Mar 28 2016
Researchers led by genome sequencing pioneer Craig Venter report engineering a microbe to have the smallest genome—and the fewest genes—of any freely living organism. Known as Syn 3.0, the new organism has a genome whittled down to the bare essentials needed to survive and reproduce, just 473 genes. In their current work, Venter, along with …
Nov 19 2015
The analysis of a fossil tooth from Siberia reveals that a mysterious people known as Denisovans, discovered a mere five years ago, persisted for tens of thousands of years alongside modern humans and Neanderthals. In 2010, teams of geneticists and anthropologists led by Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology announced strange …
May 20 2015
After malaria, dengue fever is the second-most widespread mosquito-borne disease in the world. It is an extremely painful – and sometimes fatal – disease that affects millions of people each year. One of the biggest problems is that there is currently no cure for dengue, nor any way to protect a population from getting sick …
Jul 24 2014
Using a new system of genetic editing based on bacterial proteins by researchers from MIT cured rare liver disease caused by a single genetic mutation. The findings described in the edition of Nature Biotechnology, provide the first evidence that the technique of editing of a gene known as CRISPR, can reverse disease symptoms. CRISPR, which offers an …