While the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system has become the poster child for innovation in synthetic biology, it has some major limitations. CRISPR-Cas9 can be programmed to find and cut specific pieces of DNA, but editing the ...
Biotechnology
Apr 30, 2021
2
3355
Imagine there are arrows that are lethal when fired on your enemies yet harmless if they fall on your friends. It's easy to see how these would be an amazing advantage in warfare, if they were real. However, something just ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Apr 7, 2021
0
1511
By comparing thousands of bacterial genomes, scientists in Gothenburg, Sweden have traced back the evolutionary history of antibiotic resistance genes. In almost all cases where an origin could be determined, the gene started ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 7, 2021
0
83
As early as 1975, biologists discovered that the protein-coding parts of the chimpanzee and human genomes are more than 99 percent identical. Yet, chimpanzees and humans are clearly different in significant ways. Why?
Biotechnology
Oct 26, 2020
0
195
New findings from University of Exeter researchers reveal how bacterial immune systems can be harmful for their hosts and explain why they are not found in many bacteria.
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 22, 2020
0
26
The oldest publicly-available strain of the cholera-causing bacterial species, Vibrio cholerae, has had its genetic code read for the first time by researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and their collaborators. The ...
Biotechnology
Apr 9, 2019
0
94
Researchers at EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute and the Wellcome Sanger Institute have identified almost 2000 bacterial species living in the human gut. These species are yet to be cultured in the lab. The team used ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 11, 2019
0
554
For decades, scientists and doctors have known that bacteria in soil were capable of manufacturing streptozotocin, an antibiotic compound that is also an important treatment for certain types of pancreatic cancer.
Biochemistry
Feb 7, 2019
0
148
Bacteria have a number of well-known tricks available to them to adapt to changing environments, such as mutation and sharing snippets of DNA with each other. Less studied is a mechanism that allows bacteria to hedge their ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 11, 2019
0
138
MRSA staphylococcus is an example of a superbug. These bacterial strains are resistant to most antibiotics and can cause serious infections.
Evolution
Sep 10, 2018
0
672
