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Universities aren’t making a lot of money from university research – The Hechinger Report

Posted: January 18, 2020 at 7:49 pm

The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education. Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get stories like this delivered directly to your inbox.

Stanford Medical School Professor Daria Mochly-Rosen delivers a TEDMED talk about how, frustrated by the slow process of bringing to market a drug that she discovered, she founded an international organization to help speed up the transformation of academic research into usable products. Photo: TEDMED/YouTube

When Daria Mochly-Rosen discovered a compound in her lab that promised to lessen the effects of heart attacks, she set out to convince pharmaceutical companies to develop it.

She couldnt.

So the professor of chemistry and systems biology at Stanford Universitys School of Medicine took a leave of absence and started her own company to further test and potentially commercialize the drug.

It seemed the obvious next step. After all, universities often speak of their success in turning research into products that make life better, with the added bonus of contributing to the economy. There are seemingly countless examples, from Gatorade, invented at the University of Florida, to Google, which began at Stanford; and from web browsers and plasma screens, both created at the University of Illinois, to the drug that became the allergy medicine Allegra, developed at Georgetown University.

But Mochly-Rosen quickly learned that there were myriad obstacles standing in the way of those kinds of payoffs, which turned out to be more exceptions than rules.

Other universities look at those very few rare cases and imagine they can also hit the invention jackpot, she said. But academicians are absolutely clueless about what needs to be done to make a project attractive to industry.

For those and other reasons, and at a time when they would seem to be searching for new sources of revenue, U.S. colleges and universities are producing a surprisingly small proportion of the nations patents and startups and making so little money from licensing inventions that, at many schools, it doesnt even cover the cost of managing them.

Most of the $75.3 billion a year from the federal government and other sources that the National Science Foundation calculates is spent by academia on research is not intended to immediately result in commercial applications. Its about fundamental knowledge. The basic research performed in university laboratories underpins discoveries that may take years to end up in the market, if they ever do.

But higher education itself often draws a connection between its research and financial returns, as it did in December after Congress increased annual research funding by $2.6 billion. The money will enhance U.S. global competitiveness [and] national security and lead to innovations that grow our economy while improving quality of life, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities proclaimed.

Trying to prod more commercialization of discoveries from federally sponsored research is also why, 40 years ago this year, Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act, which gave universities the rights to the licensing revenue resulting from their research.

In fact, academic institutions accounted for only 6,639 of the 304,126 patents granted in 2016, the last year for which the figure is available, or 2 percent of the total, according to the National Science Board, which described patenting by academic inventors as being relatively limited.

When you look at university PR offices, they always talk about how theres this new research coming out of some department, and its going to revolutionize the economy, said Lee Vinsel, an assistant professor of science, technology and society at Virginia Tech who is co-authoring a forthcoming book called The Innovators Delusion. But, he said, weve been overestimating the role were playing.

Marc Levine, emeritus professor of history, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Universities and colleges spun off 11,000 startups between 1996 and 2015 an average of 550 per year according to the Association of University Technology Managers, or AUTM, whose members oversee what is known as technology transfer. Thats one-tenth of 1 percent of the roughly 400,000 annual startups reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It has almost become de rigueur among chancellors and presidents in selling the value of their universities to the larger community to say that we are engines of economic development, and theres scant evidence to support that, said Marc Levine, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who has studied this subject.

The economic development argument is tenuous at best and probably even less than tenuous, Levine said.

Related: Panicked universities in search of students are adding thousands of new majors

Now some institutions are redoubling their efforts to smooth the way for their discoveries to be shared and sold.

Thats increasingly important, and not only because universities and colleges are facing state budget cuts, enrollment declines and other financial challenges. The federal portion of funding for university research has also been steadily declining, forcing institutions to look for other sources of support. And money that comes from licensing typically goes back into the research budget.

There is a real sense of urgency generally to find new ways of underwriting university research, said Joseph Allen, who as a staffer to Senator Birch Bayh helped steer the Bayh-Dole Act and later served as director of technology commercialization in the Commerce Department. The public is expecting, Youve been entrusted with billions of dollars in government research. We want to see results.

Related: Some colleges seek radical solutions to survive

But moving research from a lab to the market is complex. First, researchers have to be willing to invest time in translating abstract concepts into tangible products. Many arent, technology-transfer directors said. One called it the unbaked cake phenomenon: Academic researchers show up in her office with a metaphorical bag of flour and a cup of sugar, she said, when what investors and potential partners want is a fully baked cake.

Joseph Allen, former director of technology commercialization in the Commerce Department

Mochly-Rosen said she has seen this among her colleagues and counterparts. Theyre saying, This is as far as I want to take it, and someone else can take it from there.

After all, faculty are awarded tenure and promotion based on measures such as how much research money they bring in and how many papers they publish, not their numbers of patents or startups or the licensing revenue they earn. Even the profits from commercialization, which most universities share with them, prove little motivation.

Thats because the process takes so long. Getting a patent can take five to seven years, said Allen, and testing a drug or developing a product even longer than that. Many fail, falling into what investors call the valley of death of abandoned ideas.

Its a high-risk, imprecise thing, he said.

People think inventions come pouring out of universities. But you have to find somebody willing to pay money for it, license it, develop it. Theres a lot of steps there that are out of your control, and we should be realistic about that. It doesnt mean we cant do better.

Some universities are trying. Theyre responding not only to the potential financial benefits, but to prodding from their own faculty, or from the government agencies that fund them. And that annual number of patents, while still low, has begun to rise.

After her rocky experience with the compound she developed that aids heart-attack recovery, Mochly-Rosen founded an organization called SPARK to speed up the transformation of academic discoveries into FDA-approved drugs and treatments.

Related: As college enrollment falls, recruiters descend on a state that still has lots of applicants

SPARK does this by bringing in volunteer experts from industry to help train faculty and students about how to bring the results of their research to market, and by giving them $50,000 a year for two years to create product proposals, also known as proofs of concept.

The Stanford University campus. Though a leader in converting discoveries from research into commercial products, Stanford is among several universities revamping this process to realize a higher return. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Sixty-two percent of SPARK projects are in clinical trials or have been licensed to new or existing companies or transferred to industry, a case study found, a much higher proportion than occurs with academic research discoveries in general. Now the model has spread to more than 60 universities and colleges in 22 countries.

To do good is first and foremost our agenda, said Mochly-Rosen, who has since established two more startups. Were benefitting from the taxpayers money to do research. Its our social responsibility. As for doing well, it is a very expensive business to develop drugs. So we have to recognize that you need money in order to make money, and its not incongruent with the agenda of social good.

Stanford also has reorganized its Office of Technology Licensing, under a new director who began in mid 2018, centralizing its functions and hiring new business development staff. The goal, it said, is to realize a higher return on our marketing efforts.

Its paying off. Already acknowledged to be a leader in this field, Stanford reported 560 invention disclosures and 150 licensing agreements in 2018, all up significantly over five years.

Theres a trend to push those numbers higher, said Brooke Beier, vice president for technology commercialization at the Purdue Research Foundation.

Related: Students, employees scour college finances for waste, proof of unfair pay

At her university, said Beier, who was also appointed to her job in mid 2018, The leadership and faculty inventors are making a focused effort to convert more research findings into products.

The number of patent applications is up 42 percent at Purdue over the last five years, to more than 670 last year, while the number of licensing deals rose 13 percent and the number of invention disclosures formal determinations that a discovery may be worthy of a patent increased 32 percent, to 360.

We are a university that focuses on research. Were not a product development company. But at the same time we do a lot of applied research and want to translate that to the market, Beier said.

Even the university that receives the most research funding in the nation, Johns Hopkins, did some soul searching when faculty who were trying to commercialize their findings complained about a lack of institutional resources being made available to do that. Its $1.5 billion of research in 2012, a resulting investigation found, produced less than $16 million in licensing fees, about one-tenth as much as rivals including Columbia and MIT. There was no mentorship or funding to encourage licensing or startups, and technology transfer efforts were fragmented.

Johns Hopkins University. Despite conducting $1.5 billion worth of research at the time, an investigation in 2012 found that Hopkins was producing less than $16 million a year from licensing, about one-tenth as much as rivals Columbia and MIT. Photo: Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images

There, too, the process has been revamped, with the creation of Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures, or JHTV. The university says it has now pulled ahead of Harvard, MIT, Columbia and Stanford in the number of new licenses its entered into and is tied for fourth in the number of startups.

There was a lot of untapped commercial potential, said Christy Wyskiel, JHTVs executive director, who was brought in from the private sector to run the effort. The type of research that happens here is really second to none. The question became, Why, from a job-creation or a licensing-revenue perspective, were we also not at the top? This ought to be a major part of our mission.

The University of California, Riverside, has also streamlined its technology-transfer functions, receiving 42 patents last year its most ever and attracting a 10 percent increase in direct corporate research funding: $16 million.

One way its done this is by spending money to make money, giving $1.4 million so far to researchers who want to show proof of concept, which technology transfer administrators say government grants typically dont cover. Other universities, including the University of Chicago, have created their own multimillion-dollar funds to invest in early stage faculty startups.

Our main objective is, yes, we want to get a return, said Brian Suh, director of Riversides Office of Technology Partnerships. But first we want to know, are they really going to be able to take this technology and bring it to market, which is a win-win for both sides.

Related: As small private colleges keep closing, some are fighting back

The National Science Foundation is trying to further speed up this process with a program called Innovation Corps, which trains researchers in how to commercialize work that was funded by the NSF. Its so far resulted in 644 startup companies, the agency says.

Stephen Susalka, CEO of AUTM, likened the need for this extra effort to the shift from employers once being willing to hire workers with only high school diplomas. Now more jobs require a degree, he said.

A researcher uses a microscope to look at stem cells at the Lokey Stem Cell Research Building at Stanford University. Stanford reported 560 invention disclosures and 150 licensing agreements in 2018, all up significantly over five years. Photo: John Green/Bay Area News Group/MediaNews Group/Bay Area News via Getty Images

Its kind of the same with technology transfer, said Susalka, former associate director for commercialization at Wake Forest University. Back when I started we could identify a device that might be useful, file a patent application and license that intellectual property. Now you need to develop that invention further than a purely academic researcher might do, so youre starting to see more tech transfer offices have a prototyping fund. Youre seeing more universities have venture funds to support those early stage startups.

Even the institutions where this work is getting more attention serve as examples of how long it takes to see returns, and how small they seem in comparison to the dollar value of the research they do.

Purdue conducted $645 million in research last year, from which it earned $6.7 million after costs were deducted.

Powerhouse Stanford earned $41 million in 2018 in royalties from licenses that emerged from university research. Legal expenses and administrative costs consumed more than a third of that, leaving $25.6 million to be divided among researchers and their departments. This at an institution with an $11.6 billion annual budget, including $1.7 billion a year in sponsored research.

Lee Vinsel, assistant professor of science, technology and society, Virginia Tech

One of the technologies licensed by Stanford earned just $11 in 2018, and 760 made less than $100,000 each. Only seven cleared $1 million or more.

Most universities make even less.

Twenty-nine of the 187 research institutions that reported their activity to AUTM collected less than $100,000 apiece in licensing revenue in 2017, the last year for which the figures are available, according to an analysis of the data by The Hechinger Report. Just 15 accounted for 72 percent of all the money. And the top five alone earned more than half. The list includes some academic medical centers and university-affiliated research hospitals.

Its a bit like college football, Levine said: There are some big-time programs that make a lot of money. There are some winners in the tech transfer, commercialization-of-research game, but those tend to be fairly few and far between.

Another way a few universities are trying to maximize their income is by becoming more aggressive in protecting their existing patents, something theyve previously been reluctant to do because there wasnt any money in their budgets for it. The University of California system in July sued Walmart, Ikea, Target and other retailers for the unauthorized sale of light bulbs with LED filament technology developed at UC Santa Barbara. The suit is being underwritten by a litigation financing fund in exchange for a portion of any award that results.

The enforcement work is part of that broader evolution of technology transfer, said Seth Levy, lead attorney in the case, which is pending. The trick is in making sure that the university gets some reasonable share of the proceeds when this technology is brought to market.

In one of the more unusual enforcement attempts, the University of Florida pursued the $2 million won in an artificial intelligence competition by two of its professors and four students. Unless the winners turned over the money, a university lawyer wrote, they would be subject to personnel action and possibly other more serious consequences. That move was reversed after the faculty union filed unfair labor practices complaints.

At most universities, despite all of this effort, said Virginia Techs Vinsel, the flow of money from discoveries remains a comparative trickle.

Theres always reform around this stuff. Theres always, Heres the new way were going to do it, he said.

I dont want to be overly skeptical. But theres a long track record of trying different things and not succeeding as much as the boosters have hyped it.

This story about university research was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter.

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World’s First ‘Living Machine’ Created Using Frog Cells and Artificial Intelligence – Livescience.com

Posted: January 18, 2020 at 7:47 pm

What happens when you take cells from frog embryos and grow them into new organisms that were "evolved" by algorithms? You get something that researchers are calling the world's first "living machine."

Though the original stem cells came from frogs the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis these so-called xenobots don't resemble any known amphibians. The tiny blobs measure only 0.04 inches (1 millimeter) wide and are made of living tissue that biologists assembled into bodies designed by computer models, according to a new study.

These mobile organisms can move independently and collectively, can self-heal wounds and survive for weeks at a time, and could potentially be used to transport medicines inside a patient's body, scientists recently reported.

Related: The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created

"They're neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal," study co-author Joshua Bongard, a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont, said in a statement. "It's a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism."

Algorithms shaped the evolution of the xenobots. They grew from skin and heart stem cells into tissue clumps of several hundred cells that moved in pulses generated by heart muscle tissue, said lead study author Sam Kriegman, a doctoral candidate studying evolutionary robotics in the University of Vermont's Department of Computer Science, in Burlington.

"There's no external control from a remote control or bioelectricity. This is an autonomous agent it's almost like a wind-up toy," Kriegman told Live Science.

Biologists fed a computer constraints for the autonomous xenobots, such as the maximum muscle power of their tissues, and how they might move through a watery environment. Then, the algorithm produced generations of the tiny organisms. The best-performing bots would "reproduce" inside the algorithm. And just as evolution works in the natural world, the least successful forms would be deleted by the computer program.

"Eventually, it was able to give us designs that actually were transferable to real cells. That was a breakthrough," Kriegman said.

The study authors then brought these designs to life, piecing stem cells together to form self-powered 3D shapes designed by the evolution algorithm. Skin cells held the xenobots together, and the beating of heart tissue in specific parts of their "bodies" propelled the 'bots through water in a petri dish for days, and even weeks at a stretch, without needing additional nutrients, according to the study. The 'bots were even able to repair significant damage, said Kriegman.

"We cut the living robot almost in half, and its cells automatically zippered its body back up," he said.

"We can imagine many useful applications of these living robots that other machines can't do," said study co-author Michael Levin, director of theCenter for Regenerative and Developmental Biologyat Tufts University in Massachusetts. These might include targeting toxic spills or radioactive contamination, collecting marine microplastics or even excavating plaque from human arteries, Levin said in a statement.

Creations that blur the line between robots and living organisms are popular subjects in science fiction; think of the killer machines in the "Terminator" movies or the replicants from the world of "Blade Runner." The prospect of so-called living robots and using technology to create living organisms understandably raises concerns for some, said Levin.

"That fear is not unreasonable," Levin said. "When we start to mess around with complex systems that we don't understand, we're going to get unintended consequences."

Nevertheless, building on simple organic forms like the xenobots could also lead to beneficial discoveries, he added.

"If humanity is going to survive into the future, we need to better understand how complex properties, somehow, emerge from simple rules," Levin said.

The findings were published online Jan. 13 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Originally published on Live Science.

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US troops were injured in Iran’s Jan. 8 attack; Army cancels $45B vehicle competition; Riyadh gives US $0.5B for ops; Navy adding drone controllers to…

Posted: January 18, 2020 at 7:47 pm

Eleven American troops were wounded in Irans Jan. 8 missile attack on Iraqs al-Asad air base, U.S. defense and military officials confirmed to Defense Ones Kevin Baron on Thursday. This week, they were medically evacuated to U.S. military hospitals in Kuwait and Landstuhl, Germany, to be treated for traumatic brain injury and to undergo further evaluation, Baronreports.

While no U.S. service members were killed in the Jan. 8 Iranian attack on Al Asad Air base, several were treated for concussion symptoms from the blast and are still being assessed, Capt. Bill Urban, spox at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla. said in a statement emailed to reporters after Barons report Thursday evening. As a standard procedure, all personnel in the vicinity of a blast are screened for traumatic brain injury, and if deemed appropriate, are transported to a higher level ofcare.

Flashback: No Americans were harmed in last nights attack by the Iranian regime, President Trump told the country in a live address on Jan.8.

Today, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led Friday prayers in Tehran for the first time in eight years, AP reports. Khamenei used the rare occasion to call out American clowns who want to stick a poisoned dagger into the backs ofIranians.

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He also renewed his call for America to withdraw its forces from the Middle East, and said the Revolutionary Guard Corps protects oppressed nations across the region as fighters without borders. More from Reuters, here.

Eleven US Troops Were Injured in Jan. 8 Iran Missile Strike // Kevin Baron: The troops were medevaced this week to Germany and Kuwait to be treated for traumatic brain injury after experiencing concussionsymptoms.

US Army Cancels $45B Armored Vehicle Contest That Drew One Bid / Marcus Weisgerber: The service now plans to reboot its effort to replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, but with different biddingparameters.

Global Business Brief // Marcus Weisgerber: USN: send money; Changes coming to F-35 logistics; NGs new logo; andmore

The US Space Force Is Not a Joke // Marina Koren, The Atlantic: Its not all President Trump promised, but it existsnow.

Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief from Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. If youre not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1917, the U.S. bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25million.

The Taliban say theyre open to a 10-day ceasefire in Afghanistan, provided the U.S. agrees to the deal, Reuters reports from Kabul and Peshawar. Little else is known just yet about the possible deal; and A U.S. State Department spokeswoman declined to comment and the Pentagon referred queries to the State Department. Read on, here.

Libyan Gen. Khalifa Haftar visited Greece today, two days before a peace conference in Berlin, AP reports from Athens. Its unclear precisely what Haftar is looking to achieve in Greece; but its worth noting that In November, Turkey and the Libyan government in Tripoli [Haftars ostensible enemy] signed a controversial maritime deal delineating a boundary between the two countries in the Mediterranean.That maritime deal would give Turkey and Libya access to an economic zone across the Mediterranean despite the objections of Greece, Egypt and Cyprus, which lie between the two geographically. All three countries have blasted the deal as being contrary to international law.Also attending talks in Berlin on Sunday: Haftars foe, Fayez al-Serraj, as well as the leaders of Russia, Turkey, Egypt and other nations that are not specified in a Reuters report this morning.In case youd lost track, Haftar is backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Sudanese and Chadian fighters, and most recently Russian mercenaries. France has also given some support, Reuters writes. On the other side, Turkey has rushed to Serrajs rescue by sending troops to balance out recent gains by Russian snipers. Hundreds of pro-Turkey fighters from Syrias war have also been deployed.One goal of the Berlin talks: To get Haftar to sign a ceasefire agreement referenced in a six-page draft communique seen by Reuters. A bit more, here.Related: Theres now bipartisan U.S. congressional pushback against SecDef Espers plan (NYTs) to drawdown American forces from Africa, Defense News reported Thursday. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., and ranking member Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, wrote a letter to Esper warning, A decrease in our investment now may result in the need for the United States to reinvest at many more times the cost down the road.This could be an early indication of the political capital Esper may have to spend in order to push through a series of ambitious reform efforts in the coming months. The critics include Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., as well as Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chris Coons, D-Del. Read on, here.

Dont miss our latest Defense One Radio podcast all about Russian private military contractors like Wagner and why theyve expanded to countries all across Africa. Listen (or read the transcript) here.

Want to understand much of American foreign policy over the past decade? Well before Trump took office, Republicans leaned toward a primacy/dominate stance in international affairs, while Democrats leaned toward a cooperate/share model, University of Chicago Professor Paul Poast explained in a Twitter thread Thursday. Since Trump took office, that dominate-vs.-cooperate disparity has grown.One curious consideration: Both parties could claim to be supporting a view of America as an exceptional nation: Republicans in that Americans must embrace the US ability to dominate others; and Democrats in that Americans should embrace the US as Indispensable for ensuring international cooperation, Poast writes.The bottom line: There is a key difference between how Republicans and Democrats view what it means for the U.S. to engage the world. And that difference, in turn, goes a long way towards explaining US foreign policy. More reading on this topic here and here.

European governments accused Iran of violating the nuke deal after Trump threatened them if they didnt, the Washington Post reports and the German defense minister has since confirmed. The threat of a 25% tariff on European automobiles reportedly shocked British, French, and German officials, who had been leaning toward the move anyway, the Post says.Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations: The tariff threat is a mafia-like tactic, and its not how relations between allies typically work. Read on, here.

How POTUS45 set the tone with his generals. New details from a meeting inside the Pentagon on July 20, 2017, reveal the chilling effect Trumps comments and hostility had on the nations military and national security leadership that day and in the months since, according to the Washington Posts Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker.Among the things Trump told former SecDef Jim Mattis and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford in thatmeeting:

Feel free to read on, whether or not any of this surprises you about Teflon Don, here. Or wait for the book that all this is a part of, called, A Very Stable Genius, which will be publishedTuesday.

Saudi Arabia paid the U.S. about $500 million toward the cost of supporting troops deployed there, a Pentagon spokeswoman told CNN Thursday. The payment was made in December, and more may be on the way.Said Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich: Consistent with the Presidents guidance to increase partner burden-sharing, the Department of Defense has engaged Saudi Arabia on sharing the cost of these deployments, which support regional security and dissuade hostility and aggression. The Saudi government has agreed to help underwrite the cost of these activities and has made the first contributionDiscussions are ongoing to formalize a mechanism for future contributions that offset the cost of these deployments.Recall that last week Trump told Fox that Riyadh had deposited $1 billion in the bank. Asked about it earlier this week, Pentagon officials could only say that negotiations were ongoing.For the record: This is the first time this has happened since the Gulf War, CNN writes. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Gulf states paid $36 billion towards the costs of liberating Kuwait in 1991.BTW: France has deployed a radar system on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia to beef up its allys defenses, Reuters reports today in a shorty.

SecDef Esper and SecState Pompeo argue South Korea needs to pay up. Seoul can and should contribute more to its own national defense, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and State Secretary Mike Pompeo write in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.An alternate POV: There is zero negotiating value to the Secretaries of State and Defense writing in The WSJ that South Korea should pay more for defense, tweeted former State Department official Mintaro Oba. In fact, it harms the alliance and publicly raises the stakes so much its harder to get to an agreeablecompromise.

Control centers for U.S. drones are being built on Navy carriers, Capt. Chuck Ehnes, the Navys program manager for in-service aircraft carriers told the crowd at the Surface Navy Association on Thursday. According to SeaPower Magazine, Unmanned Aviation Warfare Centers (UAWCs) are being installed to operate the MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial tanker and any follow-on UAVs the Navy plans to operate from its aircraft carriers. Tiny bit more, here.

How do you drive away a pesky Chinese navy without escalating tensions? Indonesias recent actions present a fresh case study in pushing back against Beijings broad South China Sea claims, the Wall Street Journal reported this morning from Jakarta.The situation: In late December, several Chinese coast guard ships escorted more than three dozen Chinese fishing boats into the waters off Indonesias Natuna Islands China doesnt claim Indonesias Natuna Islands, near which the recent flare-up occurred, as its own, but says it has historical rights over a part of the surrounding waters that falls within an ill-defined nine-dash line Beijing has used to demarcate its claims.The latest developments played out last week when, during the standoff, Indonesian President Joko Widodo took a trip [to] the islands, where he met with local fishermen. At sea, the ships continued to crisscross and Indonesias military flew F-16s overhead. By the end of the week, on Saturday, the Chinese ships began moving northward, away from the area. The Indonesian navy shadowed them all the way out. Continue reading, here.Related: On Thursday, the BBC asked, Why are Chinese fishermen finding so many submarine spies? In that story, youll learn China is offering up to $72,000 for those who capture spy drones. That kind of money amounts to around 17 times the average disposable income inChina.

Now for something completely different: Blankets, canned tuna and faith in God how fleeing Venezuelans survive. The LA Times sent a reporter and a photographer on an incredible trip to the border of Colombia. The pictures and stories they brought back are worth a click this weekend, here.

And finally today: welcome, xenobots. Researchers at the University of Vermont and Tufts University programmed frog stem cells to develop into tiny blob-like organic robots that move with muscles and heal if damaged. These xenobots named for the species of frog that provided their cells are neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. Its a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism, Joshua Bongard, one of the lead researchers at the University of Vermont, told CNN, here.

Have a safe weekend, everyone;and well see you again onMonday!

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Scientists Move Us One Step Closer To A Real-Life Westworld As They Create Robots From Living Cells – BroBible

Posted: January 18, 2020 at 7:47 pm

For those unfamiliar, in the classic movie and on HBOs hit show Westworld there are androids that look, feel, and act just like humans. Scientists apparently want to make that really happen because they keep doing creepy things with artificial intelligence, implanting small human brains into animals, growing miniature human brains in a lab (which may be sentient and feel pain), and now, creating the worlds first living, self-healing robots made out of living cells.

They call these new robots xenobots (sounds like a type of Transformer, and in a way they are), which refers to the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) whose stem cells the researchers used to build these miniature robots with assisatance from some evolutionary algorithms (which sounds like something straight out of Westworld).

This new breakthrough was chronicled by researchers from Tufts Universitys Allen Discovery Center and the University of Vermont in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The scientists claim that these xenobots are entirely new life-forms, so thats reassuring.

Theyre neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. Its a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism, said Joshua Bongard of the University of Vermont, co-leader of the research, in a press release.

The new creatures were designed on a supercomputer at UVM and then assembled and tested by biologists at Tufts University. We can imagine many useful applications of these living robots that other machines cant do, says co-leader Michael Levin who directs the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts, like searching out nasty compounds or radioactive contamination, gathering microplastic in the oceans, traveling in arteries to scrape out plaque.

After much trial and error using the Deep Green supercomputer cluster at UVMs Vermont Advanced Computing Core, the cells were assembled into body forms never seen in nature and began to work together.

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

Thats good. At least they found out the robots weaknesses right from the jump.

Wired reports

The brainless blobs end up behaving in ways that are downright spooky. They change their movement from time to time, so they will move in a particular way, then theyll change it, then theyll turn around and go back, says [Tufts University developmental biophysicist Michael Levin]. When they encounter other loose cells, theyll herd them into little piles. Slice a xenobot open and itll pull itself together again, la T-1000 from Terminator 2. Two xenobots might join together and scoot around as a happy couple. A xenobot with a hole in it can pick up and carry things.

CNN says they can walk and swim, survive for weeks without food, and work together in groups.

On the plus side (for humanity), these xenobots cant reproduce or evolve.

However, their lifespan can increase to several weeks in nutrient-rich environments. And although the supercomputer a powerful piece of artificial intelligence plays a big role in building these robots, its unlikely that the AI could have evil intentions.

At the moment though it is difficult to see how an AI could create harmful organisms any easier than a talented biologist with bad intentions could, said the researchers website.

Riiiight thats probably what Dr. Robert Ford thought too.

Related Artificial intelligence can now recreate videos people are watching by reading their minds Humans one day soon will emotionally bond, fall in love and marry robots, claims philosopher Massachussetts police secretly used robot dogs for three months so the countdown to the robot uprising has begun Boston Dynamics robots have figured out how to work together and I guess humanity had a pretty good run Oh hell no, now theres a robot that bleeds, breathes, pees, and has a pulse? Were all so f**ked Elon Musk is planning on having cyborgs living side-by-side with humans in the near future Robots can now solve a Rubiks Cube, one-handed, in their latest step towards becoming our new overlords New study says robots will soon be able to recognize human emotions, which will be very helpful when their uprising begins The Marines are turning to artificial intelligence to combat enemies most deadly weapons These more than 25 creepy ways robots are becoming more human spells doom for us all

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The Democratic Debates Are Downers. That’s a Big Problem for All of Us. – Reason

Posted: January 18, 2020 at 7:47 pm

I found last night's Democratic presidential debate to be profoundly depressing and downbeat, yet I struggle to explain why exactly. As a small-l libertarian who is unaffiliated with any party, my vote is up for grabs and I pay attention to these sorts of events out of more than just a sense of professional responsibility. There is plenty wrong with the country, on levels big and small, and politics canand shouldaddress some of that.

Yet listening to the candidates last night, I mostly didn't recognize the country they were describing. They live in a world where dark, shadowy forcesbillionaires, corporations, Russian operatives especiallyconspire with near-perfect success to make us all poorer and sadder, dumber and sicker, more alienated and hopeless. According to the candidates, nobody can afford the doctor, college, or child care. The whole planet may be baked in a decade because of fossil fuels, but we shouldn't really talk about expanding nuclear power or even using natural gas and fracking as a bridge fuel. Sexism, racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, police violence, and more are worse than ever.

Ironically, their collective inability to see little if anything positive in contemporary America mirrors that of the man they seek to remove from power. President Donald Trump's fixations are of course different but the net effect is the same: These are the end times unless I wield power.

But being relentlessly negative is no way to unseat an incumbent president, even one as temperamental and divisive as Trump (this is the guy who invoked "American carnage" in his first inaugural and says he's been treated worse as president than good, old, shot-in-the-head Abe Lincoln). At least, it's no way to win my vote and, I suspect, the votes of the 41 percent who consider themselves independent. As CNN's Van Jones (a Democrat) put it, the level of "vitriol was very dispiriting. Tonight was dispiriting. Democrats are going to have to do better than what we saw tonight. There was nothing I saw tonight that would be able to take Donald Trump out."

As it happens, just a day before last night's debate, researchers from Tufts University and the University of Vermont announced the creationof what they're calling "xenobots,"the "world's first living, self-healing robots created from frog stem cells" that "could be used to clean up radioactive waste, collect microplastics in the oceans, carry medicine inside human bodies, or even travel into our arteries to scrape out plaque." Holy hell, it's like Fantastic Voyage, but without the high-grade Cold War hysteria! In profound ways, this sort of invention typifies life in the 21st century: a moment when we take life-enhancing technology for granted, surround ourselves with hot and cold streaming media that was unimaginable even a few decades ago, and, for the first time in human history, "half the world is now middle class or wealthier."

Even in a moment when military tensions are idling warm, opioids are still taking a toll, and the federal government has racked up a trillion-dollar deficit, this is a hell of a time to be alive. Forests are expanding, the amount of "stuff" we consume on a per-capita basis peaked around 2000, and infant mortality rates continue to decline, leading writer Matt Ridley to declare the 10 years that just concluded "the best decade in human history." The U.S. economy has been growing without interruption for over a decade, wage parity between women and men is growing, and the percentage of high school grads immediately attending college is at a historically high level. About "three in four adultsand the overwhelming majority of poor childrenlive better off than their parents after taking the rising cost of living into account," writes economist Scott Winship.

None of that made it onto the stage at last night's Democratic presidential debate, and unless it does, why would enough people vote for a Democrat to take over the country? I'm not talking about some sort of phony, upbeat, Panglossian messagethe electoral equivalent of telling a woman on the street that she should smile. But if you're promising (threatening might be the better term) major transformations of the economy, health care industry, education system, and more, having a positive vision of the future rather than a punitive one seems to be a prerequisite. Yet with the possible exception of Andrew Yang, the long shot candidate who didn't make the cutoff to appear last night anyway, all of the remaining Democrats talk more about settling scores than about creating a richer, smarter, more innovative world.

About a year ago, Trump spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), shortly after progressive Democrats unveiled the Green New Deal, a set of programs whose sponsors promised would radically transform many aspects of American life. Sensing an advantage, Trump uncorked a two-hour stemwinder that was by turns mean, nasty, funny, and, above all, optimistic about the future. I prophesied then that he might win the 2020 election because "Trump is becoming sunnier and sunnier while the Democrats are painting contemporary America as a late-capitalist hellhole riven by growing racial, ethnic, and other tensions." The president has since retreated back to his darkness and will likely stay there, especially as impeachment proceedings get underway.

But as incumbent, Trump merely has to hold onto office while his challengers need to vault into power. If last night's rhetoric is any indication, the Democrats might have one more thing to be depressed about after election day. More importantly for the rest of us, we will still be without a major political party that can paint a positive vision for the country. And voters like me will still be searching for presidential candidates for whom we can vote.

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Hackensack Meridian Health Center for Discovery and Innovation to Host Genomic Medicine Symposium – P&T Community

Posted: January 18, 2020 at 7:45 pm

NUTLEY, N.J., Jan. 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Genomic medicine's groundbreaking treatments, and its future promise, will be the focus of a full-day symposium at the Hackensack Meridian Health Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) on Wednesday, February 19.

This emerging discipline for tailoring active clinical care and disease prevention to individual patients will be the focus of presentations given by eight experts from medical centers in the U.S.A. and Canada.

"The Genomic Medicine Symposium convenes a diverse group of scientific experts who help serve as a vanguard for precision medicine," said David Perlin, Ph.D., chief scientific officer and vice president of the CDI. "At the Center for Discovery and Innovation, we are working to make genomics a central component of clinical care, and we are delighted to host our peers and partners from other institutions."

"The event is one-of-a-kind," said Benjamin Tycko, M.D., Ph.D., a member of the CDI working in this area, and one of the hosts. "We are bringing together great minds with the hope it will help inform our planning for genomic medicine within Hackensack Meridian Health and inspire further clinical and scientific breakthroughs."

Cancer treatments, neuropsychiatric and behavioral disorders, cardiometabolic conditions, autoimmune disease, infectious disease, and a wide array of pediatric conditions are areas where DNA-based strategies of this type are already employed, and new ones are being tested and refined continually.

The speakers come from diverse medical institutions and will talk about a variety of clinical disorders in which prevention, screening, and treatment can be informed through genomic and epigenomic data.

Among the speakers are: Daniel Auclair, Ph.D., the scientific vice president of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation; Joel Gelernter, M.D., Ph.D., Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Genetics and of Neuroscience and Director, Division of Human Genetics (Psychiatry) at Yale University; James Knowles, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of Cell Biology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn; Tom Maniatis, Ph.D., the Isidore S. Edelman Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, director of the Columbia Precision Medicine Initiative, and the chief executive officer of the New York Genome Center; Bekim Sadikovic, Ph.D., associate professor and head of the Molecular Diagnostic Division of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Western University in Ontario; Helio Pedro, M.D., the section chief of the Center for Genetic and Genomic Medicine at Hackensack University Medical Center; Kevin White, Ph.D., the chief scientific officer of Chicago-based TEMPUS Genetics; and Jean-Pierre Issa, M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer of the Coriell Research Institute.

The event is complimentary, but registration is required. It will be held from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the auditorium of the CDI, located at 111 Ideation Way, Nutley, N.J.

The event counts for continuing medical education (CME) credits, since Hackensack University Medical Center is accredited by the Medical Society of New Jersey to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Hackensack University Medical Center additionally designates this live activity for a maximum of 7 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit TM. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

For more information, visit https://www.hackensackmeridianhealth.org/CDIsymposium.

ABOUTHACKENSACKMERIDIAN HEALTH

Hackensack Meridian Health is a leading not-for-profit health care organization that is the largest, most comprehensive and truly integrated health care network in New Jersey, offering a complete range of medical services, innovative research and life-enhancing care.

Hackensack Meridian Health comprises 17 hospitals from Bergen to Ocean counties, which includes three academic medical centers Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, JFK Medical Center in Edison; two children's hospitals - Joseph M. Sanzari Children's Hospital in Hackensack, K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital in Neptune; nine community hospitals Bayshore Medical Center in Holmdel, Mountainside Medical Center in Montclair, Ocean Medical Center in Brick, Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, Pascack Valley Medical Center in Westwood, Raritan Bay Medical Center in Old Bridge, Raritan Bay Medical Center in Perth Amboy, Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, and Southern Ocean Medical Center in Manahawkin; a behavioral health hospital Carrier Clinic in Belle Mead; and two rehabilitation hospitals - JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute in Edison and Shore Rehabilitation Institute in Brick.

Additionally, the network has more than 500 patient care locations throughout the state which include ambulatory care centers, surgery centers, home health services, long-term care and assisted living communities, ambulance services, lifesaving air medical transportation, fitness and wellness centers, rehabilitation centers, urgent care centers and physician practice locations. Hackensack Meridian Health has more than 34,100 team members, and 6,500 physicians and is a distinguished leader in health care philanthropy, committed to the health and well-being of the communities it serves.

The network's notable distinctions include having four hospitals among the top 10 in New Jersey by U.S. News and World Report. Other honors include consistently achieving Magnet recognition for nursing excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center and being named to Becker's Healthcare's "150 Top Places to Work in Healthcare/2019" list.

The Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University, the first private medical school in New Jersey in more than 50 years, welcomed its first class of students in 2018 to its On3 campus in Nutley and Clifton. Additionally, the network partnered with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to find more cures for cancer faster while ensuring that patients have access to the highest quality, most individualized cancer care when and where they need it.

Hackensack Meridian Health is a member of AllSpire Health Partners, an interstate consortium of leading health systems, to focus on the sharing of best practices in clinical care and achieving efficiencies.

For additional information, please visit http://www.HackensackMeridianHealth.org.

About the Center for Discovery and Innovation:

The Center for Discovery and Innovation, a newly established member of Hackensack Meridian Health, seeks to translate current innovations in science to improve clinical outcomes for patients with cancer, infectious diseases and other life-threatening and disabling conditions. The CDI, housed in a fully renovated state-of-the-art facility, offers world-class researchers a support infrastructure and culture of discovery that promotes science innovation and rapid translation to the clinic.

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hackensack-meridian-health-center-for-discovery-and-innovation-to-host-genomic-medicine-symposium-300989060.html

SOURCE Hackensack Meridian Health

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Transposons Identified as Likely Cause of Undiagnosed Diseases – The Scientist

Posted: January 18, 2020 at 7:45 pm

When Wellcome Sanger Institute geneticist Eugene Gardner set out to look for a specific type of genetic mutation in a massive database of human DNA, he figured itd be a long shot. Transposonsalso known as jumping genes because they can move around the genomecreate a new mutation in one of every 15 to 40 human births, but thats across the entire 3 billion base pairs of nuclear DNA that each cell carries. The sequencing data that Gardner was working with covered less than two percent of that, with only the protein-coding regions, or exons, included. Doing a quick calculation, he determined that, in the best-case scenario, he could expect to find up to 10 transposon-generated variants linked to a developmental disease. And we really might get zero, he says. This whole thing might be for naught.

But Gardner had recently developed the perfect tool to find the sort of de novo mobile element insertions that come about as a result of transposon movements and are often overlooked in genetic screens and analyses. As a graduate student in Scott Devines lab at the University of Maryland, Baltimores Institute for Genome Sciences, he had spent many hours making the software for the mobile element locator tool he dubbed MELT. The program was easy to use, so when Gardner moved across the Atlantic for a postdoc in Matthew Hurless lab at Sanger near Cambridge and gained access to a database of exomes from 13,000 patients with developmental disorders, he figured running the tool was worth a try.

There is tremendous value for these families that get a diagnosis.

Dan Koboldt, Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Nationwide Childrens Hospital

Of those 13,000, Gardner focused on 9,738 people in the Deciphering Developmental Disorders (DDD) study whose parents exomes had also been sequenced, making it easier to single out variants present in the child but not in mom and dad. And as it turned out, he did get some hits. MELT picked up 40 potentially transposon-generated variants, which Gardner sat down at his computer to review using the raw sequencing data. Nine appeared to be true de novo mobile element insertions. I remember being in my desk doing the visualization of all the putative de novo variants after I got the first results off the pipeline, he recalls. I remember being excited: I think I might have found a diagnostic de novo!

Discussing the literature on the genes affected by such insertions with clinicians and other colleagues, Gardner narrowed the list down to four insertions found in genes that may be causing or contributing to four different patients disorders. He sent these results off to the physicians who had referred each of the patients to the database, and all the doctors confirmed that the results made sense to them given what had been published on those genes and what they knew about other cases involving patients with mutations in the same sequences. In one case, the physician had already linked the patients disorder to the gene Gardner had identified; in the other three cases, the patients were still undiagnosed.

There is tremendous value for these families that get a diagnosis, says human geneticist Dan Koboldt, who has collaborated with Hurles in the past and has used MELT in his studies of rare disease at the Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Childrens Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, but who was not involved in Gardners recent study. A genetic answer not only can help physicians connect patients to appropriate medical and counseling resources; it puts an end to the diagnostic odyssey that families affected by rare disease often endure.

Whats more, the finding of four potentially causative hits out of the nearly 10,000 cases provides first estimate of how commonly such mobile element insertions underlie developmental disorders. Whats interesting about this study is that its taking a very broad approach, says Ian Adams, a developmental biologist at the University of Edinburghs MRC Human Genetics Unit who was not involved in the research. Rather than look for transposon activity in a specific disorder, its casting a much broader net in trying to find what type of diseases this class of mutations could be contributing to.

This approach is important, agrees Adamss MRC Human Genetics Unit colleague Jose Garcia-Perez, a transposable elements expert who was also not involved in the new research. In the last few years, two studies have used a tool developed around the same time as MELT to search for de novo mobile elements in people with autism spectrum disorder, but neither identified any that were likely to be responsible for the patients symptoms. [Gardners] study shows that, no matter whats [been found] recently, its something that should be explored in further detail in the future, says Garcia-Perez. [The study] actually shows a real connection between . . . transposition with that particular [type of] disorder. Koboldt adds: The reason this is an important study is that it establishes [that these] variants do occur and [that] they can be pathogenic.

Gardner says he hopes that his methods can be used to explore other diseases, from both a research and a clinical perspective. Adams says MELT does appear to be widely applicable to other datasets. Such a tool could be a boon to research on transposons, given that their movements are often missed by normal screening tools, Adams adds. I think [MELT is] something that could be readily built into existing pipelines.

Jef Akst is managing editor ofThe Scientist. Email her atjakst@the-scientist.com.

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Controlling Our Own Evolution: What is the Future of Gene-Editing? – The Globe Post

Posted: January 18, 2020 at 7:45 pm

In November 2018, Chinese biophysics researcher He Jiankuimade a historic announcement.

Two twin girls nicknamed Lulu and Nana had become the worlds first genetically modified human beings.

Using a gene-editing technology known as CRISPR, He had manipulated the DNA of the embryos that would become the girls in an effort to make them immune to the HIV virus.

What first seemed like a historic triumph of science, however, quickly became one of the most infamous scandals in medical history.

The researcher was swiftly fired from his university, put under police investigation, and denounced by experts around the world who said he jumped the gun and carried out an experiment that was unsafe and unethical.

In December, He was sentenced to three years in prison for illegally carrying out human embryo gene-editing intended for reproduction. Its unclear whether the experiment caused any genetic damage to Lulu and Nana or if they are even resistant to the HIV virus.

Kiran Musunuru, one of the worlds foremost genetics researchers, was the first expert to publically condemn Hes experiment.

Nonetheless, Musunuru says the birth of the Chinese twins marks the beginning of a new human era, the possibilities of which are boundless.

Potential future implications of gene-editing technology range from preventing genetic diseases to producing designer babies with custom traits to creating superhumans and controlling our own evolution.

With the release of his new book, The CRISPR Generation: The story of the Worls First Gene-Edited Babies, The Globe Posts Bryan Bowmanspoke to Musunuru about where this technology could go from here and what it could mean for the future of humanity.

The following interview is lightly condensed and edited for length and clarity.

Bowman: Could you explain what CRISPR is broadly and how that technology evolved to where it is today?

Musunuru: CRISPR is one type of gene-editing tool. Gene editing is a technology that allows us to make changes to genes in the DNA and in the cells in the body. If were talking about human beings, typically were talking about changes that are related to health or disease.

There are several types of gene editing tools, but CRISPR is by far the most popular one. CRISPR is interesting because it wasnt invented. It actually exists naturally in all sorts of bacteria. It evolved as a sort of an immune system that can fight off viral infections. Just like we can get viral infections, it turns out bacteria can get viral infections as well. And so bacteria created a system by which they can fight off viruses. So thats where CRISPR came from.

Over the past couple of decades, a variety of very talented scientists identified it, discovered it in bacteria, and then were able to adapt it into a gene-editing tool that can now be used in human cells.

What we can do with CRISPR is either turn off genes and thats easier to do or we can make more precise changes to genes such as correcting a mutation that causes disease.

Bowman: Last year, there was the famous or infamous case where Dr. He Jiankui in China covertly created the first gene-edited babies. And I understand that you were the first expert to publicly condemn the experiment. What exactly did Dr. He do and why did you feel it was so unethical?

Musunuru: What he was trying to do was use CRISPR to turn off a gene called CCR5. By turning off this gene, he was hoping to make the babies that were born resistant to HIV infection, HIV being the virus that causes AIDS.

There are many people who are naturally born with this chain turned off and theyre resistant to HIV. So the rationale was, well, Im going to try to create babies who have the same trait.

What he did was problematic for two reasons. One, it was, to put it lightly, a scientific disaster. Everything you worry about going badly with CRISPR actually did happen. Any technology has a potential for a lot of good with the potential for bad. I compare it to fire. It can be very useful. But if youre not careful, it can cause wildfires and a lot of damage and hurt a lot of people. Its the same with CRISPR. It can do a lot of good. It can help patients who have bad diseases. But if youre irresponsible with it, it could actually cause unintended genetic damage.

Its not clear whether these kids that were born they were twin girls nicknamed Lulu and Nana its not clear whether theyre actually protected against HIV infection. Its not clear whether they might have suffered some genetic damage that might have health consequences for them. Its not clear whether the genetic damage if it did occur could get passed down to their children and affect future generations.

So scientifically, there are a lot of problems with it. The work was very premature. I would say that if we were ever going to do this in a reasonable, rational, safe way, were years away from doing it. But he went ahead and just did it anyway. You can call him a rogue scientist, as clich as it is. And he did it in conditions of secrecy. There was essentially no oversight. And potentially these twins and future generations might suffer the consequences.

The other problem is a problem of ethics. The way in which he did it basically violated every principle of ethical medical research in the textbook. Basically, everything that you could do wrong, he did it wrong.

Whenever we do an experimental procedure, we hope that the benefits greatly outweigh the risks. What he was trying to do was protect these kids from HIV. But the truth is, they were in no particular danger of getting HIV compared to the average person. In China, the prevalence of HIV is about 0.1 percent. So there wasnt really much for them to gain. Even if they did somehow during their lifetime get the HIV infection, we have good treatments to prevent it from proceeding to full-blown AIDS.

So what was the benefit of doing this procedure? You have to balance that against the harms. And the genetic damage thats possible that raises risks of things like cancer and heart disease and other diseases. When you have those risks and very little benefit, then its just not a favorable ratio. And thats intrinsically unethical.

Bowman: Seeing as you said that were years away from doing something like this in a more responsible and ethical way, what are the greatest challenges to getting to a point where parents will have the option to go forth with a gene-editing procedure that might prevent their children from suffering from some kind of genetic disease?

Musunuru: There are really two aspects to this. One is a scientific or medical aspect. Can we get to a place where gene-editing of embryos is well-controlled? Where we know that what were doing is truly safe and appropriate from that perspective?

The second issue is really a decision more for broader society. Is this something that we should be doing, something we want to be doing? This is less about the science and more about ethics and morality and legality and religious values and all sorts of other things. Reasonable people can disagree on whats appropriate and whats not appropriate.What complicates things here is that its not really an all or nothing decision. There are different scenarios where you could see parents using gene-editing on behalf of their unborn children.

I like to break it down is three scenarios. The first scenario is with parents who have medical issues that make it so that theres no way they can have natural biological children or healthy babies if they both have a bad disease and theyre going to pass it on to all of their kids unless you do something like editing. These are unusual situations, but they do exist.

The second scenario is one where parents might want to quite understandably reduce the risk of their child having some serious illness at some point in their lifetime. Im talking about things that are fairly common, like Alzheimers disease or breast cancer or heart disease or whatnot. Theres no guarantee that the editing will eliminate that risk. But you can see how parents might want to stack the odds in their kids favor. Its still medical, but its not perhaps as severe a situation with a kid whos definitely going to get the disease unless you do something.

The third scenario would be cases in which parents want to make changes that are not really medical but are more of what we would think of as enhancements. These could be cosmetic changes like hair color, eye color, things like that.

But it could potentially be much more serious things like intelligence or athletic ability or musical talent. Now, to be fair, thats theoretical. I dont think we are anywhere near knowing enough about how genes influence these things to be able to do it anytime soon. You might actually have to change hundreds of genes in order to make those changes. But you can imagine how certain parents might want to do that, might want to advance their children in the ways that they feel personally are desirable.

Bowman: Can gene editing only be performed on embryos or is it possible to edit genes in later stages of pregnancy or even post-birth?

Musunuru: Theres actually a lot of exciting work going on using gene editing to help patients, whether its adults or children. Right now its been focused mostly on adults who have terrible diseases and its really being used as a treatment to alleviate their suffering or potentially cure the diseases.

Just recently, we got the exciting news that two patients one in the U.S. and one in Europe were participating in a clinical trial. They each had a severe blood disorder. One of them had sickle cell disease. The other had a disease called beta-thalassemia. Earlier this year, they got a CRISPR-based treatment. And whats very exciting is that it looks like not only have their conditions improved significantly, it looks like they might actually be cured.

If that bears out, it would really be historic because these are diseases that affect millions of people around the world and were previously incurable. This treatment is also being explored for things ranging from cancer to liver disease to heart disease.

So theres enormous potential for benefit for living people who have serious diseases. But its a very different situation than editing embryos because youre talking about a person who is in front of you. We are trying to alleviate their suffering. That patient has the ability to freely give consent to the procedure, to weigh the benefits and risks and come up with a decision.

Bowman: How does that work? Is it some kind of cell transplant where the new cells then replicate throughout the rest of the body?

Musunuru: Yeah. It depends on the situation. I mentioned those two patients with the blood disorders. The way it worked there was the medical team used bone marrow stem cells. They basically took bone marrow as if they were going to do a transplant and then edited blood stem cells in a dish outside of the body to fix the genetic problem. And then they took those edited stem cells and put them back into the same patient. Those cells start making the blood cells that are now corrected or repaired. And by doing that, to cure the disease.

Another potential implementation is I work on heart disease. And what wed like to be able to do is turn off cholesterol genes in the liver. So what I envision is that a patient with heart disease would get a single treatment and it would deliver CRISPR into the liver and just the liver. It would turn off genes that produce cholesterol in the liver. The effect of that is permanent reduction of cholesterol levels and lifelong protection against heart disease.

This actually works really well in mice. Ive been working on this in my own laboratory for six, almost seven years now experimenting with it in monkeys. And if looks like it works and Im pretty confident that it will work we could be looking at clinical trials in a few years where were taking patients who have really bad heart disease or a very high risk for heart disease and actually giving them the single treatment within their own bodies that would turn off these cholesterol genes.

Bowman: In terms of more cosmetic applications, theres this popular idea that designer babies will be a reality at some point in the future. But how feasible would it be to use gene-editing for something very basic like choosing eye color or hair color? Are there many genes involved in determining traits like that? Are we close to being able to do that if we choose to?

Musunuru: Well, eye color, hair color, those actually turned out to be fairly simple. Theres only a small number of genes that control those. So in theory, if you wanted to do it, it wouldnt be that difficult.

Personally, my point of view is thats a trivial thing. Like why would you go through all that trouble? Do I care if your kid has blue eyes versus green eyes versus brown eyes? Maybe some parents feel that thats very important. So I think simple things like hair color, like eye color, it could be done fairly readily. I just dont see it as serious enough to warrant doing it.

The more complex things like intelligence, gosh, thats going to be so challenging. I mean, intelligence is just such a complex phenomenon. Theres some genetics involved in it, but there are so many other factors that come into that like upbringing and environment. Were not even getting close to an understanding of how someones intelligence comes about, to be perfectly honest about it.

I will point out that even though some of these things are simpler, in general, the vast majority of people are very, very uncomfortable with the idea of using gene editing of embryos for enhancements.

And I think this reflects a couple of things. I think this reflects the fact that people are more sympathetic if something like this is being used for medical purposes and much less comfortable if its being done to give a child an advantage in a way thats not medical.

It brings to mind the recent scandal where wealthy parents were trying to get their kids into good colleges by actively bribing admissions officers, faking test scores, fabricating resums. That kind of thing makes people very uncomfortable that certain people, particularly wealthy people, might try to use this technology to an extreme to advantage their children.

Theres an economic aspect to that. Wealthy parents might have better access to this technology than those who are not as wealthy. And what does that mean? If wealthy parents are somehow able to make designer babies who somehow are advantaged and other people are not, does that exacerbate socio-economic inequalities in our society?

So I think there are a few reasons why people are uncomfortable with the idea of enhancement, whereas on the whole, the majority seem to be at least somewhat open to the idea that there might be good medical uses.

Bowman: Im really happy that you brought up that socio-economic inequality aspect because I was going to ask you about that. But if we table those concerns for a moment and go way out there, theres this notion you write about that we could ultimately, theoretically, control our own evolution.

Ive heard it suggested that it could be theoretically possible to incorporate traits from other organisms that could be advantageous into our own DNA and essentially enter a new post-human stage of evolution. Is that total science fiction or do you think were entering a period where that is increasingly possible?

Musunuru:Well, with the way things are going with this technology. I mean, weve taken a step towards that. But there are many, many, many, many steps that would need to be taken to actually get to that point. But I think youre right. You see the path. We have the technology. Then its a question of perfecting the technology. A question of learning more about what genes from other species might be advantageous.

The cats out of the bag. The technology is here. Whether its five years from now or 10 years from now or 50 years from now or 100 years from now, these sorts of things will inevitably start to happen. And Im not sure theres much that those who would like to not see that happen will be able to do to stop it in the long run.

China Jails Scientist Who Gene-Edited Babies

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Controlling Our Own Evolution: What is the Future of Gene-Editing? - The Globe Post

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Unified Biotechnology Regulation Website Launched – The National Law Review

Posted: January 17, 2020 at 9:46 am

Thursday, January 16, 2020

In a coordinated effort, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched a Unified Website for Biotechnology Regulation on January 9, 2020. The website serves to streamline information regarding agriculture biotechnology products, which are regulated by FDA, USDA, and EPA. The implementation of the website is in response to the June 2019 Executive Order issued by President Donald Trump on Modernizing the Regulatory Framework for Agricultural Biotechnology Products. The Unified Website for Biotechnology Regulation complements prior joint actions such as the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology, an Obama administration effort to reform the biotechnology regulatory process by enhancing transparency, predictability, and efficacy. Mintz has previously covered these coordinated efforts here.

Agriculture biotechnology products are products created through genetic engineering of plants, animals, and microbes. Each agency has a role in regulating biotechnology products: USDA has authority to approve all releases of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to ensure they do not create an environmental hazard; EPA must approve all crops that contain insect-killing genes; and FDA is responsible for evaluating whether GMOs are safe to eat. However, because of the interrelatedness of this area, agency regulatory oversight can be disjointed and unclear. Additionally, the advancement of technology can cause confusion in interpreting the regulatory requirements of each agency. Therefore, a primary goal of the website is to enhance customer service by allowing users to submit questions directly to the three agencies, as well as through providing a Frequently Asked Questions page.

The Unified Website for Biotechnology Regulation does not alter the regulatory process concerning agriculture biotechnology products. Instead, the website acts as an interactive archive containing information about the federal review process, while also enabling users to submit questions to the regulatory agencies with the expectation of a coordinated response. According to the FDA Press Release, "[t]he goals of this website are to provide enhanced customer service to innovators and developers, while ensuring Americans continue to enjoy the safest and most affordable food supply in the world and can learn more about the safe use of biotechnology innovations.

The website launch follows the October 2018 FDA announcement for its Plant and Animal Biotechnology Action Plan, which provides a risk-based regulatory approach to the oversight of plant and animal-derived products of biotechnology, with a focus on safety and effectiveness. One of the action plan's priorities is to coordinate a new biotechnology approach with EPA and USDA to clarify oversight of genome-edited products. According to FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, M.D.: This is a time of unprecedented scientific innovation. Agricultural biotechnology promises to bring dynamic new products to the marketplace . . . Our approach balances our internationally respected, science-based review standards with our ongoing risk-based regulatory approaches to ensure the safety of our food supply.

While the Unified Website for Biotechnology Regulation is a step towards meeting the goals set in the June 2019 Executive Order, additional efforts are needed to better coordinate biotechnology product regulation as technology continues to advance.

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Unified Biotechnology Regulation Website Launched - The National Law Review

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Should You Be Pleased About The CEO Pay At Avecho Biotechnology Limited’s (ASX:AVE) – Yahoo Finance

Posted: January 17, 2020 at 9:46 am

Ross Murdoch has been the CEO of Avecho Biotechnology Limited (ASX:AVE) since 2015. This analysis aims first to contrast CEO compensation with other companies that have similar market capitalization. Then we'll look at a snap shot of the business growth. Third, we'll reflect on the total return to shareholders over three years, as a second measure of business performance. The aim of all this is to consider the appropriateness of CEO pay levels.

Check out our latest analysis for Avecho Biotechnology

Our data indicates that Avecho Biotechnology Limited is worth AU$7.9m, and total annual CEO compensation was reported as AU$404k for the year to December 2018. We think total compensation is more important but we note that the CEO salary is lower, at AU$351k. We examined a group of similar sized companies, with market capitalizations of below AU$289m. The median CEO total compensation in that group is AU$379k.

So Ross Murdoch receives a similar amount to the median CEO pay, amongst the companies we looked at. This doesn't tell us a whole lot on its own, but looking at the performance of the actual business will give us useful context.

You can see a visual representation of the CEO compensation at Avecho Biotechnology, below.

ASX:AVE CEO Compensation, January 14th 2020

On average over the last three years, Avecho Biotechnology Limited has grown earnings per share (EPS) by 65% each year (using a line of best fit). It achieved revenue growth of 310% over the last year.

This shows that the company has improved itself over the last few years. Good news for shareholders. Most shareholders would be pleased to see strong revenue growth combined with EPS growth. This combo suggests a fast growing business. Although we don't have analyst forecasts shareholders might want to examine this detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow.

With a three year total loss of 80%, Avecho Biotechnology Limited would certainly have some dissatisfied shareholders. This suggests it would be unwise for the company to pay the CEO too generously.

Ross Murdoch is paid around what is normal the leaders of comparable size companies.

We think that the EPS growth is very pleasing, but we find the returns over the last three years to be lacking. We'd be surprised if shareholders want to see a pay rise for the CEO, but we'd stop short of calling their pay too generous. CEO compensation is one thing, but it is also interesting to check if the CEO is buying or selling Avecho Biotechnology (free visualization of insider trades).

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading.

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Should You Be Pleased About The CEO Pay At Avecho Biotechnology Limited's (ASX:AVE) - Yahoo Finance

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