Diverse perspectives on science and medicine
0000-0003-0319-5416The AACR 2018 Meeting in Chicago is ending today and has featured the major new results in cancer treatment and immunotherapy treatments in particular. Immunotherapy, the use of the patient’s own immune system to attack
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6828-1000 written by Thomas Clements CRISPR has been hailed as one of the most promising gene editing technologies and promises to revolutionize precision medicine and eradicate genetic diseases. However, the technique is not perfect and
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6828-1000 Last December, a very interesting journal article was published in Science about the reconstitution of functional plant RuBisCo in E. coli [1]. In this work, the authors expressed the plant RuBisCo complex by co-expressing
0000-0003-0319-5416Famed CRISPR researcher Jennifer Doudna, along with a past student Samuel Sternberg (starting his own lab in at Columbia University), wrote an account of her CRISPR discoveries and the possibilities the technology unleashes. The book,
0000-0003-0319-5416Guest post by Markus Schmidt In 2010 scientists from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) announced the creation of the first bacterial cell controlled by a chemically synthesized genome (1). The so-called “synthetic” cell was
0000-0003-0319-5416I wrote about engineered probiotics at the beginning of 2017, and the field continued throughout 2017 with more papers and startup news using engineered bacteria in the gut. For instance, one paper used engineered probiotics
It looks like a whole year has passed and I am afraid it is almost ‘that’ time: the time to say goodbye. I have been honored to serve as your PLOSSynbio Community Editor for 2016/2017,
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6828-1000By Konstantinos Vavitsas and Jestin George Synthetic biology as we commonly know it is often described in its scientifically specific context, or in the context of its effects on society and the environment. However, another
0000-0003-0319-5416To most of us, the question for CRISPR is “when” not “will” it get a Nobel Prize. However, there are still questions over “when”, “who” will get the credit, and which Nobel Prize it will
0000-0003-0319-5416The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are working to develop a report on security concerns around synthetic biology. The committee recently put out its initial report, “A Proposed Framework For Identifying Potential Biodefense Vulnerabilities Posed
