October 3, 2023
(TED) – You’ve probably heard of CRISPR, the revolutionary technology that allows us to edit the DNA in living organisms. Biochemist and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Jennifer Doudna earned the Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking work in this field — … Read More
September 7, 2023
(TIME) – To summarize: bio labs in the U.S. fall through the cracks of government oversight if they are privately operated (i.e., not academic or government), do not receive funding from the government, and are not working with select agents. … Read More
September 6, 2023
(BBC) – Scientists have grown an entity that closely resembles an early human embryo, without using sperm, eggs or a womb. The Weizmann Institute team say their “embryo model”, made using stem cells, looks like a textbook example of a … Read More
August 18, 2023
(Cell) – A human embryo’s legal definition and its entitlement to protection vary greatly worldwide. Recently, human pluripotent stem cells have been used to form in vitro models of early embryos that have challenged legal definitions and raised questions regarding their usage. … Read More
August 9, 2023
(Wired) – In nature, antibodies are the body’s response to disease and serve as the immune system’s front-line troops. They’re strands of protein that are specially shaped to stick to foreign invaders so that they can be flushed from the … Read More
July 26, 2023
(Wired) – ON THIS WEEK’S episode of Have a Nice Future, Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Andrew Hessel, a scientist, writer, and entrepreneur, who is working to push forward the field of synthetic biology—the science of genetically modifying … Read More
July 13, 2023
(Vice) – Scientists have created a “living digital camera” that captures and stores images in DNA, the genetic code of all living things, reports a new study. The technique offers a novel approach to encoding digital information into biological material, … Read More
June 21, 2023
(Associated Press) – For the first time, U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer “lab-grown” meat to the nation’s restaurant tables and eventually, supermarket shelves. The Agriculture Department … Read More
June 9, 2023
(Wired) – The cucumber-mimicking experiment is the first demonstration of plant-like tropism in an actuator, and it’s part of a move toward “soft” robotics, which use actuators built from fluid materials like cloth, paper, fibers, and polymers, rather than rigid … Read More
April 18, 2023
(The New Yorker) – In recent years, the science of extending female reproductive longevity has seen a new flurry of interest, and biotech companies are attempting to begin clinical trials of a number of therapies, including new I.V.F. techniques and … Read More
April 17, 2023
(MIT Technology Review) – There are trillions of microbes living in and on our bodies—and we might be able to modify them to help us treat diseases. Scientists have altered the genomes of some of these bacteria that live on … Read More
April 6, 2023
(STAT News) – There are almost no such rules when it comes to publishing the fundamental blueprints needed to make or alter a virus with the tools of synthetic biology. There are already thousands of people who could use readily … Read More
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
January 12, 2021
(The New Yorker) – The Odin, in Oakland, California, is a company that sells genetic-engineering kits. The company’s founder, Josiah Zayner, sports a side-swept undercut, multiple piercings, and a tattoo that urges: “Create Something Beautiful.” He holds a Ph.D. in … Read More
November 13, 2020
(Scientific American) – Whole-genome synthesis is an extension of the booming field of synthetic biology. Researchers use software to design genetic sequences that they produce and introduce into a microbe, thereby reprogramming the microbe to do desired work—such as making … Read More
July 17, 2020
(STAT News) Covid-19 has depleted stockpiles of essential medicines in the U.S., straining our supply chains and hobbling the treatment of critically ill patients. The government and pharmaceutical companies are already decades late in trying to fix this problem and so … Read More
