Biotechnology news and advances

A blood test which could help diagnose the cause of a child’s fever in under an hour has been branded “transformative” by researchers. | ITV National News

Doctors harvested Henrietta Lacks’ cells in 1951, long before the advent of consent procedures used in medicine and scientific research today, but lawyers for her family argued that a Waltham-based biotechnology company has continued to commercialize the results well after the origins of the cell line became known.

A treatment for HIV taken just once, using the genome-editing technology Crispr, is receiving fast-track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Scientists welcomed this week’s draft proposal, which aims to accelerate research boosting the resilience of crops to climate change, pests, and diseases, and to develop plants that require fewer fertilizers.

A new #CRISPR gene editing approach disrupts a female-essential gene in the malaria-carrying mosquito Anopheles gambiae, and could offer a sustained and confinable way to suppress mosquito populations.

Real environmentalists use Roundup. "The best thing I can do for nature is to fight the invaders with herbicides."

Exploring Solutions with Genetically Modified Species and CRISPR Technology

(June 2023) - We estimate the impact of genetically modified (GM) crops on countrywide yields, harvested area, and trade using a triple-differences rollout design that exploits variation in the availability of GM seeds across crops, countries, and time. We find positive impacts on yields, especially in poor countries. Our...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved BioMarin Pharmaceutical's gene therapy for severe hemophilia A, the company said, giving patients with the inherited bleeding disorder an alternative to regular injections of missing blood proteins.

We believe that the scientific community can therefore be cautiously optimistic based on current trends that gene editing will be accepted by the public and be able to achieve its promise of making a substantial contribution to future food security and environmental sustainability worldwide.

CRISPR enhances vitamin D in new gene edited tomatoes.

If it succeeds, duckweed may become humanity’s first new major crop in more than a century, a skeleton key to unlock how plants replace animal protein on an unprecedented scale.

Controls could be eased on plants ranging from wheat able to withstand drought to fungus-resistant tomatoes

Biofortified foods are creating a buzz worldwide, with one broccoli soup holding promise of reducing disease and lowering blood sugar

The treatment from Sarepta Therapeutics was approved Thursday for children ages 4 and 5 with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare muscle-wasting disease that causes early death.

Customers wanting lab-grown meat will have to venture to upscale restaurants in San Francisco or D.C. for now, according to the Associated Press, since It’ll likely take years before cultivated chicken reaches American grocery carts because of the need to ramp up production capabilities.

Thirty years on, there is even more evidence that GMO food are safe.

Nature Biotechnology - The instant spray-on dress

The "Healthy Crops" international research consortium led by Professor Dr. Wolf B. Frommer from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) is developing disease-resistant rice varieties. In eLife, the authors now report on the discovery of a recent bacterial outbreak in Tanzania—and describe how they modified an African rice...

A Silicon Valley startup wants to supercharge trees to soak up more carbon and cool the climate. Is this the great climate solution or a whole lot of hype?

Illegal plantations of pink pineapple have been uncovered in Costa Rica posing a threat to Fresh Del Monte's exclusive product.

The FDA granted priority review to the CRISPR gene-editing therapy exa-cel for sickle cell disease, with an approval decision due by Dec. 8.

Researchers from the University of California, Davis, and an international team of scientists have used the genome-editing tool CRISPR-Cas to create disease-resistant rice plants, according to a new study published in the journal Nature June 14.

Plants modified to grow in the dark could also provide fresh produce in extreme environments on Earth

I’ve argued before that GMO crop breeding, which inserts bits of DNA from one species of plant into the genome of another, can be judiciously applied in ways that benefit human health and the environment....