Mitochondrial replacement:ethics and identity

Mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs) have the potential to allow prospective parents who are at risk of passing on debilitating or even life-threatening mitochondrial disorders to have healthy children to whom they are genetically related. Ethical concerns have however been raised about these techniques. This article focuses on one aspect of the ethical debate, the question of whether there is any moral difference between the two types of MRT proposed: Pronuclear Transfer (PNT) and Maternal Spindle Transfer (MST). It examines how questions of identity impact on the ethical evaluation of each technique and argues that there is an important difference between the two. PNT, it is argued, is a form of therapy based on embryo modification while MST is, instead, an instance of selective reproduction. The article's main ethical conclusion is that, in some circumstances, there is a stronger obligation to use PNT than MST

The Research Commission on Poverty and Policy Advocacy: A Report from One of the BERA Research Commissions. Final Report

No abstract available

The Research Commission on Poverty and Policy Advocacy: A Report from One of the BERA Research Commissions. Summary Report

No abstract available

Addressing alcohol and tobacco harms in remote Indigenous communities and rapid responses to mental health crises in regional centres

Alcohol Management Plans (AMPs) were initially designed as part of a wide range of innovative and significant Queensland Government reforms. As well as supply control, these promised to reduce alcohol and substance misuse and violence through demand reduction by addressing key social determinants: economic development; education and training, land and sustainable natural resource management, housing, and health 3, 4. The limited available evidence in the peer-reviewed published literature points to some favourable impacts of restrictions 5, 6, including a reduction in indicators of serious injury in some communities to historically low levels 7. These favourable findings were reflected in an internal Queensland Government review 4. However, the evidence that these initial positive effects were experienced in all communities, or that they have been sustained, particularly after the most recent round of restrictions in 2008, has become equivocal 8. This paper was the first in a unique evaluation research program designed to examine the health and social effects of Queensland�s AMPs 1, 9. It investigates issues surrounding implementation of the designed AMP intervention components, specifically their perceived impacts on alcohol supply and consumption, violence, injury and community health and well-being. Perceptions and experiences are reported of the community leaders, service providers and relevant organisations with a mandate or responsibility for alcohol-related matters in the affected AMP communities and nearby towns.The research reported in this paper is a project of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute, which is supported by a grant from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing under the Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development Strategy

Genetic Engineering in Streptomyces roseosporus to Produce Hybrid Lipopeptide Antibiotics

SummaryDaptomycin is a lipopeptide antibiotic produced by a nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) in Streptomyces roseosporus. The holoenzyme is composed of three subunits, encoded by the dptA, dptBC, and dptD genes, each responsible for incorporating particular amino acids into the peptide. We introduced expression plasmids carrying dptD or NRPS genes encoding subunits from two related lipopeptide biosynthetic pathways into a daptomycin nonproducing strain of S. roseosporus harboring a deletion of dptD. All constructs successfully complemented the deletion in trans, generating three peptide cores related to daptomycin. When these were coupled with incomplete methylation of 1 amino acid and natural variation in the lipid side chain, 18 lipopeptides were generated. Substantial amounts of nine of these compounds were readily obtained by fermentation, and all displayed antibacterial activity against gram-positive pathogens

Ethical and legal issues in mitochondrial transfer

The US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine recently provided conditional endorsement for mitochondrial transfer. While its approach is more conservative in some respects than that of the United Kingdom (which passed its own regulations in 2015 ), it marks a significant policy development for a potentially large implementer of this emerging intervention. In this perspective, we consider some of the ethical and legal aspects of these policy responses

Towards a UK co-operative for the advancement of quantum technology

The meeting was the fourth in DSTL's series of community meetings and had a Systems Engineering theme – recognising the increasing importance of this topic for many in the Quantum Technology (QT) community. There is a growing recognition that, although there are significant research challenges associated with realising the commercial and societal benefits anticipated from quantum technologies, there are also other challenges which concern the physical, commercial, societal and regulatory environments into which these new technologies will be integrated. Similar difficulties have been faced and overcome by the information and communications industry. One of the striking characteristics of this sector over the past 20 years has been the speed at which advances in semiconductor technology have been exploited by industry. Each new generation of semiconductor devices has led to new system designs and to new user capabilities which represented a major advance upon the systems and capabilities that came before them. However, to achieve this required a large number of different components and tools to become available at the right time, and at an affordable price. The routine achievement of this is evidence of how companies and institutions within the sector have been able to communicate effectively and establish a high level of collaboration, whilst still maintaining intense competition at the product level. QT is very different to the semiconductor industry. While a number of target applications exist the discipline is very much in its infancy. At one end of the spectrum, there are some applications in communications and sensors that are relatively close to market, and, at the other end, there are some applications in computing and simulation that are still far from market. Many choices of enabling technologies and materials have yet to be fixed, and there is, as yet, very little first-hand experience of the problems that will arise when companies seek to establish repeatable manufacture of quantum components and systems. What can we learn from the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) that might benefit the Quantum Technology community? Generating an additional quantum roadmap would merely duplicate previous work – but establishing a small number of cross-community working groups might be a way to assist UK industry to gain a competitive edge in the application of quantum technologies, without duplicating the existing activities by other bodies such as InnovateUK, British Standards Institution (BSI), European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) etc. This document reports on discussions held at the meeting around this question and, leveraging this input, seeks to provide clear and appropriate recommendations to the UK QT community

Establishing the Secondary Metabolite Profile of the Marine Fungus: Tolypocladium geodes sp. MF458 and Subsequent Optimisation of Bioactive Secondary Metabolite Production

As part of an international research project, the marine fungal strain collection of the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research (GEOMAR) research centre was analysed for secondary metabolite profiles associated with anticancer activity. Strain MF458 was identified as Tolypocladium geodes, by internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) sequence similarity and its natural product production profile. By using five different media in two conditions and two time points, we were able to identify eight natural products produced by MF458. As well as cyclosporin A (1), efrapeptin D (2), pyridoxatin (3), terricolin A (4), malettinins B and E (5 and 6), and tolypocladenols A1/A2 (8), we identified a new secondary metabolite which we termed tolypocladenol C (7). All compounds were analysed for their anticancer potential using a selection of the NCI60 cancer cell line panel, with malettinins B and E (5 and 6) being the most promising candidates. In order to obtain sufficient quantities of these compounds to start preclinical development, their production was transferred from a static flask culture to a stirred tank reactor, and fermentation medium development resulted in a nearly eight-fold increase in compound production. The strain MF458 is therefore a producer of a number of interesting and new secondary metabolites and their production levels can be readily improved to achieve higher yield