Early human development is a complex, multistep process that’s even more complicated to study in the lab. Models made from stem cells avoid some of the trouble with using real human embryos.
A lab dish containing embryos that have been injected with Cas9 protein and PCSK9 sgRNA is seen in a laboratory in Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong province.
(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Dan Worthley, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute
A proof-of-concept study using bacteria shows cell therapy can detect tumours – and may one day be able to treat them.
A few days after successful fertilization, an embryo becomes a rapidly dividing ball of cells called a blastocyst.
Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
Scientists can create viable eggs from two male mice. In the wake of CRISPR controversies and restrictive abortion laws, two experts start a dialogue on ethical research in reproductive biology.
A new book argues our philosophical and intellectual responses to technology have not kept pace with events.
An Egyptian worker gathers the crop at a maize field, the country’s first harvest of genetically modified maize in 2008.
Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images
Kenya’s GMO policy about-turn was underpinned by improved safeguards on top of a commitment to review each new application on a case-by-case basis.
As a material, bacteria’s ability to rapidly multiply and adapt to different conditions is an asset.
Gschmeissner/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
The walls of your house could someday be built with living bacteria. Synthetic biologists are engineering microbes into living materials that are cheap and sustainable.
A cotton field in Lubbock, Texas.
AP Photo/LM Otero
Plant breeding, informed by genetic analysis, could be critical to the future of one of the world’s oldest crops.
While resurrecting dinosaurs may not be on the docket just yet, gene drives have the power to alter entire species.
Hiroshi Watanabe/DigitalVision via Getty Images
As genetic engineering and DNA manipulation tools like CRISPR continue to advance, the distinction between what science ‘could’ and ‘should’ do becomes murkier.
Xenotransplantation has made significant strides over the past few decades.
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Recent successes putting genetically modified pig organs into people have brought xenotransplantation back into the spotlight.
Most U.S.-grown soybeans are genetically modified, so products containing them may be required to carry the new ‘bioengineered’ label.
Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images
An expert on organic agriculture argues that the US is missing an economic and environmental opportunity by not working to scale up organic production.
A tailings pond at an oilsands facility near Fort McMurray, Alta., in July 2012. The estimated cost of reclaiming oilsands mines is almost $31 billion.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Solutions to some of the globe’s most daunting environmental challenges may be closer than you think. Scientists are harnessing nature to clean up toxic chemicals and mining waste.
Researchers have grown mammal embryos later into development than ever before in an artificial womb.
Vitalii Kyryk/WikimediaCommons
Researchers have grown the first human-monkey hybrid embryos as well as mouse embryos in artificial wombs late into development. These biomedical breakthroughs raise different ethical quandaries.
Mikaela Nordborg/Australian Institute of Marine Science
New research involving CRISPR technology has furthered our understanding of corals’ gene functions. Specifically, it has revealed a mechanism underpinning how corals withstand heat stress.
The conspiracy theory that Covid-19 was created in a laboratory has been widely reported, yet there is no evidence to support it. Why such theories thrive can easily be explained, however.
Genetically modified mice express a green fluorescent protein which causes them to glow in the dark.
Moen et al. (2012)/Wikipedia
Is gene editing compatible with organic farming? A scholar explains the differences between old genetic engineering and CRISPR methods, and why the latter is similar to tradition plant breeding.