden Regional, Vermont's only prison for women. Barker stayed there until her release last November.

Inside Chittenden Regional, Barker said, she found ways to keep herself occupied. Yoga and writing workshops were canceled, but she taught herself to crochet, created a series of paintings and advocated for changes to how corrections treats prisoners who are trans.

Barker sometimes got frustrated with corrections officers but said she believed that the department was "trying really hard" to keep COVID-19 at bay. She felt slighted by the reusable microfiber masks that prisoners have been required to wear, which look like camp towels with ear loops and aren't as protective as the KN95s that staff members receive.

When she needed a respite, Barker flipped the mask over her eyes to block out the light. The isolation felt never-ending at times, but she said the pandemic restrictions were more tolerable once she was able to live openly in the women's prison.

"The hardest part was being locked up inside myself and then inside this cage on top of it," she said. "That just wasn't the case once I was in Chittenden, and I was able to be myself."

After 22 days, Hathaway's latest lockdown stint at Southern State ended at 8 a.m. on March 10. The news meant that he could spend several hours each day mingling in his unit's common area, called a dayroom. The 50 or so men in the unit could play cards or use the microwave, but gym time remained limited, and the prison's dining hall was still out of commission.

Hathaway began his morning, he said by phone later that day, by resuming his ritual of walking laps around the dayroom. It's 43 laps to a mile, a figure Hathaway calculated by using printer paper as a ruler to measure the circumference of the room.

As Hathaway described his mathematical accomplishment, a correctional officer wheeled a tray of refried beans, corn, a quesadilla-like entre and a banana to his cell. Hathaway said he wasn't planning to eat, though he wasn't on another hunger strike. He just wants to lose some weight.

Cornell, the inmate who fatally overdosed, had never been imprisoned before his detention last year at Northern State, according to Trucott. It seemed to prompt serious self-reflection.

"He really wanted to try to dig deeper in terms of his own behaviors and psychology," Trucott said.

By last June, Cornell had developed a daily workout regimen and was in "good spirits," a former cellmate recalled in a letter to Seven Days. Motivating Cornell was his desire to be reunited with his kids, whom he couldn't see while locked up.

"I am told by some of his former roommates that he was always talking about them," Trucott said. "That was his big hope."

Among state prison systems during the pandemic, Vermont was one of just four that had yet to allow general family visits in prisons by the time Omicron hit, according to a database maintained by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news site that focuses on the U.S. criminal justice system. The women's prison at Chittenden Regional was an exception.

Unlike the men's prisons, the women's facility hosts a dedicated program to help children stay connected with their incarcerated mother. Kids-A-Part, operated by the Burlington nonprofit Lund, has for years facilitated one-on-one visits and large group events that help children interact with their mothers in a more communal setting.

Those visits stopped in March 2020, and it wasn't until September 2021 that kids were allowed back, on a limited basis, program coordinator Jess Kell said. Except for lockdown periods, mothers and children can again meet one-on-one for a couple of hours each week in Kell's homey office, appointed with a rocking chair, quilts, art supplies and a basket of My Little Pony action figures.

The meetups are still tricky to arrange, with the uncertainty of COVID-19 an additional barrier for caregivers, who bring kids when school schedules and long travel times allow. Kell said the reunions have been moving to witness and sometimes bear the evidence of 18 months of separation.

At one of the first, Kell recalled a child who "looked at their mom and said, 'I didn't see you the whole time I was 13 years old.'"

Behind bars at Northern State, Cornell also appears to have struggled. He told Trucott he couldn't get mental health treatment because of COVID-19, and he had trouble navigating the close quarters with cellmates. Cornell was also surrounded by drugs. One of the first things he told Trucott by phone, she remembered, was that "all anybody cares about in here is bupe," referring to the medication-assisted therapy for opioid addiction that Vermont law requires prisons to provide.

Cornell had returned from an appointment at the county opioid recovery clinic the day he died, according to Trucott. Northern State medical staff found him just before noon in a cell used to quarantine arriving inmates and began CPR. He was taken to North Country Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A medical examiner's review of drugs in Cornell's system detected an array of medications, including the opioid treatment methadone, antidepressants and a prescription sedative. Not all of them had been prescribed to him.

"We're dealing with it the best we can," Trucott said of Cornell's death, "but it's an injustice."

Cornell wasn't the first prisoner to die in one of Vermont's COVID-19 quarantine units. In December 2020, a 36-year-old man at Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury hanged himself with a bedsheet four days after being detained on a burglary charge. Another man attempted suicide at Northern State that same year.

It's not clear yet whether lapses at the prison contributed to Cornell's fatal overdose. (Deml, the commissioner, declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.) But prisoners' rights advocates have been especially concerned about how the pressures of the pandemic are affecting people with substance-use disorders.

Those who were incarcerated during the pandemic seem to be at an elevated risk to misuse, said Ashley Messier, who founded the prison abolitionist organization Women's Justice & Freedom Initiative after she served prison time at Chittenden Regional. Yet she contends that Vermont has not made adequate investments in programs that help prisoners prepare for their release and to reintegrate once they're out.

"People who struggled with substance-use disorder and mental health have been hit hard by the pandemic. Then pile on having been incarcerated and completely isolated," she said. "Imagine how that compounds the issues."

Early in the pandemic, the Department of Corrections created an emergency policy that required employees from anywhere in the agency to work inside a prison if needed. The fear was that the virus could sweep through prisons, like nursing homes, with scores of staff out sick.

To Georgie Stapleton, a 62-year-old probation officer in the Barre office, the chance that she'd be called in seemed remote. She wasn't even instructed to take a refresher training to prepare her for such an assignment.

Then, on a Friday in January, the order came. She would need to work a 12-hour shift the next day inside a facility that was on full lockdown. Stapleton panicked. "I'm not security minded. I don't think like that," she said. "I'm a therapist."

She called her manager, who, Stapleton said, told her she'd be disciplined if she refused the assignment. Luckily, someone else volunteered, she said. But Stapleton was stunned that her department was conscripting employees she felt were ill-equipped to work as correctional officers.

The episode is one symptom of a public agency run ragged. Corrections, the second-largest department in state government, with 1,048 positions, has recorded more than 450 COVID-19 infections among its employees. Overtime hours soared as the department struggled to attract people willing and able to work in an increasingly intimidating environment.

And those already working there were heading for the exits: Between July 2020 and July 2021, nearly half of all entry-level correctional officers quit, Department of Human Resources data show. The wave of departures was significantly larger than the pre-pandemic turnover rate of 30 percent.

Chad Richardson, a booking officer at Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, ostensibly works eight hours a day, Tuesday through Saturday. During the worst stretches of the pandemic, however, his shifts lengthened to 12 or 16 hours. He might work 2 a.m. to 2 p.m., or 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., "and then you're back the next morning," he explained to a Seven Days reporter during a guided prison tour earlier this month.

They aren't easy hours, either. The last two years have seen near-constant adjustments to safety protocols. Officers have attempted to police social distancing inside buildings that have been designed to confine.

For those who run programs for prisoners, demand is up and the ability to provide them is hampered. Correctional educator Ritalea Sweeny, for instance, typically would teach high school courses in an on-site classroom. Instead, she's had to teach by phone. Explaining mathematics that way, she said, has been "really difficult."

Not everything about prison work has gotten harder. With fewer prisoners who don't move around as much, there haven't been as many interactions to oversee. The added overtime brings welcome extra cash. But the long hours and stress have strained many officers' personal lives.

The state workers' union and Gov. Scott cut a deal last year to award over $6 million in recruitment and retention bonuses of up to $2,500 for corrections staff. The program was set to expire this month, but the union and the department extended a slightly different version of it through June. Scott signed a bill earlier this month that includes funds for retention bonuses in the upcoming fiscal year.

Deml, the new commissioner, said the department will reevaluate the strategies as June approaches.

"We know that staff really put it all on the line over the last couple of years, and they deserve just compensation for that," he said.

The labor problems in corrections are not a pandemic phenomenon; they've just gotten worse. An annual state Department of Human Resources survey last year found that just 10 percent of corrections employees believed that department morale was "good," down from 22 percent in 2019.

The situation makes the prisons less safe. There's a shared perception that the black market among inmates for medications, a problem known as drug diversion, has gotten worse. The illicit trade includes doses from Vermont's medication-assisted therapy program, which has unwittingly turned the state into a "major drug supplier" behind bars, said Steve Howard, president of the Vermont State Employees' Association, the union that includes corrections workers. The problem, in his view, is that corrections doesn't have enough staff members on the ground to properly administer the medicine. His members view it as a "complete disaster," Howard said.

Deml said COVID-19 protocols that keep staff distanced from prisoners, not a lack of staff, have made stamping out the practice more difficult. Hathaway, from the vantage point of his cell, said he thinks correctional officers have simply turned a blind eye.

The drugs' relaxing effects, he said, make their jobs easier.

"There's no crying in corrections" was something of a catchphrase when Cindy Lack started her career 33 years ago. Now she's trying to change that.

A probation officer, Lack heads a 26-member group of employees who offer peer support to coworkers who need a listening ear.

The stress that correctional officers face can be hard for others to understand, Lack said. Most people don't know what it's like to cut down a man from a bedsheet, or how hundreds of hours inside a prison change the way you move through the outside world. Department veterans get it.

"We need to take care of our staff, or we're not going to have any," Lack said. "We need to take care of what's left."

The essentially volunteer peer support team has existed for years. But during the pandemic, the department made it so that employees no longer needed to seek out help now it's offered to them. Lack's team had fewer than 800 interactions with employees in 2019, she said. The total shot up to 3,200 in 2020 and more than 3,500 last year.

"Folks have found it helpful to talk about what's going on," she said.

VSEA's Howard said the working conditions endured by corrections employees during the pandemic and their accomplishments have been underappreciated. Many of his members feel like they've been fighting a hidden battle, one that even state leaders haven't acknowledged. The governor stopped by the Vermont Correctional Academy last August, his office said, but Howard thinks Scott should do more.

"This is the only corrections department in America that didn't have a death due to COVID," he said. "And the governor hasn't shown up in a single facility to say, 'Thank you.'"

In St. Albans, staff at Northwest State who spoke to Seven Days were finding some reasons for optimism. Their facility had spent fewer days on lockdown during the recent Omicron wave than the other men's prisons. Sweeny, the teacher, was recently able to begin one-on-one tutoring sessions in person, and Richardson said required overtime hours have begun to decrease.

Matt Engels, a shift supervisor who oversees recruitment at the St. Albans prison, keeps a whiteboard on a wall in his office that's otherwise papered with posters of the Green Bay Packers and classic rock bands. The whiteboard showed a flowchart of new hires, including two who were joining up and two more who were slated for interviews.

In the bottom corner, Engels, a 14-year corrections veteran, keeps a running tally of how many officers he's been able to hire and retain since last June. It's up to 22.

"We're not where we want to be, but we're getting where we need to be," he said.

Still, he's cautious about the months ahead, particularly as the department drops more COVID-19 restrictions. Many on Engels' team started working in corrections during the pandemic. They've never had to manage a full chow hall or a visitation room.

For them, the last two years are just the way things are.

No department in state government has more vacant positions than corrections. According to the new commissioner, the 181 openings as of late February are concentrated among correctional officers and other roles inside the prisons. Nearly a quarter of these 500-plus "security" positions, as they're dubbed, are unfilled.

The number of officers working in corrections today remains lower than it was a year ago, Deml conceded in an interview last week. The department has relied on changes to its staffing patterns for instance, by moving to 12-hour shifts in some prisons to reduce total shift changes to prevent more staffing-induced lockdowns such as the ones that happened in recent months. Since then, he said, the recruitment and retention efforts have improved.

Creating a more stable workforce is Deml's unequivocal priority in the months ahead.

"We just came out of a really traumatic event or, we're trying to come out of a very traumatic event in COVID," he said. "And so I think it's a great time for the department to really connect and respect our staff on a human level and make really important investments in them as people."

Deml strikes a softer tone than his predecessor, interim commissioner Baker, who was widely respected and also, as a state official put it, "one tough bastard." Trained as a lawyer, Deml won't say much about his nearly eight years working in classified operations for the CIA.

But he speaks frankly about why he pursued the corrections post. The commissioner didn't want to live part time in Washington, D.C.; he wanted his life to be in Vermont, where his wife lived in their house with their infant daughter. And he saw in corrections an avenue to "really make an impact on human life."

Deml's ideas for turning around the department revolve around making it a more humane place. He's focused on staff wellness, improving professional development opportunities and making sure promotions are based on merit, not an "old boys' network."

"I want to offer that type of just the joy and pleasure and self-worth that somebody gets out of having a career they can be really proud of," he said.

What Deml hasn't emphasized, so far, is funding. To VSEA's Howard, that's a problem. For months, the union has said it will take a substantial taxpayer investment, on the order of $15 million to $20 million per year, to address the chronic staffing problems inside corrections.

Deml doesn't rule out targeted proposals for more resources but said he believes that the $174 million budget the governor endorsed for fiscal year 2023 is enough for corrections leaders to make "really meaningful change for our staff."

There's no doubt that shedding pandemic restrictions inside the prisons will also help. It's not without risks, though. If another COVID-19 wave brought fresh outbreaks in the prisons, they would still move into lockdown, and prisoners would again shoulder the burden. Deml said the department is looking to use narrower, focused lockdowns when possible, such as when only one or two units have active cases.

That's because the most important thing corrections can do right now, Deml said, is try to restore the things that make prison a little more bearable.

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Hard Time: Vermont Hasn't Lost a Single Prisoner to COVID-19. But at What Cost? - Seven Days

Researchers gaze into a microscope to watch tiny, marshmallow-like globules navigate a petri dish filled with liquid. The globs are focused on sorting some specks of matter placed inside the dish. They scoot around slowly, working together to push the matter into small stacks. When one of the globs gets cut, it quickly heals and continues moving. These fascinating little masses are intelligently crafted combinations of frog cells.

When you think of frogs, the first things that come to mind include their unique croak, bubble throat, wet and slimy body, oddly positioned eyes, and perhaps even fear. However, researchers at the University of Vermont and Tufts University saw something entirely different in frogs aside from their peculiar characteristics: their cells. By scraping off skin and heart muscle cells from the embryo of the Xenopus laevis, also known as the African clawed frog, Dr. Joshua Bongard and his team of three were able to assemble the aptly named Xenobots, the worlds first biological robots.

The team used a supercomputer running an evolutionary algorithm basically ultra-fast trial and error to find the optimal geometries for the Xenobots so they can efficiently communicate, operate, and heal. Cells are sticklers for coordination and layout, so the Xenobots cells must be correctly arranged to function. The algorithm simulates physical activities based on shape, which the Xenobots mimic. Each Xenobot design corresponds to a specific physical task.

Xenobots are bundles of cells, so they do not have nuts, bolts, or run on electricity. Instead, they behave like living things. Xenobots move autonomously, heal after injury, communicate with other Xenobots, and consume nutrients for energy, much like humans do. They are about 0.1 to 10 micrometers, are made up of 500 to 1,000 cells, and live for 10 days at the maximum. Though they may sound underwhelming, Xenobots represent an advent in technological sophistication. In the University of Vermonts video, they were described as entirely new life forms and called novel living machines by Bongard.

Aside from their impressive look and awesome name, Xenobots are the subject of cutting-edge research and development. At the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts, scientists are looking to use Xenobots for life-saving and environment-cleansing tasks, from clearing out arteries of smokers to collecting small plastics in the ocean. They even have applications in precision drug delivery and microsurgery. They are also completely biodegradable, and biocompatible, meaning that they can be mixed with systems involving biological material.

Despite its diversity of potential applications, Xeno-robotics is still in its nascent stage. Xenobots have been the topic of ethics conversations concerning possible malicious uses, such as in warfare and biological weaponry. Xenobots themselves could also pose risks to humans as they become more advanced; they could malfunction and begin eating away at tissues during microsurgery and the like. Fundamentally, a lot more research needs to be done on cells and biology to understand and develop Xenobots. That said, they are an interesting and exciting start to something new. Power to you, microscale African frog cell colonies!

Thanks so much for being curious and actually reading through this article. It was a lot of fun to make, research, and develop, so I am glad you made it through. For more on Xenobots and biotech, read my Medium, and/or check out Dr. Kreigman, Blackiston, Levin, or Bongard, and this article. If youre any of these researchers, or affiliated with this research, I would love to engage with you further, and feel free to fact check this article even more! If not, I would still love to talk and I hope you enjoyed this article.

My name is Okezue, a developer and researcher obsessed with learning and building things, especially when it involves any biology or computer science. Check out my socials here, or contact me: [emailprotected]

I write something new every day/week, so I hope to see you again soon! Make sure you comment, and leave some claps on this too especially if you liked it! I sure enjoyed writing it!

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see my sources below.

Works Cited

1. Ball, P. (2020, February 25). Living robots. Retrieved March 03, 2021, from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-020-0627-6

2. Hallberg, G. (2020, April 23). What if, instead of the internet, we had xenobots? Retrieved March 03, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/books/review/bubblegum-adam-levin.html

3. Heaven, W. (2020, April 02). These xenobots are living machines designed by an evolutionary algorithm. Retrieved March 03, 2021, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/14/238128/these-xenobots-are-living-machines-designed-by-an-evolutionary-algorithm/

4. Living robots built using frog cells. (2020, January 13). Retrieved March 03, 2021, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200113175653.htm

5. Living robots: Ethical questions about xenobots. (n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2021, from http://www.bioethics.net/2020/02/living-robots-ethical-questions-about-xenobots/

6. Simon, M. (n.d.). Meet xenobot, an EERIE new kind of Programmable Organism. Retrieved March 03, 2021, from https://www.wired.com/story/xenobot/

7. Sokol, J. (2020, April 03). Meet the xenobots, virtual creatures brought to life. Retrieved March 03, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/science/xenobots-robots-frogs-xenopus.html

8. Xenobot. (2020, November 21). Retrieved March 03, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenobot

9. Yeung, J. (2020, January 15). Scientists have built the worlds first living, Self-healing robots. Retrieved March 03, 2021, from https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/us/living-robot-stem-cells-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html

Related

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Why the worlds first organic robots are amphibian, African, and smart; By Okezue Bell - SundiataPost

At the University of Vermont, researchers are focusing on what matters. Here, in Burlington, Vermont, surrounded by majestic vistas, some of the brightest minds in the world are harnessing the power of research to achieve no small feat: supporting the health of our environment and our societies. They are striving for sustainable solutions with local, national, and global applications and impact.

Part of UVMs success lies in its cross-disciplinary research and collaboration made possible by a public research university of its size and scale. At the Larner College of Medicine, an innovative research model is shedding light on immune response in dengue infection, with the potential of saving hundreds of millions of lives per year. Another breakthrough is fast-tracking promising discoveries in the fight against cancer.

Over at the College of Education and Social Services (CESS), PhD students are unleashing human potential and in the process of making education accessible to people of all abilities.

To create a better future for all will take the entire might of nations and individuals working together. UVM has the unique strengths to lead this charge. Below are four stories that offer a window on a sliver of the work that UVM is doing to create new knowledge and build new practices to help societies thrive today and for generations to come.

What happens when grit is paired with opportunities

Hans Cabra

Hans Cabra, a Fulbright Scholar from Bogot, Colombia, knows what true courage is. The PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies candidate grew up in a sketchy neighbourhood with a mother who only completed elementary school and a father who barely made it beyond middle school. Where other marginalised children from impoverished backgrounds dont see a way out of the trap, he dared to dream. He applied for a scholarship to Norway and got it.

Education gave me an opportunity to escape poverty and ignited a passion for helping young people to pursue their dreams, he shares. As a PhD scholar at UVM, hes doing just that.

Cabra is pursuing research on after-school programmes and how to cultivate grit and perseverance. I believe that grit is the main ingredient in achieving success, but it has to be paired with the right opportunities, he explains. These opportunities completely changed my life and the lives of my family members. I want to bring this transformative power of education to all the kids in my community and in my country.

Access for all abilities

Sefakor Komabu-Pomeyie grew up in a village in Ghana, marginalised because of her disability and gender. When she was eight years old, she was diagnosed with polio after being administered an expired vaccination. The virus left her unable to walk on her own. Stigma followed.

Sefakor Grateful Komabu-Pomeyie

The power of education helped Komabu-Pomeyie beat the odds of life. In 2011, she was selected as a Ford International Education Fellow, which enabled her to come to Vermont and earn a masters degree in sustainable development, with a concentration in policy analysis and advocacy, from the School for International Training.

Today, Komabu-Pomeyie is taking her education to new heights as she works toward a PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. She is also building an accessible and inclusive school in Ghana for students of all abilities. The odds may have been stacked against her, but armed with a UVM degree, shes ready to take her seat at the policy table when she returns to Ghana.

Recently, for her work as an education and disabilities advocate, she was honoured with the prestigious International Service Award from the Association of University Centres on Disabilities at a ceremony in Washington, DC.

Its a life-changing moment. Its a huge award. It means the work I have been doing from my village has been recognised internationally, she says, adding her gratitude for UVM professor Maria Mercedes Avila, PhD, for nominating her for the award.

Saving hundreds of millions of lives

The Aedes mosquito-borne dengue virus is a pathogen that plagues the tropical regions of the world. In 2019, it caused a record number of over 400 million cases. Its effects range from asymptomatic to severe diseases many times, it can be fatal.

Vaccines have been hard to develop, as there are four strains to protect equally against. Only one vaccine, Dengvaxia, has been approved for a subset of at-risk individuals in endemic areas.

A study by UVM is offering hope. Led by Associate Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics (MMG) Sean Diehl, PhD, it set out to determine biomarker candidates and predictors for clinical and immunological responses resulting from dengue infection.

Associate Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Sean Diehl

These data offer new potential biomarkers for characterising dengue virus infection and novel pathways that could be leveraged to combat viral replication, explains Diehl. Our results also gave us some clues about how we might be able to boost protective immune responses, which is the goal of developing effective vaccines.

Diehl adds that for some of the genes identified in this study, little is known about their role in the response against dengue virus. This is very exciting, because it could lead to new ways to fight dengue, so we are now investigating these in the lab, shares Diehl.

A potential target for new cancer treatments

For two decades, UVM Cancer Centre researcher Jason Stumpff, PhD, has studied how cells divide and how mistakes in this process contribute to diseases, such as cancer. Every killer has a weak spot, and Stumpffs latest work has unearthed a vulnerability that could be a potential target for interrupting cancer cell growth.

Stumpffs recent work focuses on the role of a protein called KIF18A in driving cell division. In these new studies, his lab found that cancer cells are more dependent on KIF18A for growth than normal cells. Target KIF18A and its possible to stem or stop cancer.

This promising discovery was made possible by UVMs wide-ranging collaboration with national and international partners. Stumpffs findings mark a milestone in a long research journey that began with support from an American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grant pilot award through the UVM Cancer Centre, and then led to Susan G. Komen and National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding.

The collective impact of this research collaboration exemplifies the importance of sharing data and enhancing rigour of scientific studies to move fundamental science discovery effectively toward important progress in the fight against cancer, says Stumpff.

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The University of Vermont: Impactful research, healthier world - Study International News

A book is made of wood. But it is not a tree. The dead cells have been repurposed to serve another need.

Now a team of scientists has repurposed living cellsscraped from frog embryosand assembled them into entirely new life-forms. These millimeter-wide "xenobots" can move toward a target, perhaps pick up a payload (like a medicine that needs to be carried to a specific place inside a patient)and heal themselves after being cut.

"These are novel living machines," saysJoshua Bongard, a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont who co-led the new research. "They're neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It's a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism."

The new creatures were designed on a supercomputer at UVMand then assembled and tested by biologists at Tufts University. "We can imagine many useful applications of these living robots that other machines can't do," says co-leader Michael Levin who directs theCenter for Regenerative and Developmental Biologyat Tufts, "like searching out nasty compounds or radioactive contamination, gathering microplastic in the oceans, traveling in arteries to scrape out plaque."

The results of the new research were published January 13 in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Bespoke living systems

People have been manipulating organisms for human benefit since at least the dawn of agriculture, genetic editing is becoming widespread, and a few artificial organisms have been manually assembled in the past few yearscopying the body forms of known animals.

But this research, for the first time ever, "designs completely biological machines from the ground up," the team writes in their new study.

With months of processing time on the Deep Green supercomputer cluster at UVM'sVermont Advanced Computing Core, the teamincluding lead author and doctoral student Sam Kriegmanused an evolutionary algorithm to create thousands of candidate designs for the new life-forms. Attempting to achieve a task assigned by the scientistslike locomotion in one directionthe computer would, over and over, reassemble a few hundred simulated cells into myriad forms and body shapes. As the programs randriven by basic rules about the biophysics of what single frog skin and cardiac cells can dothe more successful simulated organisms were kept and refined, while failed designs were tossed out. After a hundred independent runs of the algorithm, the most promising designs were selected for testing.

Then the team at Tufts, led by Levin and with key work by microsurgeon Douglas Blackistontransferred the in silico designs into life. First they gathered stem cells, harvested from the embryos of African frogs, the speciesXenopus laevis. (Hence the name "xenobots.") These were separated into single cells and left to incubate. Then, using tiny forceps and an even tinier electrode, the cells were cut and joined under a microscope into a close approximation of the designs specified by the computer.

Assembled into body forms never seen in nature, the cells began to work together. The skin cells formed a more passive architecture, while the once-random contractions of heart muscle cells were put to work creating ordered forward motion as guided by the computer's design, and aided by spontaneous self-organizing patternsallowing the robots to move on their own.

These reconfigurable organisms were shown to be able move in a coherent fashionand explore their watery environment for days or weeks, powered by embryonic energy stores. Turned over, however, they failed, like beetles flipped on their backs.

Later tests showed that groups of xenobots would move around in circles, pushing pellets into a central locationspontaneously and collectively. Others were built with a hole through the center to reduce drag. In simulated versions of these, the scientists were able to repurpose this hole as a pouch to successfully carry an object. "It's a step toward using computer-designed organisms for intelligent drug delivery," says Bongard, a professor in UVM'sDepartment of Computer ScienceandComplex Systems Center.

A manufactured quadruped organism, 650-750 microns in diametera bit smaller than a pinhead. (Credit: Douglas Blackiston, Tufts University.)

Living technologies

Many technologies are made of steel, concrete or plastic. That can make them strong or flexible. But they also can create ecological and human health problems, like the growing scourge of plastic pollution in the oceans and the toxicity of many synthetic materials and electronics. "The downside of living tissue is that it's weak and it degrades," say Bongard. "That's why we use steel. But organisms have 4.5 billion years of practice at regenerating themselves and going on for decades." And when they stop workingdeaththey usually fall apart harmlessly. "These xenobots are fully biodegradable," say Bongard, "when they're done with their job after seven days, they're just dead skin cells."

Your laptop is a powerful technology. But try cutting it in half. Doesn't work so well. In the new experiments, the scientists cut the xenobots and watched what happened. "We sliced the robot almost in half and it stitches itself back up and keeps going," says Bongard. "And this is something you can't do with typical machines."

University of Vermont professor Josh Bongard. (Photo: Joshua Brown)

Cracking the Code

Both Levin and Bongard say the potential of what they've been learning about how cells communicate and connect extends deep into both computational science and our understanding of life. "The big question in biology is to understand the algorithms that determine form and function," says Levin. "The genome encodes proteins, but transformative applications await our discovery of how that hardware enables cells to cooperate toward making functional anatomies under very different conditions."

To make an organism develop and function, there is a lot of information sharing and cooperationorganic computationgoing on in and between cells all the time, not just within neurons. These emergent and geometric properties are shaped by bioelectric, biochemical, and biomechanical processes, "that run on DNA-specified hardware," Levin says, "and these processes are reconfigurable, enabling novel living forms."

The scientists see the work presented in their newPNASstudy"A scalable pipeline for designing reconfigurable organisms,"as one step in applying insights about this bioelectric code to both biology and computer science. "What actually determines the anatomy towards which cells cooperate?" Levin asks. "You look at the cells we've been building our xenobots with, and, genomically, they're frogs. It's 100% frog DNAbut these are not frogs. Then you ask, well, what else are these cells capable of building?"

"As we've shown, these frog cells can be coaxed to make interesting living forms that are completely different from what their default anatomy would be," says Levin. He and the other scientists in the UVM and Tufts teamwith support from DARPA's Lifelong Learning Machines program and the National Science Foundationbelieve that building the xenobots is a small step toward cracking what he calls the "morphogenetic code," providing a deeper view of the overall way organisms are organizedand how they compute and store information based on their histories and environment.

Future Shocks

Many people worry about the implications of rapid technological change and complex biological manipulations. "That fear is not unreasonable," Levin says. "When we start to mess around with complex systems that we don't understand, we're going to get unintended consequences." A lot of complex systems, like an ant colony, begin with a simple unitan antfrom which it would be impossible to predict the shape of their colony or how they can build bridges over water with their interlinked bodies.

"If humanity is going to survive into the future, we need to better understand how complex properties, somehow, emerge from simple rules," says Levin. Much of science is focused on "controlling the low-level rules. We also need to understand the high-level rules," he says. "If you wanted an anthill with two chimneys instead of one, how do you modify the ants? We'd have no idea."

"I think it's an absolute necessity for society going forward to get a better handle on systems where the outcome is very complex," Levin says. "A first step towards doing that is to explore: how do living systems decide what an overall behavior should be and how do we manipulate the pieces to get the behaviors we want?"

In other words, "this study is a direct contribution to getting a handle on what people are afraid of, which is unintended consequences," Levin sayswhether in the rapid arrival of self-driving cars, changing gene drives to wipe out whole lineages of viruses, or the many other complex and autonomous systems that will increasingly shape the human experience.

"There's all of this innate creativity in life," says UVM's Josh Bongard. "We want to understand that more deeplyand how we can direct and push it toward new forms."

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Team Builds the First Living Robots - University of Vermont

July 15-18, 2019Hosted by the University of Vermont, Burlington, VT

This bi-annual invitational event draws top researchers in the field, and their trainees, from around the globe. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss recent research, explore opportunities for new collaborations, and identify the most important needs and priorities for future programs in stem cell, cell therapy, and bioengineering approaches to explore lung biology and/or prevent and treat lung diseases.

Active participation by all participants is important for a conference of this size. Therefore, if you have never attended before and would like to attend without submitting an abstract, please tell us how you heard about the conference and the name of the lab with which you are associated (or simply why you would like to attend) so we can pass this information along to the course directors for their consideration. Your inquiry is welcome. Please email theconference assistant.

Oral Presentation Travel Awards will be awarded to Junior Investigators and Trainees whose abstracts are selected through a blinded review process. Each of the top nine abstracts will be selected for oral presentation to the conference. Included among these awards will be the John W. Walsh Memorial Travel Scholarship, as well as two awards for women-minority-those with disability. The oral presentation/travel awards will cover the conference fee and will provide a bursary to use toward travel and housing arrangements.

In addition to the oral awards, two additional abstracts will be awarded Poster Presentation Awards based on the presentation at the conference, and registration fees will be reimbursed.

All submissions for travel award consideration must be submitted by April 30, 2019 via an online abstract submission form.

In addition to abstracts not selected for an award, Poster Presentation consideration will be given to abstracts submitted by any registrant who submits an abstract by May 31, 2019.

For more details about submitting an abstract, see the Awards and Abstracts page.

Due to popular request, we will repeat an expanded hands-on session scheduled from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm on Monday, July 15, along with a new track for professional skills. The two workshop sessions will run in separate tracks and are geared primarily toward trainees and junior investigators, but all investigators are welcome to attend.

Track 1: Practical/Theoretical Course on State-of-the-Art Methods in Stem Cells, Cell Therapies and Bioengineering will explore the latest techniques for lung regenerative studies, including considerations for single-cell sequencing, 4D microscopy and virtual reality exploration of complex data sets.

Track 2: Professional Skills Course will develop scientific communication skills in the form of presentations, elevator pitches, and communicating with the public.

For more information, see our Pre-Conference Workshop page.

The 2019 conference will again feature an elevator pitch competition where interested Junior Investigators and Trainees are invited to present a one-minute synopsis of their research. This competition will be judged during Session III on Tuesday, July 16. The top two elevator pitches will receive reimbursement of conference fees. For more information, see our Elevator Pitch page.

We have discounted room rates available for conference registrants at both the Hotel Vermont and the Courtyard Burlington Harbor Hotel, near the waterfront in downtown Burlington, Vermont. Registrants for the conference should contact hotels directly or book online. Room rate discounts expire on Friday, June 14, 2019.

For hotel phone numbers and online-reservation links, see the Lodging Information page.

Cancellation Policy: If your plans change and you need to cancel your registration, please do so by contacting us in writing at least 21 days prior to the start of the meeting (by June 24, 2019). You will receive a full refund minus a $200 cancellation fee. Regrettably, cancellations received fewer than 21 days prior to the commencement of the conference are not eligible for a refund. Substitutions can be processed at no charge. Finally, if you cannot attend the entire conference for any reason, we will not be able to prorate your registration fee.

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2019 Stem Cell Conference- Lung Biology, Continuing ...

Stem Cell Therapy Gilman VT 05904

Stem cell therapy has ended up being a popular argument in the worldwide medical scene. This extremely questionable treatment has actually received combined viewpoints from numerous stakeholders in the health care industry and has also attracted the interest of political leaders, spiritual leaders and the basic population at large. Stem cell therapy is thought about a revolutionary treatment for people suffering from a vast array of degenerative conditions. Some common concerns concerning this treatment are addressed below.

Are you a stem cell therapy provider in Gilman VT 05904?Contact us for more information.

Stem cells can be described as blank state or non-specialized cells that have the ability to become specialized cells in the body such as bone, muscle, nerve or organ cells. This indicates that these special cells can be utilized to regrow or develop a wide range of damaged cells and tissues in the body. Stem cell therapy is for that reason a treatment that targets at attaining tissue regrowth and can be used to cure health conditions and health problems such as osteoarthritis, degenerative disc disease, spine injury, muscular degeneration, motor nerve cell disease, ALS, Parkinsons, cardiovascular disease and a lot more.

Being a treatment that is still under studio, stem cell therapy has actually not been fully accepted as a practical treatment choice for the above pointed out health conditions and diseases. A great deal of studio is currently being carried out by scientists and medical specialists in different parts of the world to make this treatment practical and efficient. There are nevertheless different constraints enforced by federal governments on studio including embryonic stem cells.

Presently, there have not been numerous case studies carried out for this kind of treatment. Nevertheless, with the few case studies that have actually been carried out, among the significant issues that has actually been raised is the boost in a patients threat of developing cancer. Cancer is caused by the rapid multiplication of cells that tend not to die so easily. Stem cells have been associated with similar development factors that may result in formation of growths and other malignant cells in clients.

Contact us for more information about stem cell doctor in Gilman VT 05904

Stem cells can be drawn out from a young embryo after conception. These stem cells are frequently referred to as embryonic stem cells. After the stem cells are drawn out from the embryo, the embryo is terminated. This is generally among the major reasons for controversy in the field of stem cell research study. Lots of people argue that termination of an embryo is dishonest and undesirable.

New studio has however revealed pledge as researchers aim at establishing stem cells that do not form into growths in later treatment phases. These stem cells can therefore efficiently change into other types of specialized cells. This treatment is therefore worth researching into as numerous patients can gain from this innovative treatment.

Stem cells can still be acquired through other means as they can be discovered in the blood, bone marrow and umbilical cords of adult people. Normal body cells can also be reverse-engineered to become stem cells that have restricted capabilities.

stem cell therapy in Gilman VT 05904

Stem cell therapy has actually ended up being a popular dispute in the worldwide medical scene. This extremely controversial treatment has actually gotten combined viewpoints from numerous stakeholders in the health care market and has actually also attracted the interest of politicians, religious leaders and the basic population at large. Stem cell therapy is thought about an advanced treatment for individuals suffering from a wide range of degenerative conditions. Some common questions concerning this therapy are addressed below.

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Main address:Gilman, Vermont, 05904

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Stem Cell therapy Gilman Vermont 05904

The day of the robot frog is here. Sort of. Researchers in the United States have taken stem cells from the tissue of African clawed frogs and put them together to build tiny living robots. These are the worlds first living machines, robots made from biological tissue that have advantages your run-of-the-mill plastic and metal robots dont have.

These lifeforms have never before existed on earth, Michael Levin, director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, which conducted the research alongside scientists from the University of Vermont, said. They are living, programmable organisms.

Researchers are calling these new creatures xenobots, derivedfrom Xenopus laevis, the scientific name for the African clawed frog. The botsare less than a millimeter wide, which is small enough to travel through thehuman body. And they dont look anything like the robots weve all seen before.Xenobots are basically tiny dollops of moving pink flesh.

According to CNN,the researchers took stem cells from frog embryos, left them to incubate, thenused a supercomputer to cut and shape the cells into body forms. For example,you can have a xenobot with a hole in the middle that could possibly be used todeliver medication inside the human body.

Once they were created, the robots operated on their own. Theskin cells bonded to form structure, and the heart cells would actually pulse,allowing the bots to propel themselves.

What else might the xenobots be used for? Scientists say theycould potentially be used to remove plaque from artery walls, locate anddestroy radioactive waste, and even clean up microplastic pollution in theoceans.

And although metal and plastic robots are strong and durable, there are good reasons to create bots from biological tissue. For one thing, the xenobots are self-healing. And once their task is complete, says The Guardian, they fall apart, just as natural organisms decay when they die. That makes them more environmentally friendly than traditional robots, as well.

Creating these xenobots does raise some ethical issues,particularly because future versions of them might actually have nervoussystems and cognitive abilities. And then what will they be, living creaturesor just machines?

Whats important to me, Sam Kriegman, a PhD student on the University of Vermont team, said, is that this is public, so we can have a discussion as a society and policymakers can decide what is the best course of action.

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Scientists Have Created Living Robot Frogs, And They Just May Save Your Life - Parentology