Hogwash. Many (not all) multinational pharamceutical companies have their headquarters in Europe, but this is because they were founded in Europe. I challange you to name one, however, that does not maintain a biotech center in the USA. These companies are heavily dependant on the critical masses of biotech in North Carolina, San Francisco Bay Area, and San Diego. Biotech innovation in the USA keeps the development pipelines full around the world. The reason? US and European patent law protects capitol investment. Investment leads to innovation. Innovation leads to a products (cures). As new utilities are discovered and patented by companies (large and small), patents allow for collaboration between the small biotech ventures and the large pharma houses. I fail to see how the very risky business of biotech research could function without patent protection.
No, not plants,but caterpillar specific viruses called baculoviruses. No, not scorpion venom, but an insect selective sodium channel toxin. So you have a virus that can only infect about thirty species of caterpillars expressing a toxin (only in those species) which only effects insect nervous systems. No non-target effects. None. No corporate ownership of the plant line since this would be sprayed on crops.
Of course your totally ignorant knee jerk reaction will prevail for now. Face it, no amount of testing is going to convince you or the average misinformed activist of its safety. Science says no known safety issues. Activist says unknown safety issues. The difference is that the scientists (public and corporate) actually performed research and have evidence.
Meanwhile, these technologies are sitting in freezers, waiting for the general population to come to grips with biotechnophobia. Appropriate tech is always adopted in the end.
If you want to see the independant aerospace program that really rocks, then check out JP Aerospace. They are testing a helium balloon based platform and a microsat launcher. My bets are on them.
Commercial FPGA solutions used in bioinformatics
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FPGA Supercomputers
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· Score: 1
Acceleration with FPGA has been around for a while. I am currently evaluating TimeLogic's commercially available FPGA accelerated system for gene homology searching (http://www.timelogic.com) The system is composed of either NT or Sun boxes with FGPAs on PCI boards. It is a specialty product that runs several bioinformatic algorithms at very, very high speeds.
Sorry, not correct. These scientists are intentionally modifying a known set of genes, which is highly controlled relative to classical breeding (or the natural world). They make no claims of an exact outcome. They wish to test whether these organisms will depress a pest population. Loss of the engineered gene set at the population level is highly likely, since the genes will have either neutral or negative selective value. So you have a highly selective tool to reduce a pest population, which arguably has far less impact on the environment (and even population genetics) than broad spectrum pesticides.
(Down shifting)
Let me put it another way. Your own genome is full of genetic baggage from eons of evolution. Some are lemur- and monkey-like bits sure, much is more distant animal bits, but much is also viral and bacterial bits. Eukaryotic cells (all cells with a nucleus) have mitochondria, which are thought to be the remnants of symbiotic bacteria. Every cell of your body! The fact is, you body is an ephemeral snapshot of a very, very complicated story and it is just one line in the biosphere. I really believe that if everyone truly understood the whole picture, then few would care about the occasional "gene tweak".
Spiders, Bees, and Viruses
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Spidergoats
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· Score: 1
I used to work for American Cyanamid (now BASF) in Princeton, New Jersey. They had a program engineering an insect specific virus, called a baculovirus, for control of caterpillar pests. The wild type of the virus can be found nearly everywhere. In fact, those of you who have eaten your veggies have eaten baculovirus. The wild type virus kills its host, but too slowly for commercial use. So American Cyanamid (and Zeneca, Du Pont, and many universities) had a program to hasten speed of kill by adding insect and arachnid genes. We had a very large collection of living spiders and scorpions. Venom was milked and components were cloned. The last virus I worked with expressed both scorpion and honey bee venom components and could kill a caterpillar in a day. It was perfectly harmless to anything other than the ~30 species the wild type infected. EPA blanket approved the technology. Everything looked rosey until cries of "frankenfood" arose. Then, very quickly, all commercial efforts were shelved. It seemed that marketing types were convinced that the public would never accept a genetically engineered virus expressing insect selective toxins. Just too scary...... but there they sit, in cold rooms and freezers in many countries around the world. An elegant solution with bad press potential.
airuck
Nature is full of toxins. Many synthetics are completely inert. Why would anyone accept the use of natural vs. synthetic as a safety criterium?
Let's not forget that the concept was "reduced to practice" by nature some 120 million years ago. See E. O. Wilson's "The Insect Societies" and Holldobler and Wilson's "The Ants".
If you are not impressed by insects, then try to build one.
Slashdot Mirror
Hogwash. Many (not all) multinational pharamceutical companies have their headquarters in Europe, but this is because they were founded in Europe. I challange you to name one, however, that does not maintain a biotech center in the USA. These companies are heavily dependant on the critical masses of biotech in North Carolina, San Francisco Bay Area, and San Diego. Biotech innovation in the USA keeps the development pipelines full around the world. The reason? US and European patent law protects capitol investment. Investment leads to innovation. Innovation leads to a products (cures). As new utilities are discovered and patented by companies (large and small), patents allow for collaboration between the small biotech ventures and the large pharma houses. I fail to see how the very risky business of biotech research could function without patent protection.
No, not plants,but caterpillar specific viruses called baculoviruses. No, not scorpion venom, but an insect selective sodium channel toxin. So you have a virus that can only infect about thirty species of caterpillars expressing a toxin (only in those species) which only effects insect nervous systems. No non-target effects. None. No corporate ownership of the plant line since this would be sprayed on crops. Of course your totally ignorant knee jerk reaction will prevail for now. Face it, no amount of testing is going to convince you or the average misinformed activist of its safety. Science says no known safety issues. Activist says unknown safety issues. The difference is that the scientists (public and corporate) actually performed research and have evidence. Meanwhile, these technologies are sitting in freezers, waiting for the general population to come to grips with biotechnophobia. Appropriate tech is always adopted in the end.
The moderator also forgot the question.
If you want to see the independant aerospace program that really rocks, then check out JP Aerospace. They are testing a helium balloon based platform and a microsat launcher. My bets are on them.
Acceleration with FPGA has been around for a while. I am currently evaluating TimeLogic's commercially available FPGA accelerated system for gene homology searching (http://www.timelogic.com) The system is composed of either NT or Sun boxes with FGPAs on PCI boards. It is a specialty product that runs several bioinformatic algorithms at very, very high speeds.
Sorry, not correct. These scientists are intentionally modifying a known set of genes, which is highly controlled relative to classical breeding (or the natural world). They make no claims of an exact outcome. They wish to test whether these organisms will depress a pest population. Loss of the engineered gene set at the population level is highly likely, since the genes will have either neutral or negative selective value. So you have a highly selective tool to reduce a pest population, which arguably has far less impact on the environment (and even population genetics) than broad spectrum pesticides.
(Down shifting)
Let me put it another way. Your own genome is full of genetic baggage from eons of evolution. Some are lemur- and monkey-like bits sure, much is more distant animal bits, but much is also viral and bacterial bits. Eukaryotic cells (all cells with a nucleus) have mitochondria, which are thought to be the remnants of symbiotic bacteria. Every cell of your body! The fact is, you body is an ephemeral snapshot of a very, very complicated story and it is just one line in the biosphere. I really believe that if everyone truly understood the whole picture, then few would care about the occasional "gene tweak".
I used to work for American Cyanamid (now BASF) in Princeton, New Jersey. They had a program engineering an insect specific virus, called a baculovirus, for control of caterpillar pests. The wild type of the virus can be found nearly everywhere. In fact, those of you who have eaten your veggies have eaten baculovirus. The wild type virus kills its host, but too slowly for commercial use. So American Cyanamid (and Zeneca, Du Pont, and many universities) had a program to hasten speed of kill by adding insect and arachnid genes. We had a very large collection of living spiders and scorpions. Venom was milked and components were cloned. The last virus I worked with expressed both scorpion and honey bee venom components and could kill a caterpillar in a day. It was perfectly harmless to anything other than the ~30 species the wild type infected. EPA blanket approved the technology. Everything looked rosey until cries of "frankenfood" arose. Then, very quickly, all commercial efforts were shelved. It seemed that marketing types were convinced that the public would never accept a genetically engineered virus expressing insect selective toxins. Just too scary... ... but there they sit, in cold rooms and freezers in many countries around the world. An elegant solution with bad press potential.
airuck
Nature is full of toxins. Many synthetics are completely inert. Why would anyone accept the use of natural vs. synthetic as a safety criterium?
There are already great perl tools for bioinformatics, check out www.bioperl.org
Let's not forget that the concept was "reduced to practice" by nature some 120 million years ago. See E. O. Wilson's "The Insect Societies" and Holldobler and Wilson's "The Ants". If you are not impressed by insects, then try to build one.