This year, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to two women, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, for the first time in the history of the award. The importance of two women receiving such a prestigious award in a field that has been historically dominated by men is evident, but what likely remains obscure to many…
One of the biggest questions people are asking is when we are going to get a vaccine. Presumably, designing an effective vaccine and wide scale vaccination campaigns will ultimately eradicate the virus or at least allow those vaccinated to return to a new normal. Research is flowing into COVID-19 research of all types, with Congress…
For years, the term “designer babies” has been tossed around as people discussed the ability to manipulate the sex, eye color and even personality of their babies. While the technology to create the rumored “designer babies” is not quite there, gene therapy is a real possibility. Gene therapy is the administration of genetic material, often…
Last April, a group of geneticists at Sun Yat-sen University in China published a paper describing their attempt to alter the genomes of human embryos using CRISPR-Cas9, a powerful new gene editing technology. The embryos possessed mutant copies of beta-globin, a gene that normally helps produce hemoglobin but in its mutant form causes beta-thalassemia, a…
We are—on both the cellular and genetic level—more bacteria than human. There are 100 times more genes in our bodies coding for the microorganisms in our intestines than our own human genes. Imagine the potential for opening new doors to medical discovery through manipulating the ecosystem of microorganisms flourishing within us. When we eat natural…