CRISPR Becoming a Mainstay is Great News for Investors, Bad News for Some Healthcare SegmentsMay28

Daily Intelligence Briefing

Identifying Change-Driven Investment Themes

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Gene-Editing

Gene therapy may have its first blockbuster

Gene therapy is about to achieve a milestone. As soon as tomorrow, drug giant Novartis expects to win approval to launch what it says will be the first “blockbuster” gene-replacement treatment. A blockbuster is any drug with more than $1 billion in sales each year.

The treatment, called Zolgensma, is able to save infants born with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) type 1, a degenerative disease that usually kills within two years. On Friday, May 24, Novartis won approval for the drug and set the price at $2.125 million, making it the world’s most expensive one-time drug ever.

The FDA predicts that by 2025 between 10 and 20 gene or cell treatments will reach the market each year, potentially roiling the US insurance market if costly treatments for hemophilia and muscular dystrophy win approval.

“The issue with many of these drugs is that they are expensive but also life-changing for those who need them,” says Michael Sherman, chief medical officer of the insurer Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, who has been negotiating with Novartis. “For this and other gene therapies coming down the pike, it’s not about saying no, but how do you say yes without bankrupting the system?”

Read the full article from MIT Technology Review +

Gene-Editing

New CRISPR Libraries Open Door to Novel Drug Discovery

A new gene editing tool will help researchers find therapies for cancer and other diseases. The Invitrogen LentiArray CRISPR Libraries—a ready-to-use array of knockout libraries for the human genome developed by Thermo Fisher Scientific—gives researchers a new set of tools to discover key targets for disease therapies and shed new light on complex biological pathways.

Some of the features of the innovation—which won a 2018 R&D 100 Award—include advanced guide RNA designs for maximum knockout efficiency without sacrificing specificity, up to four high-quality gRNAs per gene target, high-titer, ready-to use lentivirus or glycerol stock delivery options, a set of controls and lentiviruses against single gene targets to support prescreen assay development, and rapid post-screen hit validation and 19 predefined libraries with custom options available.

The new CRISPR libraries expand the application of past CRISPR/Cas9 technologies into high-throughput applications for functional genomics screening, enabling scientists to determine specific genes that are key members of specific biological pathways and whether they are involved in disease development or progression.

Read the full article from R&D Mag +

Gene-Editing

One-off injection may drastically reduce heart attack risk

Doctors in the US have announced plans for a radical gene therapy that aims to drastically reduce the risk of heart attack, the world’s leading cause of death, with a one-off injection.

The researchers hope to trial the therapy within the next three years in people with a rare genetic disorder that makes them prone to heart attacks in their 30s and 40s. If the treatment proves safe and effective in the patients, doctors will seek approval to offer the jab to a wider population.

“The therapy will be relevant, we think, to any adult at risk of a heart attack,” said Sekar Kathiresan, a cardiologist and geneticist at Harvard Medical School who will lead the effort. “We want this not only for people who have heart attacks at a young age because of a genetic disorder, but for garden variety heart attacks as well.”

Heart disease is the No 1 killer in many countries. An estimated 18m deaths are attributed to the condition every year, the vast majority of which, about 85%, are caused by heart attacks and strokes.

Read the full article from The Guardian +

Gene-Editing

Scientists Gene-Hack Viruses To Hunt And Kill Super-Strong Bacteria

In order to combat superbugs — bacteria that have evolved to survive even the most potent antibiotics — doctors have started to gene-hack viruses to hunt and kill dangerous strains.

Scientists have tried to use CRISPR gene-editing tools to modify viruses to kill off dangerous bacteria and ignore healthy gut bacteria for several years. But now a company called Locus Biosciences tells NPR that it’s developed a mixture of three CRISPR-edited viruses that can infect and kill dangerous bacteria like a “living antibiotic” — a promising new weapon in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

The gene-hacked viral blend can infiltrate bacterial cells and reprogram their DNA, instructing the bacteria’s immune system to destroy the entire cell.

“If we’re successful, this revolutionizes the treatment of infections,” Michael Priebe, a doctor who’s also working on CRISPR-edited viruses, told NPR. “This can be the game changer that takes us out of this arms race with the resistant bacteria and allows us to use a totally different mechanism to fight the pathogenic bacteria that are infecting us.”

Read the full article from Futurism +

Gene-Editing

China set to introduce gene-editing regulation following CRISPR-baby furore

China is poised to introduce a new regulation on gene editing in humans. A draft of the country’s new civil code lists human genes and embryos in a section on personality rights to be protected. Experiments on genes in adults or embryos that endanger human health or violate ethical norms can accordingly be seen as a violation of a person’s fundamental rights.

Lawyers say the regulation would mean that anyone who manipulates genes in humans is responsible for what happens to a person. “The law makes clear that those who do research with human genes and embryos cannot endanger human health or violate ethics,” says Zhang Peng, a criminal-law scholar at Beijing Wuzi University.

China has been revising its civil code — the overarching legal framework that governs non-criminal disputes in areas such as marriage, inheritance and personal rights — since 2002. The latest draft was submitted last month to the country’s chief legislative body, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and is likely to be adopted next March.

The inclusion of gene editing in the latest draft of the new civil code was a last-minute addition, however — prompted by uproar over gene-editing experiments carried out last November by Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui.

Read the full article from Nature +

LONG

ASEAN Markets

LONG

Electric Utilities

SHORT

Long-Dated U.S. Treasuries

LONG

Robotics & Automation

LONG

Value Over Growth

SHORT

Autos

LONG

Gold & Gold Miners

LONG

Obesity

LONG

Solar

LONG

Video Gaming

Week Ahead

This week the second estimate of US Q1 GDP growth will be keenly watched, alongside personal income and outlays, PCE price index, wholesale inventories, and pending home sales; UK consumer morale and monetary indicators; Eurozone business survey; Germany consumer sentiment, retail trade, and inflation; China NBS PMIs; Japan consumer confidence and industrial output; and India, Canada and Brazil Q1 GDP growth rates. Central banks in Canada and South Korea will be deciding on monetary policy, but no changes are expected.

Click here to access the data +

US Durable Goods Orders Fall More than Expected

New orders for US manufactured durable goods fell 2.1 percent from a month earlier in April 2019, reversing a downwardly revised 1.7 percent growth in March and slightly worse than market expectations of a 2 percent drop. Transportation equipment, down two of the last three months, drove the decrease.

Click here to access the data +

European Stocks Rise After EU Election

European shares traded in the green on Monday morning, following weekend’s European parliamentary elections and after earlier results suggested mainstream European Union parties make up the majority of the Parliament, Liberal and Green parties see strong gains and eurosceptic groups in Britain and France hold 2014’s gains. News from carmaker Fiat Chrysler saying it made a “transformative merger” proposal to French peer Renault in a deal also lifted investors mood.

Click here to access the data +

Brent Crude Rises on Monday

Brent crude oil prices went up as much as 1.9% to $70.1 a barrel on Monday, despite US President Trump’s comment that the US isn’t ready to make a trade deal with China, amid persistent political tensions in the Middle East and OPEC which led production cuts. Crude oil added 1% to $59.1 a barrel around 1:00 PM New York time.

Click here to access the data +

Markets

Stocks

China’s biggest chip maker, SMIC, to withdraw from New York Stock Exchange as trade spat with US spills over to technology sector

China’s biggest chip maker, SMIC, to withdraw from New York Stock Exchange as trade spat with US spills over to technology sector. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) said on Friday evening that it had notified the NYSE of its intention to apply on June 3 to delist its American depositary receipts (ADRs) from the bourse.

In a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange, where its shares are listed, SMIC cited low trading volumes of its ADRs and the high costs of maintaining the listing and complying with reporting requirements and related laws. The voluntary delisting is expected to happen after June 13, and trading of the chip maker’s US securities will shift to the over-the-counter market, the statement said.

Investors were caught off guard by the announcement. The stock fell 4.9 per cent, or 27 cents, to close at US$5.23 on Friday. Shares had tumbled to an intraday low of US$5.11 as US trading began. The company’s Hong Kong-listed shares dropped 4.3 per cent to HK$8.42 (US$1.07) at the close on Friday.

Read the full article from South China Morning Post +

Stocks

U.S.-Listed Chinese Stocks Tumble at Fastest Pace Since 2008

The worsening trade war is driving the steepest sell-off in Chinese shares traded in the U.S since the global financial crisis. The S&P/BNY Mellon China ADR Index has plunged 15% in May, putting it on track for its worst monthly performance since October 2008. Social media firm Weibo Corp., online media company Sina Corp. and Internet search firm Baidu Inc. have all declined more than 30%. Losses aren’t confined to the U.S. — in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of Chinese firms is down almost 10%, the worst performance among major global benchmarks.

The scale of the rout shows how tainted Chinese assets have become since the Trump administration stepped up pressure against Beijing this month by imposing tariffs and taking steps to limit the country’s access to key technologies. Just three weeks ago the S&P/BNY Mellon’s ADR index was nearing a nine-month high, while the Shanghai benchmark’s first-quarter rally was its best start to a year in a decade.

The timing of the slump is bad news for investors who track MSCI Inc.’s global benchmarks. The index compiler is increasing weightings of Chinese mainland-listed companies in its gauges, which are already heavily dominated by overseas-traded Chinese firms. Chinese companies have contributed to more than a quarter of this month’s declines on the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, led by Tencent Holdings Ltd.

Read the full article from Bloomberg +

Economics & Trade

Trade War

U.S. Proposes Tariffs on Nations With Undervalued Currencies

The Trump administration is proposing tariffs on goods from countries found to have undervalued currencies, in a move that would further escalate its assault on global trading rules.

The proposal, laid out in a Federal Register notice released on Thursday, would let U.S.-based companies seek anti-subsidy tariffs on products from countries found by the U.S. Treasury Department to be engaging in competitive devaluation of their currencies. Currently no country in the world meets that criteria. But it also sets a broader standard by focusing on the “undervaluation” of currencies.

President Donald Trump has long threatened to label China a currency manipulator and his administration has been examining how to take a more aggressive approach to what is now a largely technical exercise by Treasury to determine whether any currency manipulation has taken place. “This change puts foreign exporters on notice that the Department of Commerce can countervail currency subsidies that harm U.S. industries,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement. “Foreign nations would no longer be able to use currency policies to the disadvantage of American workers and businesses.”

The notice released by the Commerce Department, which administers the quasi-judicial process that determines the imposition of what are known as “countervailing duties,” says it would defer to Treasury in determining whether any currency was deemed undervalued. It also specifically says the move is not aimed at any central bank action that results in currency swings.

Read the full article from Bloomberg +

Trade War

China could hurt Apple profits by 29% if it avenged the Huawei ban, says analyst

Trump’s Huawei ban was bad news for China, as it effectively crippled the world’s second-largest smartphone maker from its largest source of income. But China is also very much in a position to retaliate, and Apple – the world’s third-largest smartphone maker – could be among the ones to suffer.

Goldman Sachs analysts estimated in a note to investors that Apple could lose 29 percent of its profits if China decided to ban Apple sales in the country to retaliate against the Huawei ban in the US. 17 percent of Apple‘s sales come from China, so such a move would undoubtedly be debilitating. Mind you, this is a theoretical scenario and China has no to ban Apple beyond politicking as far as we’re aware – though you could say the same about the Huawei ban.

If the country decided to inhibit the phone’s production, Apple would face much more difficult immediate consequences. Such a move would likely be ill-advised in the long term as “it could have negative implications for the China tech ecosystem as well as for local employment,” note the Goldman analysts, but it’s a scary possibility for Cupertino – not to mention the myriad of other American companies building their products in China. For its part, Apple has considered moving manufacturing outside of the country due to rising tariffs, but that’s a lot easier said than done.

Read the full article from The Next Web +

Trade War

This is what Trump’s latest tariff increase will cost the typical American household

Rising tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports will translate to an extra $831 in annual costs for the typical American household, according to new projections from Federal Reserve Bank of New York researchers.

Thursday’s projections on the impact of the newly-implemented 25% tariffs are about double the earlier estimates of $419 per household, the Fed said. The latest round of tariff hikes, in addition to those introduced last year, could cost over $106 billion for American households, the researchers said.

That could be approximately 19 gas tank fill-ups of a mid-size car’s 15-gallon gas tank if regular grade gas prices held at AAA’s $2.84 average. That $831 could pay for five weekly trips to the grocery store for a family.

The latest figure doesn’t take into account any further adverse economic impact from China’s retaliatory tariffs. Starting June 1, the Chinese government will raise tariffs as high as 25% for roughly $60 billion in 5,000 American products. The products range from frozen fruits to vodka.

Read the full article from Market Watch +

Construction & Real Estate

Housing

Amazon is selling entire houses for less than $20,000 — with free shipping

Prefabricated and modular housing — with homes prebuilt in factories — is having another moment. From 2013 to 2018, industry revenue grew an annualized 8.6% to nearly $10.5 billion, including growth of 4.1% in 2018 alone, according to research firm IBISWorld.

Previously associated with Dwell and other shelter magazines and websites, these often-tiny homes have now hit Amazon in a big way — and are apparently selling out there. Indeed, multiple news outlets, including real-estate sites Curbed and the Real Deal, reported that one 172-square-foot, $7,250 prefab cabin, which the manufacturer claims can be built in eight hours and ships free from Amazon, had sold out.

Read the full article from Market Watch +

Labor, Education & Demographics

Demographics

More people are going to be healthily living past 100, and Bank of America sees a $610 billion market there by 2025

Analysts at Bank of America see a market that could be worth $610 billion by 2025, up from $110 billion today. It’ll largely by driven via advancements in technology, both used preventatively and to treat some of the conditions associated with getting older. Bank of America broke down that potential $610 billion market into five subgroups: genomics, big data, future food, ammortality, and moonshot medicine.

One factor the analysts realized could contribute to people living longer and healthier would be a large uptick of people getting their genomes sequenced. As many as 1 in 4 people in the world could have their DNA mapped out by 2025, according to research cited by the Bank of America analysts.

As we amass more information from sources like sequenced genomes, that data could help with new breakthroughs in drug discovery and development. Changes in our diets might help us live healthier to 100 as well, with one of five preventable deaths worldwide tied to diet, Bank of America noted.

By far the biggest of the subgroups highlighted by Bank of America is something the analysts dubbed “ammortality.” The researchers define it as “living healthier, better and longer” as an alternative to “immortal,” or simply living forever.

The analysts put research on anti-aging treatments into the “Moonshot Medicine” subgroup. These new approaches might be able to help with particular conditions, like Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease, or they help prevent muscle loss or other visible signs of aging.

Read the full article from Business Insider +

Services

Waste Management

China’s ban on scrap imports a boon to US recycling plants

The halt on China’s imports of wastepaper and plastic that has disrupted U.S. recycling programs has also spurred investment in American plants that process recyclables. U.S. paper mills are expanding capacity to take advantage of a glut of cheap scrap. Some facilities that previously exported plastic or metal to China have retooled so they can process it themselves.

And in a twist, the investors include Chinese companies that are still interested in having access to wastepaper or flattened bottles as raw material for manufacturing. “It’s a very good moment for recycling in the United States,” said Neil Seldman, co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a Washington-based organization that helps cities improve recycling programs.

China, which had long been the world’s largest destination for paper, plastic and other recyclables, phased in import restrictions in January 2018. Global scrap prices plummeted, prompting waste-hauling companies to pass the cost of sorting and baling recyclables on to municipalities. With no market for the wastepaper and plastic in their blue bins, some communities scaled back or suspended curbside recycling programs. New domestic markets offer a glimmer of hope.

Read the full article from AP News +

Manufacturing & Logistics

Chemicals

This Under 30 Startup Just Raised Another $32 Million To Manufacture Chemicals With Bacteria

Houston-based chemical manufacturing startup Solugen, announced Wednesday that it has raised a $32 million series B round. The company, which was cofounded by Forbes Under 30 alumni Gaurab Chakrabarti and Sean Hunt, will use to expand its manufacturing facilities.

The round was led by Founders Fund, and that firm’s partner Brian Singerman will be joining the board. Wester Technology Investment, Y Combinator, Refractor Capital and others participated in the round, which brings the total amount of venture capital raised by the company to over $55 million.

Solugen’s primary product is hydrogen peroxide—a chemical that has been long manufactured in the Houston area. Traditionally, the chemical is made through a complicated—and toxic—manufacturing process that uses hydrocarbons derived from oil. Solugen manufactures it completely differently, using plant sugars found in food waste and enzymes derived from Crispr-edited bacteria.

The company uses the hydrogen peroxide in a number of other products, which include other chemicals created when its enzymes make hydrogen peroxide. Those products are used for number of applications in oil & gas as well as water treatment, agriculture and other industries.

Read the full article from Forbes +

Industrials

Durable-goods orders slump in April as business investment almost dries up

Orders for durable goods — products meant to last at least three years — dropped 2.1% in April, the government said Friday. The increase in orders in March was also marked down. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast a 2.4% decline in new orders. If cars and planes are stripped out, orders were flat. Transportation often exaggerates the ups and downs in orders because of lumpy demand from one month to the next.

The big drop in orders last month was mostly tied to a drop-off in bookings for Boeing jetliners. The giant manufacturer took in just four orders in April following the worldwide suspension of flights for its 737 MAX planes after a pair of deadly crashes.

The manufacturing side of the U.S. economy began to slacken toward the end of last year, a slowdown exacerbated by the trade war with China. A still-weak global economy is another drag. Businesses are unlikely to sharply ratchet up spending and investment until the U.S.-China spat is resolved and the global economy strengthens.

The good news is, manufacturers are still expanding, even if at a snail’s pace, and most are unwilling to reduce their workforces amid a widespread shortage of skilled labor. So long as the vast majority of Americans keep working and mass layoffs are avoided the economy is unlikely to stumble.

Read the full article from MarketWatch +

Technology

China Tech

China will increase support, subsidies for tech firms, official says

China will increase its support and subsidies for technology firms amid rising protectionism from the United States, a senior official said on Friday.

Vice-minister for industry and information technology Wang Zhijun said Washington’s recent moves to stymie Chinese firms would help those companies to cut their reliance on foreign technologies. “Recently, the US has taken a series of measures to crack down on Chinese companies for political purposes,” he said. “[But] it is in fact a good thing for Chinese firms. China’s manufacturing upgrade requires a breakthrough in key and core technologies, [and] we need to speed up the process.”

To encourage that transition, Wang said the government would play a greater role in formulating strategy, increase research and development subsidies for technology companies, and offer those firms better for their intellectual property.

“We will strengthen the strategic guidance at the national level, devote more resources to achieving a breakthrough in core technologies, and create a market environment for fair competition,” he said. “At the same time, the government will increase its financial support for basic research … and encourage companies to devote more resources to it.”

Read the full article from South China Morning Post +

Satellites

SpaceX launches 60 Starlink satellites, begins constellation buildout

SpaceX launched the first 60 satellites for an internet constellation that could ultimately number 12,000 on a Falcon 9 rocket Thursday night. The rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 10:30 p.m. Eastern, and deployed the satellites into a low Earth orbit a little over an hour later.

SpaceX previously planned the launch for early May, but the mission was pushed back due to knock-on delays from an earlier resupply mission to the International Space Station that had its own schedule slips. Upper-level winds delayed the Starlink launch again last week, as did additional time SpaceX elected to take for software checks on the satellites.

The 60 satellites mark the beginning of SpaceX’s deployment of a global internet megaconstellation intended to generate more revenue to fuel the company’s interplanetary ambitions. Each Starlink satellite launched May 23 weighs roughly 227 kilograms. Collectively they are expected to deliver 1 terabit per second of usable capacity, and 2.5 to 3 terabits per second of total capacity.

Read the full article from Space News +

Transportation

Shipping

Maersk Shares Tank After CEO Talks to Analysts About Trade War

Shares in the world’s biggest shipping company slumped on Friday after its chief executive officer started discussing the fallout of global trade tensions on his industry. A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S fell almost 5% in Copenhagen trading, as CEO Soren Skou told analysts and reporters that 2019 will be the year of the trade war.

Maersk, which transports about a fifth of the world’s manufactured goods by sea, is struggling to cope with the threat that escalating trade tensions pose to its business. Skou, who arrived in the Danish capital from China on Friday morning to present first-quarter results, says that volumes on trans-Pacific trade between Asia and North America have already shown signs of decline.

Maersk estimates that global container trade grew just 1.7% in the first quarter from a year earlier. That compares with 3.6% for all of 2018. Skou says that even if Trump reaches a deal with China, there’s no reason to believe that the global economy will be free of serious trade tensions.

Read the full article from Bloomberg +

Commodities

Oil

PDVSA Tankers To Be Detained For Lack Of Payment

Three PDVSA tankers that are late with payments to German operator Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM) are being detained, according to Reuters sources, as BSM gives up on waiting for payments while conducting business as usual with floundering state-run PDVSA.

BSM operates almost half of PDVSA’s fleet of tankers, and has made a move to “arrest” three tankers due to the outstanding debt PDVSA has amassed. BSM and PDVSA have a troubled past, as PDVSA struggles to pay its bills while oil production and exports fall to new lows each month.

In March, BSM announced that it was removing its crews from 10 of these tankers due to a lack of payment, adding that it would return the tankers. PDV Marina—PDVSA’s shipping subsidiary—had declared an emergency following the announcement, saying it did not have the staff to accept the return of the 10 tankers.

Mid-March, BSM said it was considering scrapping its agreement with PDVSA entirely as of the end of March or in April due to the sanctions levied against PDVSA. What’s more, BSM said, the political situation in Venezuela made it “an almost impossible task” to manage PDVSA’s assets. Following that announcement, another ship management firm, US-based McQuilling, announced in March as well that it would end its contracts with PDVSA due to the US Sanctions.

Read the full article from Oil Price +

Biotechnology & Healthcare

Gene-Editing

Gene therapy may have its first blockbuster

Gene therapy is about to achieve a milestone. As soon as tomorrow, drug giant Novartis expects to win approval to launch what it says will be the first “blockbuster” gene-replacement treatment. A blockbuster is any drug with more than $1 billion in sales each year.

The treatment, called Zolgensma, is able to save infants born with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) type 1, a degenerative disease that usually kills within two years. On Friday, May 24, Novartis won approval for the drug and set the price at $2.125 million, making it the world’s most expensive one-time drug ever.

The FDA predicts that by 2025 between 10 and 20 gene or cell treatments will reach the market each year, potentially roiling the US insurance market if costly treatments for hemophilia and muscular dystrophy win approval.

“The issue with many of these drugs is that they are expensive but also life-changing for those who need them,” says Michael Sherman, chief medical officer of the insurer Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, who has been negotiating with Novartis. “For this and other gene therapies coming down the pike, it’s not about saying no, but how do you say yes without bankrupting the system?”

Read the full article from MIT Technology Review +

Gene-Editing

New CRISPR Libraries Open Door to Novel Drug Discovery

A new gene editing tool will help researchers find therapies for cancer and other diseases. The Invitrogen LentiArray CRISPR Libraries—a ready-to-use array of knockout libraries for the human genome developed by Thermo Fisher Scientific—gives researchers a new set of tools to discover key targets for disease therapies and shed new light on complex biological pathways.

Some of the features of the innovation—which won a 2018 R&D 100 Award—include advanced guide RNA designs for maximum knockout efficiency without sacrificing specificity, up to four high-quality gRNAs per gene target, high-titer, ready-to use lentivirus or glycerol stock delivery options, a set of controls and lentiviruses against single gene targets to support prescreen assay development, and rapid post-screen hit validation and 19 predefined libraries with custom options available.

The new CRISPR libraries expand the application of past CRISPR/Cas9 technologies into high-throughput applications for functional genomics screening, enabling scientists to determine specific genes that are key members of specific biological pathways and whether they are involved in disease development or progression.

Read the full article from R&D Mag +

Gene-Editing

One-off injection may drastically reduce heart attack risk

Doctors in the US have announced plans for a radical gene therapy that aims to drastically reduce the risk of heart attack, the world’s leading cause of death, with a one-off injection.

The researchers hope to trial the therapy within the next three years in people with a rare genetic disorder that makes them prone to heart attacks in their 30s and 40s. If the treatment proves safe and effective in the patients, doctors will seek approval to offer the jab to a wider population.

“The therapy will be relevant, we think, to any adult at risk of a heart attack,” said Sekar Kathiresan, a cardiologist and geneticist at Harvard Medical School who will lead the effort. “We want this not only for people who have heart attacks at a young age because of a genetic disorder, but for garden variety heart attacks as well.”

Heart disease is the No 1 killer in many countries. An estimated 18m deaths are attributed to the condition every year, the vast majority of which, about 85%, are caused by heart attacks and strokes.

Read the full article from The Guardian +

Gene-Editing

Scientists Gene-Hack Viruses To Hunt And Kill Super-Strong Bacteria

In order to combat superbugs — bacteria that have evolved to survive even the most potent antibiotics — doctors have started to gene-hack viruses to hunt and kill dangerous strains.

Scientists have tried to use CRISPR gene-editing tools to modify viruses to kill off dangerous bacteria and ignore healthy gut bacteria for several years. But now a company called Locus Biosciences tells NPR that it’s developed a mixture of three CRISPR-edited viruses that can infect and kill dangerous bacteria like a “living antibiotic” — a promising new weapon in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

The gene-hacked viral blend can infiltrate bacterial cells and reprogram their DNA, instructing the bacteria’s immune system to destroy the entire cell.

“If we’re successful, this revolutionizes the treatment of infections,” Michael Priebe, a doctor who’s also working on CRISPR-edited viruses, told NPR. “This can be the game changer that takes us out of this arms race with the resistant bacteria and allows us to use a totally different mechanism to fight the pathogenic bacteria that are infecting us.”

Read the full article from Futurism +

Gene-Editing

China set to introduce gene-editing regulation following CRISPR-baby furore

China is poised to introduce a new regulation on gene editing in humans. A draft of the country’s new civil code lists human genes and embryos in a section on personality rights to be protected. Experiments on genes in adults or embryos that endanger human health or violate ethical norms can accordingly be seen as a violation of a person’s fundamental rights.

Lawyers say the regulation would mean that anyone who manipulates genes in humans is responsible for what happens to a person. “The law makes clear that those who do research with human genes and embryos cannot endanger human health or violate ethics,” says Zhang Peng, a criminal-law scholar at Beijing Wuzi University.

China has been revising its civil code — the overarching legal framework that governs non-criminal disputes in areas such as marriage, inheritance and personal rights — since 2002. The latest draft was submitted last month to the country’s chief legislative body, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and is likely to be adopted next March.

The inclusion of gene editing in the latest draft of the new civil code was a last-minute addition, however — prompted by uproar over gene-editing experiments carried out last November by Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui.

Read the full article from Nature +

Diagnostics

New 3D-printed technology lowers cost of common medical test

A desire for a simpler, cheaper way to do common laboratory tests for medical diagnoses and to avoid “washing the dishes” led University of Connecticut researchers to develop a new technology that reduces cost and time.

Their pipette-based technology could also help make certain medical testing available in rural or remote areas where traditional methods might otherwise be prohibitively expensive and complicated to conduct.

The 3D-printed pipette-tip test developed by the researchers leverages what “has long been the gold standard for measuring proteins, pathogens, antibodies and other biomolecules in complex matrices,” they say. The method still employs the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, also known as ELISA, but through a different route. They detailed their findings in a paper recently published online in Analytical Chemistry.

For 30 years or more, ELISA has been used to test blood, cells and other biological samples for everything from certain cancers to HIV, from Lyme disease to pernicious anemia. While effective and accurate, the equipment used to run ELISA is expensive — often costing thousands of dollars to install in a lab — and requires specialized training to conduct testing, as improper techniques can lead to incorrect results.

Read the full article from Science Daily +