Totally different, probiotics usually have assorted bacteria that are usually not associated with a healthy or unhealthy gut. Microbiomes, like those of the gut function as communities meaning you can't just add one or two species and hope everything is better(at least not from what we know at the moment). Using a fresh poop sample increases the chances that not only will a transplant take but also that the beneficial microbes will be there in the appropriate amounts to be beneficial.
Not that I support genetically engineering yeast to produce THC because that would be illegal. I hope once THC is decriminalized federally people will do that. Imagine growing a "joint" in 6 hours. The future.
I don't know about much more difficult. Normally, for bacteria, people use lambda red recombination strategies which are much much more difficult than CRISPR. The main benefit of CRISPR is it's easy of use. All that you need is to clone in a new gRNA and template.donor DNA in a plasmid and you are good to go.
I agree that no genome engineering tool is going to destroy the world.
Seems reasonable. I have also contributed to lots of campaigns that have never actually turned out.
DIY Science.Bio, BioHacking whatever you want to call it, is already going strong. CRISPR is not so much different than most of the techniques people have been doing so theoretically it shouldn't be that much more difficult to make it also work outside of lab.
I have not thought of that. The Cool thing is you can test whatever you think might work. If has some Scientific basis and logic to it that is even cooler!
On the one hand I agree with you. Things can hit a critical point fast if human beings are not careful.
On the other hand(this one is my right hand I think) comfortability is what allows us humans to spend time thinking and developing technology and cool things and beautiful things! Where does one draw a line like you said. What if I am in extreme pain but it is not life threatening and the lab test for the bacteria takes two days? I guess we could make people suffer or we could give them antibiotics in hopes that the diagnosis was correct. Are you going to be the one that rejects giving the whiny mother the antibiotic only to have her child die? Maybe the chances are highly unlikely but who is the one who is going to be responsible for that?
In my view humans are super awesome. We can come up with new technology and invent ways to try and overcome difficult problems. As I said. Maybe you are correct and we are just creating super bacteria that are going to wipe us out. I guess I am just _hoping_ that we as humans overcome in the end. Maybe naively.
Thanks so much!
Yeah, the project has many cool aspects. To teach Science, to bring awareness to antibiotic resistance, to start a massive open Science project.
The development of drugs is no small task, we know that! We are attempting to contribute what we can and allow others to contribute what they can. Often people think of how things are _now_ but not how they will be in the future. Regardless of whether we, or people who collaborate with us, or companies, develop these drugs the database should be pretty awesome to have around. Who knows, maybe in 50 years the NIH donates a bunch of money to develop one of these drugs, probably not but no one can predict the future. And if it is not done there never is any chance of that happening. So you do the best you can with the present and hope someone picks it up eventually.
The original plan was to make all the data Open with a capital O. We are "open" to suggestions. It's just, I grew up on open source software. I use almost all open source software and it changed my life. Taught me to code and hack hardware and software. I couldn't imagine doing something different with my Science or the Science of a project I am working on. It's true a pharma company could just come in and take the data. What do we do though? If someone runs 1000s of samples I want them to receive any credit they deserve. Any press release or Scientific publication people will be mentioned in. At the moment that's the best we can do. Any ideas?
We current use gram negative bacteria, as most pathogenic/antibiotic resistant bacteria tend to be of this variety(though the most common known MRSA is positive). We are also thinking of promoting the use of skin cultures so it is a mix of positive/negative but that can be confusing when viewing the results of an assay. The prokaryotic specific effects is a great idea! Let me see what I can come up with. I will definitely throw you a free kit if the Funding succeeds and we implement it!
1. No, we are not. Finding new antibiotics doesn't require using drug-resistant pathogens. A new class of antibiotics, if found, would theoretically target a protein or process in a drug-resistant variant that is not drug-resistant from lack of evolutionary selection.
2. That is a big problem and something hard to deal with. From my knowledge current US patent laws are first to file not first to discovery. So either you collect results and don't make them accessible to anyone or you collect results and make them open and hope that they are used to help people.
Slashdot Mirror
Totally different, probiotics usually have assorted bacteria that are usually not associated with a healthy or unhealthy gut. Microbiomes, like those of the gut function as communities meaning you can't just add one or two species and hope everything is better(at least not from what we know at the moment). Using a fresh poop sample increases the chances that not only will a transplant take but also that the beneficial microbes will be there in the appropriate amounts to be beneficial.
Yeah, http://hyasynthbio.com/ are working on making CBDs in Canada.
Not that I support genetically engineering yeast to produce THC because that would be illegal. I hope once THC is decriminalized federally people will do that. Imagine growing a "joint" in 6 hours. The future.
Genetically Engineering marijuana seems to be an up and coming industry. Isn't Snoop Dogg engineering his own custom strains?
Hah AGREED!
I don't know about much more difficult. Normally, for bacteria, people use lambda red recombination strategies which are much much more difficult than CRISPR. The main benefit of CRISPR is it's easy of use. All that you need is to clone in a new gRNA and template.donor DNA in a plasmid and you are good to go. I agree that no genome engineering tool is going to destroy the world.
Seems reasonable. I have also contributed to lots of campaigns that have never actually turned out. DIY Science.Bio, BioHacking whatever you want to call it, is already going strong. CRISPR is not so much different than most of the techniques people have been doing so theoretically it shouldn't be that much more difficult to make it also work outside of lab.
PS. I am the NASA Scientist.Creator of the kits.
Though I don't know much about people being hanged in barns in 1272 or Chipotle, I could perhaps answer other questions about the kit
I have not thought of that. The Cool thing is you can test whatever you think might work. If has some Scientific basis and logic to it that is even cooler!
On the one hand I agree with you. Things can hit a critical point fast if human beings are not careful.
On the other hand(this one is my right hand I think) comfortability is what allows us humans to spend time thinking and developing technology and cool things and beautiful things! Where does one draw a line like you said. What if I am in extreme pain but it is not life threatening and the lab test for the bacteria takes two days? I guess we could make people suffer or we could give them antibiotics in hopes that the diagnosis was correct. Are you going to be the one that rejects giving the whiny mother the antibiotic only to have her child die? Maybe the chances are highly unlikely but who is the one who is going to be responsible for that?
In my view humans are super awesome. We can come up with new technology and invent ways to try and overcome difficult problems. As I said. Maybe you are correct and we are just creating super bacteria that are going to wipe us out. I guess I am just _hoping_ that we as humans overcome in the end. Maybe naively.
Thanks so much!
Yeah, the project has many cool aspects. To teach Science, to bring awareness to antibiotic resistance, to start a massive open Science project.
The development of drugs is no small task, we know that! We are attempting to contribute what we can and allow others to contribute what they can. Often people think of how things are _now_ but not how they will be in the future. Regardless of whether we, or people who collaborate with us, or companies, develop these drugs the database should be pretty awesome to have around. Who knows, maybe in 50 years the NIH donates a bunch of money to develop one of these drugs, probably not but no one can predict the future. And if it is not done there never is any chance of that happening. So you do the best you can with the present and hope someone picks it up eventually.
We have no plans to monetize any of the data.
The original plan was to make all the data Open with a capital O. We are "open" to suggestions. It's just, I grew up on open source software. I use almost all open source software and it changed my life. Taught me to code and hack hardware and software. I couldn't imagine doing something different with my Science or the Science of a project I am working on. It's true a pharma company could just come in and take the data. What do we do though? If someone runs 1000s of samples I want them to receive any credit they deserve. Any press release or Scientific publication people will be mentioned in. At the moment that's the best we can do. Any ideas?
We current use gram negative bacteria, as most pathogenic/antibiotic resistant bacteria tend to be of this variety(though the most common known MRSA is positive). We are also thinking of promoting the use of skin cultures so it is a mix of positive/negative but that can be confusing when viewing the results of an assay. The prokaryotic specific effects is a great idea! Let me see what I can come up with. I will definitely throw you a free kit if the Funding succeeds and we implement it!
1. No, we are not. Finding new antibiotics doesn't require using drug-resistant pathogens. A new class of antibiotics, if found, would theoretically target a protein or process in a drug-resistant variant that is not drug-resistant from lack of evolutionary selection.
2. That is a big problem and something hard to deal with. From my knowledge current US patent laws are first to file not first to discovery. So either you collect results and don't make them accessible to anyone or you collect results and make them open and hope that they are used to help people.