Meet the Plant Hacker Creating Flowers Never Seen (or Smelled) Before
The money he earned doing that was enough to put Cocioba through the first couple of years of a biology degree at Stony Brook University. He completed a stint with …
synthetic biology
A Startup Has Unlocked a Way to Make Cheap Insulin
Now some key patents have expired, and the US Food and Drug Administration has paved the way for biosimilar versions of insulin—so-called because they’re almost identical to another product already …
These Plants Change Color When Exposed to a Pesticide
The signal doesn’t necessarily have to be a visible color change—the team has also experimented with temperature. A second receptor pathway in these engineered plants responds to diazinon, an insecticide …
The Viruses That Could Cure Cancer (or Wipe Out Humanity)
Gideon Lichfield: OK, but let me play the synthetic biology devil’s advocate for a second. Lauren Goode: OK, OK. Gideon Lichfield: When you have kids, you are throwing the genetic …
The Secret Ingredient in Your Craft Beer? Gene-Edited Yeast
While the startup cofounders considered hoppy-tasting but hop-free beer potentially beneficial to brewers and the environment—as Denby said in a New York Times story after the paper was published—some hop …