December 21, 2022
(Undark) – Today there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of companies selling genes, offering DNA at increasingly low prices. (If DNA resembles a long piece of text, rates today are often lower than 10 cents per letter; at this rate, the … Read More
November 7, 2022
(Wired) – Over the past hundred years, this protective strain—now known as E. coli Nissle—has been used as a probiotic to promote gut health and treat gastrointestinal conditions like inflammatory bowel disease. Now, scientists are genetically engineering E. coli Nissle … Read More
October 5, 2022
(STAT News) – Ever since the inception of gene synthesis, there have been concerns about possible misuse of synthetic genes. Pathogens — particularly small viruses — could be assembled from scratch in a lab, evading the regulatory regimes the U.S. … Read More
September 26, 2022
(Wired) – Not only do you need to find the right phages for a particular bacterial infection, then—they must also be lytic ones. But many phages in Hatfull and his team’s collection are temperate, including two of the three they … Read More
September 6, 2022
(New York Times) – To better understand how microbes affect our health, scientists have for the first time created a synthetic human microbiome, combining 119 species of bacteria naturally found in the human body. When the researchers gave the concoction … Read More
May 20, 2022
(Quanta Magazine) – Now, a group of biologists at the California Institute of Technology with backgrounds in physics have reported in Science that they have devised a simple network of genes that gives rise to surprisingly complex, lifelike behaviors. It … Read More
July 12, 2021
The Linacre Quarterly (vol. 87, no. 4, 2020) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “Brain–Machine Interfaces as Commodities: Exchanging Mind for Matter” by Christopher M. Reilly “The Spiritual Works of Mercy as a Tool to Prevent Burnout in … Read More
May 28, 2021
The New England Journal of Medicine (vol. 384, no. 18, 2021) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “A Half-Century of Progress in Health: The National Academy of Medicine at 50: Understanding and Mitigating Health Inequities — Past, Current, … Read More
February 26, 2021
Journal of Medical Ethics (vol. 46, no. 3, 2020) is available online by subscription only. “Confused Out of Care: Unanticipated Consequences of a ‘Hostile Environment’” by Rose Glennerster and Nathan Hodson “Ethical Concerns with Online Direct-to-Consumer Pharmaceutical Companies” by Henry … Read More
February 3, 2021
The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics (vol. 47, no. 4, 2019) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “The Impact of Regulatory Policies on the Future of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation” by Alexander Khoruts, Diane E. Hoffmann, and Francis … Read More
