Researchers at the Czech Academy of Sciences may have successfully used CRISPR gene editing to create chickens that are resistant to avian leukosis virus (ALV), a common but deadly affliction that affects poultry with symptoms ranging from emaciation and dehydration to depressed behavior. This latest advance could potentially be a game changer when it comes to chicken welfare, with clear implications for meat and egg production around the world.
The ALV-J subgroup virus binds to a protein called chicken NHE-1 (chNHE-1). Replication of this virus depends on a functional chNHE-1 cellular receptor. In previous work, the researchers showed that it is possible to prevent ALV from infecting chicken cells by deleting three letters from the chNHE-1 gene. But in their newer work, they have created a young rooster with sperm that has the exact chNHE-1 gene deletion. Its offspring was a flock of white leghorn chickens with the deletion in both copies of the gene. “It’s quite simple to do,” Jiri Hejnar, the lead researcher on the project, told New Scientist.
“Deletion of W38 did not manifest any visible side effect,” the researchers note in an abstract for a recent paper, published in PNAS, that describes the work. “Our data clearly demonstrate the antiviral resistance conferred by precise CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing in the chicken. Furthermore, our highly efficient CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing in primordial germ cells represents a substantial addition to genotechnology in the chicken, an important food source and research model.”
A company called Biopharm is reportedly in talks with poultry producers in Vietnam. They could introduce this genetic tweak into their commercial breeds. The researchers next plan to tackle other bird-related viruses, which could include ones that are potentially deadly to humans.
As impressive as this is, it isn’t the only use of CRISPR gene editing we’ve covered with the potential to cure disease. Other researchers have shown that it is possible to use gene editing to disable the defective gene that causes ALS in mice. Recently, researchers from the University of California — San Diego School of Medicine also suggested that it may be possible to use a new genetic-sequencing approach to create a “kill switch” to clear out dormant HIV reservoirs inside cells.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.