Tag: cells

News (2)

July 29, 2012 9:31 am

Synthetic life: the revolution begins (Financial Times)

Now his teams – working in tandem at the non-profit J. Craig Venter Institute and Synthetic Genomics, a biotech company in California – are well on the way to making synthetic microbes distinctly different to anything in nature. “We have a design contest to come up with a genome designed completely in a computer,” Venter says. “Three different versions of the genome are being constructed now and we hope to know by the end of the summer whether any of these designs will work as a living cell.”
July 2, 2012 3:59 pm

Firms developing stem cell therapy for ailing pets (The Boston Globe)

Danny Klein, bassist for the J. Geils Band, paid $5 to an animal shelter for an abandoned 2-year-old German shepherd. Two years later, he paid about $3,000 for stem cell injections to treat the dog for severe arthritis.  “Any expense is worth the expense when my dogs are involved. They’re like my children,” said Klein, 66, speaking from his Hyde Park home. His dog, Harlow, has come a long way since her previous owner tossed her out of a moving car.  Banking on devoted pet owners such as Klein, entrepreneurs have built a flourishing market of veterinary treatments that include pet massage, acupuncture, and pricey stem cell treatments. Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute have recently formed a company to break into the small but growing pet stem cell market.