https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Like a delivery driver navigating crowded city streets, a gene-therapy-toting lipid nanoparticle faces a gauntlet of potential detours on its journey toward a cell's nucleus. First, there's entering the cell's plasma membrane; then navigating around organelles like the Golgi apparatus, mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum—all destinations that can errantly absorb the particle's payload, rendering it ineffective at best or harmful at worst. And that's all before the particle even enters the nucleus and successfully makes a genetic change. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-crispr-roadblocks-scientists-genes-blocking.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 13 Aug 2026 13:00:03 EDT news705841141 Researchers at Queen Mary University of London and University of Cambridge in collaboration with colleagues at HHMI Janelia and NIH, have created some of the most detailed three-dimensional maps ever generated of human airway cells, revealing how the specialized cells that protect our lungs are built and organized. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-3d-nanoscale-human-airway-epithelium.html Bio & Medicine Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:50:01 EDT news704038861 Scientists have successfully edited the genome of biting midges, opening the door to new research on how these insects transmit disease. Culicoides biting midges are small blood-feeding insects responsible for spreading important vector-borne viruses such as bluetongue virus (BTV), Schmallenberg virus (SBV) and epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV), which cause major losses to livestock production worldwide. Despite their importance as disease vectors, Culicoides are among the smallest blood-feeding insects, just 1–4 mm (0.04–0.16 inches) long, making them difficult to study in the laboratory. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-world-gene-culicoides-midges-door.html Biotechnology Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:40:12 EDT news703771621 Blood transfusions are crucial in human and veterinary medicine, yet human blood reserves are in constant need of donors, while blood bank systems in veterinary care are nearly nonexistent. This leaves canine transfusions largely reliant on donations from healthy dogs, but securing compatible blood remains a major challenge because dogs also have different blood types. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-generating-red-blood-cell-cells.html Biotechnology Sun, 19 Jul 2026 20:00:05 EDT news703496702 Hiroshima University researchers have used genome editing to transform red perilla into a green look-alike and simultaneously restructured the plant's chemistry to boost levels of compounds prized for their potential health benefits. The findings point to a new strategy for developing high-value crops for the food and pharmaceutical industries. The study was published in Frontiers in Plant Science. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-disrupting-enzyme-gene-herb-red.html Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:00:07 EDT news703420275 Water-saving irrigation practices, including intermittent irrigation, are essential for sustainable rice cultivation amid growing freshwater shortages. However, periodic drainage creates aerobic soil conditions that drastically boost cadmium (Cd) bioavailability, leading to severe grain Cd enrichment. Disentangling the relationship between water conservation and high grain Cd has been a critical challenge for rice breeders and soil scientists worldwide. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-scientists-uncover-molecular-mechanism-linking.html Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:00:06 EDT news703169656 Researchers have spent decades—and billions of dollars—sequencing animal and crop genomes, but fungi have historically been the forgotten middle child of genomics, only noticed when they're ruining bread or colonizing toes. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-fungal-genome-tool-fresh-paths.html Biotechnology Fri, 03 Jul 2026 09:40:03 EDT news702287408 A research team at the University of Turku in Finland has developed a reliable laboratory model to study BAP1-deficient melanomas, which are a rare type of melanoma that evade the immune system once they have metastasized and are universally resistant to current state-of-the-art immunotherapies. The tool could change how therapies are developed for aggressive melanomas that currently have almost no effective treatment options. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cellular-rare-deadly-melanomas-enables.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 29 Jun 2026 18:00:08 EDT news701958121 Reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced naturally during cellular metabolism often cause oxidative damage to cells. However, these molecules also play an important role in normal cellular signaling. While ROS are established as essential signaling molecules in various organisms, their precise role in basic plant development and morphogenesis remains unclear. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ros-enzymes-cell-division-tissue.html Plants & Animals Fri, 26 Jun 2026 16:20:01 EDT news701700481 As climate change intensifies droughts and other environmental stresses, maintaining crop productivity has become a major challenge for global agriculture. Drought can impair chloroplast development, reducing photosynthetic efficiency and ultimately lowering crop yields. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-dual-function-rice-gene-boosts.html Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 25 Jun 2026 10:40:01 EDT news701596191 Genome editing lets scientists rewrite DNA, the instruction manual inside every living cell, with a precision that was unthinkable a generation ago. Technologies such as CRISPR have made this almost routine, and its uses now reach far beyond medicine, from engineering hardier crops and more productive microbes to creating sustainable biomaterials. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cleanfinder-browser-based-genome-analysis.html Biotechnology Wed, 24 Jun 2026 17:20:09 EDT news701528761 Gene editing of plant DNA has the potential to produce crops with increased performance and resilience, but it can take a long time to achieve these gains. To shorten this process, scientists often use screening tools to determine where and how edits to the plant genome can be most effective. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-leaf-based-fluorescence-gene.html Biotechnology Mon, 22 Jun 2026 19:40:03 EDT news701362681 A team of researchers led by Professor Akitsu Hotta (Department of Clinical Application) developed a comprehensive framework that combines computational prediction, experimental validation and whole-genome analysis to evaluate intended and unintended mutations arising from CRISPR-Cas9 delivered by lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), providing a practical strategy to improve the safety of genome-editing therapies. The work is published in the journal Molecular Therapy Nucleic Acids. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-crispr-safety-unintended-mutations.html Biotechnology Mon, 22 Jun 2026 13:20:10 EDT news701352362 Every year, hundreds of millions of tons of petrochemical-based plastics are produced, much of which ends up in the environment or is incinerated. This exacerbates greenhouse gas emissions and the environmental crisis caused by plastic pollution. Now, a study led by the University of Barcelona has produced a biodegradable bioplastic of high industrial value—polyhydroxybutyrate, or PHB—from unprocessed potato starch in a single 24-hour step, a strategic breakthrough that could help reduce dependence on oil and the volume of persistent plastic waste. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-bacterium-potato-starch-biodegradable-plastic.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 12 Jun 2026 12:20:09 EDT news700478881 Rice is a staple food for nearly half the global population and an important dietary source of magnesium, a mineral essential for human health, plant growth and energy metabolism. Although magnesium is known to influence grain quality and taste, the biological mechanism controlling how the mineral reaches rice grains has remained largely unknown. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-magnesium-discovery-rice-nutrition.html Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:10:01 EDT news700156741 A study, published in the journal Development, is the first to precisely map endogenous UTY occupancy across the human genome and demonstrate that UTY remains functionally involved in transcriptional regulation during early human development. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-chromosome-retain-uty.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 08 Jun 2026 11:40:13 EDT news700132210 A team of researchers led by Luigi Naldini at the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (SR-Tiget) has developed a new strategy to significantly improve the precision and safety of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in human blood stem cells, potentially overcoming one of the major barriers limiting broader clinical application of genome editing therapies. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-smart-platform-gene-hematopoietic-stem.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 01 Jun 2026 11:07:13 EDT news699530761 Researchers at Cornell University have developed a safer and more precise way to study how genes function in living tissues by refining a recently developed CRISPR-based genetic technique in fruit flies, enabling researchers to better study how genes contribute to development and disease. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-dna-nicks-safer-precise-genetic.html Biotechnology Wed, 27 May 2026 18:20:01 EDT news699117421 Hair, nails, and horns, all made up of keratin, are some of the hardest and most resilient structures in animals. Inside zebrafish cells, keratin plays a distinct role, giving them the strength they need to move together as a coherent tissue while modulating the driving forces behind their movement during early development. But what happens when keratin is missing? https://phys.org/news/2026-05-cell-movement-embryo-zebrafish-keratin.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 21 May 2026 13:40:07 EDT news698582521 Engineered microorganisms are widely used in industrial biotechnology and biopharmaceutical applications, including the production of biofuels, sustainable chemicals, and therapeutic compounds. However, concerns remain regarding the unintended environmental release and uncontrolled proliferation of genetically engineered microbes. For this reason, biocontainment technologies, which are designed to prevent microorganisms from surviving outside controlled environments, have become increasingly important in both academia and industry. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-crispr-safeguard-microbes.html Cell & Microbiology Sat, 09 May 2026 16:00:01 EDT news697463333 A new kind of CRISPR that destroys cells rather than gene editing them has shown potential for killing sick cells while leaving healthy cells untouched. The technology has largely been tested in cells in a dish, but if it can be applied to organisms, it could be a powerful tool to treat disease and advance research. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-kind-crispr-viral-infection-cancer.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 06 May 2026 11:00:08 EDT news697201681 Red-leaf lettuce is red due to anthocyanins, a class of polyphenolic pigments widely studied for their antioxidant properties. In plants, anthocyanins are synthesized through enzymatic reactions originating from the amino acid phenylalanine. Along this biosynthetic pathway, multiple flavonoids—an umbrella term for diverse plant secondary metabolites—are produced as intermediates and ultimately converted into anthocyanins. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-tiny-gene-red-lettuce-upside.html Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 21 Apr 2026 14:40:05 EDT news695993633 For the first time, a team of researchers from Stellenbosch University (SU) and the Agricultural Research Council has successfully edited the DNA of a woody crop plant in Africa by making precise changes to its genetic material. This is a major milestone for plant biotechnology on the continent. Using CRISPR technology—a tool that enables scientists to cut and edit DNA at very specific points—the researchers switched off a single gene (VvDMR6.1) in grapevine plants. This gene is linked to how plants respond to disease. The researchers say that this change made the plants less vulnerable to downy mildew, a major disease that affects vineyards around the world. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-grapevine-dna-boost-resistance-disease.html Biotechnology Mon, 20 Apr 2026 18:40:03 EDT news695916362 For the first time, a research team at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) has succeeded in reducing the size of, or even completely removing, chromosomes in plants with large genomes, such as wheat. They achieved this by using the CRISPR/Cas gene-editing tool to target highly repetitive sections of DNA. The results of the study, published today in the journal Plant Communications, could significantly accelerate breeding processes. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-team-successfully-trims-wheat-chromosomes.html Biotechnology Fri, 17 Apr 2026 15:00:01 EDT news695649961 Cancer cells excel at evading detection, but subtle chemical differences set them apart from healthy cells. Now, a team of scientists from Wageningen University & Research and Van Andel Institute has identified a way to exploit this distinction. Using a variant of CRISPR, a modern tool for editing DNA, they distinguished tumor DNA from healthy DNA and selectively cut only the former. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-crispr-variant-tumor-dna.html Biotechnology Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:20:03 EDT news695472722 The CRISPR-Cas gene-editing system has long been the focus of research as a promising tool in genome editing. However, the emphasis has been on its underlying mechanisms and nucleases. In contrast, little research has examined how CRISPR-Cas systems have evolved and been optimized. In collaboration with the universities of Leipzig, Freiburg, and Michigan (U.S.), a research team at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) in Würzburg found an optimization mechanism in CRISPR-Cas13, providing insights into the evolution of these systems. The results were recently published in The EMBO Journal. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-built-hairpin-mechanism-crispr-cas13.html Evolution Tue, 14 Apr 2026 15:40:06 EDT news695388602 Scientists at Rothamsted Research have successfully developed wheat with dramatically reduced levels of asparagine, without affecting yield, using gene editing techniques, offering a promising route to safer food production and improved regulatory compliance. Results from two years of field trials demonstrate that wheat produced using CRISPR genome editing can significantly lower concentrations of free asparagine—an amino acid that converts into acrylamide, a toxic and probably carcinogenic compound formed during everyday baking, frying, and toasting. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ultra-asparagine-wheat-precision-gene.html Plants & Animals Thu, 02 Apr 2026 17:00:05 EDT news694354753 CRISPR is a powerful DNA-editing tool that has underpinned huge advancements in human health care in the last decade. It is a precision tool, but is not perfect, and misplaced DNA edits can compromise safety and efficacy, costing billions each year. Researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS), Imperial College London and the University of Sheffield have published research in Nature showing that the physical twisting of DNA plays an important role in these mistakes. Using a newly developed platform of tiny (nanometer-sized) DNA circles, called DNA minicircles, the team captured never-before-seen interactions between CRISPR and DNA, providing insights that could help eradicate errors altogether. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-dna-crucial-gene-therapy.html Biotechnology Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:40:05 EDT news693752711 Lipid nanoparticles, or LNPs, best known as the delivery vehicle for the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines received by billions of people, are now at the center of a much larger medical revolution. Researchers are racing to use them to ferry therapeutic mRNA into cells for cancer therapies and treatments for inflammatory diseases, as well as delivering CRISPR constructs that can correct disease-causing gene mutations. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-simple-cocktail-amino-acids-boosts.html Bio & Medicine Wed, 11 Mar 2026 14:00:18 EDT news692452921 A scientific breakthrough not only promises faster testing for antimicrobial resistance, but also an ethical solution to the controversial issue of using rodents in research. University of Exeter scientists have created the world's first genetically engineered wax moths—a development which could both accelerate the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and significantly reduce the need for mice and rats in infection research. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-moths-mice-antimicrobial-resistance.html Plants & Animals Mon, 09 Feb 2026 20:00:03 EST news689874961