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Photoshop for DNA
pafischer writes "Forbes is reporting on a Biotech startup company trying to make DNA manipulation as easy as Photoshop. From the article: 'The goal is to move from having to merely tweak the proteins that are used as biotech drugs to being able to design them, even taking material from multiple organisms and using them to create new, functional genes.'"
Judging from the quality of some of the Photoshopped images I've seen out there, I really don't want to see what people will create with this...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Ultra-Sharp-Teeth Plugin
Breathe Underwater Plugin
Bigger Breasts Plugin
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
that those tards at fark don't get ahold of this program.
They do compare the advance in genetic manipulation to the difference between editing with Wite-Out and editing with a word processor, but that's what we call an analogy. They're not claiming that producing genes would be something anyone with no training can do with their home computer.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
How about making it as easy as Gimp instead. I like the interface better.
*Ducks*
"what do multiple orgasms have to do with DNA research?"
Quite a bit, actually... : p
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Mark me as a FOB (Fan of Bill), but kudos to him and his foundation for their contribution to science...
Of course, he has a motive. He's donating money to help develop a user-friendly gene manipulation tool in hopes that it will cut into the market of the Open Source gene manipulation. Then, when people become dependent on the new gene manipulation, Microsoft will buy the company and merge it with their next version of windows, leaving geeks as the only ones doing gene manipulation the old way (by hand at the console). It always the same with that guy.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
I thought, "what do multiple orgasms have to do with DNA research?"
Oh that's easy.
Every woman will have not one G-spot but four, one of which will be at the back of the throat.
Every man will have a unit built from horse DNA.
And don't forget, everyone will be multi orgasmic!
Reinforced back muscles to support the standard DD chest. (That's the small model)
And of course, everyone will have a FANTASTIC rump.
And then King George W Bush will get wind of this and have everyone's DNA rewritten to be more moral. All pleasure will be taken out of sex, women will be programmed to be subservient to their husbands and submission to authority will be enhanced to the point where average citizens will shoot themselves in the head if anyone in uniform asks them to do so.
And the Conservative Christian utopia will come to be.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Designing DNA to create a given protein is no big deal. The hardest problem is figuring out how the new gene/protein will act inside the organism. Biological systems don't have a nice layered OSI model for what connects to what -- its like nearly everything is a global-accessible variable so side-effects are a real problem. New drugs require huge amounts of R&D in the testing phase, not the synthesis phase.
I'd be more impressed if someone created an accurate in silico system for testing new drugs, rather than just designing new DNA sequences that MIGHT make useful new proteins that MIGHT make a useful new drug.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I agree that genes should be left for geneticists, but when your compiler, debugger, and emmulator/simulator check for bad or even icky results, it might actually be fun to toy with genes, in an neat visual way.
At least, I have fantasies about modifying vegetables, fruits, and bugs. I expect that wasps can be reengineered to produce complete reams of laser printer paper, even with a sealed paper wrapper. I expect that ants or cockroaches could be modified to clean your house, better than they do. I expect bacteria or other small folded shapes can be reengineered to spit-out carbon nanotubes, construct simple buildings, or eat trash and grow fuel-cell cartridges.
All this hinges on us being able to effectively "file/print" DNA molecules. It's fun to watch technology accelerate, I am one excited geek.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
"That's just what we needed -- a bunch of no-good self-proclaimed "genetic engineers" "creating" "new" genes by doing copy-paste hacks."
Drew Endy.
If a professor of Biological Engineering from MIT isn't a genetic engineer, I'd like to know what is.
Hate to say it, but this sounds like a pipedream. They want to 'take the proteins and tweak them' an dthen have a computer program spit out the DNA required to make that protein.
Well whoop-de-do. I'd like to make a computer that can generate wormholes. Doesn't mean it's going to happen.
Firstly, protein modelling is notoriously complex. Remember folding@home? http://folding.stanford.edu/
That's right - hundreds of thousands of computers cracking the problem of 12 amino acid chains. That's an oligopeptide, sort of like a 'protein lite'. Real proteins are hundreds to thousands of amino acids long.
IBM's Blue Gene supercomputers were even specifically designed with protein folding simulations in mind - read http://www.research.ibm.com/bluegene/.
So this company seems to be doing the following
1 Come up with nifty, but blindingly obvious, idea
2 Crack the age-old problem of accurately simulating protein folding
3 Profit!!!
It's just that step one is literally so obvious that you could ask a kid. And step 2 is so notoriously complex that I don't expect this company to amount to anything more than a plughole for research grants.
-Nano.
If they come up with Frontpage for DNA, I just might become an investor.
:)
Then we'll have humans with an extra 30 useless chromosomes - so we'll have to wait until Dreamweaver DNA, DNA Tidy and DNA validator.