Bacteria to build materials

Bacteria to build materials

Bacteria can be engineered to do all sort of useful things.  A field that is gaining traction is using bacteria to build materials made of organic and inorganic components. Writing in Nature Biotechnology, Lingchong You and colleagues develop an approach that uses synthetic biology to assemble materials in a programmable manner. The authors use self-assembling bacteria to generate inorganic-organic structures by applying gold nanoparticles to the bacterial colonies. The geometry of the bacterial-made structures can be changed by altering the characteristics of the membrane the bacteria are grown on (pore size and hydrophobicity). Using this approach, the researchers make pressure sensors (and provide accompanying video of the result).  Read more

Insect resistance to transgenic crops

The pink bollworm rapidly evolved resistance to genetically engineered cotton in India, where ‘refuges’ of conventional host plants were scarce, but not in the USA, where growers planted planted non-Bt cotton refuges and suppressed this invasive caterpillar pest with mass releases of sterile moths.

Farmers plant transgenic crops that produce insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to combat destructive insect pests, such as the pink bollworm, that are capable of decimating yields. But resistant insects can overcome transgenic plant tech, potentially rendering transgenic crop lines obsolete.  How much of a problem is insect resistance to Bt transgenic crops around the world? Bruce Tabashnik and Yves Carrière review the global status of resistance of insects to transgenic crops producing insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) in the October issue of Nature Biotechnology. They extract the lessons learned from planting both single- and stacked-gene- insect-resistant Bt crops and consider tactics that could maintain transgenic crop efficacy in the future. The field data that inform this Review covers a large set of Bt toxins, crops and pest species, from 10 countries, on six continents.  Read more

Characterizing antibody-secreting cells one at a time

Characterizing antibody-secreting cells one at a time

Antibodies are a major component of the immune response and a powerful tool in research and disease therapeutics. But characterizing antibody-secreting cells in terms of their antibody production rate and the specificity and affinity of the antibodies they make has not been possible at the single cell level. In a recent paper in Nature Biotechnology, Jean Baudry and colleagues report a method that enables massively parallel characterization of single IgG-secreting cells. The microfluidic approach encapsulates individual cells in droplets and immobilizes them onto an array.  Magnetic nanoparticles are used to establish an in-droplet immunoassay with a fluorescent readout that allows quantifying the different parameters.  Read more

Where are your B cells?

Where are your B cells?

B cells express antibodies that are key to fighting infections and preventing their re-occurrence. When they recognize cognate antigen, B cell clones expand and mutate the antibody genes to increase antigen recognition and effector function. How these B-cell-clonal lineages are distributed in the human body is not known, in large part because of the difficulty in assessing normal immune function in healthy individuals. In a paper published this week in Nature Biotechnology, Eline Luning Prak and colleagues sequence the B cell receptor heavy chain of 8 tissues in 6 human organ donors. The researchers find that the most expanded B cell clones are distributed in two networks, one that includes the blood, bone marrow, lungs and spleen, and another one comprising gut tissues (jejunum, ileum and colon).  Read more

First approval in sight for Novartis’ CAR-T therapy after expert panel vote

Emily Whitehead, 12, the first child to receive CAR-T cell therapy has been cancer-free for five years.

On July 12, in a historic move, the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) voted 10–0 in favor of approving CTL019 (tisagenlecleucel), a CD19-targeting chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy developed by Novartis for treating relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in children and young adults. The committee’s unanimous backing opens the door to approval of the therapy by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on or before October 3. The US, which has lagged behind Europe in approving both gene therapy and cell therapy, has now taken a lead in adopting an innovative immuno-oncology treatment that combines elements of each modality—and which addresses a real and sizeable unmet need.  Read more

Collaborate, not compete

Collaborate, not compete

Collaboration seems to be the last thing on the mind of bioentrepreneurs. This is based on personal experience as well as feedback from my fellow entrepreneur friends. It is quite disappointing and interesting as the same time, as to why most prefer to compete, and not collaborate.  Read more

First Rounders: Jeremy Levin

First Rounders: Jeremy Levin

The First Rounders discussion with Jeremy Levin can be found here. His family background includes a rather horrific chapter in Lithuania: The Guardian has an informative article discussing this event here. The press release announcing Levin’s hiring at Bristol-Myers Squibb can be found here, and an article on BMS’s changes can be found here. A Forbes article on Teva’s hiring of Levin is at this link, and here’s an interview he did at The Jewish Chronicle after he’d taken the job.  Read more