Category Archives: Bio-technology

Genetically Engineering New Forms of Life

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Want to know how to alter DNA to genetically engineer new forms of life?  Sounds like a new take on what we did in my thriller, A REMEDY FOR DEATH, but it’s actually Newsweek’s cover story. http://www.newsweek.com/2017/07/07/natural-selection-new-forms-life-scientists-altering-dna-629771.html   

Author of the Newsweek article is Bryan Walsh. (Believe in giving credit where credit’s due, and writing this deserves credit!)

Right now I’ve got to run to an appointment; hopefully I’ll be back to make some points. But at least wanted to get this off to you to peruse over the weekend.

And if you time for even more perusing, please do check out my technothriller, A REMEDY FOR DEATH.  https://michaelmcgaulley.net/books/sample-remedy/

A REMEDY FOR DEATH . . . Scientists grow full-sized beating human hearts from stem cells

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My bio-science techno-thriller, A REMEDY FOR DEATH, focuses on a group of super-rich trying to re-create themselves in “healthy, horny 21-year-old bodies with all our accumulated savvy from this lifetime”.
Seems far out?
Not so, as hardly a week goes by without elements of just-that being announced by science labs around the world.
Articles report in the online London Independent https://www.indy100.com/article/human-heart-grow-stem-cells-science-transplant-medicine-technology-7521166 and  by Alexandra Ossola in Popular Science  http://www.popsci.com/scientists-grow-transplantable-hearts-with-stem-cells   how not only is this a step toward the scheme of the bad-guys in A REMEDY FOR DEATH, but — better for the world– will ultimately produce many more of the replacement hearts needed by those waiting for heart transplants.

The photo here comes from the article in the professional journal Circulation Research, where you can read more  http://circres.ahajournals.org/content/118/1/56

Mr. Putin visits “youth pill” lab in Russia. Better he should read the science technothriller, A REMEDY FOR DEATH

Anti-aging Bio-technology Genetic engineering No Comments

In the article, “Immortal Vladimir Putin? Russian leader visits anti-ageing pill factory,” The London Daily Star reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently toured a St. Petersburg lab working on anti-aging pills.

That lab is Biocad, reportedly  “Russia’s leading biotechnology company.”

Of the work on the “youth pill”, one of the scientists, Alexander Karabelsk, said, “We are expecting the first results within a year.”

Apparently Mr. Putin and Dr. Karabelsk have not had the opportunity to read the prescient science technothriller, A REMEDY FOR DEATH, as that offers a very different method for life extension and the anti-aging process. (Full disclosure: A REMEDY FOR DEATH was also written by the humble author if this blog-post, Michael McGaulley.)

Here’s the link to the Daily Star article:   http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/573191/Vladimir-Putin-russian-leader-visits-anti-ageing-pill-factory  (Caution: this article should only be viewed by those age 65 and  older, as it abuts on other stories and photos relating to young British women who have apparently misplaced parts of their bathing costumers.)

Want to start reading a free extended sampler of A REMEDY FOR DEATH?    

https://michaelmcgaulley.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/B-REMEDY-SAMPLE-May-11.pdf

“Should a human-pig chimera be treated as a person?”–question raised in Aeon

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pig face“Should a human-pig chimera be treated as a human?”–that’s the title of an article I came upon in Aeon.  https://aeon.co/ideas/should-a-human-pig-chimera-be-treated-as-a-person

(The portrait of Mr. Pig comes from that article.)

It’s a variation of a question that I raise early-on in my technothriller,  A REMEDY FOR DEATH. In REMEDY, a researcher tries to implant brain cells from a human fetus into a young chimp. (Not a plot-spoiler: that is only a small part of the story,)

 

Want to read a FREE 100 page sampler of  A REMEDY FOR DEATH?

https://michaelmcgaulley.net/here-is-your-free-sampler-of-the-technothriller-a-remedy-for-death/

 

In the Aeon article, the focus is on the pigs that may be used to grow replacement human organs:

Continue reading → “Should a human-pig chimera be treated as a person?”–question raised in Aeon

The exercise pill! A synthetic biology triumph in the making! A bio-engineered ticket to the Fountain of Youth!

Anti-aging Bio-technology Genetic engineering 1 Comment

At last!  Now that the Baby Boomers and even the Millennials are just beginning to think those thoughts of “Am I getting old? Not me! It can’t happen to me! Can it?”  Now comes “Compound 14”—a recently discovered molecule triggers  “a chain reaction of events in the cell that . . . well, to make  long technical story short, tricks human body cells into “thinking” the body has just been for a good, solid workout.

Or, put differently, “ZMP” the master regulator, sends the signal that activates “AMPK” the cells’ central energy censor. Got that?

Bottom line: alas, Compound 14 isn’t for sale yet at the corner drugstore, but the work, headed by Ali Tavassoli, a professor of chemical biology, and Felino Cagampang, an associate professor in integrative physiology, is underway at the University of Southhampton in England.

The study, published in the journal, Chemistry and Biology, details how Compound 14 was given to two groups of mice, and the fat, chubby group lost five percent of body weight after receiving it for seven days.

Is that not a big step toward the Fountain of Youth (at least for mice)!

Who knows what wonders await us, thanks to the tools of bio-engineering and synthetic biology . . . provided somehow we can slow the human aging process so we can all hang around until those wonders do arrive.

If you’re not ready for the complete paper in the scientific journal, check out this article in the Washington Post by Ariana Eunjung Cha