Biotechnology, Genetically Designed Crops, etc.
Genetically engineered or altered seeds, trees, microbes, animals and crops,
"Biopharming" engineered pharmaceuticals, growth hormones and proteins,
Biomedicine (gene therapy, custom medicines),
and possibly human organs and embryos (stem cell)
The year 2011 through 2022
The year 2011.


• 2/17/2011 Sanofi-Aventis to purchase Genzyme for $20 billion by AP.
      Sanofi-Aventis is buying specialty drub maker Genzyme for $20.1 billion, the latest example of a beleaguered pharmaceutical company snapping up high-priced biotech drugs to offset dwindling sales of older, simpler medications facing generic competition.
      Sanofi, the world's fourth-largest drug maker, overcame Genzyme's reluctance to a takeover by raising its previous offer to 474 per share and agreeing to make additional cash paymnets pending the success of several drugs.
      The combination seems odd at first: A huge French company, best known for vaccines used by millions fo patients each year, buying a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech company whose drugs are taken by only a handfull of patients areound the world.    but experts say the merger reflects the landscape of the pharmaceutical industry, as companies seek to replace older medications that have lost their patent protection.    Sanofi's blood-thinner Plavix, the second-best-selling drug in the world, loses patent protection in 2012.    Compared to these pill-based drugs, Genzyme's high-tech injectable drugs are virtually immune to generic competition, and extremely difficult to manufacture
• 3/1/2011 Removing gene offers hope of AIDS cure - Altered cells may create resistance by Marilynn Marchione, AP.
      In a new bold approach aimed at trying to cure AIDS, scientists used genetic engineering in six patients to develop blood cells that are resistant to HIV, the virus that causes the disease.    It's far too early to know if this scientific first will prove to be a cure, or even a new treatment.    The concept was based on the astonishing case of an AIDS patient who seems to be cured after getting blood cells from a donor with natural immunity to HIV nearly four years ago in Berlin.    Researchers are seeking a more practical way to achieve similar immunity using patients own blood cells.
      This is the first time researchers have permanently deleted a human gene and infused the altered cells back into patients.
      The AIDS virus targets special immune system soldiers called T-cells.    It usually enters these cells through a protein receptor, or "docking station," called CCR5.
      Some people (about 1 percent of whites; fewer minorities) lack both copies of the CCR5 gene and are naturally resistant to HIV.    Scientists wondered if a patient's own cells could be used to knock out the CCR5 gene and create resistance to HIV.    A California biotechnology company, Sangamo BioSciences, makes a treatment that can cut DNA at precise locations and permanently "edit out" a gene.
      Dr. Jacob Lalezari, director of Quest Clinical Research of San Franscisco, led the first test of this company and colleagues at the University of California in San Francisco and Los Angeles and is going through a testing stage at present.
  
  

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      As of May 6, 2011, I have stopped typing from news articles and began using the Electronic Edition of the Courier-Journal newspaper so from this point on the articles are from those pages and may be shortened in some cases for highlights and space considerations.
  

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• 6/30/2011
  
  Monsanto posts $680 million profit
      Monsanto Co. says higher sales of genetically engineered seeds helped it boost its third-quarter profit 77 percent, as the company persuaded more farmers to try its pricier new generation of corn and soybean seeds.     The St. Louis-based company reported that its net income rose to $680 million, or $1.26 per share, for the quarter ended May 31, compared with $384 million, or 70 cents a share, a year ago.    It said revenue increased 21 percent to $3.59 billion.
      The results beat forecasts by analysts, who had expected net income of $1.10 per share on revenue of $3.4 billion.
  
  
• 7/2/2011
  
  Rice contamination case settled
      German conglomerate Bayer Crop Science agreed Friday to pay $750 million to settle several lawsuits with American farmers who claimed a strain of the company’s unapproved genetically modified rice contaminated the food supply and hurt their crop prices.
      The litigation dates to 2006, when Bayer disclosed that its experimental strain of Liberty Link GMO rice was found in U.S. food supplies.
      No human health problems were associated with the contamination.
      Farmers from Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas sued Bayer, saying the accident closed off critical export markets and caused the price of rice to drop.    The settlement will cover farmers who planted long-grain rice between 2006 and 2010.
  
  
• 7/30/2011
  
  Human genes can be patented, court rules
      NEW YORK - A federal court said Friday that human genes can be patented, reversing a lower court’s ruling that involved a test for breast cancer but which could have hurt research and profits for drug makers and agriculture companies.    Judge Alan Lourie’s ruling says the genes can be patented because the isolated DNA has a “markedly different chemical structure” from DNA within the body.    The U.S. Patent and Trade-mark Office has been awarding patents on human genes for almost 30 years.    The lawsuit concerned two patents held by Myriad Genetics Inc. of Salt Lake City.    Myriad’s BRAC Analysis test looks for mutations on the breast cancer predisposition gene.    Those mutations are associated with much greater risks of breast and ovarian cancer.
      The American Civil Liberties Union argued that genes couldn’t be patented, and in March 2010, a New York district court agreed.
  
  
• 9/24/2011
  
  U of L lands bioengineering research grant - University is one of 15 to join in Coulter initiative by The Courier-Journal
      The University of Louisville has received a $3.3 million award from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation that will allow bioengineering researchers to work on medical problems with engineering innovations, officials announced Friday.    The five-year Coulter Translational Partnership Award aims to save, extend and improve patients’ lives.    The university is contributing $1.67 million to the program, which means its participants will have a $1 million operating budget for each of the five years.
      U of L is one of 15 institutions participating in the Coulter program.    The foundation will form a partnership with the university’s bioengineering department to promote research.    Key partners include the J.B. Speed School of Engineering, School of Medicine and Office of Technology Transfer.
      Officials said an oversight committee of industry representatives, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and clinical doctors will also be established.
      “When we support university researchers, we create a vigorous hub for life science and engineering businesses to create jobs, change lives and increase our intellectual capital,” U of L President James Ramsey said in a statement.    “Our university has long been, and will continue to be, committed to translating research from the laboratory bench top to the bedside.”
  
  
• 12/29/2011
  
  Biotech corn in danger - Pests in Iowa show resistance by Rick Callahan, Associated Press
      One of the nation’s most widely planted crops — a genetically engineered corn plant that makes its own insecticide — may be losing its effectiveness because a major pest appears to be developing resistance more quickly than scientists expected.
      The U.S. food supply is not in any immediate danger because the problem remains isolated.    But scientists fear potentially risky farming practices could be blunting the hybrid’s weaponry.
      When it was introduced in 2003, so-called Bt corn seemed like the answer to farmers’ dreams: It would allow growers to bring in bountiful harvests using fewer chemicals because the corn naturally produces a toxin that poisons western corn rootworms.    The hybrid was such a swift success that it and similar varieties now account for 65 percent of all U.S. corn acres — grain that ends up in thousands of everyday foods such as cereal, sweeteners and cooking oil.
      But over the last few summers, rootworms have feasted on the roots of Bt corn in parts of four Midwestern states, suggesting that some of the insects are becoming resistant to the crop’s pest-fighting powers.
      Scientists say the problem could be partly the result of farmers who planted Bt corn year af¬ter year in the same fields.
      Most farmers rotate corn with other crops in a practice long used to curb the spread of pests, but some have abandoned rotation because they need extra grain for livestock or because they have grain contracts with ethanol producers.    Other farmers have eschewed the practice to cash in on high corn prices, which hit a record in June.
      A scientist recently sounded an alarm throughout the biotech industry when he published findings concluding that rootworms in a handful of Bt cornfields in Iowa had evolved an ability to survive the corn’s formidable defenses.    Similar crop damage has been seen in parts of Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska.    Monsanto Co. created the Bt strain by splicing a gene from a common soil organism called Bacillus thuringiensis into the plant.    The natural insecticide it makes is considered harmless to people and livestock.
      Scientists expected rootworms to develop some resis¬tance to the toxin produced by that gene.    But signs of possible resistance have emerged sooner than many expected.
      The Environmental Protection Agency recently chided Monsanto, declaring in a Nov. 22 report that it wasn’t doing enough to monitor suspected resistance among rootworm populations.
      Monsanto says there’s no conclusive proof that rootworms have become immune to the crop, but the company said it regards the situation seriously and has been taking steps that are “directly in line” with federal recommendations.
  
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This file created October 7, 2011, and updated on December 31, 2011.