From: "Jeffrey E." <jeevacation@gmail.com>
To:
Subject: Re: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmciarticles/PMC2884105/Mpo=38.3333
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2017 10:43:10 +0000
The mechanism seems to be to restrict the search space by occupying it with other chemicals instead of warfare
On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 6:35 AM Ed Boyden, > wrote:
Yes, very cool!
My group is actually starting to plan a new project: can we derive new biotechnologies, from plant immune
systems? Every time scientists have characterized an immune system, to date, they have developed a radical
new biotechnology: from mammals came antibody therapy, and from bacteria came CRISPR. But not much is
known about the plant immune system.
To my knowledge, no systematic study of plant immune systems has been launched previously. We are
proposing a mathematical way to characterize plant immune systems: look for sequences in the plant genome
that vary, from cell to cell, far more than they should. Such "hypervariable" sequences are a fairly universal
clue that adaptive immunity is happening -- after all, the hypervariable sequences of the human genome
yielded antibodies, and the hypervariable sequences of bacteria yielded CRISPR. Hypervariability means
adaption, memory, and precision response.
Once we characterize the hypervariable parts of the plant genome, we will hopefully be able to launch an
experimental characterization of these sequences: can we infer the method through which immunity is
encoded? Can we then molecularly engineer this into a new kind of tool? At the very least, we should
understand how plants resist their environment, but in the best case, we may open up new frontiers in
biotechnology.
Happy to chat further!
Best,
Ed
On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 6:10 PM, jeffrey E. <jeevacation@gmail.com> wrote:
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Ed Boyden, Ph. D.
Leader, Synthetic Neurobiology Group
Associate Professor, MIT Media Lab and McGovern Institute,
Departments of Biological Engineering and Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Co-Director, MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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please note
The information contained in this communication is
confidential, may be attorney-client privileged, may
constitute inside information, and is intended only for
the use of the addressee. It is the property of
JEE
Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this
communication or any part thereof is strictly prohibited
and may be unlawful. If you have received this
communication in error, please notify us immediately by
return e-mail or by e-mail to jeevacation@gmail.com, and
destroy this communication and all copies thereof,
including all attachments. copyright -all rights reserved
EFTA01039980