Tuesday, December 3, 2024

If it pleases you to help out (new working link for donations)

 The button to smack in order to donate to project GRFT is

here: https://projectgrft.org/donate



 The link is now live and working. We are route all donations through our new partner, Omprakash 
Please delete any old links to donations or anything else with Counter Culture Labs as project GRFT has severed all connetion with them.  Omprakash is a 501c3 nonprofit and you if you are a US taxpayer, you will be able to write off the donation.  You will receive the information needed to do this after you donate.  We greatly appreciate your donations.  ProjectGRFT is growing and as we grow, so do our needs.  Please check out the project GRFT website.  


Sunday, September 22, 2024

WHO Geneva: awareness of a viral problem

“The next pandemic will not wait for us, whether from a flu virus like H5N1, another coronavirus, or another family of viruses we don’t yet know about,” Dr Tedros told the meeting. “But all the ingredients are in place to meet the objective of countries to negotiate a generational pandemic agreement. The world needs hope that it is still possible for countries to find common solutions to common problems. You can provide that hope.”


https://www.who.int/news/item/20-09-2024-governments-progress-on-negotiations-for-a-pandemic-agreement-to-boost-global-preparedness-for-future-emergencies

project GRFT continues our efforts to prepare for future emergencies. We hope that these efforts will help to realize our common goals of keeping our future free of pandemics. 





Saturday, August 17, 2024

Mpox

 There's currently a Mpox virus outbreak.  Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is a virus that transmits from animals to animals and also from animals to humans (zoonotic transmission) and from humans to humans.  It has been observed in humans since 1970.

Many of the human to human transmissions come from exchange of bodily fluids through sexual contact, however there are also other pathways for infection to occur.

This virus is mutating and is often lethal so it's a real cause for concern.

A number of antivirals are being tested against Mpox

Could GRFT stop the progress of this epidemic?

We don't have an answer to that question as we haven't seen any research being done on GRFT vs Mpox yet.

If anyone has information regarding research being done using the anti-viral properties of GRFT to stop Mpox, please pass that on to us.

It seems probable that as Mpox is an enveloped virus, GRFT should be able to stop transmission into cells but we are waiting for the research to confirm this hypothesis.

Sunday, July 21, 2024

Nipah Virus: the next epidemic?

 A 14 year old boy has been reported to have died from a Nipah Virus infection.  This happened in Kerala state in India.  This location is an area of concern and there have been multiple deaths from Nipah virus since 2018.  

There is a high potential for an outbreak originating in the Kerala area to become an epidemic. 

Can GRFT (griffithsin) play a role in preventing the spread of this lethal virus?  

A 2020 paper published in The Journal of Infectous Diseases details in vitro research and from the results of this study concludes "Our findings, taken together with the favorable pharmacokinetic and safety profiles of GRFT, make Q-GRFT an excellent candidate for further preclinical evaluation against NiV infection."

sources:

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj50d7e9vp6o

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7199786/

Sunday, July 7, 2024

Year of the elusive plasmid

 For the last year, starting in July 2023, we have been attempting to assemble and verify a plasmid to use in the transformation of rice plants.  Two scientists from Johns Hopkins University visited us last July.  They brought the insert containing the gene to express GRFT.  Having no previous experience with plasmid assembly, this task involves a learning curve for me.  There have been multiple fails which are among other things, teachers.   We try not to repeat the same mistakes and like to think we are making progress.     

It's an interesting summer that hasn't left much time for posting on this blog.  We're still alive and kickin'.


  

Thursday, April 11, 2024

Early DuPont Gene Gun

When the method of particle bombardment was developed, the first gene guns used a powder charge to propel the DNA coated metal microparticles into the cells of organisms.  Here is a report by the head of gene gun hardware technology, Dr. Johnson on one of these early and now obsolete models of the gene gun.  It's a real piece of gene gun history.  


Gene Gun by DuPont

A.D. Johnson, 5 Mar 2024


This is a first-impression description of the gene gun that was brought to CCL March 3 2024.

It is a very early version of DuPont ‘bioloistics’ devices: it uses a .22-caliber rifle cartridge to generate pressure to accelerate microparticles. The explosion is triggered by an electrical circuit and fires into a chamber through a burst disc. The chamber is evacuated by a vacuum pump through two ports.




 

The gene gun consists of two steel enclosures: it is well-engineered and skillfully machined. The left chamber is a pump with (I assume) an exhaust port on the front and two tubes connecting the vacuum pump to the acceleration chamber on the right, closed by a plastic door with O-ring seals. On top of the acceleration chamber is the gun consisting of a cartridge chamber and a box containing the firing mechanism. Mounted on the side of the vacuum pump is a box with a push-button. This box is wired to the

top of the firing mechanism, so I assume it fires a solenoid that extends the firing pin so that it strikes the cartridge and triggers the release of energy.





Cartridge chamber into which is inserted a 22-caliber shell.





Burst-disc holder that is mounted on a shelf in the vacuum chamber


 



The legend says that this is a biolistic DuPont gene gun model BPG

This machine represents an important piece of history. The design was developed by geneticist Dr. John C Sanford working with Edward Wolf and Theodore Klein in 1983 and was purchased from them by DuPont. The history is documented in papers available through Google scholar. Here is a link to a memoir by Dr. Sanford.


http://www.ask-force.org/web/Bt/Sanford-Biolistic-2000.pdf 

Project GRFT is fortunate to have physicist Alfred David Johnson, PhD on board as part of our small but excellent team.  He has built 2 helium powered gene guns for project GRFT to use in the transformation of rice to express griffithsin, a method based on the research of Evangelia Vamvaka, PhD.

Dr. Johnson has solid background in particle physics.  He is the founder, director, and president of TiNi Alloy Company.  With his company he did extensive research in shape-memory alloys for practical applications.  He has several patents on his discoveries (one of which went up to the planet Mars). 

Prior to founding TiNi Alloy Company, Dr. Johnson was employed as a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Accomplishments include software for bubble chamber experiments of Luis Alvarez and pattern recognition and track reconstruction programs for the magnetic detectors at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in which the charmed particles were first discovered. As a member of the SLAC-LBL collaboration he coauthored numerous papers in high-energy physics. 

Because of Dr. Johnson's diligent hard work we now have the pipeline in place to transform rice using particle bombardment.  

Deep gratitude!




Friday, January 19, 2024

How to make your donation to project GRFT

 

Do you know that you can make a tax deductible donation to project GRFT and receive a thank you gift?

Project GRFT is a non-profit dedicated to promoting public health. 

         How can a viral outbreak be prevented from becoming a pandemic?  That is a question that project GRFT is addressing.  We now have very good vaccines to protect against covid-19 infections. Yet we are still faced with a continual pandemic.  In developing countries of the world only 2% of the population have been vaccinated.  Part of the solution to this problem lies in developing antivirals that prevent viral infections.  We have found compelling evidence of such an antiviral in griffithsin, or GRFT. The purpose of our project is to biomanufacture raw materials, which contain GRFT, worldwide and at low cost. Project GRFT’s wonderful volunteer crew has been hard at work on developing this in labs operating on almost no budget. 

Our ongoing fundraising efforts help in keeping the project supplied with equipment, materials, reagents and services sourced from commercial labs. 

We ask for your contribution to help keep the work going and to increase the possibility of preventing future viral outbreaks from exploding into pandemics. 

To show our appreciation project GRFT has gifts from the garden of Trichocereus Rex for all donors to the project.


Note: seeds are only available to be mailed in the USA.

Please request the gift as "seeds gift" and include your name and address so we can mail them to you

You will receive a botanical gift, seeds of Trichocereus species cacti. 

Try growing your own cacti from seed.  The fresh seeds are from carefully hand pollinated flowers.

Trichocereus have been treasured for thousands of years in South America. 

They thrive in the climate of the SF Bay Area. 

They can grow 15 feet tall and bloom with large fragrant white flowers.


Please make your donation Here 

 

Questions or comments welcome here: nenufarmoleculesforlife@gmail.com