A new research paper reports dangerous side effects in CRISPR-edited mice. Some scientists are pushing back, placing blame for the unwanted mutations on the experiment, not the technique.
Researchers are starting to harness the potential of this much-hyped gene editing technique – with coming applications in medicine, biology and agriculture.
Epigenetics is consistent with the theory of evolution – in fact, Darwin predicted that tiny parcels might somehow provide a flow of information from experience to inheritance.
Animals shed bits of DNA as they go about their lives. A new study of the Hudson River estuary tracked spring migration of ocean fish by collecting water samples and seeing whose DNA was present when.
How do scientists figure out when evolutionary events – like species splitting away from a common ancestor – happened? It turns out our DNA is a kind of molecular clock, keeping time via genetic changes.
The true promise of ageing research is that rather than tackling individual diseases one at a time, a single drug to treat ageing would treat all of the diseases that arise in old age, at once.
How can the same basic genome produce such different forms in the two sexes of a single species? It turns out one gene can encode for various things, depending on the order its instructions are read.
In 1997, scientists announced they’d created a healthy sheep cloned from another ewe’s mammary gland cell. Two decades on, the technique is being refined and applied to new challenges.
Although genomics research has the potential to revolutionize medicine, it has limitations. It may not do much to prevent many of the leading causes of death.
A report released by the US National Academies of Science and Medicine underscores the potential of gene editing and acknowledges the sensitivities in managing the ethical dimensions.