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6 | SEPTEMBER 1, 2016 | GENengnews.com | Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News 140 Huguenot Street, New Rochelle, NY 10801- 5215 914 740 -2100 • GENengnews.com PUBLISHER & CEO Mary Ann Liebert PRESIDENT, GEN Publishing Marianne Russell EDITOR IN CHIEF John Sterling editor@GENengnews.com GEN GROUP PUBLISHER Sande Giaccone M A N AG I N G E D I TO R Tamlyn L. Oliver P R O D U C T I O N E D I TO R Robert M. Reis S E N I O R E D I TO R Kevin Mayer T E C H N I C A L E D I TO R Patricia F. Dimond, Ph.D. T E C H N I C A L E D I TO R Jeffrey S. Buguliskis, Ph.D. S E N I O R N E W S E D I TO R Alex Philippidis A R T D I R E C TO R James Lambo COMMERCIAL DIREC TOR Bill Levine O N L I N E P R O D U C T M A N AG E R Thomas Mathew W E B P R O D U C E R Melinda Kucsera S A L E S A D M I N I S T R ATO R Fallon Murphy ONLINE COORDINATOR Katherine Vuksanaj GEN Editorial & Scientific Advisory Board Peter Banks, Ph.D., Scientific Director, BioTek Instruments; Roslyn Brandon, D.V.M., Ph.D., President and CEO, Immunexpress; Robert Clarke, Ph.D., President & CEO, Pulmatrix; Pete Gagnon, Project Director, Downstream Processing, Bioprocessing Technology Institute (Singapore); Rick Gonzalez, President and CEO, Navidea Biopharmaceuticals; Uwe Gottschalk, Ph.D., CTO, Lonza Pharma & Biotech; Harry E. Gruber, M.D., CEO, Tocagen; Andrew Hirsch, President and CEO, Bind Therapeutics; Jin Seok Hur, Ph.D., Technology Director, Novasep; James Inglese, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, Division of Pre-Clinical Innovation, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences NIH; Guenter Jagschies, Senior Director, GE Healthcare Life Sciences; Peter Johnson, M.D., Principal, MedSurgPI; Anis H. Khimani, Ph.D., Head of Strategy & Marketing, Research Reagent Solutions, PerkinElmer; Mikael Kubista, Ph.D., Biotechnology Institute, Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic; Peter Levison, Senior Marketing Director, Downstream Processing, Pall Life Sciences; Jan Lichtenberg, Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder, InSphero; Miodrag Micic, Sc.D., Ph.D., Professor and Department Chairman, Cerritos College; Eric Schadt, Ph.D., Director, Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology; Zhiwei Song, Ph.D., Scientist, National University of Singapore; Sumio Sugano, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Medical Genomics, University of Tokyo; John Talley, Ph.D., CSO, SARmont; Bin Wang, Ph.D., Professor, Principal Investigator, Fudan University Shanghai Medical College; Daniel I. C. Wang, Ph.D., Institute Professor of Chemical Engineering, MIT Advertising United States and North America EAST COAST Monica Lieberman 914 740 2173 mlieberman@GENengnews.com WEST COAST Sharon Spitz 314 795 4151 sspitz@GENengnews.com MIDWEST/S.EAST Rick Bongiovanni 330 998 9800 rbongiovanni@GENengnews.com U.K. and Europe Ian Slade +44 7768 397068 islade@GENengnews.com GEN Classified, Asia and Australia Display Victoria Palusevic 914 740 2167 vpalusevic@GENengnews.com All Other Countries advertising@GENengnews.com 914 740 2200 Insertions and Advertising Material Wanda Sanchez wsanchez@GENengnews.com Customer Service & Subscriptions www.GENengnews.com/subscription-center 888 211 4235 847 559 7587 Reprints Karen Ballen reprints@GENengnews.com 914 740 2100 The views, opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations set forth in any article in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN) are solely those of the authors of those articles and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position of GEN, its Publisher, or its editorial staff and should not be attributed to any of them. All advertisements are subject to review by the Publisher. The acceptance of advertisements does not constitute an endorsement of the product or service advertised. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (ISSN-1935-472X) is published semimonthly except July, August, and December (twenty-one issues a year) by GEN Publishing, 140 Huguenot Street, 3rd Floor, New Rochelle, NY 10801-5215. Periodicals postage paid at New Rochelle, NY and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, c/o Subscription Department, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., 140 Huguenot Street, 3rd Floor, New Rochelle, New York 10801-5215. Fax: 914 740-2201. Mailed in Canada under CPC CPM #40026674. Printed in the U.S.A. For subscription information go to: www.GENengnews.com/subscription-center Copyright © 2016 by GEN Publishing, New Rochelle, NY. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. is recognized as a Certified Woman-Owned Business by the Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). GENengnews.com Dolly's Cloned Sisters Are Aging Normally Why Going Nuts Is Good for You The siblings of the sheep that captured the world's atten- tion (Dolly) and focused it on cloning are pushing back on the premise that cloning leads to rapid aging. Dolly's four cloned sisters—Daisy, Diana, Debbie, and Denise—were cloned almost a decade ago, and they have been, by all ac- counts, aging normally. The four sheep, now nearing 70 in human years, have never evidenced any unusual propen- sity toward osteoarthritis, type 2 diabetes, or heart disease. Moreover, according to University of Nottingham research- ers, these sheep differ from Dolly with respect to markers of the aging process. These markers are consistent with observations that Dolly's sisters are progressing through their lifespans without incident. The marker-related find- ings, which appeared in Nature Communications, may en- courage research into animal cloning and dispel lingering misconceptions. An international team led by scientists from the University of Witwatersrand and the South African Centre for Excellence in Palaeosciences report in the South African Journal of Science the discovery of a foot bone dated to approximately 1.7 mil- lion years ago from the site of Swartkrans with definitive evi- dence of malignant cancer. The finding pushes the oldest date for this disease back from recent times into deep prehistory. Although the exact species to which the foot bone belongs is unknown, it is clearly that of a hominin (a bipedal human relative). Nuts have long been touted as a healthy snack, and a recent study helps explain why. Re- searchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital have found an association between frequent nut eating and lower levels of two biomarkers for inflammation. Ying Bao, M.D., Sc.D., and colleagues analyzed data from the Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals Follow- Up Study, questioned study participants about their diet, and analyzed participants' blood samples. People who ate five-plus servings of nuts per week had lower C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin 6 (IL-6) levels than those who never or almost never consumed nuts. People who substituted three servings of nuts per week for red meat, processed meat, eggs, or refined grains also showed significantly lower CRP and IL-6 levels, researchers re- ported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. "Our study supports an overall health- ful role for nuts in the diet and suggests reducing inflammation as a potential mechanism that may help explain the benefits of nuts on cardiometabolic diseases," Dr. Bao said. University of Toronto chemists write in Advanced Functional Materials that they created a battery that stores energy in a biologically derived unit, paving the way for cheaper consumer electronics that are easier on the environment. The battery is similar to many commercially available high- energy lithium-ion batteries, but it has one important dif- ference—it uses flavin from vitamin B2 that originates in genetically engineered fungi as the cathode (the part of a battery that absorbs electrons from an electrical device and reduces positively charged ions from an electrolyte solution during a discharge cycle). The result: a "green" battery that can provide high capacity and high voltage. Vitamin-Driven Battery Diana Tyszko/University of Toronto An Antibiotic to Look Up Your Nose At The threat posed by multidrug-resistant pathogens has prompted scientists to search far and wide for new antibiotics. Yet a new antibiotic has been found right under— or rather in—our noses. This antibiotic came to light when scientists at the Univer- sity of Tübingen noticed something curious: In the human nasal cavity, Staphy- lococcus aureus, a pathogen notorious for its multidrug-resistant strains, is rarely found when Staphylococcus lugdunensis, a harmless commensal, is present. The commensal, the scientists reported in Nature, keeps the pathogen at bay by pro- ducing Lugdunin, an antibiotic that consists of a previously unknown ring structure of protein blocks. If it proves useful in therapy, Lugdunin may establish that human microflora, not just soil bacteria and fungi, are potential antibiotic sources. Sticky Ends ... Patrick Randolph-Quinney (UCLAN) Oldest Evidence of Cancer in Human Ancestors The University of Nottingham Martin Christoph Konnerth