Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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Aquatic Biotechnology
Aquatic Biotechnology
Animation
Medical Products and
Applications of Biotechnology
The search for new medicines and drugs
• Oncogenes- genes that produce proteins that may function
as transcription factors and receptors for hormones and
growth factors, as well as serve as enzymes involved in a
wide variety of ways to change growth properties of cells
that cause cancer
• Tumor Suppressor Genes – regulate oncogenes
Medical Products and
Applications of Biotechnology
The search for new medicines and drugs
• Personalized Medicine
• BRCA1 or 2 – increases risk of developing breast cancer
• But there are many other cases of breast cancer that do not exhibit
this mode of inheritance
• They SHOULD be treated differently (i.e. different chemotherapy!)
Medical Products and
Applications of Biotechnology
The search for new medicines and drugs
• Improving techniques for drug delivery
• Factors that influence drug effectiveness
• Drug solubility
• Drug breakdown
• Drug elimination
• Microspheres – tiny particles that can be filled with drugs
Medical Products and
Applications of Biotechnology
The search for new medicines and drugs
• Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine
• nanosensors that can monitor blood pressure, hormone
concentrations, unblock arteries, detect and eliminate cancer cells
Medical Products and
Applications of Biotechnology
Artificial Blood
• Started testing of blood in 1980’s for HIV
• However it is still not tested in poor, developing countries
• There is a need for safe-blood
• Possibilities: cell free solutions containing molecules that
can bind to and transport oxygen; or blood substitutes
such as Hemopure that is made from the hemoglobin of
cattle
• What does blood matching mean?
Medical Products and
Applications of Biotechnology
Vaccines and Therapeutic Antibodies
• Vaccines stimulate immune system
• Also hope that vaccination may be useful against
conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease or drug addiction
• Using antibodies in some types of therapies: Development
of Monoclonal Antibodies
Gene Therapy
How is it done?
Gene Therapy
How is it done?
• Delivering the payload: viral vectors for gene delivery
Gene Therapy
Targets for Gene Therapy
• Treating cystic fibrosis
• Defective cystic fibrosis transmembrane
conductance regulator (CFTR)
• Normally it serves as a pump at the cell
membrane to move electrically charged
chloride atoms out of the cells
• If cells can’t move chloride out, they
absorb water trying to dilute the
chloride in the cell
• This leads to the production of THICK
sticky mucus
Gene Therapy
Challenges Facing Gene Therapy
• Reaction to the vector, an adenovirus, led to the
death of Jesse Gelsinger
• It raised more questions than answers:
• Can gene expression be controlled in the patient?
• How long will the therapy last?
• What is the best vector?
Animation
Regenerative Medicine
Known as
Pluripotent!
Regenerative Medicine
Stem Cell Technologies
• What are stem cells?
• Two major properties:
• ES cells can self-renew indefinitely to produce more stem cells
• Under the proper growth conditions, ES cells can differentiate into
a variety of mature cells with specialized functions
• Human ES cells avoid senescene in part because they express
high levels of telomerase!
Regenerative Medicine
Stem Cell Technologies
• Adult-derived stem cells do everything embryonic stem
cells can do and remove the ethical issue of destroying
embryos.
• Amniotic-fluid derived stem cells
• Reprogramming somatic cells
Regenerative Medicine
Stem Cell Technologies
• Potential Applications of Stem Cells
Regenerative Medicine
Stem Cell Technologies
• Questions that need to be answered:
• Is there an “ultimate” adult stem cell that could turn into every
tissue in the body?
• Why do stem cells self-renew and maintain an undifferentiated
state?
• What factors trigger division of stem cells?
• What are the growth signals (chemical, genetic, environmental)
that influence the differentiation of stem cells?
• What factors affect the integration of new tissues and cells into
existing organs?
Regenerative Medicine
Cloning
• Therapeutic Cloning and Reproductive Cloning
Human Genome Project
How was this done?
Human Genome Project
Revealed disease genes on all human chromosomes