Synthetic Life

New 1-step process for designer bacteria

NLN — Wed, 29 May 2013 14:01:10 +0000

A simpler and faster way of producing designer bacteria used in biotechnology processes has been developed by University of Adelaide researchers.

The researchers have developed a new one-step bacterial genetic engineering process called 'clonetegration', published in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology.

Led by Dr Keith Shearwin, in the University's School of Molecular and Biomedical Sciences, the research facilitates faster development of designer bacteria used in therapeutic drug development, such as insulin, and other biotechnology products.

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Synthetic Life

Virtual worm project wriggles into life

NLN — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:52:23 +0000

Soon you could have an artificial creature living in your web browser.

Programmers and scientists have joined together to try to create a comprehensive computer model of the Caenorhabditis elegans nematode worm.

The cellular model of the worm will help to understand how its complex behaviour emerges from the interaction of those basic building blocks.

The project members hope success will spur the creation of other biologically accurate virtual creatures.

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Synthetic Life

Synthetic biology research community grows significantly

NLN — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:32:28 +0000

The number of private and public entities conducting research in synthetic biology worldwide grew significantly between 2009 and 2013, according to the latest version of an interactive map produced by the Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The map is available online here.

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Synthetic Life

A milestone for malaria, synthetic biology

NLN — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:28:43 +0000

Twelve years after a breakthrough discovery in his University of California, Berkeley, laboratory, professor of chemical engineering Jay Keasling is seeing his dream come true.

On April 11, the pharmaceutical company Sanofi will launch the large-scale production of a partially synthetic version of artemisinin, a chemical critical to making today's front-line antimalaria drug, based on Keasling's discovery.

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Synthetic Life

This protein could change biotech forever

NLN — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:12:55 +0000

A tiny molecular machine used by bacteria to kill attacking viruses could change the way that scientists edit the DNA of plants, animals and fungi, revolutionizing genetic engineering. The protein, called Cas9, is quite simply a way to more accurately cut a piece of DNA.

“This could significantly accelerate the rate of discovery in all areas of biology, including gene therapy in medicine, the generation of improved agricultural goods, and the engineering of energy-producing microbes,” says Luciano Marraffini of Rockefeller University.

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Synthetic Life

Predictability: The brass ring for synthetic biology

NLN — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:00:56 +0000

Predictability is often used synonymously with "boring," as in that story or that outcome was soooo predictable. For practioners of synthetic biology seeking to engineer valuable new microbes, however, predictability is the brass ring that must be captured. Researchers with the multi-institutional partnership known as BIOFAB have become the first to grab at least a portion of this ring by unveiling a package of public domain DNA sequences and statistical models that greatly increase the reliability and precision by which biological systems can be engineered.

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Synthetic Life

Cell circuits remember their history

NLN — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 03:27:05 +0000

MIT engineers design new synthetic biology circuits that combine memory and logic.

MIT engineers have created genetic circuits in bacterial cells that not only perform logic functions, but also remember the results, which are encoded in the cell’s DNA and passed on for dozens of generations.

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Synthetic Life

It’s (almost) Alive! Scientists create a near-living crystal

NLN — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:34:36 +0000

Three billion years after inanimate chemistry first became animate life, a newly synthesized laboratory compound is behaving in uncannily lifelike ways.

The particles aren’t truly alive — but they’re not far off, either. Exposed to light and fed by chemicals, they form crystals that move, break apart and form again.

“There is a blurry frontier between active and alive,” said biophysicist Jérémie Palacci of New York University. “That is exactly the kind of question that such works raise.”

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Synthetic Life

Oscillating gel gives synthetic materials the ability to “speak”

NLN — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:42:50 +0000

Pitt researchers uncover a synthetic material that rebuilds itself through chemical communication.

Self-moving gels can give synthetic materials the ability to “act alive” and mimic primitive biological communication, University of Pittsburgh researchers have found.

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Synthetic Life

New study exposes living cells to synthetic protein

NLN — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:00:02 +0000

One approach to understanding components in living organisms is to attempt to create them artificially, using principles of chemistry, engineering and genetics. A suite of powerful techniques—collectively referred to as synthetic biology—have been used to produce self-replicating molecules, artificial pathways in living systems and organisms bearing synthetic genomes.

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Synthetic Life

Increase in media coverage of synthetic biology

NLN — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 21:55:57 +0000

Press coverage of synthetic biology in the United States and Europe increased significantly between 2008 and 2011, according to a report released today by the Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

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Synthetic Life

Does science need 'open evaluation' before 'open access?'

NLN — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 14:05:14 +0000

In an editorial accompanying an ebook titled "Beyond open access: visions for open evaluation of scientific papers by post-publication peer review," Nikolaus Kriegeskorte argues that scientists, not publishers, are in the best position to develop a fair evaluation process for scientific papers. The ebook, published today in Frontiers, compiles 18 peer-reviewed articles that lay out detailed visions on how an transparent, open evaluation (OE) system could work for the benefit of all science.

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Synthetic Life

Engineered bacterium creates biofuel

NLN — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 12:52:23 +0000

Fuels including gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel are derived from fossil oil thorough the petroleum refinery processes. Increased concerns over environmental problems and limited fossil resources drive scientists and researchers to turn their attention to developing fossil-free, bio-based processes for the production of fuels from renewable non-food biomass.

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Synthetic Life

Scientists build 'mechanically active' DNA material

NLN — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 12:47:12 +0000

Artificial muscles and self-propelled goo may be the stuff of Hollywood fiction, but for UC Santa Barbara scientists Omar Saleh and Deborah Fygenson, the reality of it is not that far away. By blending their areas of expertise, the pair have created a dynamic gel made of DNA that mechanically responds to stimuli in much the same way that cells do. The results of their research were published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Synthetic Life

How first life forms might have packaged RNA

NLN — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 23:15:26 +0000

Researchers at Penn State University have developed a chemical model that mimics a possible step in the formation of cellular life on Earth four-billion years ago. Using large "macromolecules" called polymers, the scientists created primitive cell-like structures that they infused with RNA—the genetic coding material that is thought to precede the appearance of DNA on Earth—and demonstrated how the molecules would react chemically under conditions that might have been present on the early Earth.

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Synthetic Life