Animal Biotechnology
6 fake news websites stoking fear about crops grown from genetically-engineered seeds
"Fake news" may be new to most people, but not to followers of the anti-GMO debate. Here are some of ...
Gene drives could combat exploding population of poison-resistant subway rats and other pests
Figures ... show that London councils receive 100 complaints about rats and mice each day with some local authorities reporting ...
Fast-growing AquaBounty salmon could pave way for more genetically modified animals
When it was revealed over the summer that genetically modified salmon was now being sold in Canada, the backlash from ...
Geneticist Alison Van Eenennaam: Genetic engineering could save farm animals from disease
Alison Van Eenennaam is one of agriculture’s leading voices of reason and persuasion in support of good science in food ...
Dolly the sheep revisited: Early health fears about clones ‘greatly exaggerated’
[L]ast year, Kevin Sinclair, a developmental biologist at the University of Nottingham, published a paper about several clones including Dolly’s four “sisters,” who ...
Fighting Zika: Gene edited, 3-eyed flightless mosquitoes
[I]n an effort to demonstrate how gene editing could be used to eradicate the mosquito species Aedes aegypti —a major carrier of ...
Sheep can identify faces in photos—and that may help us understand Huntington’s disease
Researchers trained eight sheep to identify celebrity faces from photographs. The investigators also found that the sheep could identify a ...
Viewpoint: FDA regulations ‘a disaster’ for genetically modified animal research
The Trump Administration and Congress should rein in the FDA's regulatory overreach on genetically engineered animals, which is stifling important ...
What makes a female? How XX embryos destroy male reproductive tissue
A protein called COUP-TFII is necessary to eliminate male reproductive tissue from female mouse embryos, researchers report in the Aug. 18 Science. For ...
CRISPR could revolutionize livestock breeding—if people will eat gene-edited animals
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR), the last site-specific endonuclease to be developed, is an RNA- guided endonuclease, easy ...
Genetically engineered three-eyed beetle could aid development of lab-grown organs
Researchers have intentionally genetically modified a common beetle to develop a third functional eye, right in the middle of its ...
Are ‘gene drive’ trials too risky for field studies?
In 2013, scientists discovered a new way to precisely edit genes — technology called Crispr... One of the more intriguing ...
Saving the Galapagos: Gene drives could help rid invasive pests
Eradicating invasive species can be a brutal job. On the island of Floreana, a plan to eliminate the rodents that ...
Biopesticides: Creating a mosquito-fighting bacteria wasn’t easy—or fast
[A]fter decades of international scientific effort, a new mosquito biopesticide (a pesticide that uses natural bacteria) has been approved. And it only took a year and ...
Omega-3 fish oil from a plant? GMO camelina could offer sustainable alternative
The distant relative of rapeseed could solve one of the problems faced by fish farms -- growing fish with the ...
Talking Biotech: TALEN gene editing to make more nutritious food crops
Calyxt's Dan Voytas: Using TALEN gene editing to create soybeans with healthier oil, high fiber wheat and canola with lower ...
Neurologic disorders may be linked to brain’s immune system
New research suggests there could be a link between certain disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, and the brain's inability to clear ...
The race to grow meat without slaughtering animals—can genetic engineering help?
Operating with a team of just 10 (though it's expected to grow to 40 in a matter of months), [Memphis ...
Fighting malaria: Bacteria targets parasites in mosquito gut
Using a bacteria strain that colonizes the mosquito digestive tract and spreads rapidly throughout the populations, scientists have successfully inhibited ...
Should we use gene drives to eradicate rats and other pests?
The CRISPR gene editing tool enables very precise changes to the genetic composition of its host. While the technology is ...
Healthy bacon? Headlines mislead on Chinese CRISPR gene-edited low-fat pigs
On October 23, Chinese scientists published a paper heralding a truly remarkable feat: Using the genome-editing technique CRISPR, they created 12 healthy ...
Cutting calories likely lengthens lifespans—but why?
Nearly a century ago, researchers discovered that cutting calorie intake was actually able to extend lifespan in various animal species ...
Food industry aims to win public trust of CRISPR gene-edited crops and animals
There’s a genetic technology that scientists are eager to apply to food, touting its possibilities for things like mushrooms that ...
GMO hornless cow awaits approval amid FDA policy changes
[In 2016], Recombinetics, the 35-person company [geneticist Scott Fahrenkrug] founded in 2008 with three other geneticists from the University of ...
Cancer drugs could be grown in chicken eggs
Japanese researchers have genetically engineered hens whose eggs contain drugs that can fight serious diseases including cancer, in a bid ...
Transgenic silkworms engineered to spin tough-fiber spider silk
In Jon Rice’s office is a small incubator full of tiny insect eggs—one of many such incubators kept at Kraig ...
Muscular pigs in Cambodia raise false concerns about GMO technology, safety
Pigs are being bred on a farm in Cambodia, and their enormous size and hulking muscles are raising alarm. The ...