March 21, 2018
NanoEthics (vol. 12, no. 1, 2018) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “Nanotechnology and Risk Governance in the European Union: the Constitution of Safety in Highly Promoted and Contested Innovation Areas” by Hannot Rodríguez “Governing with Ignorance: Understanding the Australian … Read More
March 16, 2018
Public Understand of Science (vol. 27, no. 3, 2018) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “Anticipating Health Innovations in 2030–2040: Where Does Responsibility Lie for the Publics?” by Pascale Lehoux, Fiona A. Miller, Dominique Grimard, and Philippe Gauthier … Read More
March 12, 2018
(Science) – We are in the midst of a major shift in how we think about treating disease and the regeneration of damaged tissues. Although small-molecule and protein therapeutics are the dominant forms of treatment today, we are now at … Read More
February 22, 2018
(Scientific American) – Nature is a master at constructing biological machines and circuits, including the ones that maintain the body’s internal clock, copy genes or help cells move. Now human engineers are learning to design and synthesize novel biochemical devices … Read More
February 19, 2018
(NPR) – In the brave new world of synthetic biology, scientists can now brew up viruses from scratch using the tools of DNA technology. The latest such feat, published last month, involves horsepox, a cousin of the feared virus that … Read More
February 19, 2018
(MIT Technology Review) – In practice, that means gradually replacing each yeast chromosome—there are 16 of them—with DNA fabricated on stove-size chemical synthesizers. As they go, Boeke and collaborators at nearly a dozen institutions are streamlining the yeast genome and … Read More
February 14, 2018
Science and Engineering Ethics (vol. 23, no. 6, 2017) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “Promoting Virtue or Punishing Fraud: Mapping Contrasts in the Language of ‘Scientific Integrity’” by S. P. J. M. Horbach and W. Halffman “Ethics, Nanobiosensors and Elite Sport: The Need … Read More
January 25, 2018
(UPI) – Researchers at University College London on Wednesday announced they have developed a laboratory-built virus that kills unwanted bacteria on contact. The breakthrough, detailed in a study published in the journal Nature Communications, comes from researchers at UCL, as … Read More
January 19, 2018
(Eurekalert) – A dawning field of research, artificial biology, is working toward creating a genuinely new organism. At Princeton, chemistry professor Michael Hecht and the researchers in his lab are designing and building proteins that can fold and mimic the … Read More
January 5, 2018
(Deutsche Welle) – “Hacking” means to release something from its original context and to give it new form. Biohackers aren’t interested in cracking computer networks or sucking information out of foreign computers. They’re amateur scientists, biologists, technicians, physicists, artists – … Read More
January 2, 2018
Science, Technology and Society (vol. 22, no. 3, 2017) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “Policy Challenges and Ethical Issues with the Breakthrough Technology: The Case of Synthetic Biology” by Samuel Pang, Sam Youl Lee, and Ji Yung … Read More
December 28, 2017
Science, Technology, and Human Values has new articles is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “The “We” in the “Me”: Solidarity and Health Care in the Era of Personalized Medicine” by Barbara Prainsack “From “Experiments of Concern” to “Groups … Read More
December 22, 2017
(Quartz) – In August 2017, researchers at Ohio State College of Engineering announced an exciting new technology. “Tissue nanotransfection” (TNT for short) which enables injured or aging tissue to be repaired or restored, including blood vessels, nerve cells and entire … Read More
December 11, 2017
(Quartz) – Now, researchers from University College London report they’ve found a way to reverse the effect of this genetic defect—or at least slow it down—through an injection of synthetic DNA. In a small clinical trial of 46 patients, an … Read More
November 30, 2017
(NPR) – Scientists say they have created a partly man-made bacterium that can produce proteins not found in nature. This new life form, the latest development in a field called “synthetic biology,” could eventually be used to produce novel drugs. … Read More
September 28, 2017
New Genetics and Society has new articles available online by subscription only. Articles include: “‘Participating Means Accepting’: Debating and Contesting Synthetic Biology” by Morgan Meyer
September 13, 2017
(Chemistry World) – Chemists have used one-pot click chemistry to join multiple fragments of DNA together into a functioning gene. The approach could be a more efficient and cost-effective way to synthesise genes and genomes, particularly those containing epigenetic modifications. … Read More
July 26, 2017
(Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News) – Our DNA skills are lopsided: We are much better at dissecting DNA structure and organization than we are at synthesizing DNA. But our DNA skills are starting to become more balanced, now that we … Read More
July 12, 2017
(Nature) – Internet users have a variety of format options in which to store their movies, and biologists have now joined the party. Researchers have used the microbial immune system CRISPR–Cas to encode a movie into the genome of the … Read More
July 10, 2017
(Science) – Eradicating smallpox, one of the deadliest diseases in history, took humanity decades and cost billions of dollars. Bringing the scourge back would probably take a small scientific team with little specialized knowledge half a year and cost about … Read More
June 30, 2017
(Newsweek) – That is the promise of synthetic biology, a technology that is poised to change how we feed ourselves, clothe ourselves, fuel ourselves—and possibly even change our very selves. While scientists have for decades been able to practice basic … Read More
May 10, 2017
(The Atlantic) – Since the Human Genome Project (HGP) was completed in 2003, scientists have sequenced the full genomes of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of species. Octopuses. Barley. Mosquitoes. Birch trees. Reading genomes is now commonplace, but that’s not enough for … Read More
May 9, 2017
(Science) – Tuesday morning, more than 200 biologists, businesspeople, and ethicists will converge on the New York Genome Center in New York City to jump-start what they hope will be biology’s next blockbuster: Genome Project-write (GP-write), a still-unfunded sequel to … Read More
May 3, 2017
(The Economist) – It is a system that has worked well over the 4bn years that life has existed on Earth. To some biotechnologists, though, the cell is old hat. They approve of the machinery of DNA, RNA, ribosomes and … Read More
April 26, 2017
Science and Engineering Ethics (vol. 23, no. 2, 2017) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “CRISPR and the Rebirth of Synthetic Biology” by Raheleh Heidari, David Martin Shaw, and Bernice Simone Elger “Autonomy and Fear of Synthetic Biology: How Can Patients’ Autonomy Be Enhanced … Read More
