Guanine

• The 2023 Nobel Prize for chemistry isn’t the first Nobel awarded for research in nanotechnology.
• But it is perhaps the most colorful application of the technology to be associated with the accolade.
• This year’s prize recognizes Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov for the discovery and development of quantum dots.
• Quantum dots brilliantly fluoresce: They absorb one color of light and reemit it nearly instantaneously as another color.

Skip chemical bonds, rely on quantum physics

• For instance, some of the earliest dyes started with a clear substance such as analine, transformed through chemical reactions to the desired hue.
• Rather than depending on chemical bonds to determine the wavelengths of light they absorb and emit, they rely on very small clusters of semiconducting materials.
• Early quantum dots were often based on cadmium selenide for instance – the component materials of which are toxic.
• And yet, quantum dots are a pivotal part of a technology transition that’s revolutionizing how people work with atoms and molecules.

‘Base coding’ on an atomic level

• This concept is intuitive when it comes to computing, where programmers use the “base code” of 1,s and 0’s, albeit through higher level languages.
• This ability to work with base codes also extends to the material world.
• Here, the code is made up of atoms and molecules and how they are arranged in ways that lead to novel properties.
• Bawendi, Brus and Ekimov’s work on quantum dots is a perfect example of this form of material-world base coding.

• This amazing find would subsequently become known as Ötzi the Iceman.
• His body and belongings were extensively studied, prompting numerous questions: what was he doing here?
• His unique preservation enabled the sequencing of Ötzi’s whole genome – the complete “instruction booklet” for building a human.
• But it was enough for a team led by Turi King at the University of Leicester to extract fragments of DNA from them.

Crime scene samples

• Sequencing a genome, which comprises billions of DNA bases, enables scientists to evaluate regions of the human genome that contribute to appearance.
• For more than 30 years, forensic scientists have looked at specific highly variable regions in DNA to match these to crime scene samples, or to relatives of a suspect or victim.
• So how likely is it that DNA from such a sample could accurately paint a picture of me?
• Can forensic scientists build a kind of identikit photo from a crime scene DNA sample?
• Hair colour can be predicted from DNA, but darker shades of hair are more accurately predicted than blonde hair.

Environmental factors

• Commercially sold laboratory kits such as Hirisplex can simultaneously evaluate several DNA regions to predict the hair and eye colour from a biological sample.
• However, unlike eye colour, hair colour prediction from DNA is only of value until midlife, when the natural processes of ageing lead to greying or white hair.
• These processes also lead to hair loss in some people and more than 300 gene variants have been linked to baldness.
• More representative data from the rest of the world will therefore enhance studies in forensic archaeology, such as the Ötzi research.

• Over 3,000 significant correlations were found linking reductions in DNA methylation of various CpGs and cognitive, biomarker and neuroimaging endpoints.
• I have prepared this letter to shareholders to provide an update that synthesizes all the information that we have released and presented at recent medical conferences.
• NE3107 reduced CSF phospho-tau levels by -1.66 pg/mL (p=0.0343) and the ratio of p-tau to amyloid beta 42 (Aβ42) by -0.0024 (p=0.0401).
• P-tau and Aβ are traditional biomarkers of AD progression and have been the focus for AD researchers for decades.

• SHANGHAI and CLINTON, N.J., May 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- HuidaGene Therapeutics (辉大基因; HuidaGene), a clinical-stage genome-editing company, today announced the online National Science Review published the comprehensive data from a study of the world's first DNA base editor converting G-to-Y, glycosylase-based guanine base editor (gGBE).
• Company has filed an international patent application for this base editor and owns the exclusive global rights to the underlying patent.
• Current widely-used DNA base editors mainly integrate programmable DNA binding proteins (Cas9, Cas12, or TALE protein variants) with base deaminases (cytidine deaminase or adenosine deaminase variants).
• The new class of engineered glycosylases base editors may further enrich the base editing tool, establish disease models, and develop gene editing therapies."