HIV-budding-Color

CRISPR RNP Alteration Proves Key To Avoiding Human Immune Response

Gene editing itself has truly just been the start of the modern biotechnological revolution. As time has passed, the nuance of capability with tools like CRISPR has evolved to not only be more precise, but to also have additional options beyond just additions or deletions of genes. New versions have included things like inducing point […]

A thaliana seedlings (cropped)

Manipulating The Plant-Bacteria Microbiome To Optimize Growth

When dealing with plants in a lab, in a garden, or in an agricultural field, we often forget that there was originally a whole biome that those plants were involved in in the wild. We often try to simulate those conditions to the best of our capabilities, but there is still so much knowledge we […]

Influenza virus particle color

CRISPR Cas12 Used To Make An Accurate Viral Infection Detector

When it comes to gene editing technologies like CRISPR, the initial applications were focused around just that, the capability to edit and alter gene sequences. The main efforts after were to enhance the specificity of this activity and to improve further what could be changed. But in recent years we’ve begun to see an expansion […]

Stem rust close up

A Decades Old Once Thought Eradicated Scourge Returns To Europe

As we have seen so often in recent years when it comes to human pathogens, eradicating a disease from a major population, country, or continent does not mean those results will be permanent forever. Any sort of laxity in preventative treatment and strict efforts against global spread can result in the re-emergence of a deadly […]

CSIRO ScienceImage 11085 A scanning electron micrograph of a female dust mite

Evolutionary Rewiring of Dust Mite Genome Made Unique RNAi Silencing

Parasites are a common theme of biological research due to the impact they have on people’s lives and their ubiquity in organisms around the world. It is practically impossible to find an organism that doesn’t have some sort of parasitic pathogen on or inside them. Even many of the parasites themselves have parasites inside of […]

Restoring an urban stream (after) (7557277790)

Bioremediation: The Biology of Cleaning Environmental Pollution

Contamination of the environment is a topic oft spoken of in an incredibly broad sense. That the actions of some governments or organizations are damaging to their surroundings comes as no surprise, but discussions on the specifics and what can be done to fix the issues rarely comes up in the public societal consciousness. The […]

Scanning electron micrograph of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and a dead Human neutrophil - NIAID

9 New Bacterial Defense Systems May Herald CRISPR-Like Discovery

Going back to the beginning of CRISPR feels like traveling through a time portal. The gene editing technology has become so ingrained in our lives, in scientific literature and the news, that it feels like it’s been a decade or two already since we started using it. It comes as a bit of a shock […]

Smed

The Secrets of the Regenerating Flatworm’s Genome Are Unveiled

When studying such complex topics as wholesale body replication and regeneration of limbs, it is a heady subject to tackle all at once. And it’s unlikely that beginning on something the size of mammals, using model organisms or not, is going to reveal anything at all without a basic understanding of how regeneration is supposed […]

Funaria hygrometrica (d, 153418-482420) 4917

Lead-Adsorbing Moss May Help Treat Heavy Metal Contaminated Waters

Human activities often have a number of consequences. In addition to the pollution that our industries and general course of living and expanding bring about, even more minor activities can cause significant environmental contamination. The mere act of digging a deep hole can expose materials and metals that are then able to get into the […]