Wednesday, September 16, 2009
For the first time, researchers at UCSF have succeeded in importing a light-controlled “on-off switch” from plants into mouse cells, creating engineered cells that can be trained to follow a beam of light or to stop and start on command. The findings were first reported in the September 13 online publication of Nature, along with [...]
Friday, September 11, 2009
So-called third-generation gene sequencing company Complete Genomics Inc. announced earlier this week that it has sequenced and delivered 14 human genomes to customers since March 2009, more than doubling the number of complete human DNA sequences published in the world to date. (The blog Fierce Biotech has a good analysis of the news.) Complete Genomics’ [...]
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The breathless media coverage of the J. Craig Venter Institute’s latest synthetic biology breakthrough, published in Science, is somewhat puzzling, but given Venter’s Barnumesque self-promotion gene, not totally surprising. What’s a bit disappointing, though, is the uncritical repetition of Venter’s claim that his group’s latest accomplishment — transferring the genome of one type of bacteria [...]
This lucid and nicely shot and edited online video from KQED in San Francisco documents a cool range of synthetic biology projects taking place in academic and commercial settings on the West Coast. Drew Endy, Jay Keasling, Jeff Tabor, and others make appearances. The bacterial photography that Tabor demonstrates is a refinement of work he [...]
As teams scurry to complete their lab work before the fall semester starts, we get a first look at what’s in store at the iGem Jamboree this fall. Links to all the team wikis can be found here. Below, the team I’m rooting for, from Harvard — with faculty advisors Jagesh Shah and George Church [...]
Were you not among the select few invited (list is in the link below) to attend the Edge Master Class called “A Short Course on Synthetic Genomics,” in Silicon Valley last week and organized by science super-book agent John Brockman, there’s six hours of it here on video. The presenters are Harvard’s George Church and [...]
I’m not sure exactly why a simple announcement — with no accompanying “proof” — is getting so much play in the media, but a press release this week from the previously “stealth” Cambridge-based biofuels outfit Joule Biotechnologies Inc. has set off a flurry of of breathless blogging and mainstream news pickup. Founded in 2007 by [...]
In the new issue of Nature, published online July 26, a team of researchers working out of George Church‘s lab at Harvard Medical School describes a new cell programming method called Multiplex Automated Genome Engineering (MAGE) that promises to be a transformational technology for the field of synthetic biology. Currently, genetic engineers use a linear [...]
From Stanford Magazine, a nice feature by Kara Platoni on Drew Endy and Christine Smolke that gives a well-rounded overview of synbio’s big goals along with the now-mandatory roundup of the major ethical and safety criticisms. Endy, one of the real “inventors” of synthetic biology, and one of the field’s most visible and eloquent spokespeople, [...]
Several news outlets have reported on a recent big deal between ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics Inc., a privately held company headed by Craig Venter, to collaborate on the development of biofuels from algae. According to the Business Wire report, if research and development milestones are successfully met, ExxonMobil expects to spend more than $600 million [...]