MIT Technology Review
Why 2018 might not be a banner year for CRISPR gene editing in humans
Ever since scientists first used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit living human cells in 2013, they’ve been saying that the possibilities for ...
Will new wave of gene-edited crops ease public fear of GMO food?
To many scientists, the potential of gene editing seems nearly limitless, offering a new way to rapidly create plants that ...
California cherry farmers look to ‘gene drive’ technology to kill invasive fruit flies
Since it first appeared in Northern California in 2008, the spotted-wing drosophila, a type of fruit fly native to Asia, ...
‘Semi-synthetic’ organism expands DNA base alphabet
Every living thing on Earth stores the instructions for life as DNA, using the four genetic bases A, G, C, ...
Why life-saving gene therapy isn’t available yet to children who need it most
[The first patient to permanently edit his DNA,] Brian Madeux, 44, of Arizona, is part of a clinical trial testing ...
How gene therapy could help fight methamphetamine addiction
Gene therapy, which modifies a person’s DNA, has long been thought of as a way to treat genetic diseases—and, more recently, ...
CRISPR 2.0 ‘base editing’ arrives and it’s an even more remarkable disease-fighting tool
You’ve probably heard of the molecular scalpel CRISPR-Cas9, which can edit or delete whole genes. Now, scientists have developed a ...
Why personal genetics company Helix sparks intense criticism
It can’t be good when America’s most famous cardiologist, one with 114,000 Twitter followers, posts to social media that your ...
Non-browning genetically engineered ‘Arctic apples’ now on sale–without GMO label
[Arctic] apples are genetically altered to suppress browning and may be offered for sale as bagged slices in up to ...
Inserting CRISPR machinery into human cells to fight Huntington’s and Lou Gehrig’s
The gene-editing tool CRISPR is based on a natural defense system embedded in bacterial cells that recognizes and destroys invading ...
Has the evolution of artificial intelligence reached its limits?
But the peculiar thing about deep learning is just how old its key ideas are. Hinton’s breakthrough paper...was published in ...
Synthetic bionics: E. coli pills could boost body’s ability to absorb ammonia in the gut
Synlogic of Cambridge, Massachusetts, the company behind the unusual study, is testing what it calls “synthetic biotics,” or bacteria engineered ...
CRISPR ear injections repair genetic hearing loss in mice
We all know that CRISPR is the next big thing in gene-editing treatments. But how do you get the versatile genetic scissors ...
Edible ‘CRISPR pill’ could make harmful bacteria self-destruct
As resistance to antibiotics grows in the U.S., researchers are looking for new ways to fight germs like Clostridium difficile, a ...
Human embryoids push bioethical boundaries
Scientists are using stem cells to create clumps of cells that increasingly resemble bits of brain, lungs, or intestine. […] ...
$500K gene therapy treatment? Some see a bargain
The idea behind gene therapy is that genetic material is used as a “living drug” to treat disease. Scientists have been ...
Mini ‘brains’ aid study of dementia and mental illness
[A] brain organoid begins as a single skin cell taken from an adult. With the right biochemical prodding, that cell ...
Calculating odds of destroying humanity with genetic engineering
How likely is it that humanity will destroy itself? Various scientists have studied this probability, and the basic calculation is ...
Muscular dystrophy ‘death sentence’ targeted by gene therapy trials
[T]hree U.S. teams say they are ready to try to treat Duchenne [Muscular Dystrophy] with gene therapy. The first study ...
How GM seeds can ‘push’ photosynthesis to improve yields, battle impact of climate change
To feed a growing population, the United Nations projects, worldwide agricultural yields must increase by 50 percent between now and ...
5 companies leading the personal genomics revolution
As gene sequencing technology gets faster and cheaper, companies are finding more ways to commercialize DNA, from offering disease-specific genetic ...
Hacking frontier? Corrupted DNA used to seize control of computer
In what appears to be the first successful hack of a software program using DNA, researchers say malware they incorporated ...
US first: CRISPR-edited human embryos
The first known attempt at creating genetically modified human embryos in the United States has been carried out by a ...
What’s next in consumer genetics? Helix’s ‘app store for your genome’
A Silicon Valley startup called Helix is betting on the notion that not only do people want to learn more ...
How connecting our brain to a computer could restore lost sight or hearing
Matt Angle’s claim might have sounded eccentric before: for years, he insisted that the key to solving one of neuroscience’s ...
US biotech seed patents linked to increasing corn yields
[Mariam Barry at ENSTA ParisTech in France and colleagues] have studied the yield of hybrid corn in the U.S. since 1985 ...
Darwin Life: ‘Three-parent babies’ as a cure for age-related infertility
John Zhang, a U.S. fertility doctor has started a company [called Darwin Life] with a provocative vision for older women: become ...
China syndrome: Genome sequencing gives parents a glimpse of their babies’ genetic risks—for a price
A Boston-based DNA sequencing company is offering to decode the complete genomes of newborns in China, leading some to ask ...
