As my recent Technology Feature made clear, the technology to synthesize large genomes is advancing at a remarkable pace. So too are technologies for wiring genetic circuits to endow those genomes with novel properties. In the 3 August issue of Nature, researchers at Arizona State University in Tempe describe a new technology to do just that. Read more
My most recent Technology Feature, on the technology of genome synthesis, describes advances in the field of large-scale genome hacking. Researchers are rewriting the genomes of organisms from E. coli to yeast, with millions of bases written from scratch. Now, through projects like Genome Project-write, they are turning their attention to even more complex organisms, with concomitantly larger genomes. Read more
Since the advent of life 3.6 billion years ago, the survival of all species has depended on rapid innovation at the genetic level. As a consequence, our planet has grown rich with evolved technologies. Read more
Today, an international research team led by Jef Boeke of New York University Langone Medical Center and Joel Bader at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, reported in Science a remarkable feat – the complete de novo synthesis and redesign of five yeast chromosomes, a first step towards a completely synthetic model eukaryote. Over at Nature News, Amy Maxmen has done an admirable job covering that achievement, part of a project called Sc2.0. What I’d like to talk about is one of the artistic flourishes used to illustrate it. Read more
To tie in with the latest Nature Outlook, Lenses on Biology, the Nature Communities team asked five biological scientists at different stages of their education or careers to tell their personal stories in a guest blog post. Each scientist studies, works or has an interest in one of the five research fields featured in Lenses on Biology ― cancer, stem cells, synthetic biology, ocean health and climate change ― and they share what motivates them in their chosen subject. You can read their stories below, and discuss your own motivations here or on the posts in question. Read more
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