Category: Uncategorized

「Video of the Week」CRISPR-edited Bacteria As A Storage of Data

First video stored in its digital form in bacteria’s DNA, with the help from CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing.

DNA as a storage is not an entirely new idea. Microsoft has been exploring this field with Twist at least since 2016. They have successfully stored music (audio) performances in DNA in 2017.

Now (in the video), researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute are using live organisms.

「Video of the Week」First FDA-Approved Gene Therapy by Spark And Its First Patient in US (Spark being acquired today)

Roche to acquire Spark with a 122% premium of it previous closing price, with a deal valued of ~$4.3 billion.

Spark won FDA’s first approval on gene therapy for genetic disease more than one year ago, treating retinal dystrophy (by mutations on the RPE65 gene) with LUXTURNA. The treatment carries a list price of $850,000, or $425,000 per eye.

Besides, Spark Therapeutics has SPK-8011 in clinical trials, a novel gene therapy for the treatment of haemophilia A, which is expected to start Phase 3 in 2019.

Here is a brief video of the procedure for it first patient in US last March.

On President’s Day, California Attorney General With a 16-state Coalition Filed Lawsuit Against President Trump

California Governor Gavin and Attorney General Xavier Becerra today filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California challenging President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency and his attempt to divert funding appropriated by Congress for other purposes.

Joining Attorney General Becerra in filing the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Virginia.

Trump anticipated lawsuits – “We will have a national emergency, and we will then be sued. And they will sue us in the Ninth Circuit, even though it shouldn’t be there,” the president said, referring to the nation’s largest circuit court whose area encompasses California. “And we’ll possibly get a bad ruling and then we’ll get another bad ruling and then we’ll end up the Supreme Court, and then hopefully we’ll get a fair shake and we’ll win in the Supreme Court, just like the ban.”

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