Search Results for: david baltimore

Recommended reads: Bik, FDA letter, gecko cancer model, David Baltimore on COVID origin

gecko cancer

What can a gecko possibly teach us about skin cancer? Read on. It’s fun when a week’s worth of science reading covers so much territory including COVID-19, geckos that get cancer, a research misconduct sleuth, an FDA letter, and more. Baltimore weighs in on COVID lab origin idea Caltech has a very interesting interview with …

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David Baltimore, et al. path for human germline engineering

human-germline-editing-policy

In a new perspectives piece in Science, Nobel Laureate David Baltimore and co-authors including Jennifer Doudna and George Church, chart a potential path forward for human germline engineering. See also accompanying Bioethics piece by Gretchen Vogel as well, “Embryo engineering alarm”. In the piece, entitled “A prudent path forward for genomic engineering and germline gene …

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Altos Labs: mission, leadership, jobs, & CIRM

Altos Labs

At the beginning of the year I wrote about a new kind of biotech called Altos Labs. It’s very different in some ways from other institutions. I find it an intriguing research entity. Where do things stand now with Altos Labs a few months later? More information, new ideas,  and questions have popped up in the …

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All about Altos Labs & its $3B cellular rejuvenation push

Altos Labs PIs

I wrote briefly a few months ago about Altos Labs. It’s a new kind of biotech institute that is focused on cellular reprogramming. Now we know much more and it’s clear this is a huge deal. What’s in this article What is Altos Labs? | Cellular rejuvenation | Reprogramming oldness | Challenges | Altos Strategies | Analysis of …

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CRISPR baby moratorium grows likely with rising tide of support including from biotech

CRISPR-gene-edit-vs-mutation-1

Trying to make a CRISPR baby any time soon would be a really bad idea. How bad? Last December 3rd I penned a piece for STAT News arguing for a moratorium on the heritable use of CRISPR in humans. This potential future, radical application of “gene editing” is now often colloquially referred to as “CRISPR …

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UC Davis CRISPR Meeting: Big Picture from Ben Hurlbut

Oppenheimer-quote-e1464305142560

The CRISPR meeting has started off wonderfully with a talk by Ben Hurlbut. His talk was entitled, “The Demands of CRISPR’s World: Imagination, Deliberation and Governance”. Since I took notes and listened this post is somewhat freeform. I liked how Ben asked a lot of questions. What is “CRISPR’s world” as Science Magazine called it? How …

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Perspectives: no human genetic modification moratorium from organizers of #GeneEditSummit

GeneEditSummit

I just got back from a historic summit on human genetic modification in Washington, D.C. New genetic modification technology, termed CRISPR-Cas9, has both made genetic modification a relatively simple matter for scientists and human genetic modification much more likely in the near future. Heritable human genetic modification could prevent some rare genetic diseases so there …

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NAS Human Gene Editing Meeting: Agenda & Public Participation

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A draft agenda is now publicly available for the upcoming National Academy of Sciences (NAS) meeting on human gene editing. We now know a lot more about what to expect from this international gathering, which is called the International Summit on Human Gene Editing: A Global Discussion. The meeting will start on day 1 with …

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NAS Meeting on Human Germline Modification Taking Shape

NAS-CRISPR3

The US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will hold a meeting on heritable human germline modification on December 1-3, 2015 in Washington, D.C. Invitations to the NAS meeting to individuals starting going out last week. The upcoming NAS meeting seeks to address these issues and discuss the possibility of a moratorium on clinical use of …

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