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Founder of Humane Genomics, which is creating artificial viruses for therapy, and chair of Singularity University, Andrew Hessel, shares his enthusiasm for synthetic biology:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/QPmKOgd9Gci0/
minute9: “we’re able to take a drop of blood and get a full genome”
minute11: [The company] “Health Nucleus is starting to build avatars, a digital health representation of the human being… that gets deep into your personal health…[at] the core of your story.”
— three companies mentioned; Illumina, Grail, and Health Nucleus, are briefly introduced below.
Andrew Hessel, interviewed by Josh Wolff, Aug.2020:
Wolff: Can you tell me more about the process of developing the viruses?
[A.H.] We begin with small molecule drugs. We sort of throw away those because while you can computationally predict those, you have no idea how they are going to end up in the body – and what kind of reaction will ensue. So, we began with biologics, and we tried to remove this hard-to-predict problem.
Cells, viruses – they’re all machines, in a way. So we began by making a synthetic virus totally from scratch. It’s not as difficult as it may seem. You see, it’s just that no one is doing it. There has been paltry development in the field over the past 20 to 30 years. If you look at the number of viruses that have been sequenced, there may be around 8300. If you look at the number of viruses that have been synthesized, there may have been 30. This field is ripe for growth…
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Illumina, Inc.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Illumina, Inc. is an American company. Incorporated in April 1998, Illumina develops, manufactures, and markets integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and biological function. The company provides a line of products and services that serves the sequencing, genotyping and gene expression, and proteomics markets. Its headquarters are located in San Diego, California.
…In January 2014, Illumina already held 70% of the market for genome-sequencing machines.[25] Illumina machines accounted for more than 90% of all DNA data produced.[26] In fact, the amount of data produced by Illumina machines is such that the company invested in the acquisition of the pre-commercial firm Enancio in 2020, which had developed a DNA data compression algorithm specifically targeting Illumina data capable of reducing storage footprint by 80% (e.g. 50 Gb compressed to 10 Gb).[27] …In late 2015, Illumina spun off the company GRAIL, focused on blood testing for cancer tumors in the bloodstream. In 2017 the company had planned to raise $1 billion in its second round of financing, and received funding from Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos investing $100 million in series A funding, and with Illumina maintaining a 20% holding share in Grail.[30] The company is working with a blood test trial with over 120,000 women during scheduled mammogram visits in the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as a partnership with the Mayo Clinic. The company Grail uses Illumina sequencing technology for tests.[31] The company plans to roll out the tests by 2019, with a cost of $500 per individual.[32] In September 2020, Illumina announced a proposed cash and stock deal to acquire Grail for $8 billion.[33][34]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illumina,_Inc.
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GRAIL (company)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
GRAIL is an American biotechnology and pharmaceutical company, which began in 2015 as a San Francisco start-up, with the purpose of developing an early cancer screening test for people who do not have symptoms. The parent company is Illumina of San Diego. Its headquarters is in Menlo Park, California, with locations in Washington, D.C., North Carolina, and the United Kingdom.
Their liquid biopsy, still undergoing research as of November 2020 and called the ‘Galleri test’, detects fragments of DNA in a blood sample via next-generation sequencing, which identifies DNA methylation, distinct patterns of which are associated with particular cancers, potentially allowing for the early detection of cancer and providing information of the origin of the cancer. It is one of three multicancer screening tests under investigation; the other two being the CancerSEEK assay and the PanSeer assay. On 27 November 2020 GRAIL announced a commercial partnership with the United Kingdom’s (UK) National Health Service (NHS), to trial the Galleri test…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRAIL_(company)
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Health Nucleus
“If you enter Health Nucleus, a new facility in San Diego cofounded by J. Craig Venter, one of the world’s best-known living scientists, you will get a telling glimpse into the state of medical science in 2015. Your entire genome will be sequenced with extraordinary resolution and accuracy. Your body will be scanned in fine, three-dimensional detail. Thousands of compounds in your blood will be measured. Even the microbes that live inside you will be surveyed. You will get a custom-made iPad app to navigate data about yourself…
“[At] age 67, Venter cofounded Human Longevity, a company based in San Diego with branches in Mountain View, Calif., and Singapore that is building the largest human genome-sequencing operation on Earth, equipped with massive computing resources to analyze the data being generated…
“Franz Och, the former head of Google Translate and an expert on machine learning, is leading a team that’s teaching computers to recognize patterns in the company’s databases that scientists themselves may not be able to see. To demonstrate the power of this approach, Human Longevity researchers are using machine learning to discover how genetic variations shape the human face. “We can determine a good resemblance of your photograph straight from your genetic code,” said Venter.
“Health Nucleus could become yet another source of income for Human Longevity…There are plans to open more sites both in the United States and abroad. “You can do the math,” Venter said.
“Health Nucleus is already taking in customers who can afford the tests, drawing them with a high-end video that promises “individualized services including advanced genomes and other measures combined with advanced laboratory testing,” and declaring the program “creates a model for precision medicine, monitoring wellness in treating disease before it occurs.”
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