The 18th ESACT meeting was celebrated in Granada (Spain) in May 2003, and was entitled "Animal Cell Technology Meets Genomics", in order to reflect that the emerging technologies in the area of genomics, proteomics and other "-omics"-type disciplines will provide key technological assets to increase knowledge and open new horizons in animal cell technology. During the meeting a variety of top-class emerging technologies were presented together with the lastest advances in more mature industrial areas. The meeting was opened by a first session devoted to the understanding of basic cellular mechanisms, and four sessions focused on applied aspects of animal cell technology: Cell-based therapies and gene-based therapies, target discovery and biopharmaceuticals. The Granada Meeting has also seen a special focus on forefront industrial case studies. The spirit and scientific excellence of the 18th ESACT meeting is now reflected in different chapters of the book. The book presents, in form of short papers, a high number of the contributions to the meeting, and has been prepared with the aim to provide a relevant reference of the current research efforts in Animal Cell Technology.

Mammalian cell lines command an effective monopoly for the production of therapeutic proteins that require post-translational modifications. This unique advantage outweighs the costs associated with mammalian cell culture, which are far grater in terms of development time and manufacturing when compared to microbial culture. The development of cell lines has undergone several advances over the years, essentially to meet the requirement to cut the time and costs associated with using such a complex hosts as production platforms. This book provides a comprehensive guide to the methodology involved in the development of cell lines and the cell engineering approach that can be employed to enhance productivity, improve cell function, glycosylation and secretion and control apoptosis. It presents an overall picture of the current topics central to expression engineering including such topics as epigenetics and the use of technologies to overcome positional dependent inactivation, the use of promoter and enhancer sequences for expression of various transgenes, site directed engineering of defined chromosomal sites, and examination of the role of eukaryotic nucleus as the controller of expression of genes that are introduced for production of a desired product. It includes a review of selection methods for high producers and an application developed by a major biopharmaceutical industry to expedite the cell line development process. The potential of cell engineering approch to enhance cell lines through the manipulation of single genes that play important roles in key metabolic and regulatory pathways is also explored throughout.

Heritable human genome editing - making changes to the genetic material of eggs, sperm, or any cells that lead to their development, including the cells of early embryos, and establishing a pregnancy - raises not only scientific and medical considerations but also a host of ethical, moral, and societal issues. Human embryos whose genomes have been edited should not be used to create a pregnancy until it is established that precise genomic changes can be made reliably and without introducing undesired changes - criteria that have not yet been met, says Heritable Human Genome Editing. From an international commission of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.K.'s Royal Society, the report considers potential benefits, harms, and uncertainties associated with genome editing technologies and defines a translational pathway from rigorous preclinical research to initial clinical uses, should a country decide to permit such uses. The report specifies stringent preclinical and clinical requirements for establishing safety and efficacy, and for undertaking long-term monitoring of outcomes. Extensive national and international dialogue is needed before any country decides whether to permit clinical use of this technology, according to the report, which identifies essential elements of national and international scientific governance and oversight.

Animal cell technology has undergone a rapid transformation over the last decade from a research tool and highly specialised technology to a central resource for innovation in pharmaceutical research and development. These proceedings of the 14th Meeting of the European Society for Animal Cell Technology (Vilamoura, Portugal, May 1996) bring up to date the historical perspective of animal cell technology for the benefit of society, `From Vaccines to Genetic Medicine', and will charter this vital technology for the years to come. Strong contributions are grouped in the traditional ESACT areas of 'Cell and Physiology Engineering' dealing with cell state, including genetics, and its environment, and 'Animal Cell Process Engineering' covering integration of bioreaction with bioseparation coupled with on-line monitoring to improve protein production and consistency. Extensive coverage of metabolic engineering on synthesis, folding, assembly, transiting and secretion is dealt with in the session on 'Recombinant Proteins: Biosynthesis and Bioprocessing'. Two traditional but expanding areas of animal cell technology relevance are highlighted in the broad sessions of 'Animal Cells as Tools for Discovery and Testing' and 'Animal Cell Vaccines: Present and Future'. Two sessions finally cover the more recent domains of animal cell technology work - 'Tissue Engineering and Biomedical Devices' and 'Cells and Vectors for Genetic Medicine' - where one can foresee a very bright future.

Assists policymakers in evaluating the appropriate scientific methods for detecting unintended changes in food and assessing the potential for adverse health effects from genetically modified products. In this book, the committee recommended that greater scrutiny should be given to foods containing new compounds or unusual amounts of naturally occurring substances, regardless of the method used to create them. The book offers a framework to guide federal agencies in selecting the route of safety assessment. It identifies and recommends several pre- and post-market approaches to guide the assessment of unintended compositional changes that could result from genetically modified foods and research avenues to fill the knowledge gaps.

Selected, peer reviewed papers from the 2nd International Conference on Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development (EESD 2012), October 12-14, 2012, Jilin, China

This volume provides a broad, state-of-the-art coverage of diverse technical topics in gene expression in mammalian cells, including the development of vectors for production of proteins in cultured cells, in transgenic animals, vaccination, and gene therapy; progress in methods for the transfer of genes into mammalian cells and the optimization and monitoring of gene expression; advances in our understanding and manipulation of cellular biochemical pathways that have a quantitative and qualitative impact on mammalian gene expression; and the large-scale production and purification of proteins from cultured cells.

This publication provides an update on the current status of gene maps in different livestock and pet/companion animal species. The findings summarized in species specific commentaries and original articles testify the rapid advances made in the field of animal genomics. Of significant interest is the fact that current investigations are providing headways for two important and exciting research fronts: targeted high-resolution mapping leading to the application of genomic information in addressing questions of economic and biological significance in animals, and the initiation of whole genome sequencing projects for some of the animal species. Like in humans and mice, this will set the stage for a new level of research and real time complex analysis of the genomes of these species. Animal Genomics signifies the beginning of a new era in this field and celebrates the achievements of the past 20 years of genomics research. It will be of special interest to researchers involved in genome analysis - both gross chromosomal as well as molecular - in various animal species, and to comparative and evolutionary geneticists.

Genome editing is a powerful new tool for making precise alterations to an organism's genetic material. Recent scientific advances have made genome editing more efficient, precise, and flexible than ever before. These advances have spurred an explosion of interest from around the globe in the possible ways in which genome editing can improve human health. The speed at which these technologies are being developed and applied has led many policymakers and stakeholders to express concern about whether appropriate systems are in place to govern these technologies and how and when the public should be engaged in these decisions. Human Genome Editing considers important questions about the human application of genome editing including: balancing potential benefits with unintended risks, governing the use of genome editing, incorporating societal values into clinical applications and policy decisions, and respecting the inevitable differences across nations and cultures that will shape how and whether to use these new technologies. This report proposes criteria for heritable germline editing, provides conclusions on the crucial need for public education and engagement, and presents 7 general principles for the governance of human genome editing.

The patenting and licensing of human genetic material and proteins represents an extension of intellectual property (IP) rights to naturally occurring biological material and scientific information, much of it well upstream of drugs and other disease therapies. This report concludes that IP restrictions rarely impose significant burdens on biomedical research, but there are reasons to be apprehensive about their future impact on scientific advances in this area. The report recommends 13 actions that policy-makers, courts, universities, and health and patent officials should take to prevent the increasingly complex web of IP protections from getting in the way of potential breakthroughs in genomic and proteomic research. It endorses the National Institutes of Health guidelines for technology licensing, data sharing, and research material exchanges and says that oversight of compliance should be strengthened. It recommends enactment of a statutory exception from infringement liability for research on a patented invention and raising the bar somewhat to qualify for a patent on upstream research discoveries in biotechnology. With respect to genetic diagnostic tests to detect patient mutations associated with certain diseases, the report urges patent holders to allow others to perform the tests for purposes of verifying the results.