People who have submitted photos to the #MemoriesInDNA project have selected images of family members, favorite places and tasty food that will be preserved for years in the form of synthetic DNA. Now this collection — which currently contains more than 3,000 images and is still growing — will be headed to the final frontier: space. The Arch Mission Foundation, which creates archives…
The Trump administration has launched a comprehensive review of all research that involves fetal tissue, reopening an issue that has galvanized anti-abortion activists but worried scientists who fear their work could be under threat. Fetal tissue has been used for a wide range of research in the U.S. since the 1930s, including the development of several vaccines and studies of genetic…
As part of the prestigious Merck Fellowship for Global Health program, IDRI (Infectious Disease Research Institute) is hosting three Fellows in Seattle for three months to assist IDRI scientists in implementing drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic (DMPK) studies, a critical component of a fast-functioning, productive drug discovery program. The Merck Fellows come from around the world bringing expertise ranging from account…
The Northwest Genomics Center at the University of Washington in Seattle will become one of three genome centers around the country for the National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Program. The NIH announced the new genome centers this week. Please see the NIH news release. The All of Us Research Program is gathering data from participants from many backgrounds to create…
For angiosperms — or flowering plants — one of the most important decisions facing them each year is when to flower. It is no trivial undertaking. To flower, they must cease vegetative growth and commit to making those energetically expensive reproductive structures that will bring about the next generation. In a paper published Sept. 24 in the journal Nature Plants, an international team…
The mission of the Allen Institute for Cell Science is to create dynamic and multi-scale visual models of cell organization, dynamics and activities that capture experimental observation, theory and prediction to understand and predict cellular behavior in its normal, regenerative, and pathological contexts. We have started with imaging the major components of the cell. To do this we primarily use two technologies, CRISPR, a type of “molecular scissors” to create different types of cells (we call these cell lines...
Few advances in cancer treatment have gotten as much attention in the past decade as immunotherapies, therapies that use the immune system to fight the disease. Various immunotherapies have wiped out disease in terminal patients and have largely enjoyed success as they emerge on the market. But despite those successes, many patients see their cancer return a few months or years after…
The research in the Greenberg laboratory focuses on the emerging field of sociomicrobiology – the group-behaviors of microbes. We are interested in the biochemistry and molecular biology of environmental sensing/response with a particular emphasis on a form of chemical communication between bacteria termed “quorum sensing”. In quorum sensing, bacteria synthesize chemical signals as cues to coordinate activities of individuals in groups. This signaling plays a critical role in the development of many bacterial infections.
Silverback Therapeutics, a stealthy biotechnology startup, gave the first glimpse of its technology Wednesday as it announced an additional $37.5 million in funding, bringing its Series A round to a total of $47.5 million. The new funds come from Silverback’s existing investor, healthcare investment company OrbiMed, along with two new investors: Biotech giant Celgene and life sciences investor Alexandria Investment Partners. SEC documents…
The international trade in elephant ivory has been illegal since 1989, yet African elephant numbers continue to decline. In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature cited ivory poaching as a primary reason for a staggering loss of about 111,000 elephants between 2005 and 2015 — leaving their total numbers at an estimated 415,000. In a paper published Sept. 19 in the journal Science…
