Are trees the future for the production of industrial chemicals?

Finding could help turn trees into affordable, greener industrial chemicals

22-Oct-2024 - Trees are the most abundant natural resource living on Earth’s land masses, and North Carolina State University scientists and engineers are making headway in finding ways to use them as sustainable, environmentally benign alternatives to producing industrial chemicals from petroleum. Lignin, a ...

Scientists use quantum biology, AI to sharpen genome editing tool

"This study represents an exciting advancement toward, understanding how we can avoid making costly ‘typos’ in an organism’s genetic code"

21-Nov-2023 - Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used their expertise in quantum biology, artificial intelligence and bioengineering to improve how CRISPR Cas9 genome editing tools work on organisms like microbes that can be modified to produce renewable fuels and chemicals. CRISPR is a powerful tool ...

When editing bacteria with CRISPR, less is more

Research team develops approach that increases efficiency of genome editing

13-Feb-2023 - Systematically attenuating DNA targeting activity can achieve CRISPR-driven editing in bacteria, greatly boosting colony counts and even increasing the frequency of precise genome editing. This was shown in a study of the Helmholtz Institute Würzburg (HIRI) in collaboration with the Helmholtz ...

Artificial Intelligence Improves Efficiency of Genome Editing

Long-term goal: repairing hereditary diseases

06-Feb-2023 - Researchers at the University of Zurich have developed a new tool that uses artificial intelligence to predict the efficacy of various genome-editing repair options. Unintentional errors in the correction of DNA mutations of genetic diseases can thus be reduced. Genome editing technologies offer ...

Genome Editing Procedures Optimised

Scientists succeed in boosting the efficiency of CRISPR/Cas9 and related methods and modifying initially inaccessible DNA sequences

01-Feb-2023 - In the course of optimising key procedures of genome editing, researchers from the department of Developmental Biology / Physiology at the Centre for Organismal Studies of Heidelberg University have succeeded in substantially improving the efficiency of molecular genetic methods such as ...

Gene shear protects barley

07-Nov-2022 - Viruses can cause major crop losses in cereals. With the help of the Cas9 gene shear, it has now been possible to protect winter barley from future threats. Genome editing holds great promise for improving crop breeding to meet the challenges of climate change, disease resistance and more ...

Resistance to mosaic disease explained

22-Jul-2022 - Researchers from ETH Zurich, the United States and Uganda have identified the gene responsible for resistance in certain cassava cultivars against the devastating cassava mosaic disease. This is an important step for breeding virus-​resistant cassava varieties. Cassava, also known as manioc, is a ...

Chickens and pigs with integrated genetic scissors

Genome editing in farm animals

22-Apr-2021 - Genetically engineered animals provide important insights into the molecular basis of health and disease. Research has focused mainly on genetically modified mice, although other species, such as pigs, are more similar to human physiology. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) ...

Mystery molecule in bacteria is revealed to be a guard

Unusual structures in bacterial cells keep viral infection from spreading

09-Nov-2020 - Peculiar hybrid structures called retrons that are half RNA, half single-strand DNA are found in many species of bacteria. Since their discovery around 35 years ago, researchers have learned how to use retrons for producing single strands of DNA in the lab, but no one knew what their function was ...

Powerful new tool in the CRISPR genome editing toolbox

Recently discovered CRISPR enzyme from huge bacteriophages expands genome editing toolbox

20-Jul-2020 - A recently discovered hypercompact CRISPR enzyme found only in huge bacteriophages, and known as CRISPR-CasΦ, is functional, a new study by Patrick Pausch, Jennifer Doudna and colleagues reports, and it provides a powerful new tool in the CRISPR genome editing toolbox, including because it can ...