Researchers at the University of Melbourne are working on genetically engineering “immunity in amphibians, including Australia’s critically endangered Corroboree Frog, against a deadly fungal disease,” reports the University of Melbourne:
The Colossal Foundation, a non-profit organisation established by American de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences, have gifted $3 million to the University of Melbourne over three years to help stop the spread of chytridiomycosis, a disease responsible for the extinction of 90 amphibian species to date and significant declines in 500 more.
This gift will support the work of Professor Andrew Pask, Dr Stephen Frankenberg and their labs…Dr Frankenberg and Professor Pask will strive to genetically engineer an approach to augment amphibians’ natural immune systems and provide a first line of defence against the chytrid infection…..“This funding will enable us to test a novel approach that uses recent advances in immunology and gene editing to help save these vulnerable species.”
The amphibian chytrid fungus infects epidermal cells and kills frogs by disrupting their skin function. It was discovered by a University of Melbourne professor in 1998.
One in every 16 species of amphibians known to the scientific community are impacted by this disease across more than 60 countries, and Australia is particularly hard hit.
Genetic engineering recently produced pork that people who are allergic to pork can eat.
A genetically-modified chicken lays eggs that people allergic to eggs can eat. Scientists have genetically engineered a cow that produces human insulin in its milk.
Scientists have engineered a virus to steal proteins from the HIV virus, which could potentially be used to eliminate AIDS.
The gene-editing tool CRISPR is helping treat severe auto-immune diseases, sending some people into remission “after being treated with bioengineered and CRISPR-modified immune cells,” reports Nature.
Gene therapy has also ended the years of excruciating pain suffered by a boy with sickle-cell disease. And it has restored vision in some people with inherited blindness.
An English toddler has had her hearing restored in a pioneering gene therapy trial: “Opal Sandy was born unable to hear anything due to auditory neuropathy, a condition that disrupts nerve impulses traveling from the inner ear to the brain and can be caused by a faulty gene. But after receiving an infusion containing a working copy of the gene during groundbreaking surgery that took just 16 minutes, the 18-month-old can hear almost perfectly and enjoys playing with toy drums.”
