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.
This insect’s unique reproductive biology could lead to new ways to control the species in the environment – and prevent the deadly sleeping sickness it spreads to people.
It takes a tremendous amount of computing power to simulate all the components and behaviors of viruses and cells.
Copyright: Thomas Splettstoesser scistyle.com
Scanning through billions of chemicals to find a few potential drugs for treating COVID-19 requires computers that harness together thousands of processors.
Viruses exist in a realm where there is no light and colour has no meaning. In their COVID-19 depictions, designers, illustrators and communicators make some highly creative and evocative decisions.
Soap can dissolve the fatty envelope on the outer part of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, leading to the destruction of the whole virus particle.
Researchers Jason McLellan (left) and Daniel Wrapp study the structure of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus.
Vivian Abagiu/Univ. of Texas at Austin
Jianling Xie, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute
US researchers have revealed the molecular ‘key’ that allows the 2019-nCoV virus to gain access to our cells. And they found it is many times more tenacious than the previous SARS virus.
Revolutionary technologies like CRISPR are founded on discoveries uncovered through basic research that attracts very little attention.
United Soybean Board/flickr
On average, important new lab techniques like CRISPR take 23 years to develop – but there is a public expectation that scientific breakthroughs occur quickly and efficiently.
A coral reef in Chagos, British Indian Ocean Territory, experiencing catastrophic bleaching in 2015.
Anderson B. Mayfield
A core idea in molecular biology is that one gene codes for one protein. Now biologists have found an example of a gene that yields two forms of a protein – enabling it to evolve new functionality.
Inserting a random DNA mishmash into a plant or bacterium directs it to make a novel protein. Sifting through the resulting molecules, researchers may find ones have medical or agricultural uses.
Laboratory mice are among the first animals to have their diseases treated by CRISPR.
tiburi via Pixabay.com
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.
Precision editing DNA allows for some amazing applications.
Ian Haydon
Researchers are starting to harness the potential of this much-hyped gene editing technique – with coming applications in medicine, biology and agriculture.
Public health experts enlist the molecular biology tools that create genetically modified organisms – as well as the GMOs themselves – in the fight against emerging infectious diseases.
Tick tock, tick tock… You can’t hide from the molecular clock.
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