Anna Dumitriu (born 1969) is a pioneering visual artist based in Brighton, England, specialising in BioArt. Her installations, interventions and performances use digital, biological and traditional media including bacteria, digital technology and craft techniques, working with diverse audiences.[2]
Recent artwork focusses on synthetic biology, antibiotic resistance, and sequencing of bacterial DNA. She created "Make Do and Mend" in 2017 which uses the CRISPR gene editing technique of homologous recombination to edit the genome of E. coli bacteria to remove an antibiotic resistance gene and replace it with the phrase "Make Do and Mend" written into its DNA. The CRISPR Journal described the project as "perhaps the first application of CRISPR gene editing technology in BioArt" and continued "To date, the pioneer in using CRISPR technology for Bio-Art is Anna Dumitriu, a well known British bio-artist. Dumitriu conceived, developed, and exhibited for the first time in 2017 an artwork based on the use of CRISPR at the LifeSpace Gallery for science and art research (Dundee, United Kingdom) as part of the Future Emerging Art and Technology exhibition."[4]
In January 2014, Dumitriu told The Guardian: "Art, for me, is a way of investigating the world. In that way, I see no real distinction between art and science at all."[5]
An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention of such infections. They may either kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria. A limited number of antibiotics also possess antiprotozoal activity. Antibiotics are not effective against viruses such as the common cold or influenza; drugs which inhibit growth of viruses are termed antiviral drugs or antivirals rather than antibiotics. They are also not effective against fungi; drugs which inhibit growth of fungi are called antifungal drugs.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when microbes evolve mechanisms that protect them from the effects of antimicrobials. All classes of microbes can evolve resistance. Fungi evolve antifungal resistance. Viruses evolve antiviral resistance. Protozoa evolve antiprotozoal resistance, and bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance. Those bacteria that are considered extensively drug resistant (XDR) or totally drug-resistant (TDR) are sometimes called "superbugs". Although antimicrobial resistance is a naturally-occurring process, it is often the result of improper usage of the drugs and management of the infections.
A microbiological culture, or microbial culture, is a method of multiplying microbial organisms by letting them reproduce in predetermined culture medium under controlled laboratory conditions. Microbial cultures are foundational and basic diagnostic methods used as a research tool in molecular biology.
Eduardo Kac [ɛdwardoʊ kæts; ĕd·wâr′·dō kăts] (1962) is a contemporary artist of dual nationality whose artworks span a wide range of practices, including performance art, poetry, holography, interactive art, digital and online art, and bio art. He is particularly well known for his works of space art.
The term Modifications in genetics refers to both naturally occurring and engineered changes in DNA. Incidental, or natural mutations occur through errors during replication and repair, either spontaneously or due to environmental stressors. Intentional modifications are done in a laboratory for various purposes, developing hardier seeds and plants, and increasingly to treat human disease. The use of gene editing technology remains controversial.
Stanley Norman Cohen is an American geneticist and the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in the Stanford University School of Medicine. Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer were the first scientists to transplant genes from one living organism to another, a fundamental discovery for genetical engineering. Thousands of products have been developed on the basis of their work, including human growth hormone and hepatitis B vaccine. According to immunologist Hugh McDevitt, "Cohen's DNA cloning technology has helped biologists in virtually every field". Without it, "the face of biomedicine and biotechnology would look totally different." Boyer cofounded Genentech in 1976 based on their work together, but Cohen was a consultant for Cetus Corporation and declined to join.
Antibiotic sensitivity testing or antibiotic susceptibility testing is the measurement of the susceptibility of bacteria to antibiotics. It is used because bacteria may have resistance to some antibiotics. Sensitivity testing results can allow a clinician to change the choice of antibiotics from empiric therapy, which is when an antibiotic is selected based on clinical suspicion about the site of an infection and common causative bacteria, to directed therapy, in which the choice of antibiotic is based on knowledge of the organism and its sensitivities.
The Cancer Genome Project is part of the cancer, aging, and somatic mutation research based at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in The United Kingdom. It aims to identify sequence variants/mutations critical in the development of human cancers. Like The Cancer Genome Atlas project within the United States, the Cancer Genome Project represents an effort in the War on Cancer to improve cancer diagnosis, treatment, and prevention through a better understanding of the molecular basis of the disease. The Cancer Genome Project was launched by Michael Stratton in 2000, and Peter Campbell is now the group leader of the project. The project works to combine knowledge of the human genome sequence with high throughput mutation detection techniques.
BioArt is an art practice where artists work with biology, live tissues, bacteria, living organisms, and life processes. Using scientific processes and practices such as biology and life science practices, microscopy, and biotechnology the artworks are produced in laboratories, galleries, or artists' studios. The scope of BioArt is a range considered by some artists to be strictly limited to "living forms", while other artists include art that uses the imagery of contemporary medicine and biological research, or require that it address a controversy or blind spot posed by the very character of the life sciences.
Medical microbiology, the large subset of microbiology that is applied to medicine, is a branch of medical science concerned with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases. In addition, this field of science studies various clinical applications of microbes for the improvement of health. There are four kinds of microorganisms that cause infectious disease: bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses, and one type of infectious protein called prion.
Hunter Cole is an artist and geneticist. She reinterprets science as art through the creation of living artworks, abstractions, digital art and installations confronting issues related to biotechnology in our culture.
Do-it-yourself biology is a growing biotechnological social movement in which individuals, communities, and small organizations study biology and life science using the same methods as traditional research institutions. DIY biology is primarily undertaken by individuals with limited research training from academia or corporations, who then mentor and oversee other DIY biologists with little or no formal training. This may be done as a hobby, as a not-for-profit endeavour for community learning and open-science innovation, or for profit, to start a business.
Jennifer Anne Doudna is an American biochemist who has done pioneering work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics. Doudna was one of the first women to share a Nobel in the sciences. She received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with Emmanuelle Charpentier, "for the development of a method for genome editing." She is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor's Chair Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She has been an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1997.
Genetic engineering techniques allow the modification of animal and plant genomes. Techniques have been devised to insert, delete, and modify DNA at multiple levels, ranging from a specific base pair in a specific gene to entire genes. There are a number of steps that are followed before a genetically modified organism (GMO) is created. Genetic engineers must first choose what gene they wish to insert, modify, or delete. The gene must then be isolated and incorporated, along with other genetic elements, into a suitable vector. This vector is then used to insert the gene into the host genome, creating a transgenic or edited organism.
Ruth Milne Hall, OAM, FAA, FAAM is an Australian microbiologist whose research on mobile genetic elements in bacteria has provided deep insight into the transfer and evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
Biotechnology risk is a form of existential risk that could come from biological sources, such as genetically engineered biological agents. The origin of such a high-consequence pathogen could be a deliberate release, an accidental release, or a naturally occurring event.
Perturb-seq refers to a high-throughput method of performing single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) on pooled genetic perturbation screens. Perturb-seq combines multiplexed CRISPR mediated gene inactivations with single cell RNA sequencing to assess comprehensive gene expression phenotypes for each perturbation. Inferring a gene’s function by applying genetic perturbations to knock down or knock out a gene and studying the resulting phenotype is known as reverse genetics. Perturb-seq is a reverse genetics approach that allows for the investigation of phenotypes at the level of the transcriptome, to elucidate gene functions in many cells, in a massively parallel fashion.
Pharmacomicrobiomics, first proposed by Prof. Marco Candela for the ERC-2009-StG project call and later publicly used in 2010, is defined as the effect of microbiome variations on drug disposition, action, and toxicity. Pharmacomicrobiomics is concerned with the interaction between xenobiotics, or foreign compounds, and the gut microbiome. It is estimated that over 100 trillion prokaryotes representing more than 1000 species reside in the gut. Within the gut, microbes help modulate developmental, immunological and nutrition host functions. The aggregate genome of microbes extends the metabolic capabilities of humans, allowing them to capture nutrients from diverse sources. Namely, through the secretion of enzymes that assist in the metabolism of chemicals foreign to the body, modification of liver and intestinal enzymes, and modulation of the expression of human metabolic genes, microbes can significantly impact the ingestion of xenobiotics.
The He Jiankui affair is a scientific and bioethical controversy concerning the use of genome editing following its first use on humans by Chinese scientist He Jiankui, who edited the genomes of human embryos in 2018. He became widely known on 26 November 2018 after he announced that he had created the first human genetically edited babies. He was listed in the Time's 100 most influential people of 2019. The affair led to legal and ethical controversies, resulting in the indictment of He and two of his collaborators, Zhang Renli and Qin Jinzhou. He eventually received widespread condemnation from all over the world.
Amy Karle is an American artist, bioartist and futurist. She creates work that looks forward to a future where technology can support and enhance the human condition. She was named in BBC's 100 women, as one of the 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world for 2019. Her work questions what it means to be human, with an emphasis on exploring the relationship between technology and humanity; particularly how technology and biotechnology impacts health, humanity, evolution and the future. She combines science and technology with art and is known for using live tissue in her works. Karle uses body based investigation and the actual science and technology as tools in the process of creating the artworks. Amy Karle's artworks include new media art, bioart, computational art, hybrid art, body art, durational performance art, installation art, and garments and wearable art. Karle is most noted for her artworks merging the body and technology, including Regenerative Reliquary, Internal Collection, Biofeedback artwork. She regularly exhibits her artworks in major museums around the world including in Ars Electronica, The Centre Pompidou, The Mori Art Museum, The Smithsonian Institution.
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