DailyDirt: There Will Be Blood... And DNA And Stem Cells
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Biotechnology takes time to grow and develop new stuff, but every so often, there's a big leap. And then it still takes time to verify results and perform rigorous double blind medical studies. Science fiction and CSI TV shows make it seem like we'll be re-growing body parts and curing every disease before the next commercial break. Unfortunately, biology rarely moves that fast. Here are just a few cool biotech projects that won't be available at your local drug store anytime soon, but these sci-fi-sounding projects are closer to reality now.- Artificial human blood could be mass produced someday soon, providing a nearly limitless supply of type-O blood. This process could solve a lot of medical problems, but it could also bring out the vampires.... [url]
- The DNA laser printer can print custom strands of DNA -- to arbitrary lengths and with 100% accuracy. It doesn't quite match the sophistication of biological DNA synthesis, but being able to (cheaply!) create long stretches of custom DNA will make some biological studies a bit easier to do. [url]
- Surprisingly, it's not that difficult to obtain pluripotent stem cells from mice. Putting blood cells from a young mouse in a mildly acidic solution for about 30 minutes seems to do the trick -- but researchers are still trying to figure out exactly how this trick works so that they might be able to do it with adult human cells. [url]
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: biology, biotech, blood, dna, health, medicine, stem cells, synthetic biology
Reader Comments
The First Word
“http://www.newsweek.com/haruko-obokata-who-claimed-stem-cell-breakthrough-found-guilty-sc ientific-239000
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Biotime
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
http://www.newsweek.com/haruko-obokata-who-claimed-stem-cell-breakthrough-found-guilty-sc ientific-239000
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
whoa, wait, printable DNA?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: whoa, wait, printable DNA?
Unless someone develops some kind of dna memory transplant thingy.
Cloning is only feasable for organs, as they don't need a mind of their own to work, it is organic machinery if you will.
If you can upload/download consciousnesses/minds/training, you're in a whole other league of evil geniuses.
At least it'is nice that they are developing TruBlood.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]