As CRISPR-Cas9 starts to move into clinical trials, a new study published in Nature Methods has found that the gene-editing technology can introduce hundreds of unintended mutations into the genome.
Biotechnology
May 29, 2017
12
14197
Breeding in plants and animals typically involves straightforward addition. As beneficial new traits are discovered—like resistance to drought or larger fruits—they are added to existing prized varieties, delivered via ...
Biotechnology
May 18, 2017
0
1039
Forests of silver birch stretch across Europe, and they are a wonder to behold: stands of slender, white-barked trees sheltering vast swathes of earth.
Biotechnology
May 8, 2017
0
197
Birds show an amazing diversity in plumage colour and patterning. But what are the genetic mechanisms creating such patterns? In a new study published today in PLOS Genetics, Swedish and French researchers report that two ...
Biotechnology
Apr 7, 2017
0
193
Out of the more than 300,000 plant species in existence, only three species—rice, wheat, and maize—account for most of the plant matter that humans consume, partly because in the history of agriculture, mutations arose ...
Biotechnology
Mar 2, 2017
8
173
A team of Université Laval researchers has cast into doubt a tenet of evolutionary biology according to which organisms with more than one copy of the same gene in their genome are more resilient to genetic perturbations. ...
Evolution
Feb 9, 2017
0
31
Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists have developed a much-needed genetic resource that will greatly accelerate the study of gene functions in wheat. The resource, a collection of wheat seeds with more than 10 million ...
Biotechnology
Jan 16, 2017
0
173
We're all here because of mutations. Random changes in genes are what creates variety in a species, and this is what allows it to adapt to new environments and eventually evolve into completely new species. But most random ...
Biotechnology
Jan 10, 2017
0
6
A team of researchers at Western University is playing with molecular-Lego by adding an engineered enzyme to the revolutionary new gene-editing tool, CRISPR/Cas9. Their study, published today in the Proceedings of the National ...
Biotechnology
Dec 12, 2016
0
54
When a cell makes copies of DNA and translates its genetic code into proteins at the same time, the molecular machinery that carries on replication and the one that transcribes the DNA to the mRNA code move along the same ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 29, 2016
0
130
