Current situation and challenges of specialized microbial resource centres in Russia

Establishment of national biological resource centres (BRCs) is of special concern and requires harmonization of regulations on microorganisms’ handling, improvement of legal control pertaining to intellectual property right, access to genetic resources and fair benefit sharing arising from their biotechnology application. As exemplified by the Regional Specialized Collection of Alkanotrophic Microorganisms (acronym IEGM, World Federation for Culture Collections # 768, ) hosted at the Institute of Ecology and Genetics of Microorganisms, the role of specialized microbial collections is emphasized as the governing factors of innovative development of biotechnology and bioindustry. The publication aims at drawing attention to the regional BRC being formed in the Perm Krai which provides the appropriate information on the holdings and is responsible for screening, study and maintenance of valuable microbial gene pool to meet the needs of ecology, industry and biotechnology, and for developing novel methodological approaches to studying extremotolerant microorganisms. This centre also contributes to the development and application of advanced achievements in enzymatic transformation of carbon compounds, production of fodder using non-traditional raw material, oil- and gas-prospecting activities, monitoring and bioremediation of contaminated sites.     

Use of molecular techniques in bioremediation

In a practical sense, biotechnology is concerned with the production of commercial products generated by biological processes. More formally, biotechnology may be defined as "the application of scientific and engineering principles to the processing of material by biological agents to provide goods and services" (Cantor, 2000). From a historical perspective, biotechnology dates back to the time when yeast was first used for beer or wine fermentation, and bacteria were used to make yogurt. In 1972, the birth of recombinant DNA technology moved biotechnology to new heights and led to the establishment of a new industry. Progress in biotechnology has been truly remarkable. Within four years of the discovery of recombinant DNA technology, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were making human insulin, interferon, and human growth hormone. Now, recombinant DNA technology and its products--GMOs are widely used in environmental biotechnology (Glick and Pasternak, 1988; Cowan, 2000). Bioremediation is one of the most rapidly growing areas of environmental biotechnology. Use of bioremediation for environmental clean up is popular due to low costs and its public acceptability. Indeed, bioremediation stands to benefit greatly and advance even more rapidly with the adoption of molecular techniques developed originally for other areas of biotechnology. The 1990s was the decade of molecular microbial ecology (time of using molecular techniques in environmental biotechnology). Adoption of these molecular techniques made scientists realize that microbial populations in the natural environments are much more diverse than previously thought using traditional culture methods. Using molecular ecological methods, such as direct DNA isolation from environmental samples, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), PCR methods, nucleic acid hybridization etc., we can now study microbial consortia relevant to pollutant degradation in the environment. These techniques promise to provide a better understanding and better control of environmental biotechnology processes, thus enabling more cost effective and efficient bioremediation of our toxic waste and contaminated environments.     

U.S. regulatory framework for genetic biocontrol of invasive fish

This paper provides an overview of the U.S. regulatory framework governing genetic biocontrol efforts for invasive fish. Genetic biocontrol refers to the intentional release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the environment to control a target population of a non-native species. The terms “genetically modified” and “genetically engineered” are often used interchangeably, despite the scientific distinctions. A GMO is an organism that has had its genetic material altered or modified by humans through any method, including conventional breeding. Genetic engineering, as defined by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is the use of recombinant DNA techniques to introduce new characteristics or traits into an organism. GE organisms are therefore a subset of GMOs. As this paper will discuss, existing laws focus on GE organisms raising significant questions as to whether organisms modified without utilizing rDNA techniques fall within the jurisdiction of any federal agency. Under the 1986 Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology, three federal agencies have primary responsibility over biotechnology—the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the FDA. Because the EPA has exempted biological control agents from regulation as pesticides and no fish species are currently considered plant pests, the FDA is the agency responsible for approving the use of genetically engineered fish for biocontrol. FDA regulates genetically engineered animals through its New Animal Drug Application (NADA) process. The NADA process presents several challenges to effective and transparent regulation of genetic biocontrol, including the FDA’s focus on drug safety, secrecy provisions potentially limiting disclosure of the results of environmental reviews, and the secondary role of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency with the most experience with invasive species management. In addition, relying on the NADA process creates a significant regulatory gap as NADA approval is only required for GE organisms. The regulatory framework for GMOs created for genetic biocontrol without rDNA technology is unclear and primary responsibility may fall to the states. Given its extensive experience with hatcheries, invasive fish species control, and environmental reviews, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is the more appropriate agency to review applications for genetic biocontrol. Efforts should be undertaken now, while genetic biocontrol is still in the theoretical stages, to increase the role of the FWS in the permitting process either through formal regulations or more informal mechanisms such as memorandum of understanding.     

How Distinctive is Genetic Information?

There is extensive discussion of the ethical, social, economic and political issues associated with the use of technologies based on DNA techniques. Many of these debates are premised on the assumption that DNA, and the genetic information that may be derived from it, have unique features which raise new social and ethical issues. In this paper it is argued that several of the features associated with DNA which are sometimes regarded as unique are shared with other biological materials. Others owe more to the cultural image of DNA and some of the metaphors used to discuss it in biology and in wider debates than to the biological properties of DNA. The paper discusses the concepts of genetic material and genetic information and the social construction of DNA in relation to forensic DNA databases, paternity testing and genetic testing for disease. The paper concludes by suggesting that there are seven areas where issues related to DNA and genetic information are at least relatively distinct.     

Judgments of moral responsibility in tissue donation cases

If a person requires an organ or tissue donation to survive, many philosophers argue that whatever moral responsibility a biological relative may have to donate to the person in need will be grounded at least partially, if not entirely, in biological relations the potential donor bears to the recipient. We contend that such views ignore the role that a potential donor's unique ability to help the person in need plays in underwriting such judgments. If, for example, a sperm donor is judged to have a significant moral responsibility to donate tissue to a child conceived with his sperm, we think this will not be due to the fact that the donor stands in a close biological relationship to the recipient. Rather, we think such judgments will largely be grounded in the presumed unique ability of the sperm donor to help the child due to the compatibility of his tissues and organs with those of the recipient. In this paper, we report the results of two studies designed to investigate the comparative roles that biological relatedness and unique ability play in generating judgments of moral responsibility in tissue donation cases. We found that biologically related individuals are deemed to have a significant moral responsibility to donate tissue only when they are one of a small number of people who have the capacity to help.     

Making muslim babies: Ivf and gamete donation in sunni versus shi’a islam

Medical anthropological research on science, biotechnology, and religion has focused on the “local moral worlds” of men and women as they make difficult decisions regarding their health and the beginnings and endings of human life. This paper focuses on the local moral worlds of infertile Muslims as they attempt to make, in the religiously correct fashion, Muslim babies at in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics in Egypt and Lebanon. As early as 1980, authoritative fatwas issued from Egypt’s famed Al-Azhar University suggested that IVF and similar technologies are permissible as long as they do not involve any form of third-party donation (of sperm, eggs, embryos, or uteruses). Since the late 1990s, however, divergences in opinion over third-party gamete donation have occurred between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, with Iran’s leading ayatollah permitting gamete donation under certain conditions. This Iranian fatwa has had profound implications for the country of Lebanon, where a Shi’ite majority also seeks IVF services. Based on three periods of ethnographic research in Egyptian and Lebanese IVF clinics, this paper explores official and unofficial religious discourses surrounding the practice of IVF and third-party donation in the Muslim world, as well as the gender implications of gamete donation for Muslim marriages.     

Biotechnology,people and markets

In assessing the likely demand for biotechnology products it is not sufficient just to look at what is happening in firms and their immediate market environment. There is no one 'market' for biotechnology products: there are differences between sectors and between countries. You have instead to look at the institutional contexts of the biotechnology product's development. This paper reviews work which has been carried out by social scientists, especially those using 'social shaping' approaches, on the development of new products based on advances in biotechnology and on the creation of markets to go with these products. It examines work on public attitudes to the exploitation of the technology, focusing especially on the issue of social inclusion and exclusion and how biotechnology might make exclusion more likely. It concludes by considering what current differences in public attitudes to the development of some biotechnology-based products might mean for the development of markets for those products in the UK.     

Biobanks between common good and private interest: the example of umbilical cord blood private biobanks

Storage of human biological samples and personal data associated with them is organised in Biobanks. In spite of expectation given by biobanks in medicine, their management involved some ethical questions, for example, the need for policies to regulate economic interests, potential commercial use of data (including patents), private sector financing, ownership of samples and benefit sharing. In the context of contributing to the general public interest, we can consider the act of giving biological material to biobanks as a donation, in which the donation constitutes part of a generalised form of reciprocity in which the act of donation contributes to society's common good. Starting from this perspective, we move into a different situation represented by the biobanking of umbilical cord blood for personal use. We used the example of the private biobanking of umbilical cords to demonstrate the restrictive utility of the collection and preservation of cord blood for personal use in private biobanks, in the context of society's common good. In summary, a system based on solidarity seems to be able to guarantee necessary levels of supply for the donation of biological material to biobanks.     

Synthetic, biofunctional nucleic acid-based molecular devices

Structural DNA nanotechnology seeks to create architectures of highly precise dimensions using the physical property that short lengths of DNA behave as rigid rods and the chemical property of Watson-Crick base-pairing that acts as a specific molecular glue with which such rigid rods may be joined. Thus DNA has been used as a molecular scale construction material to make molecular devices that can be broadly classified under two categories (i) rigid scaffolds and (ii) switchable architectures. This review details the growing impact of such synthetic nucleic acid based molecular devices in biology and biotechnology. Notably, a significant trend is emerging that integrates morphology-rich nucleic acid motifs and alternative molecular glues into DNA and RNA architectures to achieve biological functionality.     

Cryoprotection and banking of living cells in a 3D multiple emulsion‐based carrier

The ability to preserve stem cells/cells with minimal damage for short and long periods of time is essential for advancements in biomedical therapies and biotechnology. New methods of cell banking are continuously needed to provide effective damage prevention to cells. This paper puts forward a solution to the problem of the low viability of cells during cryopreservation in a traditional suspension and storage by developing innovative multiple emulsion‐based carriers for the encapsulation and cryopreservation of cells. During freezing‐thawing processes, irreversible damage to cells occurs as a result of the formation of ice crystals, cell dehydration, and the toxicity of cryoprotectant. The proposed method was effective due to the “flexible” protective structure of multiple emulsions, which was proven by a high cell survival rate, above 90%. Results make new contributions in the fields of cell engineering and biotechnology and contribute to the development of methods for banking biological material.     

Translational Science by Public Biotechnology Companies in the IPO“Class of 2000”: The Impact of Technological Maturity

The biotechnology industry plays a central role in the translation of nascent biomedical science into both products that offer material health benefits and creating capital growth. This study examines the relationship between the maturity of technologies in a characteristic life cycle and value creation by biotechnology companies. We examined the core technology, product development pipelines, and capitalization for a cohort of biotechnology companies that completed an IPO in 2000. Each of these companies was well financed and had core technologies on the leading edge of biological science. We found that companies with the least mature technologies had significantly higher valuations at IPO, but failed to develop products based on these technologies over the ensuing decade, and created less capital growth than companies with more mature technologies at IPO. The observation that this cohort of recently public biotechnology companies was not effective in creating value from nascent science suggests the need for new, evidence-based business strategies for translational science.     

DNA sequencing technology and automatization of it]

Precise manipulations with genetic material, typical for modern experiments in molecular biology and in new biotechnology, require a capability to determine DNA base sequence. This capability enables today to exploit specific genetic knowledge for the dissection of complex cell processes and for modulation of cell metabolism in transgenic organisms. The review focuses on such DNA sequencing technologies that are widespread in general laboratory practice. They can safely be called, with the availability of commercial reagents, industrial techniques. Modern DNA sequencing requires recurrent breakdown of large genomic DNA into smaller pieces, that are then amplified, sequenced and the initial long stretch reconstructed via overlap of small pieces. The DNA sequencing process has several steps: a DNA fragment is obtained in sufficient quantity and purity, it is converted to a form suitable for a particular sequencing method, a sequencing reaction is performed and its products fractionated; and finally the resultant data are interpreted (i.e. an autoradiograph is read into a computer memory) and a long sequence in reconstructed via overlap of short stretches. These steps are considered in separate parts; an accent is made on sequencing strategies with respect to their biological task. In the last part, possibilities for automation of sequencing experiment are considered, followed by a discussion of domestic problems in DNA sequencing.     

生物技术发展趋势与预测

预测了未来10～20年内生物技术在人类医学领域、农业生物技术领域、工业生物技术领域、生物计算学领域、材料学领域、生物工程领域和环境生物工程领域的主要发展趋势,对生物技术的发展进程也作了预测,并对生物技术在人类疾病治疗方面、农业领域、工业领域、数学领域、材料学科、生物工程方面和环境生物工程领域作出了实际预测。     

Evaluation of non-radioactive labelling and detection of deoxyribonucleic acids: Part one: chemiluminescent methods

The growth of analytical methods for the detection of nucleic acid from various biological samples reflects recent advances in biotechnology development especially in the areas of genetic, infections and cancer diagnosis. The target DNA is detected by hybridization techniques derived from Southern's blotting. However such assays, based on the use of ³²P labelled DNA probes, bring with them the associated problems of handling radioactive materials. In order to overcome these difficulties, a number of chemiluminescent detection methods have recently been developed.These new, alternative probe labelling procedures and chemiluminescent detection methods are easy to use in routine assays performed in research laboratories as well as for medical applications, and can reach the level of sensitivity found in classical radiolabelling techniques.The techniques investigated include peroxydase, biotin 16-dUTP or digoxigenin 11-dUTP probe labelling. The target DNAs are transferred onto nitrocellulose or nylon membranes and further fixed by heat or UV crosslinking. Specific hybridization on the target DNA is finally revealed by the use of chemiluminescent substrates. For all these techniques the detection limit is 10 aM (attomol) of a 561 bp target DNA. However for the probes labelled with peroxydase and with digoxigenin the detection limit drops to 1.0 aM of the target DNA. In the present paper we shall compare several of these DNA labelling and detection procedures and show that the detection threshold can vary by as much as a factor of 20 from method to method. This is the first time that various chemiluminescent methods for label and detection of DNA are compared and evaluated in order to determine the best protocol.     

“Why throw away something useful?”: Attitudes and opinions of people treated for bipolar disorder and their relatives on organ and tissue donation

In regard to mental illness, brain donation is essential for the biological investigation of central pathology. Nevertheless, little is known about the thoughts of people with mental disorders on tissue donation for research. Here, our objective was to understand the attitudes and opinions of people treated for bipolar disorder and their relatives regarding donation in general, and particularly donation for research. This is a qualitative study that used in-depth interviews to determine the thoughts of participants regarding tissue donation for research. Theoretical sampling was used as a recruitment method. Grounded theory was used as a framework for content analyses of the interviews. A semi-structured interview guide was applied with the topics: donation in general; donation for research; mental health and body organs; opinion regarding donation; feelings aroused by the topic. Although all participants were aware of organ donation for transplant, they were surprised that tissue could be donated for research. Nevertheless, once they understood the concept they were usually in favor of the idea. Although participants demonstrated a general lack of knowledge on donation for research, they were willing to learn more and viewed it as a good thing, with altruistic reasons often cited as a motive for donation. We speculate that bridging this knowledge gap may be a fundamental step towards a more ethical postmortem tissue donation process.     

Whose DNA? Genetic surveillance,ownership of information and newborn screening

Abstract

The new genetics, emerging as a scientific revolution, is reinforcing the biological theories which accounts for differences between groups and individuals. Genetic screening of populations contributes to the defining of normality within the dominant medical paradigm. The Newborn Screening Test for inborn errors of metabolism (the Guthrie test) is performed on all Australian babies in the first week of life. The test cards, which have been stored in Australia since the 1970s, have, since the development of new genetic technologies, become a potential DNA databank. These and the private DNA databanks for newborns that may arise in the foreseeable future encompass several of the new questions of genetics: who should have access to the information? Can the information be used for reasons other than those for which it was collected? Who should decide what happens to the information?

The social shaping of genetics as a biotechnology shows some of the ways in which genetics can be used as a means of social control. Examination of the ownership of information about both individuals and populations reveals some of the values and interests involved.     

HLA-DQA1, AB0, and AMEL genotyping of biological material with biochips

A method for genotyping of biological material for AB0, HLA-DQA1, and AMEL loci is described. The method utilizes allele-specific SNP typing with th e help of hydrogel biochip technology. Amplified fluorescentlylabeled fragments of genes were hybridized with SNP-specific DNA probes immobilized on a biochip. The alleles of the gene in a sample were determined according to the distribution of the fluorescent signal. The minimal amount of biological material required for the assay is 100 pg of DNA. The biochip assay was used to analyze 442 DNA specimens of the Eastern Slavic population of Russia and to determine the allelic frequencies of AB0 and HLA-DQA1 loci. The feasibility of genotyping the biological traces of investigative value, such as cigarette butts, sweat traces on paper, and swabs of the lip of the glass, was demonstrated. This assay is applicable in forensic studies. The significance of identification for the used loci is 99.6%.     

Modular design: Implementing proven engineering principles in biotechnology

Modular design is at the foundation of contemporary engineering, enabling rapid, efficient, and reproducible construction and maintenance of complex systems across applications. Remarkably, modularity has recently been discovered as a governing principle in natural biological systems from genes to proteins to complex networks within a cell and organism communities. The convergent knowledge of natural and engineered modular systems provides a key to drive modern biotechnology to address emergent challenges associated with health, food, energy, and the environment. Here, we first present the theory and application of modular design in traditional engineering fields. We then discuss the significance and impact of modular architectures on systems biology and biotechnology. Next, we focus on the very recent theoretical and experimental advances in modular cell engineering that seeks to enable rapid and systematic development of microbial catalysts capable of efficiently synthesizing a large space of useful chemicals. We conclude with an outlook towards theoretical and practical opportunities for a more systematic and effective application of modular cell engineering in biotechnology.     

Overview of DNA chip technology

DNA chip technology utilizes microscopic arrays (microarrays) of molecules immobilized on solid surfaces for biochemical analysis. Microarrays can be used for expression analysis, polymorphism detection, DNA resequencing, and genotyping on a genomic scale. Advanced arraying technologies such as photolithograpy, micro-spotting and ink jetting, coupled with sophisticated fluorescence detection systems and bioinformatics, permit molecular data gathering at an unprecedented rate. Microarray-based characterization of plant genomes has the potential to revolutionize plant breeding and agricultural biotechnology. This review provides an overview of DNA chip technology, focusing on manufacturing approaches and biological applications.