(New York Times) – Labs around the world are trying to turn cells into autobiographers, tracking their own development from embryos to adults.

Dr. Stadler’s lab and others around the world are trying to turn cells into their own historians, as she and her colleagues described in the journal Nature Reviews Genetics on Monday. Their engineered cells can insert distinctive bits of genetic material into their DNA. As the cells divide, those genetic bits turn into distinctive bar codes.

The technology is also allowing cells to create a genetic record when they experience a notable event, such as receiving a signal from other cells or making a particular protein. (Read More)