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
July 16, 2020
(Technology Networks) Understanding protein–protein binding is critical for the development of antibody-based therapeutics. Typically, when treating diseases such as cancer, the aim is to bind to a single protein target. However, when it comes to infectious diseases, the therapeutic target can … Read More
July 16, 2020
(Irish Tech News) Trans-humanist theory is contextualised within the 2014 science-fiction thriller “Ex Machina” and also within formal animation, such as the 1999 animated classic “The Iron Giant”. Despite both films showing trans-humanist logic, there are clear distinctions in the way … Read More
May 20, 2020
(The New Yorker) – Yet, given the profound flaws of the American health-care system, there is something hopeful about Open Insulin’s approach. The group is considering teaming up with local hospitals and pharmacies, which would help integrate its methods with … Read More
April 8, 2020
(Scientific American) – In theory, this substance can hold a vast amount of information—up to one exabyte (one billion gigabytes) per cubic millimeter of DNA—for millennia. (The magnetic tape that serves as the foundation of most digital archives has a … Read More
March 16, 2020
(STAT News) – With Gates and NIH funding, the emerging field of synthetic biology is answering the SOS over Covid-19, aiming to engineer vaccines that overcome these obstacles. “It’s all of us against the bug,” said Neil King of the University … Read More
March 4, 2020
(Forbes) – By 2030, almost 400,000 Americans a year will die of diabetes – many of them unnecessarily. Synthetic biology companies are working hard to ensure that’s not the case. Here’s a look into the next generation of continuous glucose … Read More
February 24, 2020
(Nature) – Only a handful of genomes have been synthesized so far, mostly for bacteria. Synthetic biologist Jason Chin and his colleagues at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, have rewritten the genome of Escherichia coli, and … Read More
