Immunotherapy has the potential to eliminate tumors, but works best for select patients. Engineering T cells to bypass cancer’s defenses could help expand treatment eligibility to more patients.
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Articles on Synthetic biology
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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.
In a huge milestone, researchers have grown a mouse embryo entirely from stem cells. Could humans be next?
As genetic engineering and DNA manipulation tools like CRISPR continue to advance, the distinction between what science ‘could’ and ‘should’ do becomes murkier.
The rapid rate of species declines means we should trial potential solutions before it’s too late.
Scientists have created tiny self-replicating organisms made from frog stem cells. So is this as much of a Pandora’s Box as it sounds? Not yet, but we should carefully weigh the risks and rewards.
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 are turning microbes into microscopic construction crews by altering their DNA to make them produce building materials. The work could lead to more sustainable buildings.
Synthetic biology lets us explore places where evolution has never gone, to help meet humanity’s food needs in a future shaped by climate change.
Synthetic biology is highly promising – but if we don’t get the regulation and engagement right, we risk alienating members of the public, and may even close doors for potentially fruitful research.
Right now, you’re living in a kind of industrial revolution – where biotechnology, information technology, manufacturing and automation all come together to form synthetic biology.
Synthetic biology allows us to engineer biological cells. This could help us tackle cancer in remarkable ways.
If Mary Shelley wrote the book today, Victor would surely be a synthetic biologist. But those fiddling with living things in 2018 have hopefully learned from her cautionary tale.
One big challenge for gene therapies is delivering DNA or RNA safely to cells inside patients’ bodies. New nanoparticles could be an improvement over the current standard – repurposed viruses.
Biologists’ growing reliance on computers advances the field – but comes with new risks. The first step toward improved cyberbiosecurity is increasing awareness of possible threats.
By exploiting the way yeast cells mate, researchers have figured out a quicker, easier way to identify on- and off-target drug interactions.
New research works out how to translate between the language of biology – molecules – and the language of microelectronics – electrons. It could open the door to new kinds of biosensors and therapeutics.
Scientists are working on a new method to cure cancer and have shown they can genetically program certain bacteria to invade the tumour cells of cancerous mice.
A recent closed meeting about building synthetic genomes raised suspicions about just what scientists were planning, away from the public eye.
Insecticides and mosquito nets only get you so far. Synthetic biologists are ready to take the battle against mosquito-borne disease to the level of DNA – which might spell the insects’ ultimate doom.
Top contributors
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Doctoral Student in Biochemistry, University of Washington
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Professor - Emerging Technologies (Stem Cells) at The University of Melbourne and Group Leader - Stem Cell Ethics & Policy at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Responsible Innovation, Arizona State University
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Director, Synthetic Biology Future Science Platform, CSIRO
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Professor of History and Philosophy, and Deputy Dean Research (Faculty of Arts), University of Adelaide
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Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering,, University of Utah
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Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
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Senior Lecturer in Digital Ethics, Centre for AI and Digital Ethics, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne
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Professor, Australian National University
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Personal Chair in Synthetic Biological Engineering, The University of Edinburgh
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Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Macquarie University
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Ph.D. Candidate in Chemical Biology, Harvard University
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Research Fellow in Synthetic Biology, Macquarie University
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Director, Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices, University of Maryland
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Professor of Bioengineering, University of Maryland
