When the first baby born using a controversial procedure that meant he had three genetic parents was born back in 2016, it made headlines. The baby boy inherited most of his DNA from his mother and father, but he also had a tiny amount from a third person.
The idea was to avoid having the baby inherit a fatal illness. His mother carried genes for a disease in her mitochondria. Swapping these with genes from a donor—a third genetic parent—could prevent the baby from developing it. The strategy seemed to work. Now clinics in other countries, including the UK, Greece, and Ukraine, are offering the same treatment. It was made legal in Australia last year.
A molecular-editing tool that’s small enough to be delivered to the brain shuts down the production of proteins that cause prion diseases, a rare but deadly group of neurodegenerative disorders.
Most adults support protecting access to in vitro fertilization, or IVF, a type of fertility treatment where eggs are combined with sperm outside the body in a...
Microbiome research has faced a hurdle from the get-go: the inability to edit the microbial genome in vivo. Until now, bacterial genomes had to be modified outside—and reintroduced...
Researchers analysed thousands of laboratory-made plasmids and discovered that nearly half of them had defects, raising questions of experimental reproducibility.
Laboratory-made plasmids, a workhorse of modern biology, have problems. Researchers performed...
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