Golden Rice

Vitamin Biofortification: Using Biotechnology To Improve Nutrition

Vitamin deficiencies plague practically every civilization in the world. Even in countries that are well-off, members of the population still have to watch their food intake and ensure that they are consuming an array of foods in order to meet their needs. Governments and food producers often supplement this by adding necessary vitamins into most […]

Corn and walnuts (26245603811)

First CRISPR Gene-Edited Crop Expected By 2020

Science in the field of biotechnology is changing rapidly and the effects of new technology is rippling out to affect many other parts of biology and medicine as a whole. It cannot be overstated how much of a revolution CRISPR tools have been and continue to be to dozens of scientific fields. While it may […]

HeLa-II

Increasing The Diversity of Life: The DOE’s Genome Project

The diversity of life on Earth is staggering to attempt to comprehend in its entirety. And the species that we are already aware of likely are but a fraction of the true multitude still to discover. This is especially so for the most numerous group in the kingdoms of life: bacteria. A Lack of Gene […]

E coli at 10000x

How To Control GMOs: Biocontainment and Genetically Modified Bacteria

When dealing with bacteria in a lab setting, it is often a requirement to ensure that the risk of the bacteria escaping from containment is as minimized as possible. This is especially so if developing bacteria that produce a substance that one wouldn’t want to allow to get into the wild. Escape Risk and Non-Competitiveness […]

Mycena inclinata, Clustered Bonnet, UK

Fungi Parasitism: The Ins And Outs Of Biotechnology and Biocontrol

The modern world has a multitude of issues it is facing, most of which filter through and incorporate agriculture in some fashion. Whether speaking of climate change, overpopulation, deforestation, or any number of other topics, the food supply and how we produce it is involved. For a significant chunk of the countries in the world, […]

Dugesia_japonica

Bioelectricity In Regrown Worm Heads Teaches Body Part Regeneration

A long-term goal of medicine in the big picture has been developing the field of regenerative medicine in order to work toward growing replacement organs for patients. This process has been decades in the making and, even today, can be finicky at best. Regrowing Everything Though researchers and doctors have begun succeeding more and more […]

Tribolium castaneum87-300

CRISPR Gene Drive Resistance Due To Inbreeding And Mutations

In a previous article, we discussed how CRISPR is not almighty and that organisms can evolve resistance to the changes made to their genome. The simplest method for them to accomplish this is just to mutate the changed gene back to what it was before or just stop its function altogether. If the change made […]

Schistosoma 20041-300

Controlling Schistosomiasis Parasites By Learning How To Kill Snails

There are far more dangerous and lethal diseases out there than one usually thinks about. Gruesome conditions brought on by bacteria, viruses, and, often the most directly disgusting of all, parasitic organisms. Neglected Tropical Diseases: Schistosomiasis Schistosomiasis is one of these and is listed as a neglected tropical disease (NTD), a category of diseases that […]

Utricularia gibba3

Carnivorous, Flowering Bladderwort Reveals Depths of Gene Duplication

Genetics can get weird. Especially so in plants, which are more conducive to hybridization and duplications of their entire genome. Polyploidy, as such a duplication is called, is often rampant across ancestral lineages of plants and makes species classification taxing, to say the least. The Flowers and the Carnivores The flowering plants, also known as […]