College of Life Sciences

News and information for the College of Life Sciences.

Monster in the Henhouse

Have we engineered a future pandemic?
New Scientist reports that researchers around the world have been bioengineering H5N1 viruses (a viral bird flu strain, able to infect humans by merely breathing the same air), in a bid to understand, predict and thus prevent a future worldwide epidemic.
This has sparked the debate as to whether the research is a wise course of action due to fears of the mutated virus escaping the lab and ironically causing the pandemic. It’s easy to think that safety protocols are enough to prevent accidental viral release but prior experience suggests that this possesses a very real and immediate threat.
In the wake of 2003 the SARS coronavirus endemic, both lab technicians and general public alike lost lives as a result of a viral outbreak. D.A. Henderson (who led the fight to eradicate small pox) is quoted stating that “the 1918 flu would look like nothing if this really gets loose, this is really serious”.
Current debate is now focused on whether the gains of studying the viruses in terms of improved surveillance and understanding do in fact outweigh the risk of an accidental release and the resulting pandemic. However one debate which the WHO is of general agreement is the resulting precautions will be to keep the virus “locked down” at the highest level of containment (BSL-4). “I can’t think of another infectious agent which deserves BSL-4 more than this one,” says David Relman of Stanford university California and US Biosecurity Advisor.
General consensus suggests there is no correct course of action but that action must be taken, where do your moral loyalties lie?

Changing the Laws of Life

A Californian team of researchers recently discovered bacteria able to not only grow but thieve in a arsenic rich environment. A trait of which until now was considered to be an impossibility for life.

The team lead by Felisa-Wolfe-Simon, a scientist of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute is quoted saying, “This microbe, if we are correct, has solved the challenge of being alive in a different way.”

The bacterium known as GFAJ-1 appears to have started using arsenate as a building block in phosphate’s place, preventing the toxic build up of arsenate, and even eliminating the need for phosphorus, a element once considered essential for life.

Advancements like this give us a new angle in our concept of life and even shed light onto what alien life could be like.

http://hken.ibtimes.com/articles/96675/20110101/top-10-scientific-discoveries-in-2010.htm

Playing God?

Leading scientist Craig Venter is quoted saying, "This is the first self-replicating species that we've had on the planet whose parent is a computer, it also is the first species to have its own website encoded in its genetic code."

A breakthrough like this really opens new doors in the life science community, expending fields of research such as the engineering of cheap bio-fuels, designer medicines and even gene therapy.

http://hken.ibtimes.com/articles/96675/20110101/top-10-scientific-discoveries-in-2010.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_life

BigDNA

Vaccine development company Big DNA has developed a novel technology to fight off viruses without the need for booster treatments.

The company was set up by Dr John March as a result of technology developed at the Moredun Research Institute in Edinburgh, which specialises in research into the treatment of animal diseases.

Dr March saw the potential for his research into animal vaccinations to also apply to human infections and set about forming Big DNA, which was established in May 2007.

Two years later, thanks to its unique bacteriophage vaccine technology, the company is on its way to becoming a serious player in the international vaccine market.

The technology is based...

You never know what your skills may be, join the Enterprise Gym to find out!

Paths to entrepreneurship for life sciences - Shreefal Mehta

Many biotech companies are founded by scientists. But there is certainly a path, somewhat less trodden but nonetheless viable, for the inspired entrepreneur who may not be a brilliant researcher.

Each year, over a million companies are started in the US with about 5–10% (57,793 in 1998) of them classified as high technology companies1. Many nascent entrepreneurs exist around us, and thinking about starting a new venture is not an uncommon activity—in fact at any given point in time, over 4% of the working age population might be thinking of an idea for a new venture2. Not surprisingly, turning ideas into business ventures is tricky: only about 10% of budding entrepreneurs have a new firm in place within 12–18 months3; the other 90% either fail to define a sound business model that can drive their business idea forward to a new venture or realize their idea was flawed.

A key ingredient in successful entrepreneurship is self-knowledge. If entrepreneurs know their limitations and strengths, they may be able to avoid some common pitfalls in starting up a biotech company. In this article, I distinguish between two types of life sciences entrepreneurs and highlight the traits of each.

Typically a new life science venture is started up in the United States when a scientist, through initial government or foundation grants, discovers a pathway or mechanism in biology that is particularly interesting and appealing for disease intervention or treatment. The scientist then files a disclosure through the university office and begins discussions with the technology transfer or licensing officer at the university about commercializing the discovery. She or he then writes a small business innovation research grant to fund the startup activities, rounds up some collaborators (other scientists or business associates) and licenses the discovery from the university.

The scientist-entrepreneur then has two choices: either continue in the university position while developing the company on the side, or leave the academic position (permanently or temporarily on a leave of absence) to actively pursue the commercialization of his or her discovery. In the latter case, funding comes from personal funds, second mortgages on residences, loans, friends, families and other angel investors and venture capitalists. The venture is launched, typically focused on products, with a business model of forming a fully integrated company.
Case Study

A person with a bachelor's degree in biology took a technical training course at a local medical research center that was taught by a scientist who had been doing R&D for diagnostic tests. The student realized the opportunity for a business in providing R&D diagnostic testing for drug development and incorporated a company with technology licensed from the medical research center. The company has over a decade of successful operation now.
Shreefal Mehta is at the Lally School of Management and Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Pittsburgh Bldg., 110 8th St., Troy New York 12180, USA. e-mail: mehtasrpi [dot] edu

Milton Levine

Telegraph 7:39PM GMT 07 Feb 2011

Milton Levine, who died on January 16 aged 97, made a fortune from the "Uncle Milton Ant Farm", a sand-filled, clear plastic box through which budding myrmecologists could watch the insects tunnel, eat, and die.

Levine got the idea for his ant farm at a Fourth of July picnic in Los Angeles in 1956 when he became fascinated by a colony of undertaker ants building towers, transporting crumbs and generally doing what ants do. Thinking that children would be fascinated by watching the ants, he developed a prototype "farm" using a clear plastic handkerchief box with a wooden base and filling it with sand. He then took some ants from a nearby field to populate his new world.

After placing an advert in a newspaper he found himself deluged with orders. Unable to meet demand, he eventually secured the services of a family of ant rustlers to collect red harvester ants in the Mojave Desert at one cent per ant. The breed was deemed best-suited for the ant farm because they are plentiful, are active in the daytime, are vegetarian, and do not thrive indoors if they escape.

Though the original sand was replaced with lighter volcanic gravel to make it easier to see the ants, the design of the farms remained largely unchanged until Levine's son took over the business in the 1990s, when the ants had their digs upgraded with new modules. These included such novelties as tiny bungee ropes and ant-sized skateboarding parks. Half a century after Milton Levine's Fourth of July picnic, more than 20 million ant farms had been sold.

All the same, some found the performance of the insects a mite disappointing. As federal law prohibits the shipment of the queen ants (which are necessary for a colony to survive), the colonies tended to be short-lived and, deprived of the pheromones that give the colony a purpose, sometimes seemed caught in an existential crisis. "After a while, they just start dying," observed one reviewer. "They always bury their dead, and it gets a little sadder every day watching them haul the latest deaths off to where the other little bodies are. Finally there's only one ant left, huddled up all by himself, with no one to bury him when he finally goes."

The son of Russian immigrants, Milton Martin Levine was born on November 3 1913 in Pittsburgh, where his father ran a chain of dry-cleaners. After leaving school he ran a furniture store.

During the Second World War, he was drafted into the US Army and saw service in Britain, France and Germany. After the war ended he read an article suggesting that there were fortunes to be made from hair pins and plastic toys – both in short supply.

Opting for the latter, Levine and his brother-in-law approached a Pennsylvania company that made novelties – soldiers, circus animals, cowboys and indians and the like – for popcorn and peanut boxes. The business did so well that after a few years Levine moved to Los Angeles where he diversified into toy trains, children's records, balloons, "spud guns" and rubber "shrunken heads" to hang on rear-view mirrors. Not all his ventures were a success. A hat that sprouted real grass did not sell, and a miniature sea horse corral had to be withdrawn when the animals failed to survive the journey through the US mail.

But it was the ant farm that secured the company's future: "I expected it to last two seasons like most toys do," said Levine in 2002. "But the ant farm today is as stable as the Barbie doll." When Uncle Milton Industries was sold last June to a private-equity firm, it was valued at between $30 and $40 million.

Levine is survived by his wife, Mauricette, by his son and by two daughters.

The international Genetically Engineered machine competition (iGEM)

The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) is an undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition. Student teams are given a kit of biological parts at the beginning of the summer. Working at their own schools, they use these parts and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells. This project design and competition format is an excellent motivating and effective teaching method.

Each team will specify, design, build, and test simple biological systems made from standard, interchangeable biological parts. Teams will present their projects at the iGEM Championship Jamboree in November 2010.