genetic engineering

Imagine a technology that could genetically rewire organisms in real-time, silencing critical genes across entire ecosystems with unknown effects.

Chinese researchers in southern China claim that they have produced the world’s first genetically-modified children — a pair of twin girls with resistance to infection by the HIV or AIDS virus. Apart from the ethical issues inherent to the experiment, as well as doubts about the supposed results, the development emphasizes the seriousness of China’s AIDS crisis.

A new kind of GMO is going by different names, and largely escaping regulation as it enters grocery stores.

Genetic engineering is about to enter into overdrive.

DARPA, the research branch of the Department of Defense, awarded a $32 million contract to the Broad Institute at MIT this week to research genetic engineering with “medical, industrial, and agricultural applications” that are too expensive for private industries.

Scientists have reprogrammed the genetic machinery of baker’s yeast so that the fast-growing cells can convert sugar into hydrocodone in just three to five days.

In 1990, Michael Crichton published his novel Jurassic Park, in which scientists bring dinosaurs that had been extinct for millions of years back to life, cloning them from DNA found inside mosquitos fossilized in amber.